By the pleasant waters of the River Lee.
By the pleasant waters of the River Lee.
and I have heard her exclaiming, I at the time believing it most implicitly:
"Sin, is it? Sure. I never heard of sin till I came to Liverpool; there's no sin in Cor-r-k!"
And she rattled the "r" with a strong rising inflexion, greatly impressing me with the high character of Ireland and of Cork in particular.
At that time I had never seen Ireland but as an infant at my mother's breast.
I was a boy of about 12 when I first re-visited Ireland; and, as the steamer entered Carlingford Lough, which to my mind almost equals Killarney's beauty—but that, perhaps, is a Northman's prejudice—with the noble range of the Mourne mountains on the one side and the Carlingford Hills on the other, it seemed to my young imagination like a glimpse of fairy land.
Carlingford reminded me of what my old masters, the Christian Brothers, used to teach us, that those places ending in "ford" had at one time been Norse settlements. There is not the slightest trace, I should say, of people of Norse descent along this coast now, unless we accept the theory that would regard as such the descendants of the Norman De Courcy's followers, who can be recognised by their names, and are still to be found, side by side, and intermingling with those of the original Celtic children of the soil in the barony of Lecale. It is astonishing, by the way, how you still find in Ireland, after centuries of successive confiscations, the old names in their old tribal lands, mingled in places, as in Lecale, with the Norman names; the two races being now thoroughlyamalgamated—as distinguished from the case of King James's Planters in Ulster, who, to this day are, as a rule, as distinct from the population amongst whom they live—whether of pure Celtic strain or with a Norman admixture—as when first they came.
There was an idea in our family that I had a vocation for the priesthood, and I was being sent to my uncle, Father Michael O'Loughlin, parish priest of Dromgoolan, County Down, who placed me in charge of Mr. Johnson, a somewhat noted classical teacher in the neighbouring little town of Castlewellan.
I have seen but little of Ireland, but during the few months I was here on this occasion I made the best use of my time. I could have had no better guide and preceptor than "Priest Mick," as my mother used to call my uncle. I imagine that the term "Priest," which, in the North of Ireland, was formerly so much used as a prefix to the name of the Catholic clergyman, must have arisen amongst those not of his own flock, and was probably not intended to have exactly a respectful meaning.
Father Michael sometimes came to see his relatives in Liverpool, who were very numerous. He called them the "Tribe of Brian" (his father's name) and he made a point of visiting them all, down to the very latest arrival—indeed, I think he was the only one who knew the whole of the ramifications of "the Tribe."
He used to say that his father—the aforesaidBrian—had one of the largest noses in the country. There was only another man, he said, who could approach him in that respect. If the two men met in a very narrow "loanan "—what they call a "boreen" in other parts of Ireland—the other man, who was a bit of a wag, would put his hand to his nose, and make a motion of putting it aside, as if there was not sufficient room for two such organs, and call out with a kind of snuffle: "Pass, Brian!"
The late Mgr. O'Laverty, in his "History of the Dioceses of Down and Connor," says: "From a government official survey in 1766 there were fifteen families in Castlewellan, of whom two only (Hagans and O'Donnells) were Catholics." Up to that date there must have been, during this century, a considerable clearance of the Catholic population from the best land of this district, for I should say—judging from King James's Army List and other authorities—that the Magennises (who, with the MacCartans, were the chief territorial families of the old race in Down) still held land in the neighbourhood up to the end of the seventeenth century. As still further showing this, it will be found that "Eiver Magennis of Castlewellan" was one of the members for the County Down in what Thomas Davis truly describes as "The Patriot Parliament" of 1689.
The learned historian of Down and Connor gives an interesting account of the only Norman colony of any extent in the province of Ulster. I have already spoken of this. Notwithstanding the verysmall Norman admixture, in the main the Catholics of the North are the most pure-blooded Celts in Ireland. And even in the case of Lecale, the original Celtic population intermingled with the descendants of the Norman settlers, who, like the older native population have ever remained true to the old faith. The preponderance of the Celtic element in the Catholics of Ulster must be overwhelming. What is called "Protestant Ulster" is practically a foreign importation, which the native population never absorbed, as they did the earlier invaders.
Speaking of the Rev. Cornelius (or, as he was oftener called, Corney) Denvir, a relative of ours, who afterwards became Bishop of Down and Connor, Father O'Laverty says: "The Denvirs are a Norman race, brought to Lecale by De Courcy. The late bishop observed the name in several of the towns in Normandy."
I only met Bishop Denvir once, when my father—who was his second cousin—took me to see him at the Grecian Hotel, Liverpool, when he was on his way either to or from Rome. I once, when a small boy, incurred my father's displeasure by criticising adversely (from what I had read in the "Nation") Dr. Denvir's support of what was called the "Bequest Bill." There were some strictures in the "Nation" on the favour shown to this Bill by three of the Irish Hierarchy, Archbishops Crolly and Murray, and Bishop Denvir. The last was a man of great learning. An edition of the Bible was published under his auspices by Sims and McIntyre, of Belfast.
During my stay in Ireland, I lived in the houseof my uncle, Owen (or Oiney, as he was commonly called) Bannon, in the townland of Ballymagenaghy, where my mother was born.
No boy could have had a better object lesson in the part of Irish history embracing the Plantation of Ulster than Ballymagenaghy. It is eminently typical of the kind of rocky and barren land to which the children of the soil were driven—land which would hardly bear cultivation. I need scarcely say that the people were "Papishes" to a man.
There was a hill behind my Uncle Oiney's house called Carraig (pronounced "Corrig"), in English "rock," and the name might well apply to most of the townland, in which the chief productions seemed to be stones and rocks. Carraig was a kind of shoulder of what I heard the people calling "My lord's mountain." This was part of Lord Annesley's domain, and separated from Carraig and several small farms by a wall, which ran down to a sheet of water at the foot—Castlewellan Lough. I, as a student of the "Nation," was not at all satisfied that an Irish mountain should be called by such a name, which spoke volumes for the state of serfdom into which the people had fallen. I was not long in finding the real name—Sliaḃ na Slat (mountain of Rods).
I often looked with admiration at the view from its highest point. Underneath, the side of the mountain was clothed with trees down to the edge of the lough, which mirrored the wooded eminences of exquisite beauty surrounding it. Looking eastward you could see Dundrum Bay and the white sails of the fishing boats.(They used to sing a mournful lament around the turf fires of Ballymagenaghy of "The loss of the Mourne Fishermen" in a great storm off this coast). Further off you might see an occasional large sailing vessel or steamer, and, further still, in the dim distance, you could just discern the Isle of Man. Southward the eye took in the noble range of the Mourne mountains, running from east to west, from where, at Newcastle, the Irish sea comes to kiss the foot of the lofty Slieve Donard, towering in majesty over all his fellows—rugged sentinels of the hills and vales of Down.
Lying, as if nestling under the Mourne range, was a small, well-wooded hill, part of the domain of Lord Roden, who held high rank among the Orange ascendancy faction, and, as will be seen later, may be said to have held the lives and liberties of his Catholic fellow-countrymen in this district in his hands.
