Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

“Probably at no period since the days of Constantine,” says the accomplished and trustworthy Lecky, “was Catholicism so free from domineering and aggressive tendencies as during the Pontificates of Benedict XIV and his three successors.” This covers a period extending from 1740 to 1775; and we know that cycles of ecclesiastical polity never close abruptly. The Catholic was first to perceive that “when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.”

But the Volunteers⁠—armed and organised without the invitation or concurrence of Government⁠—now began to propose reforms in parliamentary representation, amendments in internal legislation, a relaxation of trade restrictions, etc. So it was time for the man with a stake in the country to think about doing something.

Divide and govern! A good ideal though not a new one! And, providentially, here was the latent spark of religious dissent, ready to respond to the foulest breath ever blown from the lips of Greed. In 1785 the spark was first fanned into flame, with the best results; then, the satisfactory working of the experiment being assured, the first Orange Lodge was formally inaugurated at Loughlea, Armagh, in 1795⁠—exactly 105 years after the dethronement and expulsion of James II, and 93 years after the death of William of Orange.

Patronised by noblemen, gentlemen, clergymen, and intermediary pimps of substantial position, the institution naturally appealed to the highest sentiments (which is saying extremely little) of a Protestant half-population forced into servility by agrarian conditions. Soon it became self-supporting, and waxed mighty in the land, feeding itself with fresh vendetta from each recurring 12th of July.

Observe its origin well. The profound cunning of a propertied class, operating with sinister purpose on the inevitable flunkeyism of a dependent class, per medium of that moral kink in human nature which makes sectarian persecution an act of worship, generated an accordant monster. Hence any L.O.L. convocation, however slenderly attended, may fitly be called a monster meeting.

The domestic history of the movement in its palmy days⁠—the brutal and cowardly baiting of a penalised class; the boorish insult to ideals held sacred by sensitive devotees; the deliberate cultivation of intra⁠—parochial blood-feud; the savage fostering of hate for hate’s own sake; the thousand squalid details of affray, ambuscade, murder, maltreatment, malicious injury to property⁠—these, happily or unhappily, rest on fast-perishing oral tradition alone. But the whole record, though not the most flagrant in modern history, is undeniably the vilest. “Who,” asks Job, “can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” And his answer is superfluous.

A fixed resolution to avoid the very appearance of digression in these annals prevents my referring to various sporadic Irish combinations of the 18th century⁠—Whiteboys, Steelboys, Oakboys, Peep-o’-day Boys, Defenders⁠—some Catholic, some Protestant, some mixed; but each representing an inarticulate protest against agrarian or ecclesiastical aggression. Notice, however, that the customary dragging in of these irrelevancies, to confuse the main issue, is not to be wondered at, seeing that Orangeism itself is based, in a large, general way, on the Bible. But again, what fanatical lunacy or class-atrocity of Christendom was ever based on anything else?

O Catholic and Protestant slaves of dogma! Zealots, Idumaeans, partisans of ye know not what! Fools all!⁠—whooping for your Ananus, your John of Giscala, your Simon of Bargioras; and fighting amongst yourselves, whilst the invincible legionaries of Science advance confidently on your polluted Temple! Small sympathy have ye from this Josephus.]

But Rory, poor fellow, had all the impressions of party spirit built into his moral system. It was a vital and personal fact to him, though only a historical truth to me, that this hereditary war of the Big-endians and Little-endians had been conducted by our own immediate forefathers. Strictly speaking, mind you, neither party cracked the egg⁠—that too⁠—dainty product being taboo for rent⁠—but they compromised by cracking each other’s domes of thought. Rory couldn’t get away from the strong probability that my grandfather had overpowered his own contemporary ancestor in the name of the Glorious, Pious and Immortal Memory, and had chopped his head off with a spade. He was willing to let bygones be bygones; but⁠—No more o’ that, an thou lovest me!

Yet he showed a distinctly intelligent interest, as well as a complacent assent, when I pointed out to him the irony of the Orangeman’s situation. England’s original title to the overrule of Ireland⁠—and a perfectly valid one, as times went then⁠—was the momentous bull of Pope Adrian IV, issued to Henry II, in 1155. And any private title to land in Ireland, traced back through inheritance, purchase, or whatnot, must lead to a Royal grant as its source; the authority for such grant being the Papal bull aforesaid, and the validity of the bull resting on the Pope’s temporal power. Now, the Orangeman is prepared to die in his last hiding-place in vindication of the English domination, that rests on the Papal bull, that is warranted by the Pope’s temporal power, that lay in the house that Peter built. To be sure, provided a title be safe, its value is not affected though it may have emanated from the Father of Lies himself. But we should frankly say so.

Rory’s character was made up of two fine elements, the poetic and the prosaic, but these were not compounded. There was a dreamy, idealistic Rory, born of a legend-loving race; and there was a painfully parsimonious Rory, trained down to the standard of a model wealth-producer. The first was of imagination all compact, living in an atmosphere of charms, fairies, poetic justice, and angelic guidance: the second was primed with homely maxims respecting the neglected value of copper currency. Which reminds me⁠—

We had been together about a week when the thresher came round. I had no crop of my own⁠—the wild cattle having walked over the dogleg fence, and eaten it (the crop, of course, not the fence)⁠—but we both