Debate in Parliament on the State of Ireland - The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)

John Mitchel
Author’s Edition (undated)

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barbarous, but from which in these enlightened days it might be as well to take a hint, that if a man were even an alien-born, he was not deprived of the protection of the law. In Ireland, however, the law held a directly opposite doctrine. The sect to which a man belonged, the cast of his religious opinions, the form in which he worshipped his Creator, were grounds on which the law separated him from his fellows, and bound him to the endurance of a system of the most cruel injustice.' Such was the statement of Mr Brougham, when Mr Brougham was the advocate of the oppressed (hear, hear). But, sir, let me ask, was what I have just now read the statement of a man who was ignorant of the country of which he spoke? No; the same language, or to the same effect, was used by Sir Michael O'Loghlen in his evidence before the House of Lords. That gentleman stated, that he had been in the habit of going the Munster circuit for nineteen years; and on that circuit it was the general practice for the crown in criminal prosecutions to set aside all Catholics and all the liberal Protestants; and he added, that he had been informed that on other circuits the practice was carried on in a more strict manner. Sir Michael O'Loghlen also mentioned one case of this kind which took place in 1834, during the Lord Lieutenancy of the Marquis of Wellesley, and the Attorney-Generalship of Mr Blackburne, the present Master of the Rolls, and in which, out of forty-three persons set aside (in a cause, too, which was not a political one), there were thirty-six Catholics and seven Protestants, and all of them respectable men. This practice is so well known, and carried out so generally, that men known to be Liberals, whether Catholics or Protestants, have ceased to attend assizes, that they might not be exposed to these public insults. Now, I would ask, are these proofs of equal laws, or laws equally administered? Could the same or similar cases have happened in Yorkshire, or Sussex, or Kent? Are these the fulfilment of the promises made and engagements entered into at the Union?"

This sounds extremely fair. Who would think that Lord John Russell was Prime Minister in '48! Mr Macaulay said, in the same debate (Feb. 19th, 1844):—

"I must say, too, in the spirit of truth, that the position which Mr O'Connell holds in the eyes of his fellow-countrymen, is a position such as no popular leader in the whole history of mankind ever occupied (loud cheers). You are mistaken if you imagine that the interest with which he is regarded is confined only to the island. Go where you will upon the Continent, dine at any table d'hôte, tread upon any steamboat, enter any conveyance, from the moment your speech betrays you an Englishman, the very first question asked—whether by the merchants or manufacturers in the towns in the heart of France, or by the peasants, or by the class who are like our yeomen in this country—is, what has become of Mr O'Connell (cheers, and cries of oh, oh)? Let those who deny this assertion take the trouble to turn over the French journals (cheers). It is a most unfortunate, it is a most unhappy fact,but it is impossible to dispute it,that there is throughout the Continent a feeling respecting the connection between England and Ireland not very ...continue reading »

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