The Life Story of an Old Rebel Part 14

It is not to be expected that every Irishman, even every Irish Nationalist, will be of one mind as to which way his duty lies in serving his country. After all, a man who can honestly say "I am an Irishman and I love my country" is already nine-tenths of the way to being a Nationalist. If such a man tries to do his best, according to his lights, for Ireland, he is ent.i.tled to all possible sympathy from even those who are working on other lines.

On one occasion, when Parnell had returned from a special mission to America, I had a long discussion with him on these points, and was bound to admit that the British Government would have been much better pleased to encounter an insurrection in Ireland, which they could easily put down, than the policy of the so-called "Obstructionists" in Parliament.

Again, I said, there was another fact which I recognised. This was that his being sent on a mission to America, whence he was then returning, showed the value of having a man holding such a well-recognised position as a member of Parliament, elected by the votes of his fellow-countrymen, in case we had to send a representative to speak in the name of Ireland to some other nation, a circ.u.mstance which had happened before and might again. I said this, even taking into account the apparent failure of the mission to America, from which he was returning, for circ.u.mstances might arise in which the head of a State might be glad to recognise an emba.s.sy like theirs. He told me that was exactly how he viewed the subject.

It was in Dr. Commins' office that we had this conversation, and at our request Mr. Parnell postponed his departure to Ireland in order to attend a celebration we were having that night of Home Rule victories we had achieved in two wards of the town, in Vauxhall by the return of Dr.

Commins to the Town Council, and in Scotland Ward by the election of Dr.

Alexander Bligh. Parnell's appearance at our festival, which was held on Monday, November 13th, 1876, was a pleasing surprise to those present, who were not aware of his return from America, and this added to the intensity of the outburst of joy and enthusiastic applause which greeted him.

One of the most important of our Annual Conventions in Great Britain was that held in Liverpool on 27th August, 1877. Everything showed that, while our people in Ireland and here still loved the old leader, they favoured the policy of "Obstruction." At this Convention there was no intention of displacing Mr. b.u.t.t from his position as President of the organisation. They would have retained him on account of his distinguished services and eminently lovable character. But the old man himself could see plainly enough that the people wanted to move faster than he was willing to lead, and, notwithstanding the appeals made to him, insisted upon resigning his position. The Convention being compelled to accept his resignation, Charles Stewart Parnell was elected President of the organisation in his place. This was an indication of what was likely to follow, for though Mr. b.u.t.t retained the nominal leaders.h.i.+p of the Irish Parliamentary Party up to the time of his death, Parnell was the real leader, and eventually, after a short interval, when Mr. Shaw held the office, became the Chairman of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

John Ferguson was, I think, the first man publicly to indicate Parnell as the probable successor of b.u.t.t. But so great is the dread in our people of even the semblance of disunion, that many, myself among the number, expostulated with him for this. Events, however, showed he was right, and Mr. b.u.t.t himself plainly felt that it was inevitable. But at the Convention, when b.u.t.t had distinctly refused to hold the office of President any longer, nothing could be finer than the tribute paid to our retiring leader by Mr. John Ferguson in proposing the election of Mr. Parnell as his successor. As I was asked to take the official account of that Convention, and have kept a record of it, I here give a few words of his and some of the other speeches. He said:--

It is my intention to propose Mr. Parnell as the head of the Confederation. At the same time I feel the greatest possible regret that our grand old chieftain who, in trying times, raised the Irish banner, who has so long guided us, and who has been with us in so many hard fights, is to retire from amongst us. We are grateful to Issac b.u.t.t for leading us so far, but we are going to try a more determined policy, and Mr. b.u.t.t holds views different from those we are determined to carry out. I hope, though, he will take counsel with the true and earnest men of the Party, and that, after a time, he will return to lead us at this side of the water.

Mr. John Barry, Mr. Biggar and others spoke in the same strain.

So also did Mr. Parnell, who, concluding his speech seconding the vote of thanks to Mr. b.u.t.t, said:--

I must confess to not having Mr. b.u.t.t's confidence in English justice and sense of right. It is not too late for him to see a way to deal with England that will obtain freedom for our country--a way that will show England that, if she will dare to trifle with Irish demands, it will be at the risk of endangering those inst.i.tutions she feels so proud of, but which Irishmen have no reason to respect. To Mr. b.u.t.t is due a debt of grat.i.tude by the Irish people which they can never repay, for he has taught them self-reliance and knowledge of their power. If I have felt it my duty to put myself in antagonism with Mr. b.u.t.t I hope he will forgive me. If I have said or written harsh things I have never said more nor less than was due to the gravity of the occasion.

