WHO FEARS TO SPEAK OF '98.
Who fears to speak of '98?
'98, when the "cause of long down-trodden man" brought Wexford man and Antrim man, Catholic priest and Presbyterian minister together in one great brotherhood of struggle?
'98 when the common people under the banner of an Irish Republic, matched home-made pike-heads against the war machine of an empire.
'98, an hour in the life of a nation, an eternal inspiration to a people.
That hour in the life of the nation has been the subject of much study. Time has made the background of conditions which produced the rising very clear to us. We see in the rebellion the inevitable* outburst of a freedom-loving people against the execrable tyranny of British rule.
To-day, in a series of great hostings, the Irish people are paying homage to the struggle and to the ideals of '98. They cannot do that worthily unless they understand the purpose of the heroes of the insurrection, and determine from that knowledge to apply themselves to the fulfilment of their tasks.
No one to-day fears to speak of '98.
But let the voice of the great common people whose hearts still beat as true to Republican principles as those of Tone and McCracken themselves, pay tribute to the brave Irishmen and women who, from Antrim to New Ross and Castlebar, poured out their heart's blood for the unity and independence of our country.
In briefly sketching the political and social causes which produced the Societies of United Irishmen, we do so in the belief that history, the story of our struggles and failures in the past, provides the key to our future successes.
Who were the United Irishmen to whose memory so much voluble service is paid—too often by people who by no stretch of charitable imagination could be envisaged donning the Liberty Cap or declaring for the rights of man in a democratic Irish Republic?
Whence arose this intrepid body of evangelists, who,—in a time when an English-controlled Government and an alien feudal landlordism fostered artificial divisions between the oppressed people of North and South—dared to preach that all men are equal and all peoples brothers.
Whence came the men who had the audacity to stand
