The soul of Ireland

Front matter

COKfRIGHT DEPOSIT.

■BHE SOVt. OF" IRELAND. By W. J.

Lockington, S. J. New York: The Macmillan Company.

Contents

AND SOMETHING IN THE NATURE OF A PRELUDE

PAGE

Introduction by G. K. Chesterton xi

CHAPTER I Ireland's Secret

The divine gift of faith, that Saint Patrick threw like a white mantle over the whole land, covers it to-day as pure and untarnished as when he walked the earth. . . . All prayers of His loved and loving people.

vii

CHAPTER V The Mass Rock 44

There are many glorious monuments to-day in Ireland that speak eloquently of her sufferings in those dark days ... to me by far the most touching is the granite block, a broad table of gray stone, with the sacred name of Jesus carved deep; that silent table ... the Mass Rock.

CHAPTER VI Christmas in Ireland 55

On Christmas Eve a multitude of new stars blazes from coast to coast in Ireland . . . the great Christmas candle shining in the window of every home lighting the land for the angels to guide the Christ Child thither.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII page

This wealth of spiritual love, that wells up and overflows in Irish hearts, keeps all earthly love pure and good. Woman's spiritual work is understood, Mary stands over by her side, and she is held in deep reverence. This high ideal of womanhood has kept the nation faithful and strong.

CHAPTER VIII Corpus Christi in Ireland 74

I stole a glance at my Saxon friend as we were passing that cabin door . . . openly and unashamed he was weeping. " I have never seen anything like it," he said to me afterwards. " Faith, it's not Faith, but actual vision that God has blessed these people with."

CHAPTER IX The Nuns of Ireland 85

These joyous-hearted women have sweetened and made endurable by their presence that former monument of ineptitude, the poorhouse. . . . But not in Ireland alone do they labor, they carry the torch of faith to every land. . . . The whole world is their home, and all mankind their brother.

Chapter X

The high sea-cliff saw them bound back to back, and pushed to death on the black rocks below ; trapped in the Mass Cave, they died in a reek of smoke ; sold to the slave trader and transported, they worked till death under the lash of their owner; from end to end of the land their bodies swung in the shadow of the " Priest tree." Every gallows in the country shook as priest after priest climbed the ladders at the bidding of their would-be exterminators. ix

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XI PAGE Mothers of Ireland no

Besides those mothers who have given their children for God's work, other mothers there are, parted from their children by the accidents of life, who sit at home wearily waiting for the sound of a step that never falls . . . when darkness instead of light is sent to them across the sea. . . .

Religion properly understood and practiced is a spring of unending joyousness. . . . Ireland is the only country that has a musical instrument as the national emblem.

CHAPTER XV Triumph of Ireland 166

The Catholic Faith, as potent in the twentieth as in the third century, is the secret of Ireland's triumph, and it will be the secret of her final glory. This has not made her less loyal to worldly authority, but on the contrary has made her loyal with a selfless loyalty so rare that it can be understood only by those who know the Catholic heart of Ireland. x

It would be difficult to murder a man in a fit of absence of mind; still more difficult to bury him in the garden in the same abstracted and automatic mood. And if the dead man got up out of the grave and walked into the house a week afterwards, the absent-minded murderer might well feel constrained to collect some of his wandering thoughts, and take some notice of the event. But communal action, though real and responsible enough, is never quite so vivid as personal action. And very many respectable English people are quite unconscious that this has been the exact history of their own relations with the Irish people. The Englishman has never realized the enormity and simplicity of his own story and its sequel. It was like something done in a dream; because when he did it he was thinking of something else or trying to think of something else. That the slayer should try to forget the body he has buried may appear natural; that he should fail to know it again, when it came walking down the street, will appear more singular. A cynic might say that England need not be concerned about having killed Ireland; but might well feel some concern about having failed to kill her. But cynics are sel-

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Introduction

dom subtle enough to be realists; and the truer way of stating it is that the whole atmosphere of modern Europe, and especially of modern England, has been unfavorable to the telling of a plain tale. Euphemisms and excuses are so elaborate that it is hard for a man to find out what has really happened, even what has happened to him. It is hard for him to say in plain words what has been done, even when he has done it himself.

