HL Deb 26 May 1873 vol 216 cc414-26

Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read

LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY,

in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was to allow the people of Ireland to restore the ruins on the Rock of Cashel by private sub scriptions. This could not be done without an Act of Parliament; because the Rock, after the Act for Disestablishing the Irish Church, passed into the hands of the Church Temporalities Commissioners, who had transferred its custody to the Board of Works, and had set aside a sum of £7,000, the interest of which was to maintain a few custodians of the Rock and its antiquities. In doing this the President of the Church Temporalities Commissioners exercised a sound discretion, since it was necessary to take immediate measures to prevent the damage caused to the sculptures and antiquities of the Rock by tourists and others, and he believed that the damage recently inflicted had been very great. Of course, if this Bill passed, the £7,000 temporarily set aside for the maintenance of the antiquities would revert to the fund of the Disestablished Church. This Bill had, therefore, the effect of amending, and might be intituled a Bill to amend, the first sub-section of Clause 25 of the Irish Church Act of 1869. He must now go into the history of the Rock of Cashel. Its church was founded in the year 903; other buildings were added, and many tombs of Irish Kings and chieftains were situated upon the Rock. He had better leave to others to inform their Lordships more fully respecting the antiquarian interest which attached to the Rock of Cashel. After the Reformation the cathedral on the Rock became the property of the Protestant Irish Church; but in. 1745 Archbishop Price, the then Diocesan, removed his cathedral church from the Rock to the low ground, for the Archbishop was a stout man and averse from walking up a steep hill, and he stripped the roof of the cathedral and used its timbers for building a modern church and his own house. In 1749, Archbishop Agar, having proved that the old cathedral was incapable of restoration, the ruins and the new cathedral in Cashel were consolidated by an Order in Council. The Disestablished Church might, therefore, be fairly said to have given up and renounced a church which it had turned into a ruin, and which had remained a ruin up to the present time. He did not wish to blame Archbishop Price for an act clone in an age when taste and art and the knowledge of architecture were at a very low ebb; and he might state that an Irish newspaper—which might, for aught he knew, be an organ of Home Rulers—was very temperate in its language with respect to this matter, and excused Archbishop Price on the ground of the ignorance of the times in which this vandalism was perpetrated. But the effects of this demolition survived, and were felt more strongly in this age when the Irishman saw the shrines so unnecessarily ruined, and the shattered tombs of his national heroes, and it was but natural that the maxim which held good in Pagan Rome should hold good in Christian Ireland— Delicta majorum immeritus lues, Romane, donec templa refeceris ædesque labentes Deorum, Et fœda nigro simulacra fumo. But the Protestants of Ireland did not only renounce the possession of this cathedral when they made a ruin of it; they did so a second time by the force of circumstances after the Act of Disestablishment, when they did not claim it from the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners. They did not do so because they had no need of it, and had no funds for rebuilding it, and had no worshippers to occupy it if rebuilt; for the Protestant population of Cashel was only 300 among 3,700 Catholics, and in the county there were only 13,000 Protestants to 200,000 Catholics. For the Protestants, therefore, to refuse to consent to the ruins of the Cashel Cathedral being restored to life and usefulness, and to insist upon their being kept as ruins, would be for them to act the part of the false mother before Solomon, who preferred to have the useless half of a dead child sooner than that her rival should have the living child. They were not told why these mothers should have been rivals, and there was no reason why Protestants and Catholics should carry rivalry to this extent, as there was room for both. There was an argument against the restoration of the Rock of Cashel, but which would hardly be put before their Lordships, because this was not a dinner of the Royal Academy; that was the painter's argument—that ruins are picturesque and ornamental. Now, it might be admitted that the fragment of a tower entirely covered with ivy was a picturesque object; but their Lordships would probably agree with him that the broken arches and windowless mullions of a cathedral were painful objects, as much so as the ribs of horses and camels near the top of a mountain pass which they had failed to surmount, or the spectacle which he had seen