IRISH
155
IRISH
tant Rhenish Society during the Bushman insurrec-
tion.
The census of Cape Colony, 1904, states the total population as 2,409,804, of whom 579,741 were whites. The religious census gives the total Catholic population as 37,0e9, of whom 28,480 were whites. This latter figure includes Catholic soldiers in garrison. Taking 90 per cent as the proportion of Irish Catholics, the total for the two vicariates (Eastern and Western) would be about 25,000. A large proportion of the priests and religious are Irish, and it has already been mentioned that the Vicar Apostolic of Cape Town is an Irish prelate. 8o is the Vicar Apostolic of the Eastern District at Port Elizabeth, the Rt. Rev. Hugh McSherry, who was consecrated at Dundalk, in 1896, by Cardinal Logue, Primate of All Ireland.
The chief centres of the Irish population in the Colony are Cape Town and the adjacent townships, and Port Elizabeth, East London, and the adjoining districts. Very few Irish Catholics are resident out- side the towns or engaged in farming. There are more than thirty convents in the colony, each the centre of various active good works. The oldest of these con- vents in South Africa is that of Our Lady of Good Hope, Grahamstown, founded by Irish nuns in 1849. Another instance of Irish pioneer work may be noted — the oldest church of Grahamstown, St. Patrick's, opened 1844, was largely built by the voluntary labour of Irish soldiers. There are convents of the Sisters of Nazareth at Cape Town and Port EUzabeth, supported by the offerings of men of all religious denominations. There is a special mission to the leper colony isolated on Roliben Island. Other religious and charitable works are orphanages, deaf and tlumb institutions, and nurs- ing homes. The chief organizations among the Irish Catholics are confraternities estabhshed in most of the churches. The St. Vincent dc Paul Society is almost exclusively officered by Irishmen. Many of the Cath- olic schools of the colony receive government aid. The high schools, the most important of which is the Jesuit college at Grahamstown, send up their pupils for the degrees of the University of Cape Town, which is an examining, not a teaching, body. Thereare about three hundred conversions annually among the white non-CathoUc population. The Natal Vicariate in- cludes Natal, Zululand, and the Transkei district of Cape Colony. The priests are mostly French mission- aries (Oblates of Mary), but there are some Irish mem- bers of the order, and about one-third of the nuns are Irish. There is a large coloured Catholic population (.■\fricans and Tamil immigrants from India), some 20,000 in all. The ecclesiastical returns up to mid- summer, 1909, fix the white Catholic population at 7458. This includes troops in garrison. The perma- nent Irish Catholic population (colonists) is estimated at about 3000. They are found cliiefly in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Ladysmith, and the Transkei. Catholic organization is on the same general lines as in Cape Colony. The parochial elementary schools and some of the secondary schools receive government aid.
The Kimberley Vicariate, with its centre in the Dia- mond City, includes the Orange River Colony, Bechu- analand, and the greater part of Griqualand, an extent of about 200,000 square miles. The Catholics do not number quite 5000. There are some 1500 in ICim- berley; about 95 per cent of them are Irish by birth or descent. Scattered in small groups through Bechu- analand and Griqualand there are about 360, nearly all of Irish blood. There are some 2000 in the Orange River Colony, of whom about 80 per cent are Irish. The total Irish Catholic population may be taken at between three and four thousand. The vicar Apos- tolic, the Rt. Rev. Matthew Gaughren, is an Irishman, as was his predecessor. There are only nineteen priests to serve this huge district. Eight are Irish. There are nearly a hundred nuns, of whom half are Irish- women. The Sisters of Nazareth have a house at
Kimberley, and other orders conduct schools for girls
at Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Vryburg, Beaconsfield,
Ivroonstad, and Mafeking. " Our Catholic schools ",
TVTites the vicar Apostolic, "are absolutely indepen-
dent of the Government school system. They are not
subject to inspection and they receive no grants. The
public school sj'stem finds no place for denominational
schools, but there is no actual hostility against them."
In the Transvaal Vicariate there are some 12,000 Irish CathoUcs under an Irish Bishop, the Rt. Rev. William Miller, O.M.I. They are chiefly found in and about Johannesburg. Many are Irish Americans, some of whom hold prominent positions in the gold-mining industry. There are also churches in Pretoria and thirteen othercentres. Five of the twenty-six priests and about half of the nuns and Christian Ijrothers (167) are Irish. The nuns are mostly engaged in teaching. The Sisters of Nazareth have a house at Johannesburg.
In the scattered mission districts of the Orange River Vicariate there are very few Irish Catholics. There are perhaps twenty of them in the small white popula- tion of Basutoland. In Rhodesia there are al)out seven hundred. One hears of them from time to time in the narratives of the Jesuit missionaries published in the " Zambesi Mission Record ". In remote regions of the mission in its earlier days the Jesuits often came upon and were gladly helped by an Irish mining pros- pector or a trooper of the mount etl police. When Wil- liam WoodbjTue was pioneering and prospecting in Mashonaland, his wagon was often for weeks at a time the centre of operations of a Jesuit missionary.
Among notable Irish Catholics in South Africa may be mentioned Sir Michael Gallwey, a lawyer of marked abiUty, and for many years Chief Justice of Natal; the Hon. A. Wilmot, K.S.G., who is Irish on the mother's side; Mr. Ju.stice Shell, one of the judges of Cape Colony; Sir William St. John Carr of Johannesburg; the Hon. John Daverin, M.L.C., and Mr. Beauclerk tTppington, M.L.A. The Catholic episcopate has from the outset been mainly Irish. Though many Irish Catholics are connected with colonial journalism in South Africa, the Catholics have not yet any news- paper of their own. The "Catholic Magazine", pub- lished monthly at Cape Town, is their cliief literary organ. Some of the missions issue regular reports, the most important of which is the "Zambesi Mission Record" (monthly). The leading colleges and con- vent boarding-schools have their school magazines. The "Catholic Directory for British South Africa", issued annually from the Salesian Press, Cape Town, since 1904, forms a valuable record of progress.
The above article is based on the official census returns and on detailed communications kindly sui^plied to the writer by the Vicars Apostolic of the Eastern District of Cape Colony, Kimberley, and Natal. A. HlLLI.\RD AttERIDGE.
VI. In South Americ.\. — In the records of the Latin republics of South America there is ample evidence of the traditional genius of the sons of St. Patrick to assimilate themselves with whatever peoples their lot may be presently cast. A numlier of them took a leading part in the estalilishment of the independence of several of these governments, and their names are enshrined among the titular heroes of these nations.
In Paraguay, in 1555, there was a revolution headed by one Nicholas Colman. He is reputed to have been a Celt, but the records are not definite. Remember- ing how intimate, from a remote period, were the social and commercial relations between Ireland and Spain, the parent of most of the South American countries, it is not to be wondered at, perhaps, that even in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries so many Irish soMiers of fortune, and missionaries, and adventurers foimd their way across the ocean to the banks of the Amazon and the Plate. Ignoring Col- man's claim as the pioneer, the first Irishman whose name appears without contradiction in South Amer- ican history is the Jesuit Father Thomas Field, whg
