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Show t " WOMEN OF IRELAND. ' i - i The history of all nations discloses the lofty, the lowly and important parts played by women. In Ireland, as well as elsewhere, they have had their romange and tragedy. If we rejoice in the beatific exaltation of saints, we also suffer the depression consequent of meditation on the sinner. If we have had our heroines, we also have had out "destructive, "de-structive, deceitful women." Clouds, however, dim, do not destroy the sunlight, and on our tong'.ies is meet : "O woman: in our hour of ease. Uncertain, coy and hard to rlease, And variable as the shade. By the litcrlt of quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow A ministering angel thou!" Woman is the natural figure of Irieh nationhood, nation-hood, and instinctively the imagery of painter, poet po-et and singer turns to the female, form divine. The peasant addresses his Church as his mistress; Manga Man-ga n calls his country "his dark Rosaleon." Xothing masculine crops out in an apostrophe of Ireland. The most ruthless vandal would not, could not, think of styling her anything having a similarity and appropriateness like "John Bull," "Johnny Crapeau" or "Uncle Sam," says the San Francisco Monitor. The ancient names of Ireland were Eric, Banba. Fiola and Scota the first three after the queens of the three brothers, princes of the Tutha de Danaud, who ruled the country when the sunburst broke red on the sea, and the Milesian queen, Scota, came to give the fourth name. England rules but does not govern Ireland. For centuries she has maintained in that country a vast standing army of occupation and she has not subdued sub-dued it. Why? Go ask the women of Erin. Why? Because neither Xorman knight nor Lord of the Pale nor Hessian soldiers could resist the seductive, smiles of the Xorah Creenas, Eilleen Oges and Molly Bawiis. The marauders married them, were assimilated and lost. The lamb swallowed the wolf and the ruthless invader lecame more Irish than the Irish themselves. There is no more stirring chapter in Irish history his-tory lhan the tale of the 27th of August, 1690, famous fa-mous iu song and story. For weeks Limerick had been under siege; for weeks it had nobly borne the brunt of a galling and almost perpetual fire; cannon and musketry boomed and awoke the echoes of Caratloe and Clare and rolled down the Shannon to the sea. Piece by piece, the fortifications of the city were crumbling; at last a breach was made; first one, and then another an-other and another, and the veteran soldiers of William Wil-liam of Orange rushed into the beleaguered city bent upon a repetition of Drogheda. Xow then, devout, spiritual, affectionate, domestic and mild women of Ireland, shine out in the pages of history; his-tory; send you glory to the farthest world; do the deed that will live until eternity breaks the night of time! There are the sabres and guns dropped by the dead hands of your husbands and brothers; pick them up; use them for faith and fatherland! It is more than your lives cry out for protection; it is more than the suckling infant at the breast or the gray hairs tottering to the grave! It is freedom free-dom and altar; God and country! 'Tis done! "Like liberated furies" you are upon them! The Satan reels before your dauntless courage! You have given your glory and jour name to posterity! And we, your children, women of Limerick, nightly bless your memory, proudly proclaim your virtuous valor, and read your record on the scroll along with the Joans of Arc and Matildas of Tuscany! The women of Ireland are in many respects like other women. Of Caucasian race they are Avhite-skinned Avhite-skinned some of them are thin-skinned. Some of them have petty jealousies and can barge as well as their sisters of other nationalities. Some have brunette locks and some have auburn tresses. Yes, they have red-headed girls in Ireland, but they do not call them by that name; they use the more poetic po-etic and uphonious ''colleen rhue." Were the space at my disposal, how we- could revel in the achievements of Irish women in the finer arts. Susanna Centlivre and Frances Sheridan Sheri-dan in the drama; Julia Kavanagh and Rosa Mul-holland Mul-holland in general literature; Lady Butler in painting, paint-ing, and that sweet musical spirit, whose earthly harp strings snapped bxit a few weeks ago, Mary Augusta Holmes. With Christianity came resplendent Ireland; with it refulgent womanhood. Patrick is styled "the image of Faith"; Bridgid. "the glory of Kil-darc," Kil-darc," the personification of Charity. The greatness great-ness of Columbkille, the fame of Iona, the glory of Lindesfarne, are emulated and equaled by the greatness of St. Ita, the fame of Mida and the sanctity of Sleive Lauehra. The perpetual office of the monks of Mungrct w'as rivaled everywhere in Ireland of the matin song and vesper hymn by thousands of holy women. wo-men. Our Irish mothers