In Ballymagenaghy I was oftener called by my mother's name than my father's. In those days, as often as not, when a girl got married she was still called by her friends by her maiden name. So, on the first Sunday after my arrival, when I was taken over to Leitrim chapel, where I served my uncle's Mass, I found myself referred to as "Peggy Loughlin's wee boy." It did not seem at all strange to me, for I scarcely ever heard her called by any other name. Indeed, some forty years afterwards—when I was organising for theIrish National League—I met a County Down man in Cumberland. He was, as I soon found, from "our own place," as they affectionately call it. He was trying to trace out what family I belonged to. At last he had it—"Oh" he said, "You would be a son of Margaret O'Loughlin?" I hesitated for moment, when Edward McConvey, the local organiser—a County Down man, too—who had introduced us, laughed heartily as he said: "Here's a quare man; doesn't know his own mother's name!" In fact, I had so seldom heard my mother called anything else but "Peggy" that the proper name sounded strange for the moment. Indeed, it had evidently taken our friend some time to remember the name of "Margaret," which he, no doubt, thought the more polite one to use in speaking of my mother.
Her family did not generally use the prefix "O" in her younger days. It was only after her two brothers, Bernard and Michael, became priests, and always called and signed themselves "O'Loughlin," that the prefix was resumed. This is a common experience in other Irish families.
Many of the small holdings in Ballymagenaghy would not support in anything approaching to comfort the large families with which the sturdy and industrious people were blessed. This was certainly the case with the Bannons, but they were not entirely dependent on the land they tilled, as several of the family were employed in weaving in a portion of the house, the looms being their own. I have often admired the beautiful damasktable-cloths produced in the homes of these "mountainy" people, the webs, when finished, being taken to Banbridge, to the warehouses of the manufacturers, and the yarn and the patterns for the next lot being brought back on the return journey.
I believe that these cottage industries no longer exist, and that the beautiful fabrics, for which our northern province is famous, are now produced by steam power in Banbridge and other Ulster towns.
As the young men and boys of the Bannons worked at their looms, and the women and girls at their spinning and "flowering," when not wanted to help on the land, the father, Oiney, would occasionally go over to England as a travelling packman, and so increase the family store. I have known in late years other Ulstermen doing this—amongst others my old friend Bernard MacAnulty, of whom I shall have more to say later.
I had often, at my home in Liverpool, heard of Irish hospitality. Here in Ballymagenaghy I had many practical illustrations of this in the way they treated the "poor man" or "poor woman" as they called them—they never called them beggars—who came to their doors. Indeed, it seemed to me that these had no occasion toaskfor help, for more than once I have seen a "poor woman" coming in with her bed upon her back, putting it down in the warmest corner behind the chimney breast, and making herself at home as a matter of course, without going through the formality of asking for a night's lodging.
Of the enormous number of harvestmen who passed every year through Liverpool, except from the County Donegal, there were not so many from the northern province. The majority were from Connaught. They generally landed at the Clarence Dock, Liverpool, a wiry, hardy-looking lot, with frieze coats, corduroy breeches, clean white shirts with high collars, and blackthorn sticks. I have seen them filling the breadth of Prescot Street, as they left the town, marching up like an army on foot to the various parts of England they were bound for. This was before special cheap trains were run for harvestmen.
At night, in my Irish mountain home, after I had prepared my Latin lessons for the following day, and my uncle, aunt, and cousins had left off work, I joined with great enjoyment in the family group around the turf fire, and listened with rapt attention to songs and stories; my favourite among the latter being the adventures of Barney Henvey among the fairies in the old rath, or "forth," as they called it, of Ballymagenaghy.
I may say that, up to this moment, I have a certain liking for such stories—of courseasfairy stories. But, being a boy of enquiring mind, I wanted to get at the whole theory of the existence of these beings, and, accordingly, this is what I gathered as to the origin, present existence, and future state of the "good people," as they called them. In "The Irish Fairy Legends," a number of my "Penny Irish Library," I find I have dealt with the subject. As the passage gives the explanationI got at my uncle Oiney's more correctly than I can trust to my memory to give it now, after a lapse of some sixty years, I may be excused for giving the following extract:—
The belief is that, in the great rebellion of Lucifer, of the spirits who fell from heaven, some, not so guilty as those who "went further and fared worse," fell upon our earth, and into the air and water that surround it. These are theFairies, who have their various dispositions, like mortals, and like them, at the day of judgment, will be rewarded or punished according to their deserts.
The belief is that, in the great rebellion of Lucifer, of the spirits who fell from heaven, some, not so guilty as those who "went further and fared worse," fell upon our earth, and into the air and water that surround it. These are theFairies, who have their various dispositions, like mortals, and like them, at the day of judgment, will be rewarded or punished according to their deserts.
In the "Fairy Legends" I have also given the story of "Barney Henvey" mentioned above. There is something like it in the "Ingoldsby Legends," and, no doubt, in the fairy mythologies of other nations, but my story is of Irish origin. Heaven only knows through how many ages it has been handed down to us. It is one of the fairy stories my mother and grandmother used to tell us as long ago as I can remember. I have a little grandson who, when smaller, used sometimes to insist when put to bed after he had said his "lying-down prayers," upon hearing "Barney Henvey" before he went to sleep; and so it will, no doubt, go on, and such stories may be told in ages to come, not only in Ireland—"A Nation once again"—but in every settlement of the Clan-na-Gael throughout the world.
Friends and neighbours would come to my uncle Oiney's from beside Castlewellan Lough, and over from Dolly's Brae and Ballymagrehan, who, afterthe day's work, enjoyed going "a cailey." I hope my Gaelic League friends will forgive me if I don't give the correct sound of this word, but that is my remembrance of how they pronounced it some sixty years ago in the County Down.
Sometimes at our little gatherings, the "wee boy from England," as the neighbours called me, would be asked to read from the "Nation" a speech of the Liberator—the title his countrymen gave O'Connell after Catholic emancipation. I was always delighted with this; entering as fully and enthusiastically into the spirit of what I read as any of the company.
As often as not, in Ballymagenaghy there would be sung, to the accompaniment of fiddle, flute or clarionet, one of those stirring songs which, week after week, appeared about this time in the "Nation" from the pens of Thomas Davis, and the brilliant young men in O'Connell's movement known as the "Young Irelanders "—songs "racy of the soil," like the "Nation" itself, which stirred the hearts of the Irish race like the blast of a trumpet, songs which are still sung by Irish Nationalists the world over.
On the Sundays, the Bannons and their next neighbours, the Finegans, MacCartans, and MacKays, with their fiddles, flutes, and clarionets, supplied the chief part of the instrumental music of the choir—for there was no organ—at the little mountain chapel at Leitrim, where my uncle, Father Michael, officiated. The happy remembrances of those Sundays of my boyhood are always broughtback to me whenever I read T.D. Sullivan's "Dear Old Ireland," which is equally characteristic of this corner of the "black North" as of the raciest part of Munster—more especially where he sings:—
And happy and bright are the groups that passFrom their peaceful homes for miles,O'er fields, and roads, and hills to Mass,When Sunday morning smiles;And deep the zeal their true hearts feelWhen low they kneel and pray!Oh, dear old Ireland!Blest old Ireland!Ireland, boys, hurrah!
