Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

IRISH POLITICS AND POLITICAL HISTORY 335
work you would be snuffed out and abolished, so far have
Irish landlords now carried it in their fools' game, so low
down has their cause fallen. For this fact you must take
along with you as cardinal, that in a short time the Imperial
Parliament will prove friendly not to your order but to
the power known as the National League, and that the
might of England and the edge of the Imperial sword will
be at its beck and call. And here you can perceive the
incredible folly of those Ulster men who meditate, if they
do, an appeal to the armed Protestant Democracy of the
North. Religious war, the most awful curse that ever
fell upon any land, passions that will not spare the preg-
nant women or the speechless infant, a very opening of
the gates of hell, follow in the wake of such war. But
the wickedness of those men is only equalled by their folly.
The might of the empire they have suffered to pass into the
hands of their enemies, and the armies of England would
pour westward to stamp out with bullet and cord all
insurrectionary attempts. Keep well clear of gunpowder,
my friend, in these ticklish times, and wear a very deaf
ear to Northern swaggerers, the blatant, untimely Pro-
testantism of that fire-breathing Northern chimaera.
Arm your men, not with Winchesters, nor breathe into
them the slightest hint of war at your peril, for a very
vigilant foe is this with whom you have to deal, seeing
through more eyes than Argus, and gathering to himself
all power in this island for a season,
But your friends, when you have them, must not be
idle. Idleness, bad for you, is worse for them. They
must pay for their keep in honest labour, honest labour