are sometimes vain and foolish fool-ish enough to wade through flashy novels of stylish styl-ish life for highfalutin names with which to christen chris-ten their children. Irish mothers, do you know the beautiful names that lie on your own doorsteps? Bridgid the sweetest of all, let the scoffer leer as he may Ita, Ethna and.Flcthjmia, the royal daughters daugh-ters 1 of I.aoghaire, Eva, Una, Blanid, Kathleen, Winnifred, Geraldine- and a host of "others. Christianity ennobled womanhood; Irish women ennobled Christianity. As the apostolic spirit never died in Ireland, so the lamp of sanctity never burn low for want of woman's tender care. While we may ponder with delight on the sanctified sancti-fied lives of our Irish virgins, there is no sphere in which the Irish woman stands out more heroically than in the home; than as wife and mother. "She never understood o constitution, political or physical." She never wanted to understand a political constitution. The Irish. . paradoxical as it may appear, are the most broad-minded and most conservative people in the world. Broad-minded Broad-minded in the latitude they grant, unto others; conservative con-servative iu their attachment to old forms and ancient an-cient teaching. The Celtic blood of Mary Sarsfield Gilmour voiced the sentiments of Irish womanhood when that gifted writer wrote: ''We ask not the poll nor the platform strong; Words may ring out from the pen. And leave 'us still enshrined on our hearthstones, The Ideal women of men." You might as w-ol!. like King Canute of old, try to roll back the billows of the ocean with a command, as by 3iiy art or wiles try to transform the Irish woman into a new woman. She has no wish to shirk the responsibilities of her sex or to raise the universe. There are no apostates of motherhood in Ireland. Her higher conception of duty is to be a mother; her highest ambition, to be the mother of a priest to share in the "Leviti-eal "Leviti-eal consecration of fter'son." To her maternity is an honor and a Massing1; the franchise an 'insult and a degredation. We can understand her on the battlefield bat-tlefield tending the wounded; in the cloister, praying pray-ing for the sinner; in the breaches of Limerick fighting for home and altar; but the president of a ladies' political club? Xever! Imagine you Celtic people of imagination, imagine, im-agine, if you can, your mother and mine in party caucus, or distributing ballots in a polling booth! You laugh. They blush. Ruthless iconoclasm of gross materialism, thank God, we have one ideal you cannot, touch! "The sediment," as Boyle O'Reilly called it : "not the wave of a sex," can have the field without fear of an Irish rival. The would-be government of pptticoats excites only her compassion; and, deeply as she detests and abhors divorce, she can find in this, some excuse for it. But the danger of divorce is not great, for those. " Who ape the manners of manly times, ! In this sterile and worthless life, j Till the man of-the future augments his crimes With a raid for a Sabine wife," j seldom possess the maiden charms necessary to I win a spouse and compel a contract. A late writer I has said she can neither get a vote nor a voter. The Irishwoman knows that she is ordained of j the Almighty the priestess of her own fireside, the j minister of her children, the future lawmakers of ) the country. . j "Another light that shines on the bright side j of the history, the characteristics and genius of my j people," said the eloquent Domonical. Father Tom j Burke, "is the light of divine purity; the purity that makes the Irish maiden as chaste as the nun in her cloister. I say the Irish woman is the glory of Ireland; she is the glory of her j country. How beautiful she is in the integrity of I virginal purity! She has been taught by St. Pat- j rick, who held up the Mother of God the Virgin J Mother as the very type of Ireland's womanhood, and of Ireland's consecrated virgins as illustrated in the lives and characters of our Irish virgin saints. '" The Catholic virgin, as pure as the unstained snow; the Catholic mother, bearing upon her brow the mingled beauty and ihaternity and virginity is a model for the women of the world." As our national mother "has scattered her seed o'er the lea," so, around the. whole globe, her children chil-dren with pathos, with harmony and with exultation exulta-tion swell the anthem of praise and homage to the merits, the graces and the virtues that adorn and ennoble the daughters of Eire, BanBa, Fiola and Scota. If my voice be inadequate to do justice to such a lofty theme, it is, nevertheless, moved by the most sincere desire to give public attestation of the fact that the same immutable and infallible faith which 1471 years ago St. Patrick brought to Ireland, a dear old, unlettered Kerry grandmother gave to me "O there are the women of Ireland Binding with prayer the stars, and with kindness the Isle of the sea." Catholic Union and Times. |
