Seven Periods of Irish History

136 Pages·1940·6.99 MB·English

by  O’Sheel, Shaemas (Editor)

SEVEN PERIODS OF IRISH HISTORY

SEVEN PERIODS OF
IRISH HISTORY
EDITED BY
SHAEMAS O'SHEEL
"The Irish Nation has been built upon corpse.
and brokenhearts."- ARTHUR GRIFFITH.
FLANDERS HALL : Publishers
SCOTCHPLAINS, NEWJERSEY
COPYRIGHT, 1940
BY
SHAEMAS O'SHEEL
PRINTED IN U.S.'\'.
DEDICATED
To the Memoryof the Scot, George Gordon Noel, Lord
Byron; the Englishmen, Percy Rysshe Shelley, Leigh
Hunt, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Gilbert Keith, Chesterton
and Countless Thousands of other Britons Who Have
Spoken and Labored for the Liberation of Ireland.
v
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
GrateEul acknowledgment is made to the Eollowing publishers and
authors Eor permission to reprint passagesof the booksdesignated:
To E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. for passagesErom Seventy Years YOllngby
theCountessofFingellandPamelaHinkson.
To International Publishers Eor passages from Easter Weell by Brian
O'Neill.
To Sheed & Ward, Inc., for passages from Henry Graltlln by Roger
McHugh.
To The Vanguard Pressfor passagesfrom Dell' Robert Emmet byR.W.
Postgate,
To Whittlesey House Eor passages from Dear Dllrll He" by Helen
Landreth.
To Seumas MacManus for passages from The Story of the lrisb Race,
publishedbytheDevin-AdairCompany.
Contents
I. SevenCenturies and SevenDays 1
II. Devastations of Ireland in MedievalTimes 16
III. "The Curseof Cromwell" 25
IV. The Faith ofKing William-TheRuinof
IrishTrade and Industry-The Dark 18th
Century 29
v. The Penal Laws 34
VI. ANation Born, 1798-ANation Crushed,
1800 37
VII. The Union of Sharkand Prey 59
VIII. The Enslavementof the IrishPeasantry-
Famine-Evictions 65
IX. The Irish Nation Fights On 84
Bibliography 118
VII

I. Seven Centuries and Seven Days
ON EASTER Monday morning of 1916, in the city of
Dublin, slender columns of young men in the gray green
uniforms of the Irish Volunteers or the dark green slouch
hats of the Citizens' Army marched through the streets
with a purposeful air and came to attention at the foot
ofNelson's Pillar.
Three men stepped from among the soldiers and faced
the citizenswho began to gather. One was Padraic Pearse,
young and intrepid, a poet, a dreamer and a doer. Beside
him stood a man of the stout frame of a worker, with a
resolute face: James Connolly, organizer and leader of
the Irish proletariat. The third man, advanced in years,
his face and bodystill thin with the marks of fifteenyears
of starvation and sufferingin an English prison, wasTom
Clarke, head of the secretorganization, The Irish Revolu
tionary Brotherhood, the principal mover of the rnornen
tous eventsof this day, which were the consummation of
a lifetime of indomitable hope and grim determination.
The poet Pearse stepped forward-stepped one might
say at that moment into Immortality in the memories of
men. He began reading to his soldierly companions and
fellow citizensthe Irish Declaration of Independence and
Proclamation of the Provisional Government of the Irish
Republic.
"Irishmen and Irishwomen. In the name of God and of
the dead generations from which she receives her old
tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons
her children to her flagand strikesfor her freedom.
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