Ireland every
poet we honor has dedicated his genius to his country without gain, and
has given without stint, without any niggardly withholding of his gift
when his nation was dark and evil days. Not one of our writers, when
deeply moved about Ireland, has tried to sell the gift of the spirit.
You, brother, hurt me when you declare your principles, and declare a
dividend to yourself out of your patriotism openly and at the same time.

I would not reason with you, but that I know there is something truly
great and noble in you, and there have been hours when the immortal in
you secured your immortality in literature, when you ceased to see life
with that hard cinematograph eye of yours, and saw with the eyes of
the spirit, and power and tenderness and insight were mixed in magical
tales. But you were far from the innermost when you wrote of my
countrymen us you did.

I have lived all my life in Ireland, holding a different faith from that
held by the majority. I know Ireland as few Irishmen know it, county by
county, for I traveled all over Ireland for years, and, Ulster man as I
am, and proud of the Ulster people, I resent the crowning of Ulster
with all the virtues and the dismissal of other Irishmen as thieves and
robbers. I resent the cruelty with which you, a stranger, speak of the
lovable and kindly people I know.

You are not even accurate in your history when you speak of Ulster's
traditions and the blood our forefathers spilt. Over a century ago
Ulster was the strong and fast place of rebellion, and it was in Ulster
that the Volunteers stood beside their cannon and wrung the gift of
political freedom for the Irish Parliament. You are blundering in your
blame. You speak of Irish greed in I know not what connection, unless
you speak of the war waged over the land; and yet you ought to know that
both parties in England have by Act after Act confessed the absolute
justice and rightness of that agitation, Unionist no less than Liberal,
and both boast of their share in answering the Irish appeal. They are
both proud today of what they did. They made inquiry into wrong and
redressed it. But you, it seems, can only feel sore and angry that
intolerable conditions imposed by your laws were not borne in patience
and silence. For what party do you speak? What political ideal inspires
you? When an Irishman has a grievance you smite him. How differently
would you have written of Runnymede and the valiant men who rebelled