But nothing excited my boyish enthusiasm more than the stories of the Insurrection of 1798. I was too young to understand much of what my grandmother used to tell us about these times before she died. My mother was born in 1799, and was the youngest daughter of her family, but her eldest sister, my Aunt Mary, wife of Oiny Bannon, was 12 or 14 years old at the time of the Rising, and could describe more vividly what she saw connected with it than I can now recall incidents in the Repeal and Young Ireland Movements.
Listening to her, I could almost fancy I could see my grandfather, Brian O'Loughlin, leaving his home with the other Ballymagenaghy men, with their pikes and such guns as they could muster, to join the United Irish forces previous to the battles of Saintfield and Ballinahinch. At the time of my visit to my mother's birthplace, my grandfather's house was in the occupation of the family of his youngest son, Edward, and, as a pilgrimvisiting a sacred spot, I have stood on its floor, as I afterwards did on the field of Ballinahinch itself.
My Aunt Mary used to speak of an incident which I have never read of in any account of the battle, but I am inclined to believe there was some foundation for what she used to tell us. In one part of the engagement it seemed as if the bravery of the insurgents would have been crowned with a victory as decisive as they had gained at Saintfield, when, by some untoward circumstance, the fortunes of the day turned, and, in the end, the United Men were defeated. Perhaps what my Aunt Mary told me may be some explanation of the turn in the tide of battle. She used to say that when it looked as if the United Men were carrying all before them, a portion of their forces called out for a "Presbyterian ('Prispatairan' she used to call it) Government," that this caused some hesitation among the Catholics, that after this the battle went against them, and that the day ended in disaster.
The story seems somewhat improbable, as it might be asked how, in the excitement of a battle, men of one religion could be distinguished from those of another? But this will not seem so unlikely if the circumstances arising out of the Ulster Plantation of King James I. be remembered. As a consequence of this you will find townlands and parishes and whole districts, where the soil is poorest, where the people are almost exclusively Catholic, and others where the non-Catholic population are in an overwhelming majority. In the United forcesthe men of each locality would have been drilled and trained together, and, in the same way would, no doubt, act together on the field of battle, so that, without any actual arrangement for that purpose, the Catholic or the Presbyterian would, most likely, find himself among his own co-religionists.
It is wonderful how the memories of '98 were handed down from one generation to another, not only in Ireland, but wherever our people have made their homes.
This has been brought home to me in the most forcible possible manner by a circumstance which has come to my knowledge only a few months since—so to speak—after a lapse of over a hundred years.
This is that General James William Denver—after whom, for his distinguished career, the capital of the State of Colorado was called Denver City—had for his grandfather Patrick Denvir, who did a man's share in the insurrection of '98, and, for his connection with it, had to fly from his native Down to America.
This information I had from General Denver's daughter, replying on behalf of her brother, to whom I had written to find if the family were of Irish origin. I had some doubt about this, seeing that they spell their name with an "e" in the last syllable, whereas we and all of the name in the County Down use an "i." The lady's letter was not only interesting but most welcome, as showing that they were not only of Irish but of patriotic origin. They evidently continue to take an interest in the land from which they have sprung, for thelady made some enquiries about the late Bishop Denvir, of whom I have already spoken.
Most of the United Irish leaders and a large proportion of the rank and file in the '98 Rising were Presbyterians, and fought and bled for Ireland with the same heroism as their Catholic neighbours, amongst whom no name is more cherished in the County Down than that of the Protestant General Monroe, who, my Aunt Mary used to tell us, was hanged at his own door in 1798. How is it that the sons of the men of 1782 and of Grattan's Parliament, and of 1798 were not as good Irishmen as their fathers? I think I can give a kind of explanation.
It must be remembered that the era of Grattan's Parliament and of the Volunteer movement of 1782, of which present-day Nationalists are so proud, was also the era of the Penal laws. Since then the Protestants have seen the Irish Catholic rising from the dust of serfdom and standing in the attitude of manhood. They have seen him gradually obtaining a share in the making of the laws of the land, and, naturally, becoming the predominant political power in Ireland—the Catholics being the majority of the population. I may be wrong, but I have a theory that many of the Protestants of Ireland—who once had all the political power in their hands, and did not always use it too mercifully in their treatment of the rest of their countrymen—are afraid that if they assisted in getting self-government for Ireland the power in the hands of the enfranchised majority might be used against them.
That this is a groundless fear is shown from the fact that no men have been more honoured in Ireland than such Protestant leaders as William Smith O'Brien, Thomas Davis, John Mitchel, John Martin, Isaac Butt, and Charles Stewart Parnell. The same feeling is constantly shown at this moment towards distinguished Protestants among the present Irish Parliamentary Party.
What has fostered the Anti-Irish feeling among Irish Protestants for the last hundred years has undoubtedly been the fell system of Orangeism, which has caused so much hatred and bloodshed among men who, whatever their race or creed, are now children of the one common soil. The Orangeman looked upon himself as part of a foreign garrison, holding the "Papishes" in subjection. He was armed with deadly weapons; consequently, the defenceless Catholic was almost entirely at his mercy, and the Orangeman was but too often backed up in his lawlessness by the law and its administrators.
This almost necessitated the existence, as a kind of defence against Orangeism, of a body I used to hear them speaking of when I was a boy in Ballymagenaghy, called the "Thrashers," which, I imagine, must have been some kind of a secret society.
It must have been a sort of survival of these "Thrashers" that my friend, Michael Davitt, many years afterwards, came across somewhere in the North of England. The incident, as described by him, was both amusing and saddening. He addressed them in his capacity as a Fenian Organiser. Afterthey had heard him patiently, an old man, the spokesman, said:
"Tell me—do you have Prodestans in this Society of yours?"
"Certainly," Davitt answered. "We invite all Irishmen."
"Then we'll have nothing to do with yez!"
As my Aunt Mary could relate thrilling stories of '98, so could my own mother tell me all about the savagery of Orangemen in her days. She used to describe to me the attempts of an Orange procession to pass through Dolly's Brae, when she was a young girl, before she left Ireland. Dolly's Brae is a kind of rugged defile through which passes the road from the town of Castlewellan, which, running westward, divides the townlands of Ballymagenaghy and Ballymagrehan. It is an entirely Catholic district, and not at all on the ordinary route by which the processionists would reach their homes. Yet, in a spirit of aggression, and well-armed, as usual, with Orange banners waving, drums beating, and bands playing "Croppies lie down," "The Boyne Water," and similar airs, this was the district they sought to march through.
It so happened that the proposed hostile parade was not altogether unexpected. In any case, their approach was heralded by the firing over "Papish" houses, as the processionists came towards Dolly's Brae. From the heights above they were seen—my mother being one of the watchers—in sufficient time to have the people of the immediate neighbourhood warned of the threatened Orange incursion.
The defenders of Dolly's Brae had no firearms, as their opponents had, but they gathered up any weapons they could to repel the invaders. The Orangemen came on, expecting an easy victory. They had got well into the defile, and were firing at their opponents, who were in sight before them at some distance on the road, and into the houses on each side, when they were thrown into confusion by a storm of large stones and pieces of rock hurled down the steep sides of the defile upon them by assailants who had been up till then invisible.