The resurrection of Ireland, of which Father Lockington writes here with so much spirit and eloquence, is really a historical event that has the appearance of a miracle. That is, it is one of a class of undisputed facts, not actually in form supernatural, but so unique as almost to force any one, however relationalistic, to an explanation at least transcendental. If the Christian faith is not meant in some fashion to revive and be reunited in Europe, I for one can make no mortal sense o»f what has happened in Ireland. If the Catholic creeds are not to survive, I cannot imagine why Ireland has survived. Many Englishmen do not see the point; simply because many Englishmen are in this matter quite ignorant; especially well-educated Englishmen. They do not happen to know how utterly Ireland was crushed; with what finality and fundamental oblivion the nation was one numbered with the dead. A man in the middle of the Age of Reason, the enlightened and humanitarian eighteenth century, would have been more astounded by the present prosperity of the Catholic peasantry than by a revival of the commerce

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INTRODUCTION

of Carthage. It would have been to him, I will not say like the return of King James, but like the return of King Arthur. It would have been incredible. He would as soon have expected to hear that Atlantis was really re-arisen from the sea, trading and making treaties with America, as to hear that this other island in the Atlantic was increasing in agricultural wealth while retaining its ancient superstitions. The transfiguration happens to have been spread over two or three generations, so that the shock of it is broken; the individuals who saw the death are not those who see the rising from the dead. But to any one who has learned just enough of history to know that it consists of human beings, to any one with enough imaginative patience to follow a story clearly from start to finish, the story has been as simple and astonishing as the plain parable of the corpse in the garden with which I began this brief note. A working way of putting it is to say that sixty years ago English newspapers talked hopefully of there being no Irish Catholics in a few years; and there are now more than six millions in the United States alone. In a word, the one real crime that England ever attempted has most fortunately failed; and not only England but also Europe has now to deal with a certain recognizable religious civilization, which men may like or dislike, fear or favor, but which is as solid a fact as France. Even those who cannot share Father Lockington's natural enthusiasm for the theological survival will be wise to note all the facts he can adduce about the social success. Judged

INTRODUCTION

from a wholly detached and rationalized standpoint, the reality remains: that the one people in Western Europe which has taken the old form of the Christian Religion quite seriously, enduring persecution from without and asceticism from within, has before our very eyes turned a sudden corner and stepped into a place in the sun. We can make what we will of this fact; but it is there.

There are but a few of these historical events which while natural in mode seem to be almost supernatural in meaning. One of them is the mysterious international position of the Jews. Another was the historical mission of Joan of Arc. And there goes with that great name a certain hint of hope and consolation even in the case still at issue: the long and tragic entanglement of England and Ireland. The English were the enemies of Joan of Arc; but it is quite inadequate to say that they are not longer her enemies; they are all her quite enthusiastic admirers. They are, if possible, even more enthusiastic than the French. I do not despair of the day when the other senseless misunderstanding shall pass in the same fashion; and a patriotic Englishman shall no longer be expected to feel a prejudice in the one case than in the other. I hope to see the day when he will no more dream of denying that anybody is oppressed in Ireland than that anybody was burnt at Rouen. He will not treat the former torture as more trivial because it lasted longer; or as more obscure because it affected many more people. He will do what he does with tragedy of the

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INTRODUCTION

fifteenth century; he will prefer to prove that he is now generous, rather than that he was always just. Horrible as is the history, I know my own people are capable of such generosity, and I should be ashamed to write anywhere on this subject without seeking to arouse it.

G. K. Chesterton.

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Chapter I Ireland

TRELAND. What a history of fearless fighting -■• for God and country that name records ! It tells of patient suffering strengthened by glorious faith, of days of triumph unrivalled, and of days of darkness when to love her and to love God was death.

