Most noble, influential lord,I hope some time you can affordTo read a modest application—To grant an humble situation.The old postmaster of SkibbereenDisqualified has lately been,And many a strong and long petitionIs filled to gain his lost position.I see each office-seeking creature:Him of the low, and lofty stature,And every idle, luckless wightAll rushing by me as I write,Their pockets filled with paper white,Enough to tail a flying kite.And Alick seems in highest spirit—He learned, all would go by merit,And from his high qualificationHe’d get it, at examination.And this and that and th’ other wrote,Unto the County members, both—Why, just, in fact, the whole agreeThat there’s no chance at all for me.Ennobled, as to name and birth,And great your character and worthI know your Honor never canCondemn my writing as a man,And trust you’ll give considerationTo this my modest application.Though, for support, I too could standBefore some good, and great and grand,I scorn to travel through the landFor signatures, with hat in hand,Demean myself, and send my partyTo beg to Deasy and McCarthy.No; “starveling” first shall be my nameEre I will sully thus my fame,While I have leave to state my caseOn this, before your Lordship’s face.And now, my lord, to tell you allRelating to me—personal—Like bards of high and low degree:Of amative propensity;I married, just at twenty-one,Since then four years are past and gone,And every year that passed me o’erAn Irishman came on my floor.I, with these youths, my time beguile,Half-idle in my domicile,Which in a large and central street,For a post office would he meet.I trust I’ll meet with no disasterTill you address me as “Postmaster.”Excuse, my lord, the wish most ferventI have to be your lordship’s servant.
Most noble, influential lord,I hope some time you can affordTo read a modest application—To grant an humble situation.The old postmaster of SkibbereenDisqualified has lately been,And many a strong and long petitionIs filled to gain his lost position.I see each office-seeking creature:Him of the low, and lofty stature,And every idle, luckless wightAll rushing by me as I write,Their pockets filled with paper white,Enough to tail a flying kite.And Alick seems in highest spirit—He learned, all would go by merit,And from his high qualificationHe’d get it, at examination.And this and that and th’ other wrote,Unto the County members, both—Why, just, in fact, the whole agreeThat there’s no chance at all for me.Ennobled, as to name and birth,And great your character and worthI know your Honor never canCondemn my writing as a man,And trust you’ll give considerationTo this my modest application.Though, for support, I too could standBefore some good, and great and grand,I scorn to travel through the landFor signatures, with hat in hand,Demean myself, and send my partyTo beg to Deasy and McCarthy.No; “starveling” first shall be my nameEre I will sully thus my fame,While I have leave to state my caseOn this, before your Lordship’s face.And now, my lord, to tell you allRelating to me—personal—Like bards of high and low degree:Of amative propensity;I married, just at twenty-one,Since then four years are past and gone,And every year that passed me o’erAn Irishman came on my floor.I, with these youths, my time beguile,Half-idle in my domicile,Which in a large and central street,For a post office would he meet.I trust I’ll meet with no disasterTill you address me as “Postmaster.”Excuse, my lord, the wish most ferventI have to be your lordship’s servant.
Most noble, influential lord,
I hope some time you can afford
To read a modest application—
To grant an humble situation.
The old postmaster of Skibbereen
Disqualified has lately been,
And many a strong and long petition
Is filled to gain his lost position.
I see each office-seeking creature:
Him of the low, and lofty stature,
And every idle, luckless wight
All rushing by me as I write,
Their pockets filled with paper white,
Enough to tail a flying kite.
And Alick seems in highest spirit—
He learned, all would go by merit,
And from his high qualification
He’d get it, at examination.
And this and that and th’ other wrote,
Unto the County members, both—
Why, just, in fact, the whole agree
That there’s no chance at all for me.
Ennobled, as to name and birth,
And great your character and worth
I know your Honor never can
Condemn my writing as a man,
And trust you’ll give consideration
To this my modest application.
Though, for support, I too could stand
Before some good, and great and grand,
I scorn to travel through the land
For signatures, with hat in hand,
Demean myself, and send my party
To beg to Deasy and McCarthy.
No; “starveling” first shall be my name
Ere I will sully thus my fame,
While I have leave to state my case
On this, before your Lordship’s face.
And now, my lord, to tell you all
Relating to me—personal—
Like bards of high and low degree:
Of amative propensity;
I married, just at twenty-one,
Since then four years are past and gone,
And every year that passed me o’er
An Irishman came on my floor.
I, with these youths, my time beguile,
Half-idle in my domicile,
Which in a large and central street,
For a post office would he meet.
I trust I’ll meet with no disaster
Till you address me as “Postmaster.”
Excuse, my lord, the wish most fervent
I have to be your lordship’s servant.
Some days after I mailed that letter, I had a letter from Lord Colchester, telling me the position was not yet officially declared vacant, but, when it would be so declared, I would hear from him again.
I made no secret of getting that letter. Every one was sure I was booked for the postmastership. But I never got it, and never heard from Lord Colchester since. I suppose there was a very good reason for that; because five days after, I was a prisoner in the hands of the law.
On the evening of December the 5th, 1858, there was an entertainment at my house in Skibbereen in compliment to Dan McCartie, the brewer, who was leaving town, to accept the position of brewer in some Brewery in the County Galway. The company did not separate till about two o’clock. I went to bed, and was soon aroused from sleep by a thundering knocking at the hall door. When it was opened a dozen policemen rushed in and took charge of me and of every one in the house. Then every room was ransacked for papers, and for everything contraband of war—contraband of peace or war, I may say. I stood in the drawing-room under arrest. The sergeant-in-command was smashing the drawers of the chiffonier in search of documents. My wife rushed toward him, crying out not to break the drawers, as she would get him the keys. He rudely shoved her away. One of the policemen near me was making a rush at him, but I caught him and pushed him back. He was a Kerryman named Moynahan; he is not living now, so I do him no harm by mentioning his name. Tom O’Shea was a guest at the entertainment, he lived at the Curragh, some distance from the town. As there was an “eerie” place at the Steam-mill Cross, on his way home, where the“good people” used to show themselves, I told him it was better for him to sleep in one of the rooms than to risk getting a “puck” by traveling that road at the dead hour of the night. He was occupying one of the bedrooms when the police ransacked the house. They made a prisoner of him, and he was taken with us to Cork Jail, though he never was a member of the Phœnix Society. He was simply a friend of mine and a friend of Dan McCartie, and was at the entertainment as such. ’Tis one of those misfortunes that come upon good people on account of keeping bad company. Some twenty men were arrested in Skibbereen that night. We were lodged in the police barracks till clear day in the morning. Then, with two policemen in charge of every one of us—every one of us handcuffed to a policeman—we were taken through the towns of Rosscarbery and Clonakilty, to Bandon, where we arrived about seven o’clock in the evening. We were put into the jail of Bandon that night, and put into cells that were flooded with water. We met here Jerrie Cullinane, Pat Cullinane, Denis O’Sullivan, and William O’Shea, who had been arrested in Bantry that morning. Next morning we were taken by train to the county jail in the city of Cork. We were two weeks in this jail, without any trial or any charge of any kind being made against us. Then, two stipendiary magistrates came into the jail, and opened court in a room in the jail, and charged us with treason of some kind to something belonging to England. We had McCarthy Downing for our attorney. Sullivan-goula was there to swear that we belonged to the Phœnix society;that he saw us in the rooms of the society, and that he saw me drilling three hundred men out near the New bridge one night. He never saw such a drilling; there never was such a drilling took place; he never saw a drilling of any kind amongst us anywhere. ’Tis true, that he saw many of us at the rooms of the Phœnix Society, for he was lodging in the house where those rooms were. We, having word from Kenmare, that he was a suspicious character, and maybe sent among us as an English spy, went in some numbers to the rooms that night, out of curiosity, to see him. We told Morty Downing to bring him in to the room, that we may have some talk with him. In his sworn information against us, he swore against every man that was in the room that night—swore that they were all among the three hundred men that I was drilling out at the New bridge that same night. He didn’t leave a single one of the company escape, that would be able to contradict his perjury. Fitzmaurice, the stipendiary magistrate, knew well that he was swearing falsely. In fact, it was Fitzmaurice that made the swearing for him; and made the plot for him. Davis, the stipendiary magistrate, knew well he was swearing falsely; Davis belonged to Roscommon, and seemed to have more of a conscience than Fitzmaurice, for he used to occasionally address Goula, when McCarthy Downing was cross examining him, and say “Oh, you unfortunate man! Remember you are testifying on your oath before your God;” but ’twas all to no use; Goula went along with his perjuries. Sir Matthew Barrington, the Crown Prosecutor, was down from Dublin toassist Goula in this star-chamber prosecution. To provide some kind of testimony that would make a corroboration of Goula’s testimony, he put on the witness table one of the Skibbereen policemen, who swore that he saw Denis Downing marching through North street, Skibbereen “with a military step.” In the cross-examination of this policeman, our attorney asked him, “Who was walkingwithDenis Downing?” The policeman said, “No one was walking with him, but he was stepping out like a soldier.” And so he was a soldier—by nature and instinct—as many an Irishman is; he is the Captain Denis Downing who lost a leg at the battle of Gettysburg in America, and who had charge of the military company that were present at the execution of Mrs. Suratt in Washington, America. He was released from Cork Jail that day of the examination there; but his brother Patrick—who afterward came to be in command of the Forty second (Tammany) Regiment in the American war—was detained in jail till an appeal was made to the Queen’s Bench for his release on bail. About half the number arrested in Bantry and Skibbereen were so released at this first examination in Cork Jail. The other half were kept in prison, and would not be released on bail. Then, an application for “release on bail” was made to the Court of Queen’s Bench in Dublin, and all were released, except Billy O’Shea, Morty Moynahan, and myself.
