IRISH HISTORY
AND
THE IRISH QUESTION
BY
GOLDWIN SMITH
AUTHOR OF “THE UNITED KINGDOM”
“THE UNITED STATES”
NEW YORK
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
1905
Copyright by
GOLDWIN SMITH,
1905.
Published, November, 1905, n.
PREFACE
A long summer was spent by me in that loveliest of all parks, thePhœnix, as the guest of Edward Cardwell, then Chief Secretary and realhead of the Irish government. Under Cardwell’s roof the Irish Question wasfully discussed by able men, Robert Lowe among the number. But I had astill greater advantage in constant and lasting intercourse with suchfriends as Lord Chancellor O’Hagan, Sir Alexander Macdonald, the head ofthe Education Department, and other leading Irish Liberals of the moderateschool, ardent patriots and thoroughgoing reformers though opposed toviolence and disruption. To the teachings of these men in dealing with theIrish Question, I have always looked back for my best guidance. I did whatI could generally to acquaint myself with the country and its people. Ihad the opportunity of seeing something of Maynooth as the guest of itsexcellent principal in that day. At that time there was rather a lull inthe agrarian war, but religious antagonism was still marked. The fruit ofmy[Pg iv] studies was a little book entitled “Irish History and IrishCharacter,” in which I tried to show that the sources of Ireland’s sorrowswere to be found in natural circumstance and historical accident as muchas in the crimes or follies of man in recent times. Upon that text Ipreached in favour of charity and reconciliation. I am told that a chordwas touched at the time. But my essay has long been superseded and buriedout of sight by the important works, historical and political, which thecontroversy has since produced, as well as by the forty eventful yearswhich have elapsed since its publication. The subject, however, hasretained all its interest, and my confidence in the wisdom of my Irishfriends and instructors has remained the same, or rather has beenstrengthened by the course of events.
I was in Ireland again a good many years afterwards in connection with themeeting of the Social Science Association, and was the guest of LordO’Hagan. The Parnellite Movement was then in full activity; AmericanFenianism was at work; and the soil heaved with insurrection. My friend W.E. Forster was the Secretary, and, much against his own inclination, wasadministering measures of repression, the only alternative to which[Pg v]appeared to be the abdication of the government. On this occasion I wasunlucky enough to draw upon myself a thunderbolt hurled through theTimes, but evidently from the skies, by hinting in a public speech thatthe Phœnix Park was as worthy to be the occasional residence of royaltyas Osborne or Balmoral. A happy change, attended apparently with the besteffects, has now come in that august quarter.
It is needless to say that this essay does not pretend to be a history ofIreland. It is an attempt to trace the general course of the history as itleads up to the present situation.
The works published in recent years to which I have been chiefly indebtedare: Joyce’s “Social History of Ancient