Irish Jesuit Province

Relics of Old Irish MovementsSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 36, No. 419 (May, 1908), pp. 274-276Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20501341 .

Accessed: 17/06/2014 23:01

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.163 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:01:52 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

l 274 ]

RELICS OF OLD IRISH MOVEMENTS

A FRIEND of mine has a curious little collection of certificates of nmembership issued bv various patriotic and philanthropic associations formed in Ireland within

the last seventy or eighty years. The fact that such associa tions have the knack of breaking up and melting away after a certain number of years is no proof that they were not very useful in themselves, and as a preparation for something better or at least different.

The oldest of these tickets is headed " Precursor Society, to procure from the Imperial Parliament justice for Ireland;'> and it states that " Mr. N. N. having paid his subscription of one shilling has this day been enrolled a member of the Society.

Dated this I7th day of November, i838. T. M. Ray, Secretarv.' On the back of the ticket the followinrg explanations of

aims and means are given

PRECURSOR SOCIETY.

To PROCURE FRONI THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT JUSTICE FOR IRELANNDI

Objects of the Society.

I. Entire, cordial, devoted, and immovable loyalty, devotion, and allegiance to her most Gracious Majesty, our beloved Queen, Victoria, and to her Heirs and Successors for ever.

II. To obtain for Ireland all the Parliamentary Franchises and rights. of Voting of the British People, by communicating to each of the three divisions of the United Kingdom, all that is valuable and useful in the franchises of such divisions.

III. To obtain for Ireland her due proportion of Members in the United Parliament.

IV. To obtain an entire Reform of our Corporations, identical in every respect with the English Corporate Reform Bill.

V. To obtain for Ireland the total extinction of Tithes, and all other compulsory Ecclesiastical exactions, whether called Rent Charge or by any other name.

VI. To combine in the pursuit of these objects Universal Ireland Irishmen of every class and creed, Repealers, Non-Repealers, Contingent

Repealers, Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians and Dissenters.

VII. Should the British Parliament persevere in refusing to grant to the people of Ireland an equalization of civil and religious rights, so that all reasonable hope of obtaining such from that parliament shall be extin guished, then the Precursor Society shall stand dissolved, and the friends of Ireland who advocate a Repeal of the Legislative Union can join in the organization of a National Association, for the restoration to Ireland, by

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.163 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:01:52 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

RELICS OF OLD IRISH M11OVl EMI E LNTS 275

all legal and constitutional means, of her legislative rights and her domestic parliament.

VIII. To procure for the United Kingdom the necessary protection of Vote by Ballot, so as to encourage Electors to establish their franchise, and afterwards protect them in its exercise.

IX. To give every legal and constitutional aid to obtain for all parts of the empire, the greatest possible extension of the suffrage that can practically be attained, and for shortening the duration of parliaments.

Two years later the society bears a different name but has the same secretary and the same modest subscription. The foregoing number seven seems to have been carried out. A smaller ticket is headed " God save the Queen. National

Association of Ireland. Mr. N. N. having paid one shilling is enrolled as a Repealer on the books of the Association.

Dated this 22nd day of September, 1840. T. M1. Ray, Secretary.' This ticket is numbered 20,553.

In I845 the Repeal card is muclh miior-e dignified in form. The name has become " Loyal National Repeal Association." On the front is a neat map of Ireland, with a scroll on the left God save the Quteen, and a scroll on the right Irclantd for the Irish. Thomas Matthew Ray signs a statement of enrol

ment as before, and on the back is given tlhe following accouint of the

STATISTICS OF IRELAND.

Its greatest length is 306 Statute Miles anid its greatest breadth is 182

miles. It contains 32,513 Square .Miles, equal to 20,808,271 Statute Acres. It has a Coast of above 2,000 mlileS, w-ith 14 Harbours adapted for Ships of the line, 17 adapted for frigates and above 6o otlher harbours. Itt possesses several navigable rivers, one of w-hicl, the Shannon, is the largest in the United Kingdom. Its seas anid rivers abound in fish, a fruitful source of national wealth. Its climate is healthy and genial. Its soil is fertile, and beneath it minerals abound. In 2,500,ooo acres of bog it possesses an inexhaustible supply of fuel. It contains nearly half a

milllion of acres covered with timber. Its live stock is valued at /2 1,OOO,o0o Its land is estimated to be worth in annual value about i14,ou0,eoo. Its

Bank Paper circulation amounts to about 5, 0oo0,0oo. Its State Revenue, exclusive of uncredited taxation, averages about 4.0500,000 per annum. Its Local Taxation-County Cess, Tithe, Poor Rate and other local taxes, exceed /2,000,000 per annum. It supplies 42,000 miien to the British

Army. Its Population was in i841, 8,I75,T14, of whom 7,039,659 live in the country, and I,I35,465 in towns. Its Population live in about 1,350,000 Houses. It exports Grain, Cattle, Butter, and other descrip tions of food to the value of many millions sterling per annum, whilst a large proportion of its population live upon Potatoes alone. It imports, to the value of several millions sterling per annum, manufactures whiclh, if produced at home, would give abundant employment to native industry. It is capable of furnishing a sufficient surplus of exchangeable commodities, after providing for the wants of its own inhabitants, to procure such foreign articles as its own soil does not yield. Its rulers, since the first invasion from England, have sought to govern it by weakening and dividing its population. and have reaped the fruits of tIhis policv in the ruin of one

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.163 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:01:52 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

276 THE IRISH MONTHLY

of the fairest portions of the earth. Its landed proprietors and capitalists, its men of genius and of enterprise, are seduced away from the natural sphere of their duties and labours by the fatal influences of the Union. Its natives are excluded from nearly every situation of trust and emolu

ment; and its Government and administration are confided to strangers regardless of their feelings and interests. Its laws are imnade by a Parlia

ment ignorant of its wants, and imbued with prejudices against its inhabi tants. To this Parliament, Ireland sends only io5 members out of 658. Such are the Resources which entitle Ireland to a Parliament. Such are the consequences which result from the absence of a Parliament. Ireland

will obtain a Parliament by

THE CESSATION oF RELIGIOUS ANIMOSITIES, BY TEMPERANCE,

KNOWLEDGE, PEACE, COURAGE AND PERSEVERANCE.

Another of these cards is issued by the " Merchant's Quay Board of Trade for reviving and protecting Irish Manufacture." It is No. I,36I, 22nd June, I84I. "I, J. B., pledge myself henceforward to encourage in every legitimate way the Manu factures and Industry of Ireland-by myself and family wearing exclusively Irish MIanufacture, and purchasing, as far as practicable, all articles for domestic and household purposes of Irish produlction." This is signed " 'Matthew Flanagan, President "-namely, the P.P. of St. Nicholas, Francis Street, who was for many years the Secretary to the Episcopal Board of Maynooth.

The largest and most elaborate of all these cards is quite an ambitious exercise of the engraver's art. Two angels hold a wide-stretched banner bearing the inscription, " Founded by the Very Rev. Theobald Mathew on the ioth of April, i838." Then an cngraving of the Temperance Medal is placed between two clever little vignettes, in which Intemperance is represented by a ragged and dishevelled husband and wife fighting furiously in a squalid room, the woman catching her lord and master by the hair of the head, and the man chastising

with a stick the wife of his bosom, while two miserable little girls cling to her skirt, and a little boy tries to drag his father away by the ragged coat-tail. This is Intemperance; but Temperance is symbolized by man and wife taking their tea comfortably together, while the little ones sit at their ease on the floor. This particular pledge is dated March 3Ist, 1840. I have not described all its artistic embellishments, some of

which I do not quite understand.

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.163 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:01:52 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions