APPENDIX B

RIBBON MEN

THE Catholic control of the Ribbon Organisation has always been denied by those interested in hiding the relations which have always existed, and still exist, between Irish secret societies and Irish Roman Catholicism.

In 1828, when the Catholic Association assumed form, "No feature of Irish society alarmed the Government and all reflecting men more than the sudden and total cessation of Irish crime. That which, if it had come about gradually and as a consequence of improved prosperity or education, was now ominous and alarming, as showing the power of the Catholic leaders and the strength of their Organisation. At the bidding of these men, feuds were suspended; factions met and acted as brethren; and men mastered their strongest propensities in order to become vast soldiery for the achievement of political objects."

Daniel O'Connell, the 'Liberator' of Ireland, did not approve of Continental Liberalism, and at the time of the French Revolution of 1830 he declared his principles. "I, a Liberal! No! I despise the French Liberals. I consider them the enemies, not only of religion, but of liberty; and

* H. Martineau, History of England, Vol. I, p. 47.

I am thoroughly assured that religion is the only sane basis of human freedom."

James Conolly, in Labour in Irish History, takes the view that the Ribbon Men were really a secret industrial trade union for the protection of labourers and small farmers.

The Ribbon Men were so seamed with subdivisions-Whiteboys, Rockites, Tenyalts, Lady Clare's Boys, and so on, that it is not clear to anyone whether the Ribbon Organisation of 1832 had any politics beyond agrarianism and Catholic sectarianism. As Whiteboys they certainly were at political and practical war with the Orangemen, and throughout their activities appear to have been criminal and anti-social, outrage, terrorism and murder being their only methods of political

conversion.

Tract No. IV.

APPENDIX C

THE SINN FEIN OATH

"I swear by the Almighty God, by all in heaven and upon earth, by the Holy and Blessed Prayer Book of our Church, by the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mother of God, by her Sorrowings and Sufferings at the foot of the Cross, by her Tears and Wailings, by St. Patrick, by the Blessed and Adorable Host, by the Blessed Rosary and Holy Beads, by the Holy and Blessed Church in all ages and by our Holy National Martyrs, to fight until we die, wading in the fields of Red Gore of the Saxon Tyrants and Murderers of the Glorious Cause of Nationality, and if spared, to fight until there is not a single vestige and a space for a footprint left to tell that the Holy Soil of Ireland was trodden on by the Saxon Tyrants and the Murderers, and moreover, when the English Protestant Robbers and Beasts in Ireland shall be driven into the sea, like the swine that Jesus Christ caused to be drowned, we shall embark for and take England, root out every vestige of the accursed Blood of the Heretics, Adulterers and Murderers of Henry VIII, and possess ourselves of the treasures of the Beasts that have so long kept our beloved Isle of Saints, our Ireland, in chains of bondage, and driven us from our genial shores to settle in foreign lands,

and shall wade in the blood of Orangemen and Heretics who do not join us and become one of ourselves. Scotland, too, having given her aid and succour to the Beasts we shall leave in her Red Gore and shall not give up the conquest until we have our Holy Father complete ruler of the British Isles as he was before the Reformation. To all this, singly and collectively, I swear to fulfil as before mentioned with my eyes blinded, not knowing whom to me administers this oath, so help me God.

Among the questions and answers that follow we read :

Question: What do you think of the times; will they be good?

Answer: I think they will.

Question: At what time?

Answer: When we have a general shower of Protestant and Heretic blood.

"The above is an exact copy of the Sinn Fein oath taken from one of them during the riots in September, 1920, near Belfast, Ireland, this copy coming to America through an American citizen from Ulster, who has been there since late Spring, 1920, with relatives, he having seen all the riots about Belfast (notably the bloody 12th July).

This Roman Catholic Irish oath had the stamp and seal of the Irish Republic on it.

"These oaths are furnished at 25 cents per 100, or 2 dollars per 1000.

Address: The Rail Splitter, Milan III."

The above pamphlet made its appearance in the U.S.A. and was widely circulated. It gave con

siderable offence to Sinn Feiners, for it is not the Sinn Fein oath. On the other hand, it contains internal indications that it is the oath administered by some one of the little societies which, descending from the old Defenders through the Ribbon Men, are now mostly embodied in the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

These purely sectarian societies are by no means all controlled by the orthodox A.O.H., and some still maintain very old traditions. The main body of this engaging form of oath suggests that it is almost a pre-Cromwellian survival, and it has undeniable kinship with certain early forms of oath already given.

It has been stigmatised by Sinn Feiners as a forgery; such a thing is possible, but I do not think that it is. A phrase here and there may have been changed or amended during the passage of the centuries, for it has probably been handed down by oral tradition, but I think that it is unmistakably the oath form of an Irish Secret Society. A manuscript copy of it was also intercepted in 1920 in a bale of goods consigned from Belfast to London.