my countrymen will join together, and,
by forming one general firm phalanx, achieve what is still wanting to
make Ireland what it ought to be. Ireland had her 1782, she shall have
another 1782. Let no man tell me it is useless to look for a repeal of
the odious union, that blot upon our national character. I revere
the union between England and Scotland; but the union which converted
Ireland into a province, which deprived Ireland of her parliament, it
is for the repeal of that measure we must now use all the constitutional
means in our power: that union which engenders absenteeism, and the
thousand other evils which naturally flow in its train. We are bound to
England by the golden link of the crown; and far be it from me to weaken
that connexion by my present observations: I want no disseveration;
but I want and must have a repeal of that cursed measure which deprived
Ireland of her senate, and thereby made her a dependent upon British
aristocracy and British interests. I may perhaps be told that to attempt
a repeal of the union would be chimerical. I pity the man who
requires an argument in support of the position that Ireland wants her
parliament; and that individual who pronounces the attainment of such a
consummation to be Utopian, is reminded of the Catholic question.
Look at the Catholic cause. Do I not remember when it was difficult to
procure a meeting of five Catholics to look for a restoration of our
then withheld rights? I recollect when we agitators were almost as much
execrated by our fellow-slaves, as we were by our oppressors. For the
attainment of the repeal of the union, I shall have the co-operation
of all classes and grades in society: the Orangemen of the north, the
Methodist of the south, and the quiet unpresuming Quaker, who may think
his gains shall be thereby augmented, all shall be joined in one common
cause, the restoration of Ireland's parliament." But this was a mild
attack upon England compared with other portions of the agitator's
speeches. It is no wonder then that Ireland soon presented scenes of as
much violence as those from which the emancipation bill was to relieve
her for ever. The hostile feelings of parties continued, and manifested
themselves in the same way as heretofore. Catholics and Protestants
alike had recourse to organization, and the slightest accident, the most
casual collisions produced contention, and generally ended in bloodshed.
Thus on the 12th of July, which the Pr