at the Sulinah mouth of the Danube, of the naked ribs of more than 20 wrecks strewing the beach on either side of the bar. But if these sights were unpleasing, how much more were they so when one considered, as their Lordships were bound to do, the inner meaning of these ruins? The ruins of a church denoted either decay of population, decay of faith, or the ravages of invasion or the worse havoc of civil war. The ruins of Cashel denoted the penal laws and their effects; and, as their Lordships had laboured during several Sessions to remove the remains of the penal laws, it might be hoped that they would equally desire to remove the outward sign of those laws, and to give the Irish peasant a visible sign of their good intentions on his behalf. Englishmen had been used to deride and ridicule the strife and contention which broke out so constantly between the Greeks and the Latins for the sake of some picture or piece of tapestry even within the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. They could not enter into the feelings which caused the dispute about a key which led to the Crimean War. Would they suffer that Ireland should be no better in respect of charity and mutual toleration than Syrian Christians? Mr. Kinglake said of the Bethlehem dispute— Diplomacy answered that the key was really a key—a key for opening a door; and its evil quality was, not that it kept the Greeks out, hut that it let the Latins come in. This Bill, in the same way, would not keep a single Protestant from access to a national monument, because it admitted the Latins to restore their ruined shrines. But this question was not only one of a shrine; it involved also national sentiment. The Rock of Cashel was the Acropolis of Ireland; to restore it would be a harmless outlet for the national sentiment, which was at present pent up and dangerous. From an Imperial point of view nothing better could be desired than that the money required for the rebuilding of Cashel, which could not be less than £100,000, and which would come from Canada and Australia, should be diverted from the pockets of Fenian head-centres, and that so large a sum as would be required should be spent in a poor part of Ireland by the Irish themselves without any thought of a petition to the National Exchequer. He was rather ashamed of this argument, but was obliged to use the bad as well as the good, like the lawyer referred to recently by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Their Lordships would understand what the feeling of the Irish was with regard to Cashel, when he stated that quite recently a Catholic church was built in Wisconsin, in the United States, and that some hundredweights of stone were sent out from the Rock of Cashel to form the foundations of the new church. The recent Acts which their Lordships had passed had removed—or were intended to remove—grievances; but they had done nothing to reconstruct. There was the great disadvantage attending the cutting down of "upas trees," that immediately parties started up to protest that these upas trees were ornamental trees, and should not be cut down. This measure, on the contrary, would be a planting of olive trees, for it took nothing from anyone, and its object was restoration and reconstruction. He regretted that the noble Lord (Viscount Midleton), who was to move the rejection of this Bill, did not leave that task to some other noble Lord. He was told that the noble Lord came forward as the lineal descendant of a Prelate who was the spiritual successor of the Prelate who reduced Cashel Cathedral to a ruin. The noble Lord professed to belong to the Conservative party. Was it as one of that party that he advocated the perpetuation of ruin and decay? There were some ancestral duties and obligations which conferred honour upon the person upon whom they devolved. Such was the case with the noble Lord (Lord Buckhurst) who came forward to defend Emanuel Hospital. By so doing he became a second founder of that institution, and even those who disagreed with him might envy him his feelings of satisfaction. But far different was the case with the noble Lord who was now coming forward to renew the acts of his predecessor. He had taken up what was a damnosa hœreditas. He had already said that the Prelate who ruined Cashel Cathedral might be excused on the ground of the age in which he lived; but the noble Lord had no such excuse. He was acting in opposition to the enlightenment and the spirit of the present times and of our recent legislation. He would not suffer the people of Ireland to restore their shrines and protect the tombs of their kings from the hoofs of the cattle, or to be happy unless they crossed the wide Atlantic. He was going to address their Lordships in the attitude and language of vindictive Juno, and to say— Qualibet exules In parte regnanto beati, Dune Priami Paridisque busto Insultet armentum. The rest of the quotation would not apply, since, unlike Juno, he would not suffer Ireland's Capitoline Rock to be made refulgent, even though this should be done at the cost of Irishmen only. It was a pious belief in some countries that testamentary executors or heirs might add merit or take away blame from a testator, according as they carried out or modified his testamentary instructions. But the noble Lord seemed to be indifferent to lightening the burden on the memory of the act, which, instead of repudiating, he sought to renew and perpetuate, and which he would, perhaps, attempt to justify, and must justify, in order to justify the Motion which he was about to make. Other noble Lords had told him that they would do their best to throw out the Bill, and he believed they would tell their Lordships that the Rock of Cashel was provided for, and was already in the possession of the people of Ireland. Whether that Bill passed, or whether the Rock was condemned to continue a ruin under the guardianship of the Board of Works, it would be equally in the possession of the people of Ireland—that was to say, equally free and open to all who might choose to visit it. But the question was whether those tombs of Celtic chiefs in the South of Ireland were to be restored and beautified under the guardianship of those who were historically and traditionally related to them, or whether those tombs were to be kept in a state of desecration and decay under the guardianship of men of Scotch and English descent, who could not possess the same traditional affection for those remains. He had received a letter from the Treasurer of the Royal Irish Academy recommending that the Bill should provide for access of persons interested in archæology or art, and though such a provision would not, he thought, be necessary, it would be very easy to add it in Committee should the Bill reach that stage. In Spain all the monuments and libraries which were under the care of ecclesiastics were well preserved, whilst those under the care of the State had been, in many cases, shamefully plundered. It had been suggested to him by a noble Lord opposite that it would have been advisable to substitute for the names of trustees which stood in the Bill those of official trustees such as the Chief Justices, or such persons as the Lord Lieutenant might please to name. Some other names might very well be added, but the Irish names in the Bill could not be withdrawn without causing great disappointment to persons who intended to sub- scribe for the restoration of the ruins, and names were required to procure other subscriptions. He believed that the name of Dr. Leahy, the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, was most favourably known to their Lordships; but he might be allowed to remind them that he had, by moral influence alone, succeeded in closing the whisky shops within his diocese during Sundays. At the risk of appearing very exacting, he confessed he should not be entirely satisfied if the Bill were passed by their Lordships, unless it had the support, or at least the tacit acquiescence, of the noble and learned Lord opposite (Lord Cairns); for while, if this Bill should pass by English votes, it would be a boon to Ireland and a crowning of the edifice of the Irish Church Act, yet it would be much more than that if it passed with the consent of the noble and learned Lord who in himself alone represented Ulster. If the Bill should receive his consent it would be a peace offering from the North to the South and West of Ireland—a burying of old animosities; and he believed it was no exaggeration to say that for a long time it would put an end to the annual fights at Belfast. The noble and learned Lord had so often shown that personal and even party considerations did not in his mind outweigh broad and statesmanlike views, that he trusted the noble and learned Lord would pardon him for being so sanguine as to hope that he would deal with this question with his usual magnanimity. There was another portion of their Lordships House whose votes, he thought, he was entitled to claim on behalf of the Bill, on the ground that such a vote would be in accordance with a former and a memorable vote in the course of the Irish Church debate. It would be in their Lordships' recollection that first the noble Duke (the Duke of Cleveland), and afterwards the noble Earl opposite (Earl Stanhope), moved that residences should be provided for the houseless Irish clergy out of the surplus of the property of the Disestablished Church. That Motion was carried by a majority; but circumstances prevented its being carried into effect. There was no reason to suppose that any of their Lordships who then voted for the noble Earl's Motion had had reason to regret that vote, and the speech of the noble Earl on the cross-benches (Earl Grey) last week must have convinced those who heard or read it that both England and Ireland had reason to regret that that vote was not at the time carried into effect.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(Lord Stanley of Alderley.)

