Gentlemen, it is attempted in this case to make the traversers amenable under the Party Processions’ Act, because those in the procession wore green ribbons.  Gentlemen, this is the first time, in the history of Irish State Prosecutions which mark the periods of gloom and peril in this country, that the wearing of a green ribbon has been formally indicted; and I may say it is no good sign of the times that an offence which has been hitherto unknown to the law should now crop up for the first time in this year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.  Not even in the worst days of Lord Castlereagh’s ill-omened regime was such an attempt as this made to degrade the green of Ireland into a party colour, and to make that which has long been regarded as a national emblem the symbol of a faction.  Gentlemen, there is no right-minded or right-hearted man—­looking back upon the ruinous dissensions and bitter conflicts which have been the curse and bane of this country—­who will not reprobate any effort to revive and perpetuate them.  There is no well-disposed man in the community who will not condemn and crush those persons—­no matter on what side they may stand—­who make religion, which should be the fountain and mother of all peace and blessings, the cause of rancour and animosity.  We have had, unhappily, gentlemen, too much of this in Ireland.  We have been too long the victims of that wayward fate of which the poet wrote, when he said:—­

“Whilst our tyrants join in hate,
We never joined in love.”

But, gentlemen, I will ask of you if you ever before heard, until this time, that the green of Ireland was the peculiar colour of any particular sect, creed, or faction, or that any of the people of this country wore it as the peculiar emblem of their party, and for the purpose of giving annoyance and of offering insult to some other portion of their fellow-countrymen.  I must say that I never heard before that Catholic or Protestant, or Quaker or Moravian, laid claim to this colour as a symbol of party.  I thought all Irishmen, no matter what altar they bowed before, regarded the green as the national colour of Ireland.  If it is illegal to wear the green, all I can say is that the Constabulary are guilty of a constant and continuing breach of the law.  The Lord and Lady Lieutenant will probably appear on next Patrick’s Day, decorated with large bunches of green shamrock.  Many of the highest officials of the government will do the same; and is it to be thought for one moment that they, by wearing this green emblem of Ireland and of Irish nationality, are violating the law of the land.  Gentlemen, it is perfectly absurd to think so.  I hope this country has not yet so fallen as that it has become a crime to wear the green.  I trust we have not yet come to that pass of national degradation, that a jury of Irishmen can be found so forgetful of their country’s dignity and of their own as to brand with a mark