nction, that spiritual strength
without which all the charters of liberty which any foreign Parliament
could confer would be only so many "scraps of paper," assuring us it
may be of fine clothes and well-filled stomachs and self-satisfied
minds, but conferring none of those glories whose shining illumines
the dark ways of life and leads us towards that light which surpasseth
all understanding.

Thanks to the workings of an inscrutable Providence it was, however,
whilst the worst form of political stagnation had settled on the land
that other deeper depths were stirring and that the people were of
themselves moving towards a truer light and a higher leading.

CHAPTER VII

FORCES OF REGENERATION AND THEIR EFFECT

"George A. Birmingham" (who in private life is Canon Hannay), in his
admirable book, _An Irishman Looks at his World_, tells us: "The
most important educational work in Ireland during the last twenty
years has been done independently of universities or schools," and in
this statement I entirely agree with him. And I may add that in this
work Canon Hannay himself bore no inconsiderable part. During a
political campaign in Mayo in 1910 I had some delightful conversations
with Canon Hannay in my hotel at Westport, and his views expressed in
the volume from which I quote are only a development of those which he
then outlined. Both as to the vexed questions then disturbing North
and South Ireland and as to the lines along which national growth
ought to take place we had much in common. We agreed that nationality
means much more than mere political independence--that it is founded
on the character and intellect of the people, that it lives and is
expressed in its culture, customs and traditions, in its literature,
its songs and its arts. We saw hope for Ireland because she was
remaking and remoulding herself from within--the only sure way in
which she could work out her eventual salvation, whatever political
parties or combinations may come or go.

This process of regeneration took firm root when the parties were
exhausting themselves in mournful internal strife. Through the whole
of the nineteenth century it had been the malign purpose of England to
destroy the spirit of nationality through its control of the schools.
Just as in the previous century it sought to reduce Ireland to a state
of servitude through the operations of the Penal Laws, so it now
sough