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insurgents in the Rebellion of 1798, addressed in these words:—
"We are not only honouring the memory of the men of '98, but publicly pleading our devotion to the same ideals for which they died, namely, the freedom of our country. We may differ from time to time as to our policy, but England should take note of the fact that so far as the object is concerned, that so far as the freedom of Ireland is concerned, we are all united, and we would sooner face one hundred years more persecution and of wrong than abandon or abate one single jot of the National demand. We to-day from this county of Wexford send therefore this message to England. We tell her that we Wexford men to-day hate her rule just as bitterly as our forefathers did when they shed their blood on this spot.[1] We tell her we are as much rebels to her rule to-day as our fathers were in '98."—Freeman's Journal, 24th June, 1909.
Bearing, then, this truism of Nationalist politics in mind, "Ireland a Nation," let us consider what is the constitutional meaning of, and what would be the constitutional result of granting "Home Rule," "Devolution," or "Home Rule all Round," and what value there is in the expression, "A subordinate Irish Parliament," and what is meant by the demand for an "Irish Parliament and an Independent Irish Executive to deal with Irish affairs." Such words convey to Irish hearers a concrete historical meaning, but to persons not acquainted w^ith Irish legislative systems and their history they are indeterminate and indefinite and give rise to many loose imaginings.
- ↑ i.e., Vinegar Hill, near Ennisworthy. The site of the insurgents' camp taken by storm 21st June, 1798. "It was at this spot that many of the most horrible crimes of the rebellion were committed … scarcely any other spot in Ireland is associated with memories so tragical and so hideous. The country around was searched and plundered, and great numbers of Protestants were brought to the rebel camp, confined in the old windmill, or in a barn that lay at the foot of the hill, and then deliberately butchered" (Lecky, History of Ireland, vol. v., chap. xxix.).
