From Fianna Fáil, September 26, 1914.
The Home Rule Bill is not law: it is dead. And Ireland instead of being deceived on the point is wide awake and calm. For Ireland knows that out of the present welter will come greater liberties for her than either Liberals or Tories dream of: and so the announcement that the ‘Bill’ is signed has caused less excitement than a good football match. Not that Ireland is indifferent; no, but the great deception has failed. The amazing lies of the ‘Freeman’s Journal’ were too gross and crude for anything. And it remained for the ‘Cork Examiner’ to introduce and heighten the element of farce. In its issue of Friday last, 18th inst., its London Correspondence began:
‘To-morrow at noon the Angelus will toll the resurrection of a nation;’ and it goes on, ‘the Home Rule Bill, duly endorsed by the Speaker, and tied round with green ribbon, will be placed upon the statute book.’
Was the green ribbon put on the statute book, too, or is the ‘Examiner’ growing mystical? That bit of green ribbon revived us. We confess to having felt a bit depressed in face of the whole shameless conspiracy, but reading of resurrection and green ribbon made us better. Their cause is surely ill-starred that is backed by such hopeless imbecility. But the ‘Examiner’ surpassed itself next day. When the great signature under the seal of the green is set down, the ‘Examiner’ becomes emotional; and it quotes Mr. T. P. O’Connor, for whom ‘it is difficult to speak without a great emotion.’ But the crowning moment came when Mr. A. Roche was inspired—Mr. A. Roche, ‘to whom the occasion was a pretext for entertaining the whole staff of the House of Commons.’
Good reader, if we smile, do not take us as quite indifferent to all this drivel. It should move us to rage, did we not know that Ireland, growing in strength and pride, cares not a pin for their bills, parliaments and promises. Let us conserve our resources, train our volunteers solely for Ireland, be vigilant and disciplined, and the wheel will swing full circle for us at last. Even in the Great Deception itself there are signs that the uncompromising principle of Irish Nationality is the one prevailing principle. The ‘Freeman’s Journal’ of Saturday, 19th inst., gives an illustration of the Parliament in College Green, ‘at last our own again,’ surrounded by likenesses of various martyrs to Irish freedom—Wolfe Tone, Emmet, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, James Stephens, Grattan, etc. Now the principle for which these men stood is repudiated by the ‘Freeman’ and its kind, yet the ‘Freeman’ in bringing them into its device, admits the prevalence of that principle. It runs alike through them all. Take Grattan, the least extreme. He said:
‘We may talk plausibly to England, but as long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the nations in a state of war.’
Wolfe Tone’s declaration is famous:
‘From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish Nation.’
And Davis:
‘A mockery of Irish independence is not what we want.’
James Stephens’ speech from the dock we give elsewhere. Why, of all others, did the ‘Freeman’ introduce Robert Emmet? Emmet who died commanding:
‘When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then and not till then let my epitaph be written.’
Ireland has that command written on her heart, and if Ireland had to wear out all the empires of the earth in succession, Ireland would persevere. Sooner or later she will wear out the British Empire, and she will write that epitaph, and fulfil her destiny.