The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hyacinth, by George A. Birmingham

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Title: Hyacinth
1906

Author: George A. Birmingham

Release Date: January 23, 2008 [EBook #10538]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by David Widger

HYACINTH

By George A. Birmingham

1906

CHAPTER I

In the year 1850 or thereabouts religious and charitable society in
England was seized with a desire to convert Irish Roman Catholics to
the Protestant faith. It is clear to everyone with any experience of
missionary societies that, the more remote the field of actual work, the
easier it is to keep alive the interest of subscribers. The mission to
Roman Catholics, therefore, commenced in that western portion of Galway
which the modern tourist knows as Connemara, and the enthusiasm was
immense. Elderly ladies, often with titles, were energetic in the cause
of the new reformation. Young ladies, some of them very attractive,
collected money from their brothers and admirers. States-men and Bishops
headed the subscription-lists, and influential committees earnestly
debated plans for spending the money which poured in. Faith in the
efficacy of money handled by influential committees is one of the
characteristics of the English people, and in this particular case
it seemed as if their faith were to be justified by results. Most
encouraging reports were sent to headquarters from Gonnemara. It
appeared that converts were flocking in, and that the schools of the
missionaries were filled to overflowing. In the matter of education
circumstances favoured the new reformation. The leonine John McHale, the
Papal Archbishop of Tuam, pursued a policy which drove the children of
his flock into the mission schools. The only other kind of education
available was that which some humorous English statesman had called
'national,' and it did not seem to the Archbishop desirable that an
Irish boy should be beaten for speaking his own language, or rewarded
for calling himself 'a happy English child.' He refused to allow the
building of national schools in his diocese, and thus left the cleverer
boys to drift int