The amendment of the land-laws, which were directly responsible for these evil results, was by no means initiated in consequence of the famine.  It was due wholly to a great national agitation, carried out under the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell, which led to the land-acts of 1881 and 1887.  These new laws at last guaranteed to the cultivator the fruit of his toil, and guarded him against arbitrary increase of the tax levied on him by the “owner” of the land.  But they did not stop here; they initiated a principle which will finally make the cultivator absolute owner of his land, and abolish the feudal class with their rights of private taxation.  This cannot fail to react on England, so that the burdens of the Angles and Saxons will at last be lifted from their shoulders, as a result of the example set them by the Gaels, for generations working persistently, and persistently advancing towards their goal.  Nor will the tide thus set in motion spread only to Saxon and Angle; its influence will be felt wherever those who work are deprived unjustly of the fruit of their toil, whether by law or without law.  The evils suffered by Ireland will thus be not unavailing; they will rather bring the best of all rewards:  a reward to others, of whatever race and in whatever land, who are victims of a like injustice.

The story of Ireland, through many centuries, has thus been told.  The rest belongs to the future.  We have seen the strong life of the prime bringing forth the virtues of war and peace; we have seen valor and beauty and wisdom come to perfect ripeness in the old pagan world.  We have seen that old pagan world transformed by the new teaching of gentleness and mercy, a consciousness, wider, more humane and universal, added from above to the old genius of individual life.  With the new teaching came the culture of Rome, and something of the lore of Hellas and Palestine, of Egypt and Chaldea, warmly welcomed and ardently cherished in Ireland at a time when Europe was submerged under barbarian inroads and laid waste by heathen hordes.  We have seen the faith and culture thus preserved among our western seas generously shared with the nascent nations who emerged from the pagan invasions; the seeds of intellectual and spiritual life, sown with faith and fervor as far as the Alps and the Danube, springing up with God-given increase, and ripening to an abundant harvest.

To that bright epoch of our story succeeded centuries of growing darkness and gathering storm.  The forces of our national life, which until then had found such rich expression and flowered in such abundant beauty, were now checked, driven backward and inward, through war, oppression and devastation, until a point was reached when the whole indigenous population had no vestige of religious or civil rights; when they ceased even to exist in the eyes of the law.

The tide of life, thus forced inward, gained a firm possession of the invisible world, with the eternal realities indwelling there.  Thus fixed and founded in the real, that tide turned once again, flowing outwards and sweeping before it all the barriers in its way.  The population of Ireland is diminishing in numbers; but the race to which they belong increases steadily:  a race of clean life, of unimpaired vital power, unspoiled by wealth or luxury, the most virile force in the New World.