Four years of Irish history, 1845-1849 ; a sequel to Young Ireland

Front matter

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY

I

Preface

I HAVE g-iven a separate title to the Second Part o£ Youno^ Ireland/^ chiefly because of the unusual period which has elapsed since the publication of the first volume. The main cause of delay was the quantity of new materials placed at my disposal during last year. Describing transactions in which, for the most part, I had personally shared, I might perhaps have dispensed with aid ; but contemporary correspondence and diaries are like living witnesses, who come to correct or confirm a writer^s individual impressions, and I gladly accepted, and have used largely throughout the narrative, the valuable materials in question. I felt the more bound to do so that one aim of this book is to negative long-received opinions, and disturb rooted prepossessions, and this is a task which is attempted in vain unless a writer rests his deductions on solid evidence.

It will be more convenient to acknowledge these documents wherever they are used than to enumerate them here.

Of one series of facts I could have no personal knowledge. During the abortive rising in Tipperary in 1848, and the corresponding movements in Limerick, Wexford, and the borders of Meath, I was a close prisoner in Newgate. But of these events the information furnished to me is singularly full and exact. McManus gave me a narrative of the transactions in Tipperary before he left Ireland as a State Prisoner, Meagher wrote another in Tasmania, John Kavanagh sent me a third vi

PREFACE.

narrative from New York^ and I conversed on the subject with Smith O^'Brien in prison, John Dillon at Havre, Stevens and O^Mahoney in Paris, and with nearly every person else whose name is associated with that era. Concerning the subsidiary movements, I received information of the same character — mostly in answer to a request published in the Nation in 1853 for documents with a view to a volume like the present,— but also to some extent during the last year. Before the State Prisoners left Ireland they directed that the Minute Book and correspondence of the Irish Confederation should be committed to my care by the persons with whom they had been secreted during the Insurrection. Six years later, when I sailed for Australia, I transferred them to Dr. Cane of Kilkenny, and after his death his family, at my instance, entrusted them to John Dillon. On Dillon ^s death they were restored to me ; and I lodged them in the Royal Irish Academy as historical documents.

The private correspondence of O'Brien, Meagher, and Dillon, for which I had so much reason to be thankful in " Young Ireland, has proved still more valuable in this volume.

There is one contribution which T desire to specially acknowledge, because it did not come like the others from a political friend. Dr. Maunsell was a Conservative, probably an Orangeman, and a constant writer in the Dublin Evening Mail, the organ of the landed gentry ; but he was an Irishman who sympathised profoundly with his country, in spite of party prepossessions, and a man of honour who may be heard with advantage on questions of conduct or principle. I have fortunately been enabled to have recourse to his Private Diary during the troubled period of the Secession and the State Trials, and to learn not alone what he, but what the Government, and the Party of Order (as the Unionists named themselves) thought and believed at that era.

This book is not a panegyric on the Young Irelanders, but

PREFACE.

a narrative of transactions in which they were chiefly concerned. I have described with complete unreserve the faults by which they failed and fell. To do so seemed to me the plainest duty. A nation rarely changes its character, and in Ireland hitherto history has repeated itself with the fidelity of a stock piece at the theatre, where nothing is changed from generation to generation but the actors. The same mistakes in policy and conduct are committed over and over again; and a faithful narrative of one eventful era is like a m.irror in which the Irish people may see many things reflected which it greatly behoves them to understand. The critics, whether native or foreign, who are most perplexed by the events of to-day in Ireland, are precisely those who have not taken the trouble to make themselves acquainted with the events of yesterday.

As the strange story of O'ConnelFs sudden fall from a nearly unexampled authority is written here for the first time, it was necessary to write it in unusual detail. The occult causes could be made clear and certain on no other condition. Napoleon sacrificing a world to the edacity of greedy kinsmen and kinswomen, scarcely less than to his own diabolic ambition, was a drama played on a more conspicuous stage, but not one conveying a more significant moral, or one applicable to so wide a range of human affairs.