According to the description of my mother, who was always a militant Catholic of the most orthodox description, and a strong physical force Irishwoman as well, the Dolly's Brae engagement must have borne some resemblance to the battle of Limerick, as described by Thomas Davis:—
"The women fought before the men;Each man became a match for ten;So back they pushed the villains thenFrom the city of Luimneaċh Lionnglass."
She ought to know, for she was in the thick of the fight. The confusion of the Orangemen was turned into a complete rout, and they fled, leaving their banners and other trophies in the hands of the mountainy men.
For many years the Orangemen never attempted to go near the place, but, with the connivance and active aid of the guardians of the peace, they did at last, many years afterwards, appear on the scene again. The Orange anniversary was celebrated atTollymore Park, the seat of Lord Roden, who was a sort of Orange deity at the time. Tollymore Park is some four or five miles south-east of Dolly's Brae, which is in the heart of the Catholic district, and, as I have said, far out of the direct road of the Orangemen returning to their own homes.
Yet they deliberately took this route. They were a formidable body, well armed with guns. At their head was one Beers, the agent of Lord Roden, and a magistrate who, for the "protection" of the Orangemen, had under his command a strong body of the constabulary and a detachment of soldiers. The ordinary Englishman, who knows the police as they are in his country as the guardians of the public peace, must not confound them with those in Ireland. The Irish constabulary are simply the permanent British army of occupation, well armed and drilled, and, physically, as fine a body of men as any in the world. These were the forces under the command of Lord Roden's agent, for the invasion, for such it was, of a peaceful Catholic district.
When the people sought to defend themselves from this invasion as best they could, Beers, in his capacity as a magistrate, gave the police and soldiers under his command the order to fire—which they did—upon the people and into their houses. Consequently, what followed was nothing short of a butchery, under cover of which the Orangemen wrecked the Catholic houses in the glen.
I shall never forget the grief of my mother, at this time residing in Liverpool, at reading in thenewspapers the names of the victims who had been murdered outright or wounded. They were all her next door neighbours "at home"—people she had known from childhood.
The horrible outrage roused universal indignation. In Parliament the Irish members demanded a full official enquiry as to how this murderous business came to be carried out by a Government official. As a result Lord Roden and his agent were deprived of the Commission of the Peace—their offence was too glaring to be entirely overlooked. But to the friends of those who had been legally murdered, and the innocent people whose houses had been wrecked, this was a cruel mockery. Had the criminals been Catholic peasants, they would have been put upon their trial for their lives, and, at the very least, sent into penal servitude. What confidence could the Catholics of Ulster have in the administration of the law, knowing, as they did, that even where they were more than able to hold their own against the Orangemen, they were sure to be sufferers in the long run, seeing that their opponents would be backed up by the forces that should go to preserve law and order.
It is thirty-five years since I last re-visited the County Down. I took my son with me. He was nearly of the same age as I was myself when I lived in Ballymagenaghy, but I could only show him the site of Oiney Bannon's house. It was not the too common case of an eviction, for the Annesleys had the reputation of being tolerably good landlords. The land, as I have said, was very poor, in fact, ifthe people got it for nothing it would hardly repay cultivation. But it was picturesque, and therefore Lord Annesley took some of it into his domain, and these barren hills and rocks, when planted with trees, added to the beauty of the scenery. The dispossessed tenants got land from him in Clarkhill, not far off.
Since that time, judging from the Irish newspapers, there seems to have been progress in the right direction, for the little town of Castlewellan, where for a short time I went to school, from being a place where, in the Penal days, a Catholic was scarcely allowed to live, seems to have become a strong Nationalist centre for South Down. This was my mother's part of the country. I have seen similar paragraphs which proved to me that, in the barony of Lecale, County Down, my father's part, the people, though not so demonstrative as the "mountainy men," can still, as ever, be relied upon to stand as firm as Slieve Donard itself for creed and country.
O'Connell, when passing through Liverpool on his way to Parliament, always made the Adelphi Hotel his headquarters, and used to hear Mass not far off at the Church of St. Nicholas, or, as it was more generally called, "Copperas Hill Chapel," where I used to serve as an altar boy. I must have been a very small boy at the time when I first remember the Liberator coming to Mass at our Church, for, on one occasion, on stretching up to the altar to remove the Missal it was so difficult for me to reach that I let it fall over my head.
Without being by any means what is termed a "votheen," O'Connell was a faithful and devout son of the Catholic Church. During the many years when he was passing through Liverpool, going to and returning from Parliament, and on other occasions when he came to Irish gatherings in the town, he attended Mass daily whenever possible, and frequently approached Holy Communion.
O'Connell spoke several times from the balcony of the Adelphi Hotel. From my earliest days Iwas an earnest politician, and one of my most cherished remembrances is of having been brought by my father to one of these gatherings. The Liberator addressed a great multitude, who filled the whole square in front, and overflowed into the adjoining streets. My recollection of him on this occasion is that of a big man, in a long cloak, wearing what appeared to me some kind of a cap with a gold band on it. This must have been the famous "Repeal Cap" designed by the Irish sculptor, Hogan, who, when investing O'Connell with it at the great gathering at Mullaghmast, said: "Sir, I only regret this cap is not of gold."
As in our later Irish movements, we frequently had meetings in one or other of the Liverpool theatres. O'Connell was, as often as his attendance could be secured, the central figure, and drew enormous gatherings. At one of these meetings at the Royal Amphitheatre there was an attempt by an armed body of Orangemen to storm the platform, on which were all our leading Irishmen. Among the most active of these was Terence Bellew MacManus, who had all his lifetime been a devoted follower and admirer of O'Connell. On this particular night, which was long before the unfortunate split into "Old Ireland" and "Young Ireland," he had a fine opportunity of displaying his "physical force" proclivities in defence of the "moral force" leader.
The Orange attack was of short duration. They were simply cleared out as if by an irresistible whirlwind. We have always been able to holdour own in Liverpool, when it came to physical encounters against all comers. We have generally had some organisation or another—whether constitutional or unconstitutional—but, apart from this, the nature of the employment of our working-men, especially in O'Connell's time, brought them together in such a way that large numbers of them knew each other, and could act together in case of emergency.
MacManus, who had command of the stewards on the night of the attack, knew a number of men like Mick Digney, who was what was called a "lumper"—that is, a contractor in a small way who took work in the "lump" and employed men for loading and unloading ships. Digney and other friends would find their way for consultation and the making of the necessary arrangements beforehand on occasions like this to MacManus, whose place of business—he was an extensive forwarding agent—was one of those half-offices, half-warehouses, which used to be in North John Street.
Another class of men who were reliable for such occasions were the bricklayers' labourers. Of course, it is different now—and a sure sign that our people are rising in the social scale—but in those years, and long afterwards, I never knew a bricklayers' labourer who was not an Irishman.
The frequent mention at these gatherings of a sterling Irishman I knew well in after years, Patrick O'Hanlon, reminds me of two friends of my father of the same name who belonged to another class of men, the wood-sawyers, who, at that time,were mostly Irish. They had not exactly the same name as Patrick, for it was not so customary to use the O' or Mac in those days as it has since become. Not that Hughey and Ned Hanlon did not know that they were entitled to the honourable Gaelic prefix, but, with the good nature which is rather too characteristic of Irishmen sometimes, those who had preceded them had allowed other people to drop the O' in using their name, until it became rather difficult to resume it.
