Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1918 — O’Connor Cites History in Connection With Troubles of the People of Ireland [ARTICLE]

O’Connor Cites History in Connection With Troubles of the People of Ireland

If the Irish rebellion had not been folloVeT-hy its sequel it would have been by this time forgotten and condemned by the vast majority of the Irish people; but, as a.matter of fact, writes T. P. O’Connor in Cartoons Magazine, when the rebellion was put down by one of those extraordinary blunders so often committed In the management of Ireland by England, dictatorial powers were given Into the hands of a soldier of not particularly marked intelligence. He declared he was going to put down sedition and rebellion in Ireland forever. Well, if he had read any Irish history he would have known that that had been said for six centuries. He then proceeded, in secrecy, in the darkness of cells, convicting on, evidence not yet published, these unfortunate young men, and then taking them out in batches in the cold, bleak morning and executing them in the back yard of a jail. One of them was so severely wounded that he had to have planks put on each side of the chair on which he had to sit while he was being shot. All these executions produced a profound revulsion of feeling In Ireland and in America. Now, that is the beginning of the - trouble in Ireland.. If you read history you will find that there has never been anything so incalculable in its effects upon the human soul as an execution for an ideal.