Writing for the most part of the dead, I desired to be fair and generous ; but I have never for this or any other purpose, sacrificed the substantial truth of history. This book does not contain one sentence of unfriendly criticism on any human being that was not indispensably necessary to explain the transactions of the time, and to point the lesson which they teach to another generation, or one statement of fact that is not the rigid truth as I understand and believe it.

The task I undertook — to make known the men of a past era, as they thought and acted, to the men of the present time — is now finished, to the best of my powers. To secure leisure to vili

PREFACE.

accomplish it, I relinquished a career which habit had made pleasant ; and to keep it free from the passions and prejudices of the hour, I declined to re-enter political life in Ireland. I am repaid by the hope that it will perhaps render the Irish question less of a mystery and puzzle to statesmen and thinkers, and that I in the future, when my dust mingles with that of my comradeS; it may still inspire young Irishmen to love and serve their country.

Villa Aimeb, Nice,

December, 1882.

Contents

ISoofe 3E.

Chapter I. The Rally Of Young Ireland — Under Fire

PAGE

Ireland in the "Winter of 1845 — Strengthening The Nation — Thomas Francis Meagher — Mitehel— Thomas Wallis— John Fisher Murray — Thomas Reilly — Richard O'Gorman — Thomas Darcy McGee — Policy of the "Young Ireland" Party — Power's Letter to The Tablet — O'Connell's Country Meetings — Letter to Repeal Association — Proceedings of the Association — A Famine apprehended — Feeling caused hy Peel's action . 1

CHAPTER 11.

Famine — Meeting at Dublin to press for Precautions — Proposal to " open the Ports" — English Soldiers in Ireland — Agrarian Crimes — The Coercion BiU proposed— Resistance of Irish Members — Article in The Times — Condition of the People — Two Cases under the Coercion Acts of former times 41

CHAPTER III. AN editor's room

Headquarters of the National Movement — The "Library of Ireland" — Proposed books — History Professor for the University proposed — Letter from Pigot in The Nation — McCarthy on Literature — Speech by Meagher — Display of feeling on the Death of Davis — Extract from

CONTENTS.

a Diary — Mangan's " Anthologia Germanica " — Awaking of Irish Art — State of Education in Ireland — Correspondence — Letter from Carlyle — The first Lady Contributor to The Nation — Miss Elger — Review of "The Confiscation of Ulster" — Difficulties with Wallis — Letter from Wallis — Edition of Davis's Poems— Trouble with John O'Connell's Mercenaries — Clarence Mangan — Eenaissance in Irish Architecture . 5 7

CHAPTER IV O'cONNELL's campaign against young IRELAND

O'Connell's AUiance with the Whigs — His motives — Influence of O'Connell — Blows struck at The Nation — O'Connell's Speech in Conciliation Hall and its effects — The impending Prosecution of The Nation — O'Connell's position at the time — The Defence of Father Davern — Interview with Mr. Potter — Correspondence between O'Brien and Mr. Ray — O'Brien's refusal to sit on the Railway Committee — O'Brien ordered into custody of Serjeant-at-Arms — Action taken in the General Committee — Resolutions of Confidence in O'Brien — O'Brien in Confinement — Petitions for his Release — A Visit from O'Connell — Opinions of the papers — Letter from Dr. Cave — Interview between 0' Connell, Mitchel, and Duffy— Trial of Duffy— Speech of Robert Holmes— The Summing-up — Publication of Holmes's Speech . . . . .110

Chapter V. The Whig Alliance And The Peace Resolutions

Conf-erence of Whigs at Lord John Russell's — Speech at Conciliation Hall by Meagher — Letter from O'Connell— Speeches by Fitzpatrick, Barry, O'Gorman, Meagher, Mitchel, Doheny, &c. — Fall of the Peel Governjnent — Speech by O'Brien at the Association — Compact between O'Connell and the new Government — O'Connell at Conciliation Hall on July 6th — General Committee instructed to watch vacant seats — Policy of the Association — Documents submitted by O'Connell at the Adjourned Meeting — Absence of O'Brien— Report on Dungarvan — Meagher and O'Connell — Report on Moral Force submitted — The Debate— Correspondence between Dillon and Duffy — Character of O'Brien — Letter from O'Brien to Duffy — Samuel Bindon — Soiree at Kilrush — Causes of the Secession . 160

CONTENTS.

xi

CHAPTER YL

THE SECESSION.

