A FORGOTTEN SMALL NATIONALITY
Ireland and the War
By F. SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON
The following article by Mr. Francis Sheehy Skeffington is reprinted by permission of the Century Magazine Company. Four months after it appeared, the American newspapers published the startling news that the author was one of many civilians deliberately murdered by English troops and officers, during the uprising in Dublin of Easter week. As he was a pacifist, and had lent his best efforts to the quieting of the populace and the prevention of looting, this "Prussianization of Ireland created consternation" when the appeal of his widow for mercy for other innocent husbands was read in the House of Commons.
A scholar and a litterateur, Mr. Skeffington's writing is the best portrait of the man, and is a fearful comment on the heavy hand of England in Ireland.
(Century Magazine, February, 1916.)
England has so successfully hypnotized the world into regarding the neighboring conquered island as an integral part of Great Britain that even Americans gasp at the mention of Irish independence. Home rule they understand, but independence! "How could Ireland maintain an independent existence?" they ask. "How could you defend yourselves against all the great nations?" I do not feel under any obligation to answer this question, because that objection, if recognized as valid, would make an end of the existence of any small nationality whatever. All of them, from their very nature, are subject to the perils and disadvantages of independent sovereignty. I neither deny nor minimize these. But the consensus of civilized opinion is now agreed that they are entirely outweighed by the benefits which complete self-government confers upon the small nation itself, and enables it to confer on humanity. If the reader will not admit this, I will not stay to argue the matter with him. I will merely refer him to the arguments in vogue in favor of the independence of Belgium as against Germany, or of the Scandinavian countries as against Russia.
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