Needless to say that Hughey and Ned Hanlon, John Green, Mike Doolan, and other wood-sawyers were at the Royal Amphitheatre among MacManus's volunteers. The Hanlons, in particular, were fine lathy men, without an ounce of spare flesh, but they had sinews of iron. Hughey used to come to our house with other neighbours every week to hear the "Nation" read, and the songs in it sung to the accompaniment of Harry Starkey's or my Uncle John's fiddle. The Hanlons were North of Ireland men, and Hughey often used to proudly tell us that the O'Hanlons were the Ulster standard-bearers.
At that time, besides the Amphitheatre, where during those years several Irish demonstrations were held, a popular place for our gatherings was the Adelphi Theatre (previously the "Queen's"), which was in somewhat better standing then than afterwards, though it, too, has had within its walls most of the Irish leaders of the last half century.
I remember one occasion in particular when O'Connell was, of course, the hero of the day, which impressed itself upon my youthful mind themore forcibly on account of the presence on the platform of Jack Langan—of whom I have already spoken—a warm-hearted and generous supporter of the great Dan, and the Cause of Repeal. Indeed, we boys regarded the Irish champion boxer with the admiration we would have bestowed upon Finn MacCool or some other of the ancient Fenians, could they have appeared in bodily form amongst us.
Little we then thought that we should be welcoming on the same platform the Fenians of our own days.
That meeting in the Adelphi has also been frequently brought back to my mind since, because for a long time the "leading man" in the stock company at that theatre was Edmond O'Rourke (stage name Falconer), a sterling Nationalist, with whom I made a closer acquaintance in later years.
I was often brought by my father to the weekly gatherings in the Repeal Hall, Paradise Street, where, among the speakers on the Sunday nights I can best remember were Terence Bellew MacManus, Patrick O'Hanlon, Dr. Reynolds, George Smyth, and George Archdeacon.
MacManus and Smyth (the latter of whom I knew well in after years), besides being prominent workers in O'Connell's agitation for Repeal of the Union between Ireland and Great Britain, took active parts in the "Young Ireland" movement. Dr. Reynolds was another of the Young Irelanders. So also was Archdeacon, who, in addition, still showed his belief in physical force by his connection with Fenianism, for which he suffered imprisonment.
Young as I was, I shall never forget the days of the Famine, for Liverpool, more than any other place outside of Ireland itself, felt its appalling effects. It was the main artery through which the flying people poured to escape from what seemed a doomed land. Many thousands could get no further, and the condition of the already overcrowded parts of the town in which our people lived became terrible, for the wretched people brought with them the dreaded Famine Fever, and Liverpool became a plague-stricken city. Never was heroism greater than was shown by the devoted priests—English as well as Irish—in ministering to the sick and dying. So terrible was the mortality amongst them that several of the churches lost their priests twice over. Our own family were nearly left orphans, for both father and mother were stricken down by the fever, but happily recovered.
It will not be wondered at that one who saw these things, even though he was only a boy, should feel it a duty stronger than life itself to reverse the system of misgovernment which was responsible.
There was, no doubt, a good deal of English sympathy for the famine-stricken people, and there were some remedial measures by Parliament—totally inadequate, however, but I am afraid that the "Times" and "Punch," two great organs of public opinion, but too faithfully represented the feelings of many of our rulers. The "Times" actually gloated over what appeared to be the impending extinction of our race. Young as I then was, but learning my weekly lessons from the"Nation," I can remember how my blood boiled one day when I saw in a shop window a cartoon of "Punch"—a large potato, which was a caricature of O'Connell's head and face, with the title—"The Real Potato Blight."
At the time of the Rising of 1848 I was commencing my apprenticeship with a firm of builders, who were also my father's employers. They were successors to the firm through whose agency he had been sent to Ireland as clerk of the works, just previous to my birth there. It was the custom of the firm, when a boy came to commence his apprenticeship to be a joiner, to keep him in the office for a time as office boy. I was employed in the office at the time of the Rising, but one of the partners in this firm of builders, who was also an architect, seeing that I had had a good education, and, through attending evening classes at the Catholic Institute and Liverpool Institute, had a considerable knowledge of mathematics and architectural drawing, gave me employment which was more profitable to the firm and congenial to me than that of an ordinary office boy or junior clerk. Besides helping in the ordinary clerical work in the office, I was put to copying and making tracings of ground plans, elevations and sections of buildings, and working drawings for the use of the artizans, besides assisting in surveying. I was about three years employed in this way before entering into the joiners' workshop. The firm was most anxious that I should remain in the office altogether, and I have often thought since that my father made amistake in insisting that I should learn the trade of a joiner, which he considered a more certain living than that of an architect or draughtsman, unless one had influential connections.
It was from the upper window of the office where I was at the work I have described that I could see the men belonging to our firm drilling as special constables in the school yard opposite, in anticipation of trouble in connection with an Irish Rising.
The authorities were evidently preparing for a formidable outbreak in Liverpool, for there was a large military camp at Everton—a suburb of the city—and three gunboats in the river ready for action, in case any part of the town fell into the hands of the Irish Confederates. Special constables, as in the case of our own firm, were being sworn in all over the town, and the larger firms were putting pressure upon their employees to be enrolled. Indeed, some 500 dock labourers were discharged because they would not be sworn in. My father declined to be a special constable, but suffered no further from this than becoming a suspect—his services being too valuable to be dispensed with by his employers.
He was a genuinely patriotic Irishman, steadfast in his political creed, though unostentatious in his professions, being more a man of action than of words. My mother, as I think I have already sufficiently indicated, was, on the other hand, more demonstrative. I think she must have had a positive genius for conspiracy. Whatever the movement was she must have a hand in it. On oneoccasion—I forget exactly what it was—some compromising documents had to be got out of the way for the time being. In those days sloops used to come over from Ireland with potatoes, and the cargoes used to be sold on the quay at the King's Dock. She often bought a load of potatoes here to supply a small general shop which she kept to help out my father's earnings. It was under such a load of potatoes that she had brought home that she concealed the dangerous documents.
It was in June, 1848, in the columns of the "Nation" that I first met with the name of Bernard MacAnulty. In after years I worked in successive national movements with him, and ever found him a dear friend and most active and enthusiastic colleague. As showing that he was a man of advanced proclivities, I may mention that he wrote to the "Nation" suggesting the formation of the "Felon Repeal Club" in Newcastle-on-Tyne. From then up to the last day of his life he was the same generous whole-souled Irishman he had been from the beginning. His stalwart frame and pleasant, genial face were well known during the whole of the Home Rule movement, in which I was thrown into frequent contact with him, when we were both members of the Executive of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain.
He was a North man, from the County Down, a successful merchant—having started life as a packman—in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and so won the respect of all classes that he was elected a member of the Town Council, in which he served with greatcredit. The northern Catholic, who is so often a pure Celt, is sometimes credited with having acquired some of the qualities of his Presbyterian neighbours of Lowland Scots extraction. But this is only on the surface, and Bernard MacAnulty was a typical example of this. No braver or more generous Irishman ever breathed, and he had a fund of humour which would have done credit to the quickest-witted Connaughtman or Munsterman that ever lived. Though the Ulster accent is generally regarded as a hard one, I never thought it was so with my friend. Perhaps this is owing to my partiality as a County Down man, which, though born in Antrim, I always consider myself, Down being the native place of my people from time immemorial. I have always thought that the people born and reared, as Bernard was, among the Mourne Mountains and their surroundings have anything but an unmusical accent.