PAGE

Feeling of the Young Irelanders — Policy and Opinions of The Nation — Difference with The Pilot — The Meeting of the Association on July 27 and 28 — O'Brien siding with the Young Men — John O'Connell's Answer — Daniel O'Connell, Junr., elected for Dundalk — The Adjourned Meeting — Speeches by Mitchel, Meagher, and O'Brien — The Secession — Letter from Dr. Cane — Opinions of the Clergy and the Conservative Press— O'Connell charging Young Ireland with Treason — Damage to Eepeal in Ulster — Speeches by Priests— Expulsion of Martin, Mitchel, O' Gorman, Meehan — Resignations — Meetings of the Association after the Secession — Charge of Treason against The Nation — Letters of Sympathy — Attacks of English Press and Politicians . . . .217

Chapter I. The Reaction

State of the Country — Impending Famine — Proposed Precautions — A Change in the new Generation — Eesistance to the Association in Cork, Munster, &c. — Eemonstrances — John. O'Connell employing Canvassers — Remonstrance from Dublin — Meeting in the People's Hall — O'Connell's Answers — Mr. Shea Lalor's Protest — Policy of the Seceders — Reception of the Dublin Remonstrance — Pecuniary Condition of the Association— Retaliation — Dwindling of the Association — Conduct of John O'Connell— Proposals of The Nation — Murmurs against John O'Connell— The "Irish Party "—Return of O'Connell— Speech of Mr. Daunt — The Question of Patronage — Michael Crean — Speech by Kenyon — The Nation Denounced — Dr. Browne at the Hall — Remittance from America — Meeting of the National Party — The Effects — The Private Conference — Its failure — Its result . . . . ,272 xii

CONTENTS.

Chapter II

THE IRISH CONFEDERATION, THE IRISH COUNCIL, AND THE DEATH OF O'CONNELL.

PAGE

Famine ^ — The Confederation formed — Work of — An Election — Conference of Landed Proprietors — Affairs and Proposals in Parliament — Statement of the case by Mitchel — A Reconciliation Proposed — Arguments for and against it — Its Collapse — Appeal to the Middle Classes — Death of O'Connell — Memoir — Meeting of the Irish Council .... 353

Chapter III. The General Election Op 1847

Delay of the Funeral of O'Connell — Popular feeling — Preparations for the Election — The Anti-place Pledge — Eesults of the Elections — Letter from Father Prout — Statement of the case by Dillon — David IJrquhart — Meeting of the Council after the Election — Condition of the People during the Autumn of 1847 . , 407

CHAPTER TV.

CONFEDERATE COUNSEL.

Conference of Confederates — Their Expectations — The Ulster Presbyterians —Letter from John Martin — Meeting of November — Other Work of the Young Men — Bindon at Antwerp— Letters from Paris and England — Memorial on behalf of the Catholic Confederates — ^Wallis's Writings — The Morning Chrotiicle — Clarence Mangan — More of Wallis's Writings — Eetirement of Mr. Haughton — Joseph Brenan ..... 434

CHAPTER Y.

A NEW TRIBUNE, A NEW POLICY, AND A NEW SECESSION.

James F. Lalor — His Letters — Adoption of New Policy by Mitchel — Objections to New Policy — Lalor's Answers — O'Brien's Opinions — Exhortations to Action — Favour of some of the Gentry and Middle Classes necessary — O'Brien's Paper on "How can the LThion be Repealed" — Objections to it — Purpose of Duffy's Report — Controversy — Mitchel's

CONTENTS.