Yet ever and always that name tells of a nation loved by God, and steadfastly loving in return, making this deep love of Him the dominant characteristic of its national life.

Placed on the edge of the Old World, Ireland is the outpost of Western Europe. Insignificant in area, her power is world-wide — for she is the mother of a civilization that has encircled and uplifted the earth. Clad in beauty, she sits ever listening to the voices of her exiled children that come to her across the thunder of the seas.

She is a land of green plain and blue mountain and purple bogland; of deep valleys carpeted with luscious grass, where the lazy kine stand knee-deep; of grassed hills, cut into squares by the dark thorn hedges that blossom with white may spray; of cool pine clumps, in the shade of which the cozy cottages nestle. Across her bosom, running silently between hawthorn and willow hedges, the slender boreens, leafy avenues vibrant with bird-life, go slipping past white-walled, brown-roofed cottages, set in lakes of yellow corn. On they wind over lowbanked streamlets, that net the land with silver threads, and run and join and flow to where the green of her fields is kissed by the white lips of the sea. She is a land that to know is to love — for he that knows Ireland always loses his heart to her.

One clear morning in early spring I stood on the summit of one of the highest of her mountains — Galteemore, the cloud-piercing giant of the Galtees. I looked upon a scene of exquisite beauty. Before me lay the golden vale of Limerick, stretching for leagues across to where the mountains of Clare stand, keeping guard on Ireland's western seaboard. Below them the sun glistened on the gray waves of the Atlantic; beyond them to the north, Lough Derg lay sleeping in their shadow, and by their feet, dividing plain from mountain, and uniting lake and ocean, swept the rolling flood of the silver Shannon.

To the south the mighty mountains of Kerry fling high in the air peaks whose broad bases are fringed by the foam of the restless sea. Turning to the east, lit by the rays of the rising sun, I saw the fertile plain of Munster, dotted with villages and towns, stretch out to where, on the horizon, sea and sky and plain meet. There on the water's edge,

IRELAND

from Cork to Carnsore, lay Ireland's southern boundary.

Northward, towered bluff Keeper Hill, the sentinel of central Ireland, looking down on the great plain that goes sweeping to the north, past Cashel of the kings, past Kilkenny of the martyrs, on to where, lost in the dim blue of the bending sky, the Slieve Blooms spring up to keep guard over the central plateau of Erin.

It is a scene almost unequalled on earth. Poets have stood entranced and writers been lost in admiration of the beauty that shines forth on every side. Let us though be on our guard and not be blinded by this surface glory of Ireland. For he who sees only this natural beauty, striking though it be, is as one who thinks he gains a knowledge of the soul of his friend by a careful study of the texture of his garments.

Men come to Ireland seeking the secret of the power that she possesses of ever holding the love of her children. They climb her mountains, and gaze upon her lakes and valleys and hills. They look upon the rare beauty of the bay of her capital city; they rush to where Derry goes creeping over the swelling banks of the Foyle; they walk beneath the towering pines of Tore Mountain, and their voices break the hallowed calm of Killarney. You will find them climbing Ballaghbeama, and sketching the massive mountains of Kerry. Along her rivers they move from the Corrib to the Slaney and from the Blackwater to the Bann. They are looking at

Ireland, speaking of Ireland, judging Ireland, and they do not know her nor understand her.

The heart of Ireland is beating strongly, the pulse of Ireland is throbbing vigorously, but they hear it not. Engrossed in her material beauty, her garment woven by God, they cannot see the beauty of the soul of Ireland, the beauty that is the root of the strength of Ireland, and the tie that binds unbreakably to her the hearts of her sons.

Come with me, dear reader, and in imagination stand on that mountain peak I spoke of, and let us together seek this wonderful beauty of the soul of Ireland.

