heart, to the mystery
and beauty of these haunted islands, thronged with spectres from a magic
past, made holy by the footsteps of the wise men of the West. Consider
this island on which we stand, the last foothold of man on this side
of the Atlantic: this Ireland, described by the earliest bards as an
emerald gem set in a silver sea! Can I, a scion of the illustrious
British race, ever forget that when the Empire transferred its seat to
the East, and said to the turbulent Irish race which it had oppressed
but never conquered, 'At last we leave you to yourselves; and much good
may it do you,' the Irish as one man uttered the historic shout 'No:
we'll be damned if you do,' and emigrated to the countries where there
was still a Nationalist question, to India, Persia, and Corea, to
Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli. In these countries they were ever
foremost in the struggle for national independence; and the world rang
continually with the story of their sufferings and wrongs. And what poem
can do justice to the end, when it came at last? Hardly two hundred
years had elapsed when the claims of nationality were so universally
conceded that there was no longer a single country on the face of the
earth with a national grievance or a national movement. Think of the
position of the Irish, who had lost all their political faculties by
disuse except that of nationalist agitation, and who owed their position
as the most interesting race on earth solely to their sufferings! The
very countries they had helped to set free boycotted them as intolerable
bores. The communities which had once idolized them as the incarnation
of all that is adorable in the warm heart and witty brain, fled from
them as from a pestilence. To regain their lost prestige, the Irish
claimed the city of Jerusalem, on the ground that they were the lost
tribes of Israel; but on their approach the Jews abandoned the city
and redistributed themselves throughout Europe. It was then that these
devoted Irishmen, not one of whom had ever seen Ireland, were counselled
by an English Archbishop, the father of the oracles, to go back to their
own country. This had never once occurred to them, because there was
nothing to prevent them and nobody to forbid them. They jumped at the
suggestion. They landed here: here in Galway Bay, on this very ground.
When they reached the shore the older men and women flung themselves
down and passionately kissed the soil of Ireland, calling on the y