xiii

Theory — Arguments against it — Difficultiea— Exclusion o£ New Policy from The Nation — Complaints from O'Brien — Meeting summoned by Lalor — Difl&culties with Mitchel — His Retirement — Debating the Report — Letters to O'Brien from Pigot, Meagher, and O'Gorman — Retirement of Reilly — Preparations for Meeting of Council — O'Brien's Statement of the case — Mitchel's Reply — Speeches by Doheny, Mitchel, Meagher, P. J. Smyth, McGee, O'Gorman — The Waterford Election — Condition of the People — Emigration 464

Chapter I. The French Revolution

The News from Paris — Lord Wallscourt — Speech at a Confederation Meeting by Duffy — Articles in The Nation — Policy of Young Ireland — Formation of a Citizen Committee — Meetings in Leinster and Munster — Dillon's Address from the Council — Speeches by O'Brien and O'Gorman — Popularity and Schemes of Mitchel — Lord Clarendon — Precautions of the Government — Cabinet Council of Confederate Leaders — Policy Decided — Meeting of Confederates in Abbey Street Music Hall — Speech by O'Brien — Watchfulness of Lord Clarendon — O'Brien's Journey to Paris — Reception of the Deputation — Action of the Council on the Prosecutions — Behaviour of Lord Clarendon — The Case of Kirwan — Progress of the Confederates — News from Germany — Effect of Movement among the Social Powers — Formation of a Protestant Repeal Association — Ferguson — Father Bermingham's Advice — The Aim of the Confederation — Conduct of Mitchel — Mitchel, Davis, and Tone compared . . . . . . . . .533

Chapter II. The Conflict In The Courts Of Law

The Chartist Agitation — Proposed new Law against Sedition — Meagher, O'Brien, and Mitchel at Limerick — Retirement of Mitchel and Reilly from the Confederation — Trials of O'Brien and Meagher — Tactics of the Confederation — Trial of Mitche 1 587 xiv

CONTENTS.

Chapter III. The Conspiracy

PAGE

EiBEect of Mitchel's Conviction — Father Kenyon's Advice — Preparation for a Conspiracy— Appearance of the Irish Felon — John Martin — The Tribune — Proposed Reconciliation with John O'Connell — Its Failure — Socialist Rising in Paris, and its EfPects — Policy of the Gentry, and its Results — Arrest of Duffy — Surrender of Martin — More Arrests— In Newgate — Defection of Father Kenyon — Feeling of Dr. Maguire — " The Star-spangled Banner " — First Meeting of the Irish League — Government Determination to Suppress the Clubs — Organisation of the Country — Order to Surrender Arms — Meeting to Consider the Situation — Election of the Council of Five — Feeling in America — Maurice Leyne 606

CHAPTER ly.

THE INSURRECTION.

Suspension of the Haheas Corpus Act — Dillon's Advice — Departure of McGee for Glasgow — O'Brien's Expectations — Meeting at Enniscorthy John O'Mahoney — Proceedings at Carrick — Preparations for an Escape from Newgate — Adventure of Patrick O'Donohue — Failure at Cashel — Narrative of Kickham — McManus's Narrative of Affairs at Killenaule — Arrival of Meagher — A Consultation — Conduct of Father Kenyon — Eugene O'Reilly's Attempt to Raise Dublin — O'Gorman at Limerick — Rising at Abbeyfeale — McGee's Movements — Seizure of The Nation Office — Proceedings at Killenaule — The Affray at Ballingarry — O'Brien's Action and Difficulties — Action of the Priests — Result of the Mission in America — And in France — Capture of McManus, Meagher, Leyne, O'Donohue, and O'Brien 641

CHAPTER Y.

THE STATE TRIALS AT CLONMEL AND GREEN STREET.

The Trials of the Imprisoned Journalists, O'Doherty and Martin — Libel on Duffy in The Pilot — Opening of the Commission at Clonmel — Trial of O'Brien — And of McManus, O'Donohue, and Meagher — Proposed

CONTENTS.

XV

Attempt to Escape from Newgate — Second rostponement of Duffy's Trial — The Interior of Newgate — Opening of the Third Commission — Jury Packing — Attempt to Arrest it — Third Trial of O'Doherty — Trial . of Williams — Of Duffy — Remonstrances to Lord Clarendon — Final Trial of Duffy TOO

CHAPTER YI.

