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history repeats itself, and Mr, John Redmond informs his audience at Cork on the 13th November, 1910, that he attributes his collection of 150,000 dollars and the position the Irish cause holds in America
"to the fact that in the United States they recognise that Home Rule never had as good a chance as now, and that we are extremely likely to win Home Rule out of the present political crisis. And of course it meant that American interest, apart from Irish-American interest, was roused in a way that it never was before. Everybody in America is talking of the great Constitutional issue in this country. They never could understand how the English people tolerated the House of Lords. They do not understand the Hereditary Chamber. It is foreign to their ideas of liberty in America … and the fact that we are helping the democracy in England to limit the power of the House of Lords has brought all parties in America to our side in a way they never were before."—Freeman's Journal, 14th November, 1910.
The subordinate Irish Parliament of the eighteenth century caught the spirit of the American revolt, was in touch with it, raised the Volunteers, and in two years gained independence. Grant to-morrow a Parliament to Ireland as completely subordinate as the Irish Parliament before 1782; it will follow its example. The Fenians, Clan-na-Gaels,[1] and American-Irish, whose dollars are to destroy the House of Lords and smash the British Constitution, will be ready with many more dollars to help on to Separation easy of achievement then. "Few classes are so largely represented" in American politics as the Irish-Americans and Irish emigrants, and with England's control weakened on her Atlantic outpost, there will be but little difficulty for the subordinate Parliament of Ireland to enrol not indeed loyal but disloyal volunteers under the guise of National
- ↑ For the meaning of the term Clan-na-Gael see Appendix, infra, p. 97.
