have in thirty years translated themselves into Statute Law and solid
fact. An English statesman of the period, say Mr Balfour or Mr Wyndham,
is fortunate if, with a few odd rags pilfered from the Land League
wardrobe, he can conceal from history his utter poverty of ideas.

This, then, is the essential wisdom of Irish history: Ireland has won
all along the line. The Normans did not normanise her. The Tudors did
not exterminate her. She has undone the Confiscations, and drawn a
cancelling pen through the Penal Laws. The Act of Union, so far from
suppressing her individuality or overwhelming it, has actually brought
it to that full self-consciousness which constitutes the coming of age
of a nation. Tears, as we read in Wordsworth, to human suffering are
due; if there be anyone with tears at command he may shed them, with
great fitness, and with no profit at all, over the long martyrdom of
Ireland. But let him, at least if he values facts, think twice before he
goes on to apply to her that other line which speaks of human hopes
defeated and overthrown. No other people in the world has held so
staunchly to its inner vision; none other has, with such fiery patience,
repelled the hostility of circumstances, and in the end reshaped them
after the desire of her heart. Hats off to success, gentlemen! Your
modern God may well be troubled at sight of this enigmatic Ireland which
at once despises him, and tumbles his faithfullest worshippers in the
sand of their own amphitheatre. Yet, so it is. The Confederate General,
seeing victory suddenly snatched from his hands, and not for the first
time, by Meagher's Brigade, exclaimed in immortal profanity: "There
comes that damned Green Flag again!" I have often commended that phrase
to Englishmen as admirably expressive of the historical role and record
of Ireland in British Politics. The damned Green Flag flutters again in
their eyes, and if they will but listen to the music that marches with
it, they will find that the lamenting fifes are dominated wholly by the