ional indignation against the wanton holding of our sacred counties—the Primatial See and the United Irishmen’s own Down and Antrim—will constrain the wiser England of to-day.
(3) We see the greatest hope of all in the awakening of patriotism among those who have been opposed to us hitherto. Every day brings fresh declarations of goodwill from Protestant prelates and Unionist writers, to say nothing of agitation among the discontented Protestant victims of Partition rule. These people realise that the days of Partition are numbered—-that England does not want them and that the world scorns them while they stand in the way of Irish well-being and peace between nations. They see that there is no future for them in a fragment of a province, deserted by their former friends, and they are discerning that splendid opportunity is before them as citizens of renascent Ireland. The election of Dr. Douglas Hyde, who is of their religion, to the highest office in the State, has shown them that a welcome awaits men of every “race and creed and clan” who choose to give their talents to Ireland’s grand common store.
Unification will not be easy; but if we consider what immense gains have been won since Eamon de Valera was a boy in County Limerick, when the Land War still was incomplete and the winning of a little measure of Home Rule seemed almost too much to hope for, we may feel confident that our strength is ample, if only we press forward with courage and loyalty, prudence and good-will. What grandeur the prospect offers, in a free Irish nation, uniting in the common service all those powers and all that genius which was occupied in the past in conflict—when Irishmen at last are as free to live for Ireland as hitherto they were nobly ready to die for her! Indeed, as the vision grows, the determination to achieve it mounts; and so, with humble hearts, we pray that we may be with Eamon de Valera when he proclaims Ireland
SOVEREIGN, FREE AND UNITED!
By Fear Faire