Home Rule Journalists and Patriotism An Object Lesson (13 August 1898)

Workers’ Republic, 13 August 1898. Reprinted in Red Banner, No.12. Transcribed by Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh. Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive

Most Irishmen who remember the early days of the Land League movement in this country will also remember how the present Home Rule politicians, then pushing their way into public life, contrived to ‘rig’ the Irish newspaper press and use it as an advertising agency in their own behalf. The middle-class adventurers who now style themselves our ‘National leaders’ were confronted with a problem which may be stated thus: Given an oppressed people, an alien government and an insolent aristocracy, how best out of their mutual conflicts to evolve fame and fortune. From the Government not much could be expected. Secure in its position, it cared not for the hungry hordes of office-seekers and civil service aspirants with which our Irish middle-class besiege the Government buildings at every examination: it knew the exact value of the patriotism of the middle-class Nationalist newspaper, which denounces the ‘Sacsanach’ rule, and, at the same time, devotes whole columns of its space to explaining for the benefit of its readers how they may best sell themselves into the service of the Sacsanach, whether in the Army, Navy, Constabulary or Civil Service. Still less could be hoped for from the landlord class, the enemy’s garrison in Ireland. But there remained the people, the enthusiastic hot-headed, warm-hearted, patriotic people. And accordingly our patriot politicians, save the mark, set themselves to the task of gulling, cajoling and bewildering the people of Ireland in a manner absolutely unique in the history of any country. The method was simple. Our newspapers are not what their name would imply, merely chroniclers of news, they are, in Ireland at least, primarily political weapons in the hands of political parties. Accordingly the Irish public which delights to take its opinions from newspapers had its opinions on our ‘leaders’ formed somewhat in this manner:– Tim Healy, being appointed London letter-writer to a Dublin weekly, would, in the course of his letter, refer in terms of glowing admiration to the “matchless eloquence and statesmanlike speeches” of Mr Sexton; Mr Sexton, who wrote as lobby correspondent to another paper, in his turn could scarcely find terms eulogistic enough to describe the “brilliant sarcasm and legal acumen” of Tim Healy; Mr Harrington from the scene of the land war would, through the columns of the press, and like the others always under the cloak of anonymity, inform the tenants that the world was lost in admiration of Mr Redmond, and Mr Redmond would repay the compliment by half a column of gush over the “organising genius” of Tim Harrington; John Dillon would conclude his speeches by a quotation from the over-praised doggerel of T.D. Sullivan, and William O’Brien never lost a chance at home or abroad of calling Heaven to witness the love and esteem he cherished “from the depths of his heart” for the many high qualities of Mr T.P. O’Connor. [1]

How well the dodge worked the world knows. The Irish people worshipped those men with an enthusiastic self-sacrificing devotion. The Irish race at home and abroad poured in its hard-earned wealth to sustain those men in the fight, accepting them at their own estimation and bowing down before them, even when we saw some of them in prison making more clamour over the loss of their trousers than the United Irishmen or the Manchester Martyrs had evoked over the loss of their lives. But in due time the bubble burst. The Parnell crisis, and all the stormy scenes and base betrayals that accompanied it, showed us of what pitiful material our vaunted demigods were composed. [2] Every effort now being made, or likely to be made, to rehabilitate those men in public esteem must be regarded with contempt by every right-minded Irishman. We have been permitted to look behind the scenes of politics for a brief moment while the actors quarrelled in front, and they who have once seen the mechanism of the stage will never again be frightened by its thunder.

And if the discredited journalists who trafficked on our credulity in the past can no longer command our respect what of the journalistic staff who man our papers today? Their patriotism and also their honesty can be gauged from the following incident which was recorded in all our Dublin daily papers at the time absolutely without comment. We extract from the Freeman’s Journal.