another,—but it would need a separate lecture.
STATE OF IRELAND
Ireland is still under martial law, threatened with famine and with conscription; death by hunger or in the trenches. But Ireland's spirit was never stronger, never was it more clearly shown that no nation can be held by force, that the aspiration after liberty cannot be quelled by shot or shell.
The Volunteers
A word as to the Irish Republicans. "Treason doth never prosper. What is the reason? When treason prospers, none dare call it treason." When the United States of America set up its republic it declared its independence of Great Britain, it happily won, and maintained its independence. But if it had lost—would its leaders find quicklime graves? Surely.
I know the Irish Republican leaders, and am proud to call Connolly, Pearse, Macdonagh, Plunkett, O'Rahilly and others friends—proud to have known them and had their friendship. They fought a clean fight against terrible odds—and terrible was the price they had to pay. They were sober and God-fearing, filled with a high idealism. They had banks, factories, the General Post Office, the lower courts, their enemies' strongholds for days in their keeping, yet bankers, merchants and others testified as to the scrupulous way in which their stock was guarded. A poet truly said, "Your dream, not mine, And yet the thought, for this you fell, Turns all life's water into wine." Their proclamation gave equal citizenship to women—beating all records—except that of the Russian Revolutionists.
It is the dreamers and the visionaries that keep hope alive and feed enthusiasm—not the statesmen and politicians. Sometimes it is harder to live for a cause than to die for it. It would be a poor tribute to my husband if grief were to break my spirit. It shall not do so. I am not here just to harrow your hearts by a passing thrill, to feed you on horrors for sensation's sake. I want to continue my husband's work so that when I meet him some day in the Great Beyond, he will be pleased with my stewardship.
The lesson of the Irish Rising and its suppression is that our small nation, Ireland, has a right also to its place in the sun. We
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