In connection with the Fenian movement my dear old friend was a strong, active, and generous sympathiser. His purse was always available for every good National object, whether "legal" or "illegal," and I know as a fact that many a good fellow "on the run" found shelter under his roof, and never went away empty-handed.
The restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy, September 29th, 1850, brought on what appeared to us one of John Bull's periodical fits of lunacy. I witnessed many scenes of mob violence at the time, when, in deference to the prevailing bigotry in opposing what they termed "Papal Aggression" a part of the Penal Laws were revived in Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Act. In due course John got over his paroxysm, and the Act was repealed.
But for a time the storm of bigotry raged fiercely, and, as the following incident will show, while the mania lasted even the police were not entirely free from it.
The site of the noble Gothic edifice, Holy Cross Church, Great Crosshall Street, Liverpool, was, at this time, occupied by a ramshackle place made into a temporary chapel out of a number of old houses. It was so constructed that from any part you could see the altar, if you could not always hear Mass.
This was not, however, an unusual thing in Liverpool in the old days, particularly in the Famineyears, when our panic-stricken people came into Liverpool like the wreck of a routed army.
The chief feature of the old Holy Cross Chapel was a long narrow flight of stairs, leading from Standish Street, the side street off Great Crosshall Street, up to a higher part of the building which served the purpose of a gallery.
The famous Dr. Cahill came to Holy Cross to preach, and every part of the building was crowded to suffocation. In the middle of the sermon an alarm was raised of a broken beam or something of the kind, and the people commenced to rush down the narrow stairs in a state of panic.
Such of them as could crush their way out, instead of being assisted, were set upon and assaulted with their batons by several policemen, who were in the street outside. So great was the indignation in the town, that a public inquiry was held, and it was proved that the police not only brutally struck men, women and children, but even a blind man who was trying to grope his way out. They also used foul expressions about "Popery" and the "bloody Papists," and it was afterwards proved that these very men had themselves raised the alarm, apparently to get an excuse for breaking the heads of the unfortunate people. An honest police official, whose duty it afterwards became to make a report of what had occurred, came upon the scene, and did what he could to stop the brutality.
When Dowling, the head constable, came to the police office next morning, and saw the official report in the book kept for the purpose, he causedthe leaf containing it to be torn out, and another report by one Sergeant Tomlinson to be substituted for it. Mr. Mansfield, the stipendiary magistrate, who conducted the inquiry, denounced Dowling and Tomlinson for what he called "the disgraceful and discreditable suppression of the report which," he added, "was no doubt true. He had never heard of more disgraceful proceedings in his life."
Pending a fuller investigation, the police office books were impounded, and, as a result of the inquiry, several of the police were suspended. Dowling was dismissed from his post as head constable of Liverpool, and lost a retiring pension which, if all had been well with him, he would have come in for a short time afterwards.
An amusing story is told of a Liverpool daily paper in those days. It was struggling with adversity, and the manager, a worthy Scotsman, sat in his office on Monday morning with the weekly statement before him, showing increasing expense and decreasing revenue.
To him entered a Liverpool parson—very determined and very menacing. He had asked for the editor, but that gentleman had not yet come down, and the manager was the only person in authority visible, so he had to make shift with him.
"I am here," the parson said, "as the mouthpiece of a large number of people who are not satisfied with the attitude of the 'Liverpool ——' on the great question of the hour—Whether Popery is to dominate our liberties or are we to crush Popery?"
"Yes," said the manager, wearily, his mind still on the balance sheet. "What do you complain of?"
"I wish to tell you, sir," said the parson, with impressive emphasis, "that only this morning I have heard the belief expressed by merchants on 'Change that the 'Liverpool ——' is actually in the pay of the Pope of Rome!"
In a second a ray of light seemed to irradiate the gloom of the manager's soul, as he contemplated in a flash of thought the untold treasures of the Vatican—
"Man!" he exclaimed fervently, "I wish to Heaven it was!"
But the numerous exhibitions of bigotry stirred up in connection with Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Act were of trifling consequence compared with the injury done to the Irish people arising out of the same Act. For it led to the ruin of the Tenant Right agitation in Ireland, in which the Irish people, Protestant as well as Catholic, had been united as they had not been since 1798 and the days of Grattan's Parliament.
For the Tenant League and the Irish Party in Parliament had in their ranks some of the greatest rascals who had ever disgraced Irish politics. These, while posing as the champions of Catholicity in opposing Lord John Russell's bill, were simply working for their own base ends, and were afterwards known and execrated as the Sadlier-Keogh gang.
Their infamous betrayal of the Irish tenantry dashed the hopes and destroyed the union of Northand South from which so much was expected, besides creating a distrust in constitutional agitation which lasted for nearly a generation.
The after fate of the Sadlier-Keogh gang—including the suicide of John Sadlier and the scarcely less wretched end of Keogh—have ever since been terrible object-lessons to the Irish people.
In his later years I enjoyed the friendship of one of the most distinguished of the Tenant Right leaders, who had also played a prominent and honourable part in the Repeal and Young Ireland movements. This was Charles Gavan Duffy, whom I met after his return from Australia.
It was the Sadlier-Keogh treason, their selling themselves to the Government after the most solemn promises to the contrary, and the way in which their conduct had been condoned by so many of the hierarchy, clergy and people of Ireland, that caused Gavan Duffy to lose heart for the time, and to declare, as he left the country, in memorable words—"that there was no more hope for Ireland than for a corpse on the dissecting table."
But, as I learned from his own lips on his return to this country, he never lost sight of the National movement while in Australia, where he became first Minister of the Crown in a self-governing colony; and, on his return, his old hope for the success of our Cause had, he assured me, revived.
Charles Gavan Duffy having sailed for Australia on the 6th of November, 1855, John Cashel Hoey succeeded him as editor of the "Nation," he having, as one of his colleagues, Alexander Martin Sullivan,who afterwards became sole proprietor and responsible editor.
"A.M." Sullivan, as he was always called, was an upright man, who had a very clear conception of his own policy in Irish matters. He frankly accepted the British constitution, and worked inside those lines. To me, when my country was concerned, the British constitution (with the making of which neither I nor my people had ever had anything to do) was a matter of very little moment. Any work for Ireland that commended itself to my conscience and was practicable was good enough. Nevertheless, it will ever be to me a source of pride that, from the moment when we first knew each other to the hour of his death, we were the closest friends.
In connexion with the "Papal aggression" mania, Cardinal Wiseman was the central figure against whom the storm of bigotry was chiefly directed. I remember with pleasure that I took part in the reception given to him in Liverpool by Father Nugent and the students of the Liverpool Catholic Institute, by whom the Cardinal's fine play of "The Hidden Gem" was performed in the Hall of the Institute during his stay in town. The bringing of the Cardinal to Liverpool was only one of the many occasions when the good Father was the medium through whom, from time to time, a number of distinguished Catholics and Irishmen were brought into intimate contact with their co-religionists and fellow-countrymen in the town for the advancement of some worthy object connectedwith creed or nationality—most frequently with both.
