CHAPTER I. THE ENGLISH MISUNDERSTANDING. Whatever may be the ultimate verdict of history upon the long struggle of the majority of the Irish people for self-government, the picture of a small country with large aspirations giving of its best unstintingly to the world, while gaining for itself little beyond sympathy, will appeal to the imagination of future ages long after the Irish Question, as we know... more...

CHAPTER I There are some who would dispute the greatness of Parnell—who would deny him the stature and the dignity of a leader of men. There are others who would aver that Parnell was made by his lieutenants—that he owed all his success in the political arena to their ability and fighting qualities and that he was essentially a man of mediocre talents himself. It might be enough to answer to these... more...

PROLOGUE. I. This book is a record of things seen, and of conversations had, during a series of visits to Ireland between January and June 1888. These visits were made in quest of light, not so much upon the proceedings and the purposes of the Irish “Nationalists,”—with which, on both sides of the Atlantic, I have been tolerably familiar for many years past—as upon the social and economical... more...

CHAPTER VII. ROSSBEHY, Feb. 21.—We are here on the eve of battle! An “eviction” is to be made to-morrow on the Glenbehy estate of Mr. Winn, an uncle of Lord Headley, so upon the invitation of Colonel Turner, who has come to see that all is done decently and in order, I left Ennis with him at 7.40 A.M. for Limerick; the “city of the Liberator” for “the city of the Broken Treaty.” There we... more...

I. VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. Here is an image by which you may call up and remember the natural form and appearance of Ireland: Think of the sea gradually rising around her coasts, until the waters, deepened everywhere by a hundred fathoms, close in upon the land. Of all Ireland there will now remain visible above the waves only two great armies of islands, facing each other obliquely across a channel of... more...

CHAPTER I. Sympathise with me, indeed! Ah, no! Cast your sympathy on the chill waves of troubled waters; fling it on the oases of futurity; dash it against the rock of gossip; or, better still, allow it to remain within the false and faithless bosom of buried scorn. Such were a few remarks of Irene as she paced the beach of limited freedom, alone and unprotected. Sympathy can wound the breast of... more...

INTRODUCTION. My publisher must take at least some of the responsibility for reviving these essays. All bear the marks of the period at which they were written; and some of them deal with the beginnings of movements which have since grown to much greater strength, and in growing have developed new characteristics at the expense of what was originally more prominent. Other pages, again, take no account... more...

CHAPTER I Finnian, the Abbott of Moville, went southwards and eastwards in great haste. News had come to him in Donegal that there were yet people in his own province who believed in gods that he did not approve of, and the gods that we do not approve of are treated scurvily, even by saintly men. He was told of a powerful gentleman who observed neither Saint's day nor Sunday. "A powerful... more...

AN IRISH STORY-TELLER   am often doubted when I say that the Irish peasantry still believe in fairies. People think I am merely trying to bring back a little of the old dead beautiful world of romance into this century of great engines and spinning-jinnies. Surely the hum of wheels and clatter of printing presses, to let alone the lecturers with their black coats and tumblers of water, have driven... more...

CHAPTER I. "Free Press! T'bune! Telegram! Papers, sir? Three for a nickel! Press, T'bune and Telegr-r-r-ra-m-m-m-m!" It was a hot afternoon in August, at the corner of Portage Avenue and Main Street, the busiest thoroughfare in the busy city of Winnipeg, now at its busiest and noisiest; but above the noise and din of traffic rose shrill and clear the persistent cry of "Press,... more...