KATE OP THE CONFEDERATES.

The Clonmel Prisoners in Confinement — Commutation of their Sentences — Project to Organise Provisional Government — Lalor's Designs — Project to Seize the Queen — Revival of The Nation — Formation of the Tenant League — Attack on the Police Barracks at Cappoquin — Mitchel's Advice — Scattering of Young Ireland — Fate of O'Gorman, Dillon, Smyth, Meagher, Mitchel, Martin, McGee, Williams, Mangan, Emmet, and Barry — Conclusion 758

Four Years of Irish History.

Chapter I. The Rally Of Young Ireland Under Fire

There are transactions in history so falsified and misunderstood, tliat the chief difficulty in dealing with them springs from the rooted prepossessions of the reader. Whenever important interests have been in conflict and one has succumbed, the facts are certain to be misjudged by the next generation, who commonly hear only the story of the successful competitor. The student of history who studies such annals is in the position of a man who looks through a stereoscope for the first time ; I he sees only confused blotches without colour or outline, j and can scarcely be persuaded there is anything else to see ; till suddenly he finds the focus, and the chaos becomes a picture. Of the period which I am now about to describe a fixed idea has got possession of the public mind — that certain immature politicians, of whom it is not clear, to critical persons, whether they were generous enthusiasts or only rash and contumacious youngsters, broke away from the veteran leader of the Irish people,

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set up a theory of physical force in opposition to his constitutional doctrines, and having unfortunately got i j the lead, led the country to disgrace and disaster. There are many purely accidental events which seem to lend this theory a decisive sanction ; the external circumstances at first view appear to harmonise completely with it. And yet in all history there is no theory more fatally contradicted hy the facts of the case, when the facts come to he known.

I have revived in my memory the circumstances of that era with acute pain. It is for the most part a story of hopes disappointed, of sacrifices made in vain, of great power fatally squandered, of horrible calamity and sufiering. But there is no part of our annals more essential to be studied, if the main object with which history I is read be to gather examples and warnings for the future. There were no mistakes committed in that day which are not liable to occur again and again, because they are mistakes to which the Celtic race is prone ; and to exhibit them is like setting up a storm-bell on a rock where shipwrecks have been common.

If the reader be one of those who think that the story of a people, and the biography of a great man, ought to be constructed like a stage-play, in which events are omitted, or transposed, to correspond with a pre-determined plot, in which unpleasant incidents are coloured or hidden away, he will find what he wants in ' more than one accessible book ; but my design is to write the rigid truth, as it was known at the time to adequately informed men, and as it will, I believe, be.

recognised universally in tlie end, in order tliat it may be a light and guidance to other generations.

The winter of 1845 marked the opening of an era, for ever memorable in Ireland ; an era more calamitous and destructive than any in her sanguinary annals.

I have described in a former work the paralysis which fiell on the national movement when O'Connell left Eichmond Bridewell in broken health and spirits, and the incidents and calamities which scattered the Young Irelanders after the death of Thomas Davis.* Dillon was a wanderer in search of health, MacNevin was gradually sinking under a fatal disease, some needed to pursue their professional studies at a distance, others were disgusted and disheartened by the manifest design to transform the Eepeal Association from a national into a sectarian body. Smith O'Brien, who still held aloof from identification with Young Ireland, might be counted on to resist any specific abandonment of the fundamental pact which held the national party together, but he was constantly absent and had apparently relinquished to Mr. John O'Connell the initiative and the control which he had been accustomed to exercise. The decline of enthusiasm was followed, as it always is in popular movements, by jealousies and dissensions. The people, having no longer a sure confidence or a clear TDurpose, fell into cabals. The Association found itself (balled upon to compose local quarrels between large Sections of Eepealers in Sligo, Waterford, Limerick, and Qy, and did not always succeed in composing

* " Toung Ireland," p. 759.