I have described the St. Patrick's Day annual processions in Liverpool. Notwithstanding some grand features in connection with them, they were, unfortunately, sometimes the occasion of rioting and intemperance. Father Nugent was of Irish parentage and sympathies, and possessed of great zeal, capacity, energy and eloquence. He determined to make a new departure in celebrating the national anniversary, for though the processions were magnificent displays, and it was not the fault of their promoters if ever there was any scandal arising out of them, still there was much that was inconsistent with a worthy celebration of the feast of the national saint of Ireland. Calling a number of young Irishmen together, of whom I was one, he, with their help, organised on a grand scale a festival which was held in one of the large public halls of the town. So successful was the first of these that they became an annual institution, which superseded the previous out-door celebrations.
On these occasions there were selections of Irish music and song, and oratory from some distinguished Irishman, with an eloquent and stirring panegyric on St. Patrick from Father Nugent himself, making a more creditable and enjoyable celebration of the national festival than had ever been held in the town before.
Such celebrations as these (which have for many years past been held under the auspices of the Irish national political organisation of the day),have become common in the Irish centres of Great Britain. Indeed, it has become one of the recognised duties of the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party to hold themselves in readiness to be drafted off to one or another of these gatherings, which are the means of keeping steadily burning the fire of patriotism in the breasts of our people. And what is of consequence from a financial point of view, the proceeds of these gatherings help to provide the sinews of war for carrying on the Home Rule campaign in Great Britain. For over half a century, from the time when I assisted Father Nugent with his first celebration, I took an active part in organising these gatherings in many places.
I said at the commencement that I knew little of Ireland from personal contact with it. Born there, I was too young to remember being brought to England. For some months I was there again, as I have already mentioned, as a boy of twelve, under the care of my uncle, the Rev. Michael O'Loughlin. I had often desired to see more of Ireland, and, singularly enough, it was the Crimean War that gave me the opportunity of spending another three months there in the summer of 1855.
A large firm in Liverpool had part of the contract for erecting the wooden houses and other buildings at the camp being erected on the Curragh of Kildare at the time of the war. I made application, and, with my brother Bernard, was employed to go there. Reaching the Curragh, we found that many of the men slept in the huts they were erecting, being supplied by the contractors with the requisite bedand bedding. The contractors also erected a large "canteen," to be used afterwards by the military where the workmen could be supplied with food and drink—too much drink sometimes. These arrangements for food and sleeping were somewhat necessary, as the nearest towns, Kildare, Kilcullen, and Newbridge were each some three miles off.
But we were anxious to see as much of the country and of the people as we could, and, besides, did not care for the mixed company sleeping in the huts. We therefore managed to secure lodgings with the Widow Walsh, on the road leading from the Curragh to Suncroft. The widow's husband had but recently died, leaving her a pretty good farm, and, with the aid of her family—one of them a fine, grown-up young man—she was able to hold on to the land. But the ready cash she got from the Curragh men who came to lodge with her was useful too. It was a good big house of the kind, and the widow made use of every available inch of it, so that she had about a dozen of us in all. Mrs. Walsh, though an easy-going soul herself, had a fine bouncing girl to help her, but, with a dozen hungry men coming with a rush at night, it used to be a scramble for the cooking utensils, as we were largely left to our own devices. We used to leave early in the morning for our work on the Curragh, taking with us the materials for our breakfasts and dinners. As to the cooking, some went to the canteen, while others got their meals wherever they happened to be working. As there were plenty of chips and small cuttings of wood, only fit for that purpose, we usedto make of these big fires on the short grass, and we boiled our water for tea or coffee and our eggs, and frizzled our chops or bacon at the end of a long stick.
I have mentioned before that whenever one finds work particularly laborious he is fairly certain to find Irishmen at it. It was so at the Curragh. When a carpenter or joiner lays down the boarding of a floor, if there is only a small quantity of it he planes it down himself to make an even surface. But if there is a large quantity this does not pay, and the contractor brings in another artist called a "flogger," who, in nine cases out of ten, in my time, was an Irishman. It was generally given out as "piece work" to one man, the "master-flogger," as you might term him, who employed the others. One of these, a very decent Irishman, Tom Cassidy, whom I had known in Liverpool, had the contract for the work at the Curragh Camp, and he had about a score of his fellow-countrymen working for him.
Going back to Liverpool for a holiday, while my brother and I were still at the Curragh, honest Tom called on my father and mother, who knew him well. They were glad to hear that he was lodging at the Widow Walsh's, and could tell them all about their boys. This he could do most truthfully without letting his imagination run away with him. "Aye, indeed," he said, "Barney and John are lodging in the one house with me, with a decent widow woman, and many a glass we had together at Igoe's." Tom had put in this bit of "local colouring" about Igoe's to show the good fellowshipbetween us, but as their sons were both teetotalers, the old people knew that this could not be true, and the rest of his story was somewhat discredited in consequence.
Igoe's was a public house just on the corner of the road leading from the Curragh to Suncroft. What between the workmen at the Camp and the soldiers and the militia, Igoe's must have been doing a roaring trade at this time. Which reminds me that I one day saw John O'Connell (son of the Liberator), then a captain in the Dublin militia, trying to get a lot of his men, who were the worse for liquor, out of Igoe's. It could not be said that he did not give an edifying example to his men, for I saw him, on another occasion, going to Holy Communion, at the Soldiers' Mass, where the altar was fixed up under a verandah in the officers' quarter, the men being assembled in the open square in front. He was a well-meaning man, and tried to carry on the Repeal Association after his father's death, but it soon collapsed, for the mantle of Dan was altogether too big for John.
Although he generally showed himself bitterly opposed to the Young Irelanders, he was a poetical contributor to the "Nation," where I find him represented by two very fine pieces—"Was it a Dream?" and "What's my Thought Like?" In the latter piece he pictures Ireland—
No longer slave to England! but her sister if she will—Prompt to give friendly aid at need, and to forget all ill!But holding high her head, and, with serenest brow,Claiming, amid earth's nations all, her fitting station now.
I never met his brother Maurice, but I could imagine his a more congenial spirit with the "Young Irelanders" than any other of the O'Connell family. He, too, is represented in "The Spirit of the Nation" by his rousing "Recruiting Song of the Irish Brigade" which, sung to the air of "The White Cockade," has always been a favourite of mine.
A fine, genial old priest, full of gossip and old-time stories, was Father MacMahon, of Suncroft. If he met one of us on the road he would stop to have a gossip, and was always delighted when he found, as he often did, along with an English tongue an Irish heart. From him it was I heard the legend of St. Brigid's miraculous mantle and the origin of the Curragh—how the saint, to get "as much land as would graze a poor man's cow" made the very modest request from the king for as much ground as her mantle would cover; how he agreed, and she laid her mantle down on the "short grass;" how, to the king's astonishment, it spread and spread, until it covered the whole of the ground of what is now the Curragh; and how it would have spread over all Ireland but that it met with a red-haired woman, and that, as everybody knows, is unlucky. Whenever, in our rambles along the country roads we afterwards met a red-haired woman, we used to wonder was she a descendant of the female who stopped the growth of the Curragh of Kildare.
