is hard to see how an earnest, consistent
and logically-minded Protestant can be a Nationalist; for loyalty to
the King is a part of his creed; and, in the words of a Nationalist
organ, the _Midland Tribune_, "If a man be a Nationalist he must _ipso
facto_ be a Disloyalist, for Irish Nationalism and loyalty to the
throne of England could not be synonymous."

On the other hand, a large proportion of the educated Roman Catholics,
the men who have a real stake in the country, are Unionists. Some
of them, however earnest they may be in their religion, dread the
domination of a political priesthood; others dread still more the
union of the Church with anarchism. As has already been shown,
they refuse to join the United Irish League; some in the north have
actually subscribed the Ulster Covenant; many others have signed
petitions against Home Rule throughout the country; and a still larger
number have stated that they would gladly do so if they did not fear
the consequences. It is probably therefore correct to say that
the number of Unionists in Ireland decidedly exceeds the number of
Protestants; in other words, less than three-fourths of the population
are Nationalists, and more than one-fourth (perhaps about one-third)
are Unionists. And more than that; if we are to test the reality of
a movement, we must look not merely at numbers but at other matters.
Violent language may be used; but the fact remains as I have
previously stated that even if the Nationalists are taken as being
only two-thirds of the population, their annual subscriptions to the
cause do not amount to anything like a penny per head and that the
agitation could not last for six months if it were not kept alive
by contributions from America and the Colonies. But though the
Nationalist movement has not brought about a Union between the Orange
and the Green, it has caused two other Unions to be formed which will
have an important influence on the future history of the country. In
the first place it has revived, or cemented, the Union which, as we
have seen, existed at former periods of Irish history, but which has
existed in no other country in the world--the Union between the
Black and the Red. That a Union between two forces so essentially
antagonistic as Ultramontanism and Jacobinism will be permanent, one
can hardly suppose; whether the clericals, if they succeed in crushing
the heretics, will afterwards be able to turn and crush the anarchists
with who