Prospectus of The Nation
The projectors of the NATION have
been told that there is no room in Ireland for another Liberal Journal;
but
they think differently. They believe that since the success of the long
and
gallant struggle which our fathers maintained against sectarian
ascendancy, a
NEW MIND has grown up amongst us, which longs to redress other wrongs
and
achieve other victories; and that this mind has found no adequate
expression in
the press. The Liberal Journals of Ireland were perhaps never more ably
conducted than at this moment; but their tone and spirit are not of the
present
but the past;—their energies are shackled by old habits, old
prejudices, and
old divisions; and they do not and cannot keep in the van of the
advancing
people. The necessities of the country seem to demand a Journal able to
aid and
organise the new movements going on amongst us—to make their growth
deeper, and
their fruit ‘more racy of the soil’— and, above all, to direct the
popular mind
and the sympathies of educated men of all parties to the great end of
nationality. Such a Journal should be free from the quarrels, the
interests,
the wrongs, and even the gratitude of the past. It should be free to
apply its
strength where it deems best— free to praise—free to censure;
unshackled by
sect or party; able, Irish, and independent. Holding these views, the
projectors of the Nation cannot think that a Journal, prepared to
undertake
this work, will be deemed superfluous; and as they labour, not for
themselves
but for their country, they are prepared, if they do not find a way
open, to
try if they cannot make one.
Nationality is their first
object—a nationality which will not only raise our people from their
poverty,
by securing to them the blessings of a domestic legislature, but
inflame and
purify them with a lofty and heroic love of country—a nationality of
the spirit
as well as the letter—a nationality which may come to be stamped upon
our
manners, our literature, and our deeds—a nationality which may embrace
Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter, Milesian and Cromwellian, the
Irishman of
a hundred generations, and the stranger who is within our gates; not a
nationality which would preclude civil war, but which would establish
internal
union and external independence—a nationality which would be recognised
by the
world, and sanctified by wisdom, virtue, and time.
