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DIES IRAE

The British Empire is at war. This tremendous and appalling fact overshadows everything else in the world today. Yesterday morning His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin presented the German government with an ultimatum, giving it a space of two hours in which to reply to Great Britain's former demand re the evacuation of Poland. When the fateful hour struck, no reply was forthcoming and at 11 o'clock yesterday morning a state of war was declared between Germany and the British Empire. The general public was informed of what had happened in a moving broadcast by Mr Neville Chamberlain who spoke from his home in Downing Street.

In this tragic hour the thoughts of all Irishmen, whatever may be their political views, will turn with deep feeling to the agonies that are being suffered by the people of Poland. There has been much in common between the histories of our two nations, and no Irishman can think without sympathy of the days when

Hope for a season bade the world farewell

And freedom shrieked - as Kosciusko fell

It would also be impossible to expect the people of this country not to feel conscious at this moment of the many bonds that tie them to their neighbours in Great Britain and their kinsfolk in Northern Ireland. Apart from all ideological or political considerations, blood is thicker than water; and despite their many quarrels, the peoples of Ireland and Great Britain have been living side by side, inter-marrying and intermingling for the better part of a thousand years. Finally, nobody who has known the German people - the people of Goethe and of Beethoven, of mighty Wagner and the gentle Mozart - will fail to sympathise with them. We are convinced that they - or, at any rate, the vast majority of them - had no desire either to endure again or to inflict upon others, the anguish and misery that they experienced in the last war; but in totalitarian states the people have no say. The Fuhrerprinzip brooks no opinion save that of the individual who has the power.

Ireland faces the uncertain future with heavy heart. She is a tiny nation, whose whole interest is in peace, but her geographical position, her economic position and, to a large extent, her history, place her at the mercy of a warring world. Mr de Valera has proclaimed a policy of strict neutrality. In the circumstances, it is the only policy the Irish Government could pursue. Amid the din and fury of European strife the voice of Ireland is unlikely to be heard by the battling nations; yet such influence as she has will be used in the cause of peace, and it is some comfort to know that already she has provided for thousands of little children a sanctuary from the madness of men.

From Monday, September 4, 1939