The Tralee Assizes came on in March, 1859, and Dan O’Sullivan-agreem was convicted and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude. The Cork Assizes came on a week afterward. Our attorney came to us inCork Jail and told us that if we allowed our counsel to put in a plea of “guilty” we would be released without any sentence of punishment being passed against us. “Plead guilty!” said we, “and confirm the sentence on Dan Agreem, and put the stamp of truth on all the perjuries Sullivan-goula swore against us! No, we would not do it.”
Patrick’s Day came on; it was the day the Assizes opened in Cork. Morty Moynahan, Billy O’Shea and I were placed in the dock. Patrick J. Downing and others who were out on bail were put in the dock too. Patrick was telling us he had a grand time of it last night down at Cove, in company with Poeri, and other Italians, who had escaped from a convict ship in which they were being transported to a penal colony. Those are the Italian convicts about whose prison treatment England’s prime minister Gladstone shed rivers of tears—that same prime boy who afterward treated Irishmen in England’s prisons far worse than King Bomba treated Poeri and his companions. Gladstone starved me till my flesh was rotting, for want of nourishment; Gladstone chained me with my hands behind my back, for thirty-five days at a time; Gladstone leaped upon my chest, while I lay on the flat of my back in a black hole cell of his prison. Poeri didn’t experience such treatment as that in the Italian prisons. Yet the great Englishman could cry out his eyes for him. No wonder those eyes of his got sore in the end!
(This chapter of my “Recollections” was published in theUnited Irishmannewspaper of May 8, 1897. Iam, this fourth day of June, 1898, revising all the chapters for publication into book form. The telegrams of the day announce that this Mr. Gladstone was buried in London this week—Rossa.)
That Patrick’s Day, in the dock in Cork Jail, I was ready for trial; my companions were ready for trial; we had our witnesses ready; the people of my house were in court, to swear truly that I was in and around my house the hour Goula swore he saw me drilling 300 men one night. Our counsel also declared they were ready for trial. The Crown Counsel whispered with Keogh, and then Keogh announced that our trial was postponed to the next assizes; that the prisoners who were out on bail could remain out on bail; but that the prisoners who were brought into the dock from the jail, should be taken back to jail. Bail was offered for us by our counsel, but no bail would be taken. Morty Moynahan, Billy O’Shea, and I were taken back to the County Jail, where we remained till the following July.
A second application for release on bail was made for us to the court of Queen’s Bench, in April, but it was refused. The Tory ministry, under Lord Derby as prime minister, were then in office. They were outvoted in parliament on some division; they “made an appeal to the country,” and there was a general election. I was a voter of the County Cork, and I took it into my head to write to the English Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin Castle, telling him it was against the Constitution to hold an innocent voter in jail at such an important crisis, and keep him from recordinghis vote on election day; that English law proclaims every man innocent until he is adjudged guilty. I told him he could have me taken to Skibbereen in charge of his jailers, to record my vote on election day, or let me out on parole that day, to return to jail the second next day. I haven’t that letter in my head. It was published in the newspapers afterward. The LondonSpectatorwrote a leading article about it. When I was in London in 1895, I went into theSpectatoroffice and bought a copy of the paper of the date of May 14, 1859. The following is the article it contains:
“THE GENEROUS PRISONER.”For a genuine love of freedom commend us to the Irish gentleman (we should not like to apply any lower title,) who being imprisoned in the county jail of Cork on a charge of sedition,—he was a member of the Phœnix Society—wished, nevertheless, being an elector, to record his vote at the late county election. He addressed a petition to the Lord Lieutenant to this effect, and it certainly is a prize specimen of prison literature. We must premise that Jeremiah O’Donovan—for this is his highborn name—is not a convicted prisoner; he is waiting for trial. He thus argues his case, in a letter dated:“County Jail, Cork, April 30th.“Need I remind your lordship how unconstitutional it would be to deprive an innocent man of his voice in this important crisis; and, such a deprivation of right may entail the most disastrous results. For instance,my lord, my support may be instrumental in returning an honorable and independent man to the Imperial Parliament; the support of this honorable and independent man may be instrumental in maintaining Lord Derby in office, and the retention of Lord Derby in office may be the means of preventing the shedding of oceans of blood, by affording him time and opportunity for bringing the troublous affairs of Europe to a speedy and pacific termination; whereas, opposite and most disastrous results may follow from my inability to attend the polls.”He adds, with the most clinching logic:—“Your lordship will perceive at a glance that mine is no ordinary case.” In counting up the Liberal and Derbyite gains and losses, we must admit at least that Lord Derby, through adverse circumstances, lost one ardent supporter, and if a war follows his lordship’s resignation, we shall remember this new prophet Jeremiah. How pleasantly the captive insinuates the excellent use he will make of his vote, as the prisoner at Norfolk Island, asking for the removal of the prohibition against talking, said to the Governor, “Double if you will the chains on our legs; increase the amount of our daily work; reduce our rations even below the present minimum, but do not, at least, deprive us of the power of confessing to one another the justice of the punishment we undergo.” “Transport me if you will for sedition,” cries O’Donovan, “but let me at least give one vote for Lord Derby.”Blanqui, the imprisoned Republican, was released by Napoleon, because he uttered generous sentiments; inthis country, we fear that even this good Tory must be tried, but at least he ought to be defended by Mr. Philip Rose, and his counsel feed out of the Carlton Club fund. He admits in the latter part of the letter, that an application for bail is pending, and that the Lord Lieutenant may, therefore, not like to interfere, but he continues with a kind considerateness that might hardly have been expected—“Granting me permission would be much more convenient than the postponement of the election. Skibbereen is my polling place, so, as the distance is fifty miles from here, your Lordship will please have the “pass” made out for not less than three days, as it is a day’s journey. To prevent any unnecessary trouble on my account, I will require no guard; my parole to return in three days, or for the time specified, will, I am sure, be sufficient guarantee for my safe keeping.”The Lord Lieutenant “has no power to comply with the petition.” Such was the substance of the grave official reply. Red tape cannot laugh; but we feel kindly toward the pleasant fellow, light-hearted enough to poke fun at a viceroy from behind prison bars. We hope he will be proved innocent, and thus record his vote at the next county election as a real freeholder.