VISCOUNT MIDLETON,

in moving that the Bill be read a second time this day six months, said, that the Rock of Cashel, the very name of which was probably unknown to most of their Lordships, was a stupendous mass of limestone rising with craggy and precipitous sides to the height of 300 feet from the fertile plain below. The Irish legend connected with it was that at some early period it had been transported by supernatural agency from a mountain many miles away from Cashel and dropped in the spot where it now stood. On the limited space which formed its summit there were collected within a few acres five of the most interesting monuments which any country could possess. They were—the ruins of the Archbishop's residence, the ruins of the Palace of the Kings of Munster, the ruins of the Cathedral, the ruins of King Cormac's Chapel, and the ruins of a Round Tower. Around it lay 750 houses, which comprised the modern town of Cashel. In times long gone by the Cathedral was a place not only of ecclesiastical worship, but was also a fortress. It was in that character that it was stormed in 1647, at the close of those troubles which had decimated Ireland, by an English army, at the head of which was Lord Inchiquin; and from that moment it had been handed over to the then Established Church of Ireland, and remained in its possession to its disestablishment. Forty years later the Dean and Chapter of Cashel attempted to restore a portion of the Cathedral; but it was a long and expensive work, and it was not till 1707 that there was any record of religious teaching being carried on within its walls. For 60 years longer the service of the Church of England was carried on regularly within it, until in 1769 the exposure of the site, the difficulty of access, and the smallness of the congregation made it desirable to provide at the foot of the Rock a more commodious place of worship. An Act of Parliament was obtained for the purpose, and the new Cathedral was established at the end of the 18th century. Such was the state of matters when the Act for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church was passed in 1869. Their Lordships would recollect that the 25th section of that Act had reference to what was to be done with ruins of ecclesiastical buildings which at the time of the passing of the Act were used for public worship. The section provided that such buildings should be preserved as national monuments and not used as places of worship. The words to this effect were clear, distinct, and definite, and having had the honour to be a Member of the House of Commons at the time the Irish Church Bill was under discussion in that House he could assert that the Rock of Cashel was one of the principal monuments, if not the principal one, to the preservation of which that clause was directed. The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral of Cashel had contemplated sending in a claim to the monuments on the Rock; but, through considerations which he approved, they resolved not to do so, and those monuments passed over to the Church Temporalities Commissioners, who transferred them to the Board of Works in Ireland, with a sum of £7,100 for their maintenance. This was in accordance with the 25th section of the Irish Church Act, and but for the severity of last winter certain works of maintenance directed by the Board would have been executed before now. He might remind their Lordships that at the time of the passing of the Act it was open to those who now wanted the Rock to put forward their claim if they thought they had a good one. But they had not taken that course. At the beginning of the present Session a Bill on the same subject was introduced in the House of Commons, but it mysteriously disappeared before the stage of second reading. Then its promoters pounced on his noble Friend (Lord Stanley of Alderley), who was totally unacquainted with the wants and wishes of the Irish people, and got him to propose a Bill seeking to do what the Disestablishment Act said should not be done—namely, to turn this place into a place of public worship. A measure of this kind, repealing an important section in the Irish Church Act, should be brought forward, if brought forward at all, by the Executive Government. Again, of the 36 trustees named in the Bill, no fewer than 30 belonged to one creed. Among the remaining six trustees were the noble Marquess on the cross-benches (the Marquess of Clanricarde), who he hoped liked the company in which he found himself, for of the others one was an English physician who represented an Irish county, while another was Sir John Gray, proprietor of The Freeman's Journal. He denied that either of those gentlemen could be regarded as fairly representing the Protestants of Ireland. If there were spiritual destitution in the neighbourhood some good reason might be put forward for the proposition; but he was sorry to say that the population of the parish of Cashel was a decreasing one, and that it only numbered 3,900 persons, of whom 300 were Protestants. The Roman Catholics had a large church there; but their cathedral was now and had long been at Thurles, which was so convenient a position for the whole of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical body that synods and other ecclesiastical assemblies of the Roman Catholic Church had been held there. A more unfavourable spot than the summit of the Rock of Cashel could scarcely be selected for a place of worship. He hoped, therefore, their Lordships would agree to his Amendment.

Amendment moved to leave out ("now") and insert ("this day six months.")—(Viscount Midleton.)

THE EARL OF LIMERICK,

in supporting the second reading of the Bill, contended that the buildings would be better in the hands of trustees than under the care of the Board of Works; and that to hand them over for the religious use of the majority of the people could not be objectionable. It would be far better that religious services should again be held in the building than that the building should be left in the hands of the Board of Works to be made a show of.

VISCOUNT MONCK

concurred with the noble Viscount who had moved the Amendment (Viscount Midleton) in holding that the 25th section of the Irish Church Act had direct reference to those most interesting ruins on the Rock of Cashel. He was opposed to this Bill, because it was an interference with the settlement of a great question, which was supposed to be a final one. He objected to it for other reasons, one of which was that those ruins were interesting in an archæological point of view, and that they could not be restored as a place of worship without destroying the features which made them interesting. The Church Temporalities Commissioners had made ample provision for the maintenance of the ruins, and their preservation might well be left in the hands of the Board of Works. But his opposition was based more strongly on a question of feeling. He thought the Roman Catholics of Ireland behaved in a manner that was highly creditable to them on the passing of the Irish Church Act. That Act must have been most agreeable to them, yet they indulged in no manifestations of triumph when it became law; but he thought that, so far from planting the olive, this Bill would exasperate religious animosities in Ireland, and oven create bad feeeling where it did not now exist. For those reasons he must oppose the Bill.