B 2 them. Agrarian crimes began to be frequently beard of; for when the peasant despairs of agitation he flies to the Eibbon Lodge. The Eepeal Eent necessarily submitted to the same influence ; it scarcely reached a tenth part of the amount received twelve months before. O'Connell was enjoying a holiday at Darrynane, but the journal supposed to possess his special confidence * applied itself steadily to the task of disparaging the remnant of the Young Ireland party ; and in revolutionary eras denunciation is the preliminary stage of speedy trial and sentence. The opening of the new year, it seemed certain, would determine the fate of the marvellous organisation which had risen to so splendid an apogee, and now seemed tottering so perilously towards an ignominious disappearance.

I have hitherto refrained, whenever it was possible, from speaking of my own acts or opinions except as one of a party. In the stage of the narrative we have now reached this reticence will no longer be possible, for the death of Davis threw upon me the task of reconstructing and directing the party he had created. I was about to encounter the painful experience which always awaits the student, who after speculating and projecting in the , free atmosphere of fancy, comes down to hustle against the obstacles with which the actual world is thronged. , I had the aid, in that trying time, and in every serious ' emergency which followed, of thoughtful counsellors, who loved the Irish cause better than they loved ease or ' ambition, and of whom the people knew little. There

* The Pilot, edited by Mr. Eichard Barrett.

THE BALLY OF YOUNG IBELANB^UNDEU FIEE. 5 are intellects like fecund trees wliich put forth gay blossoms and juicy fruit, and are the delight of the peoples' eyes ; there are others like plants which grow their tubers under the soil, where careless feet tread without noting their existence, and this latter is a class which finds a natural habitat in the secret counsels of political parties, and was not wanting in this party. But a man must walk b}^ the light of his own conscience and judgment in the last resort. Through the succession of troubled times which now began, the policy of the journal which I directed was, as we shall see, a constant and often a decisive factor in public affairs, and for that policy I accept the whole responsibility, and submit it cheerfully to the judgment of my country and posterity.

It seemed to me at that time, and experience and reflection have deepened the conviction, that it depended mainly on the Nation whether the Irish cause would not again disappear from view, as in 1835, and the people who had felt the divine inspiration which enabled Belgians and Grreeks, Hungarians and Italians, to hope and ^ strive for a national existence till it was attained, should not faU back in despair, or harness themselves once more like cattle to the triumphant car of an English party. I resolved that one post at least should not be yielded to the enemy, and much depended on that decision.

The few Young Irelanders who remained at home had frequent consultations. Our first duty was to periform an operation equivalent to the military tactique

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FOUB lEABS OF IRISH HISTORY.

of calling out the reserves. We had many friends and allies scattered through the island : the time was come to prove what they would do for the cause. The Nation must not lose a jot of the authority it had won by ability and courage, else the " permanent monster meeting," as some one named the array of readers on whom it could count for sympathy and co-operation, would be disbanded ; for they had no common camp or flag except the journal. But it was not enough to call out the reserves; it was equally necessary, in the military slang prevalent in the journalism of that time, to withdraw all furloughs. The Young Irelanders had disappeared from ConciHation Hall since it had become, in the language of one of them — covering an equivoke which will be imperfectly understood out of Ireland — " such a lioly show ; " but if they were silent in Conciliation Hall, it might be feared that the slanders on their good name whispered in the country would soon be heard on the platform. And, moreover, it was from Conciliation Hall the cause was directed and controlled ; if they were silent there, it might be effectually ruined, whatever they accomplished elsewhere.

It was admirable to note the zeal with which the remnant of the young men took up their task anew. McCarthy, Barry, and Mangan redoubled their exertions for the Nation. Hitherto they had only written verses ; now they contributed critical papers of great interest. ' Even poor MacNevin, maimed and distracted by the/ pangs of a cruel disease, insisted on bearing his part in. the experiment. And O'Gorman, Doheny, and Barry promised at the beginning of the new year — then at hand — to resume their place in Conciliation Hall. But. the greatest surprise to our watchful censors was the sudden irruption into national politics, and national journalism, of new men — men of whom, in some cases, they had never heard so much as the names. Thomas Francis Meagher, John Mitchel, Thomas Darcy McGee, and Thomas Devin Eeilly for the first time began to take an open part in public affairs in Ireland ; and Thomas Wallis and John Fisher Murray a silent but stringent interest. The reader will desire to know something of these recruits, and of their opportune appearance in the front rank of the national party. As they were men of marked characteristics, it will not be difficult to make him see them as they then appeared.

