AN GAODHAL.
581
idea of the settement of this country in two events
— the landing of Columbus, and the landing of
the Pilgrims — when I state, upon very respectable
authority, that the Irish were in America bafore
either Columbus or the Puritans, The Irish were
at a very early period, navigators and explorers ;
for when the Northmen discovered Iceland, in the
9th century, they found, as appears by Icelandic
records which are still in existence, a Christian
people there, who afterwards went away, leaving
behind them Irish books, bells and croziers, show¬
ing that they were Irish, and had among them ec¬
clesiastics. It appears further by these Scandin¬
avian records, that in the 10th century, after the
discovery of America by the Northmen, a fact
generally conceded, that south of Vineland, to which
the Northmen came, and which is supposed to have
been in the region of Massachustts Bay, there was
another country called in the records "White
Man's Land or Great Ireland," toward which an
Iceland chief in 982 was driven by a tempest, and
where he remained. And another Icelandish wri¬
ter of the 10th century records that about 30 years
afterwards, a vessel with a mixed crew of Irishmen
and Icelanders was carried off the west coast of
Ireland, by an easterly wind, to this western land,
called in the record of "Great Ireland." That
they found a safe harbor, and to their great aston¬
ishment, a people who understood the Irish lang¬
uage, who were ruled over by this Icelandic chief
who had been away so long. Professor Rafn fixes
the "Great Ireland" referred to in these Scandin¬
avian records as south of Chesapeake Bay; and
Rask, the great Danish archeologist and scholar
says that the writers of these records in the 10th
century could have had no motive to fabricate this
account about Great Ireland. That there is no¬
thing impossible in it, as at the time when the
Northmen visited Vineland the Irish were far more
advanced in learning and civilization, and why, he
asks, should they not undertake like expeditions?
But whatever may be thought of what is found in
these early Scandinavian records, it is beyond
question that the Irish race participated with Col¬
umbus in the discovery of America. Before his
return from his first voyage Columbus built a fort
upon the Island of San Domingo, where he placed
thirty-seven men and three officese to await his
return, and when upon his second voyage he re¬
turned to this spot, he found that the whole gar¬
rison had been killed and the fort destroyed.
When Narvette was searching for the documents
in the archives of Seville for the great work which
he published in 1825, he found one containing the
names of the 40 persons that Columbus had thus
left, which document he incorporated in his work
It appears by it that all of these persons, except
two were Spaniard or Portuguese, and of these two
that one was an Irishman. The entry is as fol¬
lows, — "Guiellermo Ihres natural de Galway in
Irelanda" — William Eyres, native of Galway in
Ireland. So that an Irishman was among the first
of civilized races that took up a permanent resi¬
dence in America. If very little has been said here¬
tofore upon the subject, it must be from the mod¬
esty of our race, for in this respect we differ from
our Eastern brethen, who are constantly anchor¬
ing all American history to the Rock of Plymouth.
When our Society was organized in 1784, among
its objects was to find employment for Irish emi¬
grants coming to this city and to relieve them by
pecuniary aid in sickness and want. It did this
work very effectually until about forty years ago,
when the great increase of Irish emigration ren¬
dered it impossible to carry out all the purposes
for which it was organized, and in consequence
after a great deal of discussion and deliberation
two institutions were formed from the society — the
Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, and the Irish
Emigrant Society, both of which, upon their sep¬
arate organization, were composed exclusively of
members of the Society — since which period the
Society has confined itself soleiy to discharging, to
the extent of its limited ability, the purposes for
which it was organized, and celebrated each year
by a public banquet its own and the anniversary
of the Patron Saint of Ireland.
NOTE. — The leading men of the Irish race, by
birth or lineage in the city of New York, have al¬
ways been largely represented in the Friendly Sons
of St. Patrick, Among its deceased mambers are
found the names of Hugh Gaine, Daniel McCor¬
mick, James A. Constable, Gov. Geo. Clinton, Jas,
Duane, Alexander Macomb, Gov. Dewitt Clinton,
Dr. Wm. Macnevin, Thomas Addis Emmett, James
McBride, William Sampson, Dr. Chambers, Jacob
Harvey Campbell, P. White, William Reyburn, T.
S. Brady, Dr. Bushe, Dr. Hogan, Chas. O'Connor.
Judge Robert Emmett, Robert J. Dilon, James T.
Brady. John L. Dillon, Thomas Francis Meagher,
Joseph Stewart, William Whiteside, William Wat¬
son.
Gladstone and those who think with him are the
most patriotic of English statesmen. The Tories
are the Rule or Ruin element of the people. Glad¬
stone and his party see that the Irish are not mere
worms of the earth. They see the finger of fate
pointed in a certain direction an pursue the only
course open to them to avoid a calamity. The
Tories are so blinded by bigotry that they do not see
the impending catastrophy. They cannot see that
their wooden walls are no longer a barrier to mod¬
ern science. Even Gladstone's scheme does not go
half way and we would like to see it defeated, be¬
cause the police and customs in the hands of En¬
gland turns the idea of Home Rule into a farce —
England will not drop her hold until she is treated
like the bull dog and the sooner it’s done the better