Turn to the west. " What," I ask you, " is it that stands gleaming white against the dark Clare hills? " You know it not! Aye, neither do those hurrying aliens. It is the spire of the cathedral of Limerick, flung aloft by loving Irish hearts, to hold on high the cross of Christ. Look at the plain between us and that cross! Heed not the mere natural beauty. What is it that you see, crowning every hill, and springing from every hollow, the center of every town and village? The same cross of Calvary, lifted high by fervent faith.

Here at your feet, across the glen of Aherlow, towers the spire of Tipperary town, far-famed, fighting Tipperary. Beyond it from the bosom of the plain springs the slender shaft of God's home in Nenagh. Look at the Rock of Cashel! Cashel of the kings ! Cashel, hallowed by the presence of St. Patrick, baptizing her king. Cast your eyes

IRELAND

southward. That smoke, rising by the banks of the winding Blackwater, comes from the chimneys of the monastery of Mount Melleray, the home of unceasing prayer. Beyond, on the edge of the ocean, are the cities of southern Munster, clustering around their churches.

Wherever we turn, to the north and south and east and west of this glorious panorama, stand the tabernacles of God. " Behold the tabernacles of God with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself with them shall be their God." On every square mile of that plain God has a dwelling.

And so it is through the length and breadth of the land. Journey to the Slieve Blooms that you see on the northern horizon, cross to Connemara, climb the lofty mountains of Donegal, walk through the valleys of Armagh — everywhere you will see the cross-crowned spire, telling of Ireland's King, enthroned below. From His altar He rules, watching and guarding, while the whole country is filled with the sound of His praises, a mighty paean, sung by a people that never has denied Him and never has forgotten Him.

Nor is this condition of to-day only. See that mighty pillar, springing from the center of Lough Derg. It is the round tower of Iniscaltra, deserted and silent on the little island that fourteen hundred years ago rang with the voices of those who came from afar to sit at the feet of Columba and Caimin.

Follow the curving bank of the Shannon as it runs westward, and the eye falls upon another great column. It stands on one of the reaches of the Shannon, on Scattery Island. Around it lie the ruins of six of the churches of St. Senan.

Turn to the south, and there a third stands high on the hill of Ardmore, a monument to St. Declan, a contemporary of St. Patrick. Three of the round towers of Ireland, telling of the servants of God who gathered at their bases in days far in the bygone centuries. They heard the Mass bell of St. Patrick and St. Munchin and St. Declan, and to-day they still stand, silent testimonies of an undying faith.

This is the secret of the power that ties the hearts of her children to her. There you have the reason why Ireland is Ireland. We sometimes hear the phrase, " A nation once again." I marvel that an Irish pencil wrote it. Why, Ireland has always been a nation, and a nation that has come thundering down the centuries, unswervingly following the footsteps of God.

Ireland is Ireland in her Catholicity and her Catholic history. The divine gift of faith, that St. Patrick threw like a white mantle over the whole land, covers it to-day as pure and untarnished as when he walked on earth. Wicked men strove to rend and sully it; they did but beautify it with the glorious red of the martyr's blood. All through the land Christ sits enthroned amid the ceaseless prayers of His loved and loving people.

This is the secret of her undying vitality. This vivid, fervent love of God, gilding and ennobling

IRELAND

her poverty, strengthening her in danger, comforting her in sorrow, uniting her to the tabernacle of the Crucified One, is the heart-beat of Ireland. God bless her!

Chapter II

TRELAND, as we have said, is Ireland because of A her Catholicity. Therefore, he who would understand life in hvland must take full cognizance of this fact, for it is this that is the leading characteristic of the nation. The comprehending eye of faith alone can see the force that has kept her national life pulsing strong through days when death seemed inevitable; the only force that will nourish life when (he dangerous tide of prosperity flows strong across her hallowed plains.

Ireland has always been governed by the Ten Commandments. These — the only guide to manhood and nationhood — have been the buoy that upheld hi r in the ebb-tide of adversity, and will be the anchor to steady her in the flood-tide of prosperity.

