Scorching and terrible was the sarcasm of
Grattan applied to these locusts of the Church: "A beastly and pompous
priesthood, political potentates and Christian pastors, full of false
zeal, full of worldly pride, and full of gluttony, empty of the true
religion, to their flocks oppressive, to their inferior clergy brutal, to
their king abject, and to their God impudent and familiar,--they stand on
the altar as a stepping-stone to the throne, glorying in the ear of
princes, whom they poison with crooked principles and heated advice; a
faction against their king when they are not his slaves,--ever the dirt
under his feet or a poniard to his heart."
For the evils of absenteeism, the non-residence of the wealthy
landholders, draining from a starving country the very necessaries of
life, a remedy is sought in a repeal of the union, and the provisions of
a domestic parliament. In O'Connell's view, a restoration of such a
parliament can alone afford that adequate protection to the national
industry so loudly demanded by thousands of unemployed laborers, starving
amid the ruins of deserted manufactories.
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