Thomas Francis Meagher was the son of a retired merchant in Waterford, who became in succession ma3^or and member for the city — a silent, steadfast man, held in general respect. On the occasion of Davis's death, young Meagher wrote to me expressing profound sympathy, and asking to be permitted to co-operate in raising a monument to his memory. He was at that time a youth of two-and-twenty,* who had scarcely heard his own voice except in a college debating society, and had not written a line for the public beyond one feeble copy of verses in the Nation. But there was a mesmerism in his language which touched me. I speedily made his personal acquaintance, and soon had the happiness of counting him among my friends. His education

* He was born at Waterford, on the 23rd of August. 1823.

FOUB YEARS OF IRISH HISTORY.

had commenced at Clongowes Wood, the Jesuit College in Kildare, and had been completed at Stonyhurst, the Jesuit College in Lancashire, where Sheil, O'Loghlen, Wyse, More OTarrell, and other notable Catholics of a previous generation had been trained. He won, more than once, the prize for English composition in Stonyhurst, and took a remarkable place in an Academic Debating Society, which the students of the Higher School in Clongowes Wood were allowed to establish ; but he was somewhat negligent, in both colleges, of graver studies. He had not had the advantage of university training ; his father shared with many Catholic fathers a profound distrust of the only university in Ireland — an institution which tempted Catholic students to apostacy by reserving its prizes for apostates ; but he graduated in the greater university of the world by making a Continental tour before he came of age, during which he was keenly impressed, as he was fond of telling, by the condition of Belgium a dozen years after its escape from the domination of Holland. Meagher was middle-sized, and well made. The lines of his face were so round as to give it the character of languor and indolence, till it was lighted up with enthusiasm, when it became impassioned and impressive. His voice was not rich or flexible, but the genuine feeling with which he was moved rendered it an instru- ' ment fit to express a wide range of emotion and I passion with astonishing power. In the counsels of the party he did not prove of much value ; nor even when he attained to the height of his reputation was he ever a leader in its cabinet.

But after a little lie began to address the Association in language such as it had never heard — the language not only of conviction, which Davis and his associates had constantly spoken, but of passion, poetry, and imagination. His powers were intense but limited. He never wrestled with an adversary foot to foot in close debate, or struck him down with the massive force of reason as with a club. He stirred the emotions at will, he moved the generous passions, but over the judgment he exercised less control. His speeches were as carefully prepared as Yergniaud's, and will bear comparison with the finest efforts of the great Girondist. In the style one may trace the inspiration of Grattan and Davis, and in later times a sotipgon of Lamartine. There w^as no deliberate imitation, but he had been fed on Grattan and the Nation, and the time was at hand when the " Histor}^ of the Girondists " was to intoxicate the young men of all civilised countries, and he did not escape the spell. Like Curran and Sliiel, he had to struggle with natural impediments, which the impulse of the orator never entirely overcame. It was like listening to the mystical, sonorous music of the " Eevolt of Islam," recited in Shelley's shrill treble, to hear Meagher pour out passion and pathos and humour in tones which possessed no note in perfection but intensity. In private he was a fast friend and a man of steady honour ; but though he had a buoyant and enjoying disposition, he was not eminent for social any more than for colloquial endowments. "Flaunting and fashionable as I sometimes was," he afterwards wrote to me, " I thoroughly hated Dublin society for its pretentious aping of English taste, ideas, and fashions, for its utter want of all true nobility, all sound love of country, and all generous or elevated sentiment." His rare and splendid gifts were seen only in the tribune. To the common eye, indeed, the new recruit was a dandified youngster, with a languid air and mincing accent obviously derived from an English education ; but this was a vulgar error. Nature had made him a great orator, and training had made him an accomplished gentleman.*