The stranger who enters her gates finds himself startled and delighted beyond measure at the wonderful atmosphere of faith that hangs over the whole hind. The gilt of St. Patrick moves and vivifies all.

One autumn morning in the late nineties, between dusk and dawn, I stood, looking from the deck of our rushing vessel for my first glimpse of Erin. Somewhere, over the sea rim, hidden in the shadow, lay the land whence came our faith. By my side stood a returning exile, " a finibus terrae," who, after thirty-five years of absence, had come back to the love of his heart. His white hair blown back by the breeze that had kissed the holy hills of Ireland, he stood with parted lips, eagerly gazing into the fast-vanishing shadow. Soon I heard his cry — "There she is: God be blessed," and before us, still hidden in the half light, loomed the eastern mountain masses of the land of St. Patrick.

The moments pass, and, as our vessel speeds forward, gloom gives place to gray, and gray to gold, as the sun springs from the sea behind us, and the dark shadows flee before his level rays, that bathe all the sleeping land in golden fire. The sea runs in between two promontories laughing down at it as it goes narrowing to a silver strip, that hides itself and slips sparkling through the heart of a city, nestling at the foot of the mountains. It is Dublin Bay and Dublin city.

" Th' ana'm an Dhia. But there it is — The dawn on the hills of Ireland! God's angels lifting the night's black veil From the fair, sweet face of my sireland !

Ireland, isn't it grand you look — Like a bride in her rich adornin'?

And with all the pent-up love of my heart

1 bid you the top o' the mornin' ! "

I looked at my exile, and saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped the rail of the vessel.

We pass under the dark brown hill of Howth, that stands sentinel at the harbor mouth, marking, now as in the days of St. Lawrence, the tide of life that flows and ebbs upon the bay. To the south and west the mountains of Dublin and Wicklow go rolling away, range on range — past the Golden Spears, those shapely twin shafts that guard the beautiful \ale of Shanganagh, "sweetest and greenest of vales," — on to Lugnaquilla, the giant guardian of Erin's eastern boundary.

The blackness of the early morning has gone from them and given place to numberless shades of brown and green and gray. Past them we glide, past Clontarf there on the right, past the Tolka, until our vessel goes stealing in among the houses, and comes to rest in the very center of the city.

My white-haired friend, exiled now no longer, whose years seem to have fallen from him as he touches once again the earth of his motherland, cries to me — " Come, and I'll show you something worth getting up early to see."

Along the quays, and down Dublin's main artery — O'Connell Street — he drags me. He stops not to look at the splendid monument to the Liberator that adorns the center of the street, but walks rapidly on, climbs the winding steps of the Pillar, and steps out upon the lofty platform. With a gesture that embraces every point of the compass, he exclaims, "Look there: isn't she splendid?" Truly " she " is. Dublin — Ireland's queen city — seated on green plain, and flanked by sea and mountain, sits serenely by the banks of the placid Liffey, that comes curving in from the west, and moves beneath her bridges, on to meet the bay. My friend makes sure that I shall see all. From Killiney Hill to Tallaght, and round by the Phcenix Park, to Ireland's Eye, nothing escapes him.

It is a city of churches. From the pro-cathedral at our feet, to Dalkey, nearly a dozen miles away to the south, and to the equidistant Howth in the east, the spires and domes spring from almost every street. To the west is the closely crowded tenement district behind the Four Courts — a maze of lanes and alleys. Here in all directions God finds a home among His Irish poor. St. Michan's, the Ann Street church, sits amid its densely crowded lanes, and by its side the George's Hill convent, doing marvelous work among the poor. Scarce a stone's throw away the saintly sons of St. Dominic labor, side by side with the untiringly devoted apostles of St. Francis. Following the monitory hand of my friend, I see, closer to the Liffey, the massive shapes of " Arran Quay " and " Adam and Eve's."

Truly, God is not neglected here. Every church door is open, and every door swings perpetually at the touch of the hands of an endless stream of worshipers. Every man that passes by raises his hat, and every woman bows or curtsies to their King within.

