[Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) by William Henry Hurlbert]@TWC D-Link bookIreland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) CHAPTER I 36/40
He was with the Spanish, as Prince of Tyrconnel, at the crushing defeat of Kinsale in 1601.
Escaping again, he died, poisoned, at Simancas the next year. Sir Bernard showed us, among other curious manuscripts, a correspondence between one Higgins, a trained informer, and the Castle authorities in 1798.
This correspondence shows that the revolutionary plans of the Nationalists of 1798 were systematically laid before the Government. When one thinks how very much abler were the leaders of the Irish rebellion in 1798 than are the present heads of the Irish party in Parliament, how much greater the provocations to rebellion given the Irish people then were than they are now even alleged to be--how little the Irish people in general have now to gain by rebellion, and how much to lose, it is hard to resist a suspicion that it must be even easier now than it was in 1798 for the Government to tap the secrets of the organisations opposed to it. Sir Bernard showed us also a curious letter written by Henry Grattan to the founder of the great Guinness breweries, which have carried the fame of Dublin porter into the uttermost parts of the earth.
The Guinnesses are now among the wealthiest people of the kingdom, and Ireland certainly owes a great deal to them as "captains of industry," but they are not Home Rulers. At the Kildare Street Club in the afternoon I talked with two Irish landlords from the north of Ireland, who had come up to take their womenkind to the Drawing-Room. I was struck by their indifference to the political excitements of the day.
One of them had forgotten that the Ripon and Morley reception was to take place to-night.
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