“THE GENEROUS PRISONER.”
For a genuine love of freedom commend us to the Irish gentleman (we should not like to apply any lower title,) who being imprisoned in the county jail of Cork on a charge of sedition,—he was a member of the Phœnix Society—wished, nevertheless, being an elector, to record his vote at the late county election. He addressed a petition to the Lord Lieutenant to this effect, and it certainly is a prize specimen of prison literature. We must premise that Jeremiah O’Donovan—for this is his highborn name—is not a convicted prisoner; he is waiting for trial. He thus argues his case, in a letter dated:
“County Jail, Cork, April 30th.
“Need I remind your lordship how unconstitutional it would be to deprive an innocent man of his voice in this important crisis; and, such a deprivation of right may entail the most disastrous results. For instance,my lord, my support may be instrumental in returning an honorable and independent man to the Imperial Parliament; the support of this honorable and independent man may be instrumental in maintaining Lord Derby in office, and the retention of Lord Derby in office may be the means of preventing the shedding of oceans of blood, by affording him time and opportunity for bringing the troublous affairs of Europe to a speedy and pacific termination; whereas, opposite and most disastrous results may follow from my inability to attend the polls.”
He adds, with the most clinching logic:—“Your lordship will perceive at a glance that mine is no ordinary case.” In counting up the Liberal and Derbyite gains and losses, we must admit at least that Lord Derby, through adverse circumstances, lost one ardent supporter, and if a war follows his lordship’s resignation, we shall remember this new prophet Jeremiah. How pleasantly the captive insinuates the excellent use he will make of his vote, as the prisoner at Norfolk Island, asking for the removal of the prohibition against talking, said to the Governor, “Double if you will the chains on our legs; increase the amount of our daily work; reduce our rations even below the present minimum, but do not, at least, deprive us of the power of confessing to one another the justice of the punishment we undergo.” “Transport me if you will for sedition,” cries O’Donovan, “but let me at least give one vote for Lord Derby.”
Blanqui, the imprisoned Republican, was released by Napoleon, because he uttered generous sentiments; inthis country, we fear that even this good Tory must be tried, but at least he ought to be defended by Mr. Philip Rose, and his counsel feed out of the Carlton Club fund. He admits in the latter part of the letter, that an application for bail is pending, and that the Lord Lieutenant may, therefore, not like to interfere, but he continues with a kind considerateness that might hardly have been expected—
“Granting me permission would be much more convenient than the postponement of the election. Skibbereen is my polling place, so, as the distance is fifty miles from here, your Lordship will please have the “pass” made out for not less than three days, as it is a day’s journey. To prevent any unnecessary trouble on my account, I will require no guard; my parole to return in three days, or for the time specified, will, I am sure, be sufficient guarantee for my safe keeping.”
The Lord Lieutenant “has no power to comply with the petition.” Such was the substance of the grave official reply. Red tape cannot laugh; but we feel kindly toward the pleasant fellow, light-hearted enough to poke fun at a viceroy from behind prison bars. We hope he will be proved innocent, and thus record his vote at the next county election as a real freeholder.
“Light-hearted enough to poke fun at a viceroy from behind prison bars,” says the London man. Well, I did try to keep a light heart through all my prison days and nights. I got into my head, from one of the books in that library of my boyhood, that“that head is not properly constituted that cannot accustom itself to whatever pillow the vicissitudes of fortune may place under it.” My pillow was hard enough many times, and it was sometimes made a little harder by reproofs from some of my companions for not behaving myself more gravely in penal servitude. But I carried myself through those hard times more in the spirit of that poet, who sang:
“Let me play the foolWith mirth and laughter, so let wrinkles comeAnd let my visage rather heat with wineThat my heart cool with mortifying groans.Why should a man whose blood is warm withinSit like his grandsire, cut in alabasterSleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice, by growing peevish!“I tell thee what, ‘O’Leary!’There are a class of menWhose very visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond,And do a wilful stillness entertain,On purpose to be dressed in an opinionOf wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,As who should say: ‘I am Sir Oracle,’And when I ope’ my mouth, let no dog bark.”
“Let me play the foolWith mirth and laughter, so let wrinkles comeAnd let my visage rather heat with wineThat my heart cool with mortifying groans.Why should a man whose blood is warm withinSit like his grandsire, cut in alabasterSleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice, by growing peevish!“I tell thee what, ‘O’Leary!’There are a class of menWhose very visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond,And do a wilful stillness entertain,On purpose to be dressed in an opinionOf wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,As who should say: ‘I am Sir Oracle,’And when I ope’ my mouth, let no dog bark.”
“Let me play the foolWith mirth and laughter, so let wrinkles comeAnd let my visage rather heat with wineThat my heart cool with mortifying groans.Why should a man whose blood is warm withinSit like his grandsire, cut in alabasterSleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice, by growing peevish!
“Let me play the fool
With mirth and laughter, so let wrinkles come
And let my visage rather heat with wine
That my heart cool with mortifying groans.
Why should a man whose blood is warm within
Sit like his grandsire, cut in alabaster
Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice, by growing peevish!
“I tell thee what, ‘O’Leary!’There are a class of menWhose very visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond,And do a wilful stillness entertain,On purpose to be dressed in an opinionOf wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,As who should say: ‘I am Sir Oracle,’And when I ope’ my mouth, let no dog bark.”
“I tell thee what, ‘O’Leary!’
There are a class of men
Whose very visages do cream and mantle like a standing pond,
And do a wilful stillness entertain,
On purpose to be dressed in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,
As who should say: ‘I am Sir Oracle,’
And when I ope’ my mouth, let no dog bark.”
And, to the fact that I did carry myself that way, under prison difficulties, and have carried myself so, under worldly difficulties—almost as harassing as the prison ones—do I, under Providence, attribute my good fortune that I am not entirely bald-headed at the present time.
The Cork summer assizes were coming on at the end of July. Our attorney was not sure that we would be tried then either, or let out on bail, but might be keptin prison till March, 1860, if we did not satisfy the now “liberal” government, and plead guilty. This again, we positively refused to do. A member of this new liberal government was Thomas O’Hagan who defended Dan O’Sullivan-agreem, at the March Assizes in Tralee, and who afterward was raised to the peerage, with the title of “lord” or “baron” of Tullyhogue. He had had briefs for our defence, and he knew well that most of what was sworn against us was false. But he was now sworn in to work for England, and he should do his duty. It was before him Captain Mackey was tried in Cork City some years after. Our Irish parliamentary patriots affect to believe that it is better for the Irish people to be governed by English Liberals than by English Tories, but there is very little difference between them, so far as Ireland is concerned. Daniel O’Connell said that the Whigs were Tories when in office, and the Tories were Whigs when out of office. Dan was right. John Mitchel was right, too, in his dislike of having his friend, Thos. Francis Meagher run for member of Parliament in his native city of Waterford. This is what he says on the matter in his “Last Conquest of Ireland:”
“If Mr. Meagher were in Parliament, men’s eyes would be attracted hither once more; some hope of justice might again revive in this too easily deluded people. The nobler his genius, the more earnest his zeal, the more conspicuous his patriotism, just the more mischief would he do, in propping up through another session, perhaps through another famine, the miserable delusion of a Parliamentary party.”
Those expressions of men who moved in Irish national politics fifty years ago, and a hundred years ago hold good to-day. I have them in mind when I hear Irishmen talking of the great good it is to send good men to that London parliament.
In July, 1859, I got this letter from our attorney, McCarthy Downing:
(Private)July 2, 1859.Dear Sir—A proposition has been again made to me, that if you all plead guilty, you will be released on your own recognizances. I am not at liberty to use this yet; but I have replied to say, that you have before rejected a similar offer from the late government, and that you would do the same now. Either on Saturday or Monday some decision will be come to. I have little hope of your being admitted to bail.Yours truly,McCarthy Downing.
(Private)
July 2, 1859.
Dear Sir—A proposition has been again made to me, that if you all plead guilty, you will be released on your own recognizances. I am not at liberty to use this yet; but I have replied to say, that you have before rejected a similar offer from the late government, and that you would do the same now. Either on Saturday or Monday some decision will be come to. I have little hope of your being admitted to bail.
Yours truly,
McCarthy Downing.
I have the original of that letter, in the handwriting of Mr. Downing in my possession. When I visited America in May, 1863, I brought all my Fenian letters with me. When I was returning to Ireland in August, ’63, I left those letters with John O’Mahony. When I came to America from English prisons in 1871, I got them back from him. That is how I am able to produce this letter now, and many other Irish letters.
A few days before the opening of the Cork Assizes Mr. Downing visited us in prison and told us that he had made terms for the release of the Kerry man by our pleading guilty. We told him it was a disgracefulthing to do, anyway. He thought we should not consider ourselves better patriots than Arthur O’Connor, and Thomas Addis Emmet, and Doctor McNevin, and the other ’98 men who pleaded guilty. He told us he would call up to the jail to-morrow again, and, in the meantime, we could talk the matter over among ourselves.
When he left us, Morty Moynahan, William O’Shea, and I discussed the subject. They are dead. I will, in justice to their memory, say, that they left the decision to me; they were willing to do what I decided to do—to stay in jail or get out of jail.
My business in Skibbereen was ruined; the creditors came down on the house after my arrest; the ownership of the house got into law; the landlord whom I had it rented from got beaten in the lawsuit, and the other man, Carey, was declared the rightful owner. He had to get immediate possession; and my wife, with four young children, had to move into another house. Letters from friends and neighbors were telling me it was not a proper thing for me to remain in jail under such circumstances—while I could get out of jail if I wished.
But I had the cause of Ireland in my mind as well, and to do anything that would hurt or injure that cause anyway was not in my mind to do.
On that side of the situation, the Cork City men, William O’Carroll and others who were in communication with us, gave us to understand that James Stephens had left Ireland after our arrest, that he was in France, that no word was received from him, that thework seemed dead, and that we may as well accept the terms of release that were offered us. I have read the “Memoirs of Fenianism,” by Mr. John O’Leary. He says word was sent to usnotto plead guilty. I can say, and say truly, that no such word ever reached us, and that we were obliged to conclude that the work, or the cause for which we were put in jail, was dead or deserted. So, we decided to accept the terms of release offered, and we were let out of prison on the 27th of July, 1859.
It was three months after, before Dan O’Sullivan-agreem was released, and not until I had written a strong letter to McCarthy Downing, telling him I would write a letter to the newspapers charging the government with another “breach of treaty” in keeping the man in prison for whose release we had stipulated.
Looking over some books and papers connected with the terms of release made by the ’98 men, I see there was a breach of treaty in their case also. They stipulated for the release of many men who were arrested in March and April, 1798—before the “Rising.” And, after signing the papers, some of those men were hanged, and more of them were kept in prison until the year 1802.
Looking over the books and papers concerning the ’98 times, and the books and papers concerning our own times, I do not see much change in the spirit of England and Englishmen regarding Ireland and Irishmen. Those who are reading what I am writing will not, I hope, consider I am doing much amiss in embodyingin “Rossa’s Recollections,” some of the experiences of Irishmen who were fighting against English rule in Ireland a hundred years ago, and comparing England’s treachery and duplicity a hundred years ago, with her tyranny, treachery and duplicity to-day. I find myself much in feeling with William Sampson, one of the ’98 men, when he says, “If a man be injured, you add to his injuries by extorting false protestations from him, which must aggravate his feeling or wound his honor.”
Those words from the grave strike the chords that hold me in life. England’s holding me in prison from assizes to assizes, and not releasing me until I would acknowledge as true the perjuries that were sworn against me, has planted in my nature an ineradicable desire for personal satisfaction, and “If I could grasp the fires of hell to-day, I would seize them and hurl them into the face of my country’s enemy.” These words are the words of John Mitchel.
William Sampson of Antrim, arrested on the 12th of February, ’98, in his “Memoirs” says:
“After several months of cruel and secret imprisonment, a Mr. Crawford, an attorney, was first permitted to break the spell of solitude, and enter my prison door. This gentleman had been employed in defence of Mr. Bond, Mr. Byrne, and others, for whose fate I was much interested.”
At the time of that visit the rising had taken place and the fight was going on. From all the information the prisoners were allowed to get, they were led to believe that their people were getting the worst of it;that aid which they expected had not come; that to continue the fight was useless. The paper presented to them to sign, amounted to an advice to the insurgents to submit and give up their arms, on stipulation of general amnesty and the release of some seventy men who were in prison on charges of high treason.
Sampson says, “Upwards of seventy prisoners, against whom no evidence appeared, had signed an act of self-devotion, and peace was likely to be the result.… One day, as we were all together in the yard of the bridewell, it was announced that the scaffold was erected for the execution of William Byrne, the preservation of whose life had been a principal motive for the signature of many of the prisoners to the agreement.”
That was the famed Billy Byrne, of Ballymanus.
Sampson, after making some bitter remarks on the tyranny that will imprison an innocent man, and keep him in prison until he will sign a paper saying his jailers were justified in doing all they did, says:
“If a man be injured, and knows and feels it, you only add to his injuries by extorting false protestations from him, which must aggravate his feeling or wound his honor.”
This book of Sampson’s that I am quoting from was printed by George Forman, at No. 24 Water street, Old Slip, New York, in the year 1807. I have also before me, as I write, the DublinUnited Ireland, paper of May 8, 1897, and I see in it the following passage that bears on the subject of this chapter:
“It may not be generally known that the United States Minister to London in 1798, was guilty, in conjunctionwith his government, of one of the meanest pieces of servility ever placed to the account of any plenipotentiary or diplomatist. When Arthur O’Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, Dr. McNevin, and the rest of the United Irish Leaders, who had brought the Pitt Ministry to terms which honorably secured their lives, were about to be released on condition of departing to America, an extraordinary obstacle presented itself. Rufus King, the American Minister, waited on the English Ministry, and declared on behalf of his government that the United States could not consent to receive upon its soil men who had instigated the recent dreadful rebellion in Ireland!!
“In consequence of this action by these Anti-Irish Yankees, the United Irish Leaders, instead of being immediately released, were detained in confinement in Scotland, in Fort George, until the year 1802.”
It is surprising how, even up to the present day, England can fashion into instruments of meanness and servility the kind of men that America sends to represent her in London. The one enemy in the world that America has is England. But then, England is the great land of Christian civilization, and it may not be a thing to be much wondered at that our Americans whom we send to represent us in London become in a short time somewhat civilized, and learn to love those who hate them, bless those that curse them, and do good to those that persecute and calumniate them. All very well, so long as that civilizing influence is confined to England and to our representatives to the government of England; but when that influence creepsinto the government of America, it is quite another thing.
This telegram from the seat of government that appeared in the morning papers of New York this day I am writing, shows it is creeping in;—
Washington, May 26.—The approach of the Victorian Jubilee served as the theme for an eloquent invocation to-day by the blind chaplain of the Senate, Rev. Dr. Milburn.
“The long and illustrious reign of the gracious lady, Victoria, wife, mother, as well as sovereign,” he said, “has shrined her into the hearts and reverence of true-hearted men and women around the world.
“May her last days be her best and happiest. Guide the councils of that realm and of our own beloved country, that, hand in hand, they may tread the path of conservative progress to the goal of Christian civilization.”
Of toadyism of that kind, and of the kind that is introduced into the public schools of New York City in getting little children to vote to send their teachers to the Queen of England’s jubilee celebration, the New YorkSunsays:
“Every American citizen who subscribes to the proposed preposterous tribute to Queen Victoria should be a marked man. His should be the fate of those Tories of the revolutionary epoch, who, for the betrayal of their country and shameful subservience to George III., were branded, ostracized, and eventually hounded out of their native land.”
Coming on the year 1860, the men of Skibbereen took up the threads of the organization that were let slip through the arrest of the Phœnix men in ’58. We met James Stephens in Bantry, and Mr. Dan McCartie, Morty Moynahan, and I, with the Bantry men, Denis and William O’Sullivan, Pat, Jerrie and Michael Cullinane, and some others, went in Denis O’Sullivan’s yacht to Glengarriffe, where we had dinner at Eccles’ Hotel. Stephens paid for the dinner. Sailing through Bantry bay, Stephens was smoking a pipe. I remember his taking the pipe in his hand, and saying he would not give the value of that dudeen for the worth of Ireland to England after the death of Queen Victoria; that she, in fact, would be the last English reigning monarch of Ireland.
I don’t know if he is of that opinion to-day. I do not know did he speak that way that day in Bantry bay, from the strong faith he had in the success of his own movement. Anyway, the way he always spoke to his men seemed to give them confidence that he was able to go successfully through the work that was before him, and before them. That was one of his strong points, as an organizer.
About the beginning of the year 1861, a letter from Jas. O’Mahony, of Bandon, announced to us that he and John O’Mahony would be in Rosscarbery on a certain day. Dan McCartie, Morty Moynahan and I went to Ross in Moynahan’s coach. We met them; they had come to town in Banconi’s long car. James O’Mahony returned to Bandon, and John O’Mahony came on to Skibbereen in our coach. He remained in town a few days. We called in from the country some of the most active workers we had in the organization, and introduced them to him. He was very much taken with the McCarthy-Sowney Centre, who told him he would not be satisfied with getting back his lands from the English, without getting back also the back rents that the robber-landlords had been drawing from his people for the past two hundred years.
That was the first time I met John O’Mahony. He made the impression on me that he was a man proud of his name and of his race. And I liked him for that. I like to see an Irishman proud of his people. It is seldom you will find such a man doing anything that would disgrace any one belonging to him. In my work of organizing in Ireland, I felt myself perfectly safe in dealing with men who were proud—no matter how poor they were—of belonging to the “Old Stock.” I trusted them, and would trust them again.
Three years ago, in the summer of 1894, I was traveling with Michael Cusack, John Sarsfield Casey (since dead), and some others, by the Galtee Mountains, from Mitchelstown to Knocklong. We stopped at a village called Kilbehenny. We strolled into the graveyard,and there I saw a large tomb, on the top slab of which were cut the words:
“THIS IS THE TOMB OF THE O’MAHONYS.”
That was the tomb of John O’Mahony’s family. Some days after, I stood within the walls of the ruins of Muckross Abbey in Killarney, and there I saw another tomb (just like the one in Kilbehenny) on which were graven the words:
“THIS IS THE TOMB OF THE O’DONOGHUES.”
That was the tomb of the family of the O’Donoghue of the Glens. That showed me that in old Irish times John O’Mahony’s family had the same standing among the people as the other family. In those graveyards, I thought of that Shane O’Neill of Tyrone who, when offered an English title, said he was prouder of the title of “The O’Neill” than of any title England could give him.
In the year 1861 came on the funeral of Terence Bellew McManus in Ireland. He was one of the ’48 men who died in San Francisco. His body was brought to Ireland. I had a letter from James Stephens asking me to be one of the delegation who would accompany the remains from Cork to Dublin.
The funeral procession in Cork City was on a Sunday. There was an immense gathering of people. Passing along the quay, a ship in the river was flying the English flag, and a little boy caused a little commotion by running and clambering up the ship’s ropes and poles, and tearing down that flag.
Coming on nightfall we were on board the train for Dublin. The delegation having charge of the coffin were in the train compartment next to the coffin. We were armed with pistols, as it was rumored that there might be some necessity for using them. Some men were, it seems, in favor of making the funeral the occasion of a “rising”; they thought it would arouse the country if the remains were taken to Slievenamon or some such historic place on the way between Cork and Dublin, and the people called upon to rally around, for God and for country. James Stephens was averse to that being done, and this is why he thought it well to have an armed guard to prevent its being done. I saw, a few nights after, that one of the men who favored the project, was James Roche, of Monaghan, who came from New York to Ireland the time of the funeral. The delegation from America and some others went to the Shelburne Hotel in Dublin to see William Smith O’Brien on some matter. Smith O’Brien was not in when we called. We were waiting in the coffee-room; the subject of the “rising” came to be spoken of, Maurice O’Donoghue, of Kilmallock, one of the Dublin Centres, charged James Roche with being the prime mover in the project of the “rising.” Hot words passed between them. Maurice moved angrily toward Roche; Roche drew a cane sword. Some of us rushed between the two angry men, and matters were soon quieted down.
But on the railway route between Cork and Dublin, something occurred that I may make note of. When the train came to the Limerick Junction, there was astop there of several minutes. A large crowd was on the platform. If there was an attempt to be made anywhere to take away the body, it was thought that would be the place most likely for it. James Stephens was in the coach with us. He had previously given orders that the men of Tipperary town be there to prevent such a thing being done. As the premonitory bell rang for the starting of the train, Stephens called on the men to kneel down and say a Pater and Ave for the dead; and, while the whole crowd was on their knees, the train rolled out from the depot.
Arriving in Dublin before daybreak, the city seemed ablaze with torch lights. The remains of McManus were taken in procession to the Mechanic’s Institute, where they lay in state until the following Sunday, when, by a public funeral they were laid to rest in Glasnevin.
During this week in Dublin I attended a banquet given to Colonel Smith, Colonel O’Reilly, Colonel Doheny, Michael Cavanagh, Jerrie Cavanagh, and Captain Frank Welpley, the members of the American delegation, and I called upon some friends I had been in correspondence with. The dinner had been at Coffey’s or Carey’s Hotel in Bridge street. Father Conway, of Mayo, who was staying at the hotel, attended it. When the toasts and speech-making commenced, he was called upon to speak. He spoke of the sad state of his part of the country, and said that he was then traveling on a mission to collect funds for some parishioners of his who were under sentence of eviction—dwelling particularly upon one case, that of a man andhis wife who had eight young children. “Put my name down for ten pounds,” said Michael Doheny. The priest taking his notebook, commenced to write. “Hold,” said Doheny. “The ten pounds is to buy a gun, powder and ball for the man who is to be evicted, that he may shoot whoever comes to put him out of his house.” The priest shut up his notebook.
I had been for five or six years previously in correspondence with Professor John O’Donovan, the Irish scholar, and I called in to Trinity College to see him. In the room with him was Professor Eugene O’Curry. I had a long talk with them. John O’Donovan asked me to tea next night at his home, No. 136 North Buckingham street; “and you,” said he to O’Curry, “you try and come up.” “No,” said O’Curry, “but let Rossa come to my house the night after.” I told him I would not be in Dublin the night after, as I should leave for home. O’Curry was a big, stout man, over six feet tall. O’Donovan was a small man. Those two men were dead, one year after that day I was speaking to them. They were married to two sisters of the name of Broughton—“of Cromwellian descent,” as John O’Donovan says to me in one of his letters, wherein he speaks of the mother of his seven sons—Mary Anne Broughton.
I went to John O’Donovan’s house that evening, and met there Father Meehan, the author of that book called “The Confederation of Kilkenny.” We talked of Fenianism, or of the cause for which I had been lately in Cork Jail. I, as well as I could, justified my belonging to that cause—not that my host or the priestsaid anything in condemnation of the cause—but I was surprised when I heard John O’Donovan say in the priest’s presence—“the priests won’t let the people fight.” The priest said nothing.
About twelve o’clock a coach came to take him home. I went in the coach with him, and he let me down at my hotel in Lower Bridge street. His chapel in the parish of Sts. Michael and John is near that street.
I had been at John O’Donovan’s house on some other occasions on which I visited Dublin before this time of the McManus funeral. The seven sons would be around us. He would send John and Edmond to the library to bring some rare Irish books to show me. “Are those boys studying the Irish language?” said I. “No,” said he. “I cannot get them to care anything about it, though they are smart enough at Greek and Latin.” I fear that my early acquaintanceship with those boys had something to do with disturbing the serenity of their lives in after years; because when I came to live in Dublin in 1863 I used to visit their house, and they used to come to theIrish Peopleoffice to see me. They got initiated into the I. R. B. movement, and got into prison the time of the arrests. John, the eldest was drowned in St. Louis; Edmond, the second, the famed war correspondent, was lost in Asia or Africa; and I saw William, the third son, buried in Calvary Cemetery, New York.
I have among my papers twenty or thirty of the letters of John O’Donovan, that I received from him between the years of 1853 and 1863. They are among my old papers. I cannot get them now. I may getthem before I put these “Recollections” in book form. If I do, I will print a few of them in the book. One letter in particular has some passages in it that I cannot thoroughly understand. It speaks of the Irish people and the Irish cause; of Daniel O’Connell and of Doctor Doyle, and it says:
“There have been no two Irishmen of this century that despised the Irish race and the Irish character more than did Daniel O’Connell and the late Doctor Doyle, bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. Doctor Miley, in whose hands O’Connell died, told me this atthistable, and I firmly believe it.”
Now, the puzzle to me is: Why was that so? Why did they despise the Irish race and the Irish character? I make many guesses at answering the question, and the only answer reasonable to myself, that I can get, is, that the Irish people made it a sin to themselves to do anything that could be done in the way of striking down English rule, and striking down everything and every one that belonged to English rule in Ireland.
The McManus funeral tended very much to increase the strength of the Fenian movement. Men from Leinster, Ulster, Munster and Connaught met in Dublin who never met each other before. They talked of the old cause, and of the national spirit in their respective provinces, and each went back to his home, strengthened for more vigorous work. England’s eyes were somewhat opened, too, to the increasing danger to her rule in Ireland, and shaped herself accordingly. In the policy of government she is not blind to what passesbefore her eyes, she knows how averse to the interests of her rule it is to allow the people to come together and understand each other, and hence, those many Convention or anti-Convention laws that she passed for Ireland in her day. In the days of theUnited Irishmen, secret committees of the Houses of Lords and Commons were appointed to make inquiries into the state of Ireland. A committee of the Lords sat in 1793, and a joint committee of Lords and Commons sat in 1897. They summoned before them every one they thought could give information, and every one who refused to answer their questions was sent to jail.
On the 17th of May, 1797, the English governors at Dublin Castle issued a proclamation in which they said: “Whereas, within this Kingdom a seditious and traitorous conspiracy, by a number of persons styling themselves United Irishmen exists, and whereas, for the execution of their wicked designs, they have planned means of open violence, and formed secret arrangement for raising, arming, and paying a disciplined force, and, in furtherance of their purposes, have frequently assembled in great and unusual numbers, under the colorable pretext of planting or digging potatoes, attending funerals and the like,” etc. “And we do strictly forewarn persons from meeting in any unusual numbers, under the plausible or colorable pretext as aforesaid, or any other whatsoever.”
So, that while James Stephens, for his side of the house, saw the good and the necessity of bringing his chief men together at the McManus funeral, the other side of the house, with all the experience of governmentthey have on record, were pretty well able to give a good guess at what it all meant.
Not that England doesn’t know that the mass of the Irish people are always discontented, disaffected and rebellious—and have reasons to be so—but that they would be organized into a body actively preparing for fight is what strikes terror to her heart. The Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood were so preparing, secretly preparing, but circumstances connected with the necessity of receiving a promised or expected assistance from America—that was not received—which circumstances I will show further on—developed things so, that the organization soon became as much a public one as a private one. We were assailed publicly in many ways and by many parties, and we had to defend ourselves publicly, and thus show ourselves to our enemies as well as to our friends. Twenty-five years ago I wrote a book called “O’Donovan Rossa’s Prison Life.” I see in it some passages in relation to those times of 1861, 1862 and 1863, and I cannot do better than reproduce them here. After that, I will introduce some letters, I have, written by John O’Mahony, James Stephens, and others, that give a very fair idea of the difficulties that beset the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood in Ireland, and Fenianism in America, at the starting of the movement.
Rossa’s book says:
“I found the people under the impression that if any kind of military weapon was found with them they would be sent to jail. Is was hard to disabuse them of this, and I took a practical method of doing it.
“I was in possession of an Enfield rifle and bayonet, a sword, and an old Croppy pike, with a hook and hatchet on it, formidable enough to frighten any coward, and these I hung up in a conspicuous part of my store; and yet this would not even satisfy some that they could keep these articles with impunity, and I had many a wise head giving me advice. But when I have satisfied myself that a thing is right, and I make up my mind to do it, I can listen very attentively to those who, in kindness, would advise me, for the purpose of dissuading me from a course inimical, perhaps, to my own interests, while at the same time I can be firm in my resolve to have my own way as soon as my adviser is gone. The arms remained in their place, and on fair days and market days it was amusing to see young peasants bringing in their companions to see the sight. “Feuch! feuch!Look! look!” would be the first exclamation on entering the shop; and never did artist survey a work of art more composedly than would some of those boys leaning on their elbows on the counter, admire the treasured weapons they longed to use one day in defence of the cause of their fatherland.
“At the end of a few years the people were fully persuaded that they could keep arms in defiance of the police. It would answer the ends of government very well, if the authorities by keeping the people scared could keep them unarmed without the passing of arms acts and other repressive measures, that look so very ugly to the world. If England could keep her face clean—if she could carry the phylacteries—if she couldhave the Bible on her lips and the devil in her deeds, without any of the devil’s work being seen, she would be in her glory.
“My pikes were doing great mischief in the community it seems, and rumors were going around that others were getting pikes, too. Tim Duggan, whom I spoke of as being in Cork Jail was employed in my shop. Tim should always be employed at some mischief, and taking down the pikes one day to take some of the rust off them, no place would satisfy him to sit burnishing them but outside the door. This he did to annoy a very officious sergeant-of-the-police, named Brosnahan, who was on duty outside the store. Next day I was sent for by my friend McCarthy Downing, who was Chairman of the Town Commissioners, and magistrate of the town. He told me that the magistrates were after having a meeting, and had a long talk about what occurred the day before. Brosnahan represented that not alone was Tim Duggan cleaning the pikes, but showing the people how they could be used with effect—what beautiful things they were for frightening exterminating landlords and all other tools of tyranny. Mr. Downing asked me if I would deliver up the arms, and I said, certainly not. He said the magistrates were about to make a report to the Castle of the matter. I said I did wot care what reports they made; the law allowed me to hold such things, and hold them I would while the district was not ‘proclaimed.’
“Now,” added he,“for peace sake, I ask you, as a personal favor, to give them up to me; I will keep them for you in my own house, and I pledge you my word that when you want them, I will give them to you.”
“Well,” replied I, “as you make so serious a matter of it, you can have them.”
“I went home; I put the pike on my shoulder, and gave the rifle to William (Croppy) McCarthy. It was a market day, and both of us walked through the town, and showed the people we could carry arms, so that we made the act of surrender as glorious as possible to our cause, and as disagreeable as it could be to the stipendiaries of England.
“These are small things to chronicle, but it is in small things that the enemy shows a very wary diligence to crush us. Inch by inch she pursues us, and no spark of manhood appears anywhere in the land that she has not recourse to her petty arts to extinguish it.
“In the spring of 1863, the Poles were struggling against their tyranny, and we conceived the idea of having a meeting of sympathy for them in Skibbereen, and carried it out. We prepared torchlights and republican banners, and we issued private orders to have some of our best men, in from the country. The authorities were getting alarmed, and they issued orders to have a large force of police congregated in the town on the appointed night. During the day the ‘peelers,’ as I may inoffensively call them, were pouring in, and as they passed by the several roads, the peasantry crowded in after them. The rumor went around that we were to be slaughtered, and men from the country came to see the fun. The town was full of ‘peelers’ and peasants; and, to have another stroke at the ‘bigfellows’ we got handbills stuck off, calling upon the people not to say an offensive word to any of the police; that they were Irishmen, like ourselves, and only obliged from circumstances toappearour enemies. We posted these bills, and got boys to put them into the hands of police. There were six magistrates in the town; and the stipendiary one, O’Connell—a member of the ‘Liberator’s’ family—was in command of the forces. They thought to intimidate us from carrying out the programme of our procession, and we felt bound to maintain the confidence of our people by proceeding according to our announcement. They recognized in our meeting of sympathy for the Poles a meeting of organized hostility against England; they knew that bringing the masses together, and allowing them to see their strength and union would create confidence, and that is what they wanted to kill. And, to be candid, it was necessary for us to humor the peculiarities of our people some way. They are ever ready to fight; ever impatient for the ‘time,’ and when the time is long coming, they are drooping and restless without stimulants.
“The officers of arrangement moved from the committee-rooms. The committee were armed with wands, and marched in front, toward the place where the vast assembly of people were formed in line of procession with torches in their hands.
“The wives of the police, and the police themselves, had been sent to the mothers of young men on the committee, telling them that the police had orders to fire on us; and the mothers implored us, on their knees, to give up our project. We went on; and, as we proceededto move, the magistrates came in front of us, with the police behind them, and stopped the route of our march. The Castle agent O’Connell addressing himself to Brosnahan, asked—
“Who are the leaders of this tumult?”
And the police sergeant answered—
“Here, they are sir; Dan McCartie, Mortimer Moynahan, Jerrie Crowley, Con Callahan, O’Donovan Rossa, James O’Keefe, etc.”
O’Connell—“I order this assembly to disperse.”
Committee—“For what?”
“For it is disturbing the peace of the town.”
“It is you who are disturbing the peace of the town. We are peaceful citizens, met here to demonstrate our sympathy for a people struggling against tyranny. Do you say we have no right to do so, or that we must not walk the streets?”
“You are meeting in an illegal manner; I will now read the Riot Act, and if you do not disperse before fifteen minutes, you have only to take the consequence.”
He read the Riot Act; after which we asked—
“What do you see illegal in our procession?”
“That red flag,” pointing to an equilateral triangle banner.
The Committee—“Take that flag down. Now, Mr. O’Connell, do you see anything else illegal?”
O’Connell—“Those transparencies, with the mottoes.”
Committee—“Take away those transparencies. Do you see anything else illegal, Mr. O’Connell?”
“Those torchlights.”
Committee—“Put out those torchlights. Do you see anything else illegal?”
“You had better disperse.”
Committee—“Do you tell us, now, that you came here with your authority and your armed force to tell us that we must not walk through the streets of Skibbereen?”
“I do not.”
The committee ordered the band to play up “Garryowen” and march on. The boys did so; the magistrates moved aside; the police behind them opened way, and the procession marched twice through the streets, and ended the demonstration by the reading of an address.
The marriage of England’s Prince of Wales, in ’63, came on a few nights after we had the Polish sympathy meeting in Skibbereen, and some of the loyal people of the town illuminated their houses. There was a public newsroom in the “Prince of Wales’ Hotel,” and as the loyalists had paid the proprietor seven pounds for illuminating the house, those of them who were members of the newsroom held a private meeting, and passed a resolution that the windows of that room be illuminated too.
So they were illuminated. But some of the committee of the Polish procession were members of the newsroom, and when they heard that it was aflame with loyalty, they went to the room; called a meeting; pointed to one of the rules which excluded politics from the place, and denounced those who held a hole-and-corner meeting to introduce them there that day. Acrowd was outside the hotel listening to the fight inside; they cheered and groaned, according as the several speakers spoke. One of the loyalists inside said it was “a mob meeting” they had in the room. “Then we may as well have mob law,” said I, and making for the windows, I tore down the transparencies, the fil-dols and the English flags, and threw them into the street.
The I. R. B. movement generated a spirit of manhood in the land that the enemy could not crush, and cannot crush, if we do not prove ourselves dastards. Acts of hostility, similar to those I speak of, were occurring everywhere; and if the people only had arms to back their spirit, they would do something worthy of them.
The Gladstones know this, and use all their ingenuity to keep the dangerous weapons from the people, “lest,” as one of them said lately, “the people would hurt themselves.” But, “beg, borrow or steal” them, we must have arms before we can have our own again.
After those occurrences in Skibbereen, the Stipendiary Magistrate O’Connell, and Potter, the Police Inspector, came to me, and said they had instructions to give me notice that if I “did not cease from disturbing the community,” I would be called up for sentence, pursuant to the terms of my “plea of guilty.” I told them they should first show that I violated any of those terms; that they should prove me guilty of the practice of drilling, and of the other things sworn against me at the time of my imprisonment; but while to their eyes I was acting within their own law, I did not care about their threats.
Dan Hallahan, John O’Gorman, Willie O’Gorman, William McCarthy, Jerrie O’Donovan, John Hennigan, Jerrie O’Meara and others who had charge of the flags the night of the Polish demonstration, took them to my house. They went up to the roof and planted them on the chimneys. That was more high-treason. But I let the flags fly, and would not haul them down—much to the alarm of the men of the English garrison who had “charge of the peace” of the community. McCarthy Downing, trying to reason me out of any rebellious propensities those days, told me what a strong ’48 man he was—how affectionately he cherished the possession of a green cap the ’48 men gave him when they were “on the run,” and how he himself would be the first man to handle a pike—ifhe thought ’twould be of any use. But with England’s strong army and navy, it was nothing but folly for us to think we could do anything against her wonderful power. That is the kind of talk that is of most use to England in Ireland; particularly when it comes from men who have the character of being patriots. And we have many such patriots among us to-day; not alone in Ireland, but in America, and in every other land to which the Irish race is driven—patriots whowill do anything to free Ireland but the one thing thatMUSTbe done before she is freed. And to say that she cannot be freed by force is something that no manly Irishman should say—something he should not allow a thought of to enter his mind, while he has it in his power to grasp all these resources of war, or “resources of civilization” that England has at her command for the subjugation of Ireland and other nations. England knows well that Irishmen have it in their power to bring her to her knees, if they fight her with her own weapons, and that is why she labors so insidiously to put the brand of illegality, infamy, and barbarity upon such instruments of war in their hands as in her hands she calls “resources of civilization.” “England,” said Gladstone to Parnell, “has yet in reserve for Ireland the resources of civilization.” Ireland has such “resources” too; and, when it comes to a fight—as come it must—the Parnells must be sure to use them in England as the Gladstones will be sure to use them in Ireland. Then, may there be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and blood for blood—with an opening for Macauley’s New Zealander in London. When I was in Ireland three years ago, I got a letter from Father John O’Brien of Ardfield, Clonakilty, inviting me to spend some time with him in memory of old times in Skibbereen. He was a curate in the town in my time there. The boys in the shop told me one day that Father O’Brien was in looking for me, and left word to have me call up to his house. I called up; in answer to my knock on the rapper, Kittie the housekeeper opened the door. “Kittie,” said I,“is Father O’Brien in?” “Yes,” said he, speaking from the head of the stairs, “Is that Rossa? Come upstairs.” I went upstairs: sat with him for two or three hours; had lunch with him, and lots of talk upon the questions of the day. The question of the day at that time was Fenianism, and we talked it over. “Why is it,” said I, “that I can go to confession and get absolution, and that Dan Hallahan and Simon Donovan and others will be turned away from the confessional unless they give up the Society?” “Oh,” said he, “in that matter the Church has a discretionary power which it uses according to its judgment. The historical experience of the Church regarding political secret societies is, that no matter how good the purpose for which such societies are started, the control of them generally gets into the hands of men who use them against the Church, and not in the interest of any good purpose in the name of which young men are drawn into them. Where we meet a man who, we think, cannot be used against the Church, we use our discretionary power to admit him to the sacraments; when our judgment tells us it may be proper to advise other penitents to have nothing to do with the society, and to discontinue membership in it, we so advise.” Then he quoted some of the Church doctrine in those words of St. Augustine:—“In necessariis, unitas; in non-necessariis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas.—In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
I do not wonder that any Irish priest would turn away from his confessional any Irishman who would kneel at it, confessing to him as one of his sins, thathe had taken a pledge or an oath to fight as a soldier for the freedom of his country. If I was a priest myself, I would tell the poor slave to give up sinning. When I came home that day after my visit to Father O’Brien, I found the whole house laughing at me, and calling me “fool, fool.” It was the 1st of April, “Fool’s Day” in Ireland; my people made a “fool” of me in sending me to see Father O’Brien, for he had never been in, asking to see me. But no matter for that; it was a pleasant visit, and the priest laughed heartily afterward when I was telling him how I had been “fooled” into it.
One Sunday afternoon, in this month of April, 1863, I, with some of the boys of the town, made a visit to Union Hall, a seaside village, some four miles to the south of Skibbereen. We remained there till eleven o’clock at night; met many men of the district, and enlivened the place with speech, recitation and song. Next morning Kit-na-Carraiga and a few more of the wives of the Myross fishermen came in to my shop and told me as they were passing through Union Hall they met the magistrate, John Limerick; that he was raging mad, and swearing that if he caught Jerrie-na Phœnix and his crowd in Union Hall again, they would not leave it as they left yesterday. Kit spoke in Irish, and I said to her: “Kit! Innis do a maireach, go riaghmid sios aris de Domhnaig seo chughain.” “Kit! tell him to-morrow that we will go down again next Sunday.”
Next Sunday came, and we were as good as our word.
After mass, some twenty of us left the town, andbroke into the fields. We started hares and chased them with our screeching. Many of the farmers’ sons on the way joined us, and, as we were entering Union Hall, we had a pretty big crowd. But there was a far bigger crowd in the village. It was full of people, because all the morning, police had been coming in on every road from the surrounding police stations, and the people followed the police. The threat of John Limerick, the magistrate, had gone out, and the people came in to see what would be the result. Five or six of the magistrates of the district had come in too. Across the little harbor from Glandore we saw a fleet of boats facing for Union Hall. They conveyed men from Ross, some three miles at the other side of Glandore. As the boats approached our quay John Limerick stood on it, and forbade them to land. “Boys,” said I, “never mind what this man says; this is a part of Ireland, your native land, and you have as good right to tread its soil as he has.”
With that, Pat Donovan (now in New York), jumped from his boat into the shallow shoal water; others followed him; Limerick left the quay, and they marched through the village, with their band playing, up to the house of Father Kingston.
Limerick gave orders to close all the public houses in the village. I was in at the house of Mrs. Collins, an aunt-in-law of mine, when the police came in, with orders to clear the house. “If you tell me to go out,” said I to Mrs. Collins, “I will go out.” “I won’t turn you out of my house,” said she. “If you put your hands on me, and tell me to leave this house,” said I toSergeant William Curran, or to Dockery (who now keeps a hotel in Queenstown), “I will leave it.” “I won’t put my hand on you,” said the policeman; “my orders are to have Mrs. Collins clear the house, and I can’t do more.” The police went out; I and my friends went out after them, telling Mrs. Collins it was better for her to close up, for Limerick was lord of the manor, and lord of her license to keep house.
The police in the street arrested Patrick Donovan. Some girls named Dillon, first cousins of his, snatched him away from the police and rushed him into their house. John Limerick read the Riot Act. Potter, the Chief of Police gave the order of “fix bayonets,” et cetera. The women in the windows, at each side of the street, were screaming in alarm. Patrick Spillane, the Master-instructor of the Skibbereen band (now in Rochester, N. Y.), stood up in his carriage and addressed the people, denouncing the village tyranny they were witnessing; Dan. O’Donoghue, one of the bandsmen (a Protestant), in a scuffle with a policeman, broke his trombone. I asked Potter, the Chief of Police, what did he mean to do now, with his drawn swords and fixed bayonets? He said he meant to quell this riot. I told him there was no riot but what was made by Mr. Limerick.
Five or six other magistrates were there. I knew Doctor Somerville and John Sidney Townsend. I got talking to them; they told me to go home. I told them I would stay at home that day only that threats from John Limerick had been coming to my house allthe week that if I set my foot in Union Hall again it would be worse for me.
Things gradually quieted down; the police were ordered off the ground, and peace was restored. There were lots of summonses next day; McCarthy Downing was employed for our defence, and some fines were adjudged against a few of the people. But that was not the worst of it. Many of them who filled situations lost their places. A few national schoolmasters, who were in the village that day were suspended, and did not teach school in Ireland since. One of them was John O’Driscoll, who died in Boston a few years ago.
A few days after this Union Hall affair I called into the Beecher Arms Hotel in Skibbereen and met John Sydney Townsend. We talked of the affair of the previous Sunday. I said affairs had come to a queer pass when an Irishman, in his own country, would be forbidden to tread its soil. Why, said I, if you yourself were in a foreign land, and if any one insulted you because that you were an Irishman, you would resent the insult. He took off his coat and his vest, took hold of my hand and placed it on his shoulder, to let me feel his shoulder-blade that was out of joint. “I got that,” said he, “in Australia, in a fight with fellows that were running down the Irish.” He got that middle name, Sidney, from having lived several years in Sydney, Australia. What a pity it is that men like him will not fight for Ireland in Ireland. Most of them are found on the side of Ireland’s deadliest enemy—their enemy, too, if they would only rightly understand it.
The spirit of the men in the south of Ireland was running ahead of the times—running into fight with the laws of the English enemy before the Fenian organization in America or Ireland had made any adequate preparation for a successful fight. Many of the men had gone to America, and many of them went into the American army, to learn the soldier’s glorious trade—as much for the benefit of Ireland’s freedom as for the benefit of America’s freedom. Patrick Downing, Denis Downing and William O’Shea were in Cork Jail with me in 1859. In 1863 I made a visit to America and saw Patrick Downing, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty-second Tammany Regiment; William O’Shea, captain in the same regiment; Denis Downing, captain in a Buffalo regiment, and I saw Michael O’Brien, the Manchester martyr, enlisted into a Jersey regiment. O’Shea was killed in the war. Denis Downing lost a leg at the battle of Gettysburg, Patrick Downing was wounded many times. All dead now, and many more dead, who with their last breath, wished it was in a fight for Ireland against England they were dying. I’ll go back to Skibbereen for a while.
Things were getting so hot there in the year 1863, and there was in the line of business and employment, such an English boycott upon men who were suspected of belonging to the organization that many of them left the town and went to America. I left the town myself, and went with a party of them—Dan Hallahan, Wm. McCarthy, Simon O’Donovan, John O’Gorman, Jerrie O’Meara, and others, having made arrangements with my family to be away a few months.