We find ourselves at 1 1 A.M. outside the door of the pro-cathedral, — " We must hear Mass," my friend declares. It is an ordinary week-day morning. We could barely push open the swing-door. Judge of my astonishment when I saw the cause of the obstruction. Mass was being celebrated at the high altar at the far end of the great building, and before me, from the very door to the altar rail, stretched a sea of heads bent in reverent adoration. The contrast from the busy rush of life in the streets outside was astounding. The unrest of the world ceased and yielded place to the silent peace of God. All was still, save where, with fervent ejaculations, glowing souls poured forth their love of Christ.

Oh, what prayer and what intense fervor was theirs! Christ, the loved God-Man, was on the altar, in the hands of their priest, and it was as if the surging love in their hearts leaped all barriers of sense as they knelt before Him and greeted Him.

Round the door and for some distance into the crowded cathedral the congregation consists of fishwomen, flower-girls, and vendors of street wares. At the sound of the bell, warning of His coming, I knelt as best I could among these. All were oblivious of everything save Christ.

By my side knelt an old lady — a brown shawl drawn modestly over her head and shoulders. A white pleated cap, beneath which her gray hair was smoothed, peeped from the encircling shawl that framed the oval of her face. It was a face of dulled ivory, meshed and seamed by lines cut by the chisel of time, yet a face beautiful with a beauty not of earth. Eternal calmness and resignation sat upon her brow, and the clear light of purity shone through those eyes that are gazing at her God enthroned on the altar. Mass for her was a colloquy of intense and reverent joy, and she made it with lips moving in passionate prayer, utterly unmindful of those around her.

One could only kneel by her side and in all humility pray God for an understanding of Him such as she possesses.

Talk with these dear old souls as they come out, slipping the well-worn rosaries into their pockets, or maybe standing for a moment to finish a " dicket " before taking up their baskets. Dare to hint that it must be difficult to find time to get to Mass, and you had better be prepared to beat a hasty retreat, for many of them have developed a remarkable degree of proficiency in rapid manipulation of the unruly member.

" Yerra," said one to me, with a look of comical anger; "d'ye take me for a haythin, that I'd begredge a half-hour to God Almighty, whin I can see Him so aisy? God sind ye sinse," and she moved off with a pitying nod of tolerance.

" Thim say-rovers, what have they in their heads at all, at all? " I heard her remark to a familiar who joined her at the foot of the steps.

Experience showed that the crowd that thronged the cathedral had its counterpart in the other churches of the city. For instance, turn to the left as you leave the cathedral steps, climb the hill, and before you are the massive pillars of the church of St. Francis Xavier. Here, daily, Masses begin at 6 A.M., and end at 11.30. An eminent Roman ecclesiastic, on a visit to Dublin, was asked to give Communion during his Mass in this church. He did so, but when a quarter of an hour had elapsed and the people were still surging forward, he became alarmed and sent the altar boy for a priest to help him.

" I never saw anything like it in my life," he declared, " and so many men! " In that church alone full 400,000 Communions are given yearly. Small wonder that the people of Ireland smile under their crosses when Christ thus shares them with them.

To return for a moment to our street vendors of the cathedral. To the passer-by they may seem, as they trudge along, bent beneath their baskets, negligible units in the life of the city, but God and His angels mark the pearls of His praise that drop from their lips as they thread those winding streets.

Such splendid souls, hidden beneath an unassuming exterior!

Years afterwards, when privileged to go amongst them as a missionary, I saw them in their poor homes, and wondered at the vivid faith that gilded and ennobled their poverty and trials. The grace of God was fairly blazing among them. I saw them crowding to the communion rail every morning, and filling the church every evening. I saw them in their homes — so often only a room with the boards of the floor for a bed. Yet none so poor but boasted a statue or picture of the Man of Sorrows and Love, or of His Blessed Mother, their Myden Dheelish.