Father MacMahon could also tell us of the gallant fight made by the men of Kildare, and the massacre of the unarmed people on the Curragh in 1798.Many of the men from the Curragh used to come to Mass on Sundays at Suncroft, and often in his sermons—which were none the less edifying because they were given in the same free and easy style as his gossips with us on the road—he would tell his people of the talks he had had with the men from the Camp, and what good Irishmen he found among them. They, in their turn, were very fond of the good father, and most of them took a practical way of showing their feeling when it came to the offertory.
Dear old Father MacMahon! I took up an Irish Church Directory the other day and looked for the little village of Suncroft, in the dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, to see if your name was still there, foolishly forgetting that it is over fifty years since we met—you an old man and I a young one. I am an old man now, and you—you dear good old soul—must have gone to your reward long ago, where you in your turn will be hearing from St. Brigid herself, and from the fine old Irish king who gave the Curragh, the true story of the miraculous mantle; and how the king did not make such a bad bargain after all, for, in exchange for his gift, he now, doubtless, has what St. Brigid promised, a kingdom far greater than even her mantle would cover—the Kingdom of Heaven.
On Sundays we used to have long walks. We did not often go near Newbridge—it was too much like an ordinary English military station. We preferred going to Kildare, where stands the first Irish Round Tower I ever saw, and where the fine old ruinedchurch of St. Brigid put us in mind of the patron saint of Ireland; or to Kilcullen, where the brave Kildare pikemen routed General Dundas in 1798; and to others of the neighbouring places. We reviewed, too, every part of the famous Curragh itself, so full of memories—glorious and sad—of Irish history.
As fast as we finished them, the huts we were building were occupied by the military, and, whether regulars or militia, I found among them, driven to wear the uniform by stress of circumstances, as good Irishmen as I ever met. Coming home from work one evening, I met on the road to the Curragh a party of them, carrying, for want of a better banner, a big green bush, and singing "The Green Flag." Then, as they came in sight of the famous plain itself, a man struck up:—
Where will they have their camp?Says theShan Van Voct
When, as if moved by one impulse, all joined in:—
On the Curragh of Kildare,And the boys will all be there,With their pikes in good repair—Says theShan Van Voct!
"Igoe's porter!" a cynic might say. True, there may have been a glass or two and a little harmless rejoicing, but this was too spontaneous to be anything but the outpouring of the good, honest warm hearts of the poor fellows, burning with love for the land that bore them.
Peter Maughan, who, like myself, was a house joiner, working at the Curragh, had similar experiences. Indeed, you might say that he was then qualifying himself for the part he very efficiently filled some years later in the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as recruiting officer among the soldiery of Britain. Of course, he found scoundrels amongst them too, for, as the history of the Fenian movement shows, he was himself betrayed and sent to penal servitude.
Before I returned to England I had a most interesting tour through the South of Ireland, that being, I may say, the most I have ever actually seen of my own country. Having a taste for drawing, I took sketches of the various noted places I visited, which I preserved for many years—the most cherished remembrances of my visit to the "old sod."
After returning from the Curragh to Liverpool, I married there and carried on business on my own account for several years as a joiner and builder, before taking service with Father Nugent, first as secretary of his Boy's Refuge, and then as conductor for some three years of his newspaper, the "Northern Press and Catholic Times."
The trials in 1859, following the arrests in connection with the Phœnix movement, with which the name of Jeremiah O'Donovan (called also "Rossa," after his native place) was identified, were the first public manifestations of what developed into the great organisation known in America as the Fenian Brotherhood, and, on this side of the Atlantic as the I.R.B., or Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood.
Many years afterwards "Rossa" called at the office of the Irish National League in London, to see his old fellow-conspirator, James Francis Xavier O'Brien, then General Secretary of the constitutional organisation for the attainment of "Home Rule." As I was chief organiser for the League in Great Britain, and was in the, office at the time, I was introduced to his old comrade (who had, he said, often heard of me) by "J.F.X.," as we used to call him, and it was to me a delightful experience to hear the two old warriors, who had done and suffered so much for Ireland, fighting their battles over again.
I was sitting in my office in Father Nugent's Refuge one day, about the beginning of 1866, when my old friend, John Ryan, was shown in to me.
As we had not seen each other for several years, our greeting was a most cordial one. Though we had not met, I had heard of him from mutual friends from time to time as being actively connected with the physical force movement for the freedom of Ireland.
During this time I had often wished to see him, and I found that exactly the same idea had been inhismind regarding me; our object being the same—my initiation into the ranks of the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, of which he was an organiser.
A word perhaps is due here—for I wish to pay respect to the opinion of every man—to those Irishmen who call themselves loyalists. On close analysis their language and arguments appear to me to be meaningless. A study of the history of the world and of the origins of civil power show that there is only one thing that is recognisable as giving a good and stable title to any government, and that is the consent of the governed.
A man who is a member of a community owes a duty to the community in return for the benefit arising out of his membership, but his duty—which he may call loyalty if he pleases—is proportionate to the share which he possesses in the imposition of responsibilities upon himself. The application of this to Ireland is obvious, and it explains why in so many cases a man who has been a rebel inIreland has afterwards risen to the highest place in the self-governing communities which are called British colonies. To put it in another way, a community of intelligent men must be self-governing, or else it will be a forcing-house for rebels. I don't see any third way.
As I have before suggested, the two questions that have always presented themselves to me in connection with work for Ireland have been—first, is it right? Second, is it practicable? In joining the I.R.B. I had no doubt on either ground. As to the first, the misgovernment of Ireland, of which I had seen the hideous fruits in the Famine years and emigration, was ample justification. As to the second, there was every likelihood of the success of the movement. It will be remembered that during these years the great Civil War in America was going on, in which many thousands of our fellow-countrymen, were engaged on both sides, mostly, however, for the North. A great number of these had entered into this service chiefly with the object of acquiring the military training intended to be used in fighting on Irish soil for their country's freedom. Such an opportunity seemed likely to arise, for during this time the "Alabama Claims" and other matters brought America and England to the verge of war. Had such a conflict arisen, one result of it, as Mr. Gladstone and other British statesmen could not but have foreseen, would probably be the severance of the connexion, once for all, between Ireland and Great Britain.
John Ryan, knowing me so well, felt tolerably assured that no argument from him would be required to induce me to join the I.R.B.; consequently, one of the first things he did was, at my request, to administer to me the oath of allegiance to the Irish Republic, as the saying went, "now virtually established."
After this we had a longseanchus, I telling him of all that had happened among our friends during his frequent absences from Liverpool, and he describing to me many of the adventures of himself and other prominent men in the movement, which were to me both interesting and exciting. Among these were his assistance in the escape of James Stephens, of which I will speak later.
Before we parted, he arranged with me for my acting in Liverpool as a medium of communication in the organisation. In this way I was, for several years, brought into constant contact with the leaders, nearly all of whom I met from time to time.
I think the most capable Irishmen I ever met were the various members of the Breslin family, with several of whom I was intimately acquainted. Bravest among the brave, as they proved themselves at many a critical moment, there were none more prudent. John Breslin was hospital steward in Richmond Prison when James Stephens, the Fenian chief, was imprisoned there awaiting his trial.