LORD DUNSANY

opposed the Bill, because he believed that it would, if passed into law, create a great deal of bitter feeling, and might probably give rise to other demands on the part of the Roman Catholics.

THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE

said, he thought the Bill would do what would be agreeable to a large number of people without doing a wrong to anybody.

EARL GRANVILLE

said, he was anxious to state the reason of the vote he was about to give. In framing the Irish Church Bill this very question received the anxious attention of the Cabinet, and, knowing the state of public feeling on the subject, it was determined to leave the matter in its present condition. He believed that as yet it was far too early to disturb the settlement which was then arrived at.

THE EARL OF KINTORE

said, he would vote against the Bill it it came to a division, because he believed it would excite much animosity and dispute in Ireland.

THE EARL OF GRANARD,

as one of the trustees mentioned in the Bill, regretted the vehement opposition offered to a measure calculated, as he believed, to effect much good, and which was framed in no offensive spirit to anybody.

On Question, that ("now") stand part of the Motion? Their Lordships divided:—Contents, 23; Not-Contents, 112: Majority, 89.

Resolved, in the negative; and Bill to be read a second time this day six months.

CONTENTS.
Bedford, D. Granard, L. (E. Granard.)
Devonshire, D.
Norfolk, D. Greville, L.
Hanmer, L.
Bute, M.
Houghton, L.
Devon, E. Howard of Glossop, L.
Gainsborough, E. Leigh, L.
Lovelace, E. Lismore, L. (V. Lismore.) [Teller.]
Portsmouth, E.
Petre, L.
Carew, L. Somerhill, L. (Mr. Clanricarde.)
Eliot, L.
Ettrick, L. (L. Napier.) Stanley of Alderley, L. [Teller.] [22]
Foxford, L. (E. Limerick
NOT-CONTENTS.
Selborne, L. (L. Chancellor.) Stanhope, E.
Strathmore and Kinghorn, E.
York, Archp. Waldegrave, E.
Wicklow, E.
Cleveland, D.
Manchester, D. Clancarty, V. (E. Clancarty.)
Marlborough, D.
Richmond, D. Doneraile, V.
Saint Albans, D. Eversley, V.
Gough, V.
Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.) Halifax, V.
Hawarden, V. [Teller.]
Bristol, M. Sidmouth, V.
Hertford, M. Sydney, V.
Amherst, E. Carlisle, Bp.
Bathurst, E. Ely, Bp.
Belmore, E. Gloucester and Bristol, Bp.
Brownlow, E.
Cadogan, E. Hereford, Bp.
Camperdown, E. Lincoln, Bp.
Carnarvon, E. London, Bp.
Cathcart, E. Peterborough, Bp.
Chichester, E. Rochester, Bp.
Cowper, E. Winchester, Bp.
Dartrey, E.
Derby, E. Abercromby, L.
Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.) Aveland, L.
Belper, L.
Blachford, L.
Feversham, E. Bolton, L.
Fitzwilliam, E. Brodrick, L. (V. Middleton.)
Granville, E.
Grey, E. Cairns, L.
Harewood, E. Carysfort, L. (E. Carysfort.)
Howe, E.
Kimberley, E. Chelmsford, L.
Lanesborough, E. Clanbrassill, L. (E. Roden.)
Lauderdale, E.
Leven and Melville, E. Clifton, L (E. Darnley.)
Morley, E. Clinton, L.
Morton, E. Colchester, L.
Nelson, E. Colonsay, L.
Rosse, E. Colville of Culross, L.
Shaftesbury, E. Crewe, L.
De Ros. L. Oranmore and Browne, L.
De Saumarez, L.
Digby, L. Oxenfoord, L, (E. Stair.)
Dinevor, L. Penrhyn, L.
Dunsany, L. [Teller.] Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)
Egerton, L.
Foley, L. Raglan, L.
Grinstead, L. (E. Enniskillen.) Ravensworth, L.
Redesdale, L.
Headley, L. Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)
Heytesbury, L.
Hylton, L. Saltersford, L. (E. Courtown.)
Inchiquin, L.
Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.) Silchester, L. (E. Longford.)
Leconfield, L.
Lyveden, L. Skelmersdale, L.
Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.) Sondes, L.
Templemore, L.
Minster, L. (M. Conyngham.) Ventry, L.
Vernon, L.
Monck, L. (V. Monck.) Wharncliffe, L.
Monson, L. Wrottesley, L.
Mostyn, L.