Excerpt from Our Nationalities, Vol. 1: Who Are the Irish?

Is the question one of Birth, or Blood 9 If birth, the son of Irish parents, when he chanced to be born while his mother was visiting England, never gained the coveted rights, while the equally fortuitous birth of another in Erin, though of English parentage, procured for him the privileges.

If of blood, some awkward difficulties arise. A vast number of comfortable officials would have, on that principle, to retire in England were the Home Rule theory reduced to practice. Who, then, would cease to rule in Ireland?

As genealogies are not preserved now, except among the landed aristocracy, if reputed Scotch and English were to be excluded from State affairs in Ireland, and the origin be decided by the question of names, nearly all the prominent Irish leaders would be immediately silenced, since they clearly belong to that hated race that conquered Ireland.

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