Mr. O'Donnell, who expressed a wish that the next session might find Mr.

b.u.t.t at the head of a United Irish Party, supported the vote of thanks to Mr. b.u.t.t, which was carried unanimously, and with all sincerity and depth of feeling.

Mr. b.u.t.t replied, saying he would be ashamed of himself if he were unmoved by that vote, and the manner in which it had been pa.s.sed. He hoped that the wish expressed by Mr. O'Donnell might be realized, and it would not be his fault if they had not a United Irish Party in the House of Commons. After expressing his good wishes for the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, which he hoped might long continue to a.s.sert the power of the Irish people in this country, he took his farewell.

Mr. Parnell was then elected President.

The Convention of 1877 ended with the adoption of a resolution, on the motion of Mr. Peter Mulhall (Liverpool), seconded by Mr. Ryan (Bolton):--

That this Convention of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain hereby endorses the vigorous policy of the Home Rule Parliamentary Party who are termed "Obstructionists."

Mr. Mulhall just mentioned was an active worker in the National ranks in Liverpool, and even a more valuable adherent a little later was his younger brother James, one of the most thorough, sincere, and upright of our young men, who never spared himself when there was good work to do.

Before the venerable figure of Isaac b.u.t.t disappears from the scene, let me say a few words about his eminently agreeable personality.

There was not an atom of selfishness about him. I remember his making little of the difficulties some people used to raise in connection with the planning of a Home Rule Bill, and saying, "Three men sitting round a table could in a short time draw up a plan of Home Rule for Ireland that would act, providing people all round meant honestly."

He used to tell us humorous anecdotes of his experiences in the courts, of which I can recollect the following one: "A man came before a magistrate to have a neighbour bound over to keep the peace. In his deposition he stated after the usual preamble: 'That said Barney Trainor at said time and place threatened to send said deponent's soul to the lowest pit of h.e.l.l, and this deponent veribly believes that had it not been for the interference of the bystanders the aforesaid Barney Trainor would have accomplished his horrible purpose.'"

Another story that I remember him telling was as to the origin of "Bog Latin." A sheriff's officer was sent to serve a writ, but the object of his search took refuge in a bog. The sheriff's officer, determined to do the thing properly, endorsed his writ "Non comeatibus in swampo," and in Irish legal circles the term "Bog Latin" was thereafter used to describe any mode of caricature of the ancient tongue.

In something less than two years after Charles Stewart Parnell had succeeded him as our President, Isaac b.u.t.t died, on the 5th of May, 1879, mourned by Ireland as one of the most brilliant, patriotic, and self-sacrificing men she had ever nurtured.

Of the members of Parliament and embryo members present at the 1877 Convention, I should say a word of Tim Healy, by which name he is most frequently known, who, since then, has been on many occasions one of the most prominent figures in Irish politics.

From the day when I first met him, a keen, quick-witted, enthusiastic Irish lad of about 18, from Newcastle-on-Tyne, until this 1877 Convention and later, he did good work for the Cause. Great as is my affection for him, my pain at his att.i.tude in recent years has been as great.

From the time we began to work together in the Home Rule movement I should say that Timothy Healy had not left his native place, Bantry, more than a couple of years.

He is related to the Sullivan family, the connection being still closer from the fact that his wife is a daughter of our veteran poet, T.D.

Sullivan, for whom I have always had the warmest admiration.

Like myself, Healy had a leaning towards journalism, and we had a common ground in our admiration of the "Nation" newspaper, not only the "Nation" of O'Connell and the Young Irelanders, but of the Sullivans.

Nothing, therefore, could be more congenial to him than to fill the post of London letter writer to that paper.

He made his mark at once, as being a worthy scholar of the "Nation"

school, both past and present, and no one recognised this more quickly than Charles Stewart Parnell. It was no doubt this appreciation that prompted the new Irish leader to ask Tim Healy to become his private secretary.

Parnell possessed in a remarkable degree a gift which was of great service to him during his political career as the successor of Isaac b.u.t.t. This was the faculty of weighing up the special qualities of the various members of the Irish Party and using them accordingly. Without attempting for a moment to underrate Parnell as a great leader of men, I must say that there were members of the Party far abler in many respects than he was, and, no doubt, in looking around for someone to supply the qualities in which he, himself, was wanting, he could see that Healy was the very man for his purpose.

When he was in America he wired to Tim offering him the post, which offer was at once accepted, and, in the shortest possible time, Parnell's new secretary had crossed the Atlantic, and was by his side ready to be put in harness at once. It was an excellent combination, and there can be no doubt but that, during the time that the connection existed between them, Parnell owed much towards the successful carrying on of the national struggle to his young secretary's inspiration.

Michael Davitt, in his "Fall of Feudalism," pays a high tribute to Healy's splendid service in connection with Gladstone's Land Act.

Undoubtedly his was the credit for what became known as the "Healy Clause," which provided that no rent should be payable for land on improvements made by the tenant himself or his immediate predecessor.

Not only was this credit conceded to him of being the author of this clause by distinguished fellow-countrymen like Michael Davitt and Lord Russell of Killowen, but by Mr. Gladstone himself.

As I have referred to the opinions expressed on Healy in Michael Davitt's book, perhaps I may be forgiven if I go out of my way somewhat in referring to another pa.s.sage in the same book, in which he pays a well-deserved tribute to a n.o.ble Irishman, Patrick Ford, of the New York "Irish World," with which, in common with Irish Nationalists the world over, I cordially agree. There are some men whom you may never have seen in the flesh, but whom you feel, through correspondence with them and in other ways, that you know none the less thoroughly all the same. Such a man is Patrick Ford. It is nearly forty years since I first made his acquaintance, and the years that have pa.s.sed have only increased my regard for him.

I had the pleasure of welcoming in the columns of the "Catholic Times,"

which was then under my direction, the first number of the "Irish World." I could feel at once that the paper and the man who edited it had for me a congenial ring about them. I am deeply indebted for the kindly and generous interest which Patrick Ford has so long personally and in the columns of the "Irish World" shewn in the success of my Irish publications, and I am delighted to have the opportunity of joining in the tribute paid to him by Michael Davitt.

CHAPTER XVI.

MICHAEL DAVITT'S RETURN FROM PENAL SERVITUDE--PARNELL AND THE "ADVANCED"

ORGANISATION.

In the year following the Liverpool Home Rule Convention of 1877, I had the pleasure of welcoming back to freedom my old friend, Michael Davitt, after he had been in penal servitude close upon eight years. He had been released, along with other Fenian prisoners, and, with Corporal Chambers, came on April 28th, 1878, to a gathering we organised and held in the Adelphi Theatre, Liverpool, for the benefit of the liberated men, John O'Connor Power being the lecturer for the occasion, and Dr. Commins our chairman.

Michael Davitt, on rising to speak, was received with a terrific outburst of cheering, again and again repeated.

I was sitting immediately behind him on the platform, and I noticed, while he was speaking, a constant nervous twitching of his hand, which he held behind his back, and he was evidently in a state of highly-strung excitement. I was not surprised when we had that day a painful proof of how the prison treatment had undermined his const.i.tution. After the gathering we brought the released prisoners and the princ.i.p.al speakers to be entertained at the house of Patrick Byrne, a warm-hearted, patriotic Irishman, and were much alarmed when Davitt fell into a deep faint, from which he only recovered through the ministrations of one of our most respected Liverpool Nationalists, Dr.

Bligh, who fortunately was present. For a few moments it seemed as if he never would revive.

There is no doubt but that their treatment during their long term of penal servitude seriously affected the health of several of the Irish political prisoners. It was only three months previous to his visit to us in Liverpool that Davitt reached Dublin, with three others of the released prisoners--Sergeant McCarthy, Corporal Chambers, and John O'Brien. To the consternation of his friends, McCarthy died suddenly at Morrison's Hotel, on January 15th, the cause, it was believed, being heart disease. This caused such a shock to Chambers that his life, too, was put in danger. I was pleased to see him restored to health after this when he called on me in Liverpool with his brother, with whom I was well acquainted. The shock of the sudden death of his friend McCarthy must have affected Michael Davitt too, as we found from the report of our friend, Dr. Bligh, in what a precarious state of health he must have been at the time. It will be remembered that Rickard Burke became insane, it was thought, and stated in Parliament, owing to his treatment while in Chatham Prison.

Following our Liverpool gathering, we had on Sunday, May 5th, a meeting in the St. Helens Theatre for the same object. At this Parnell as well as Davitt was present. Speaking that day by desire of our St. Helens friends, I called attention to the appropriateness of our addressing the a.s.sembly from the boards of a theatre on which there had been the mimic representation of many a stirring drama. But no play the audience had ever witnessed on those boards could exceed in dramatic interest the life of the released convict, Michael Davitt. Nay, more, the grudging terms on which he had been released enabled him to appear that day in the real living character of a "Ticket-of-Leave-Man," which, no doubt, they had seen impersonated on those boards by some clever actor in the play of the same name.

I am reminded of that St. Helens meeting by a pa.s.sage in Michael Davitt's book "The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland." I travelled from Liverpool to St. Helens to attend the meeting in the same carriage with Mr. Parnell. As I could always speak unreservedly to him I knew that though he would not actually join the advanced organisation, he regarded it as a useful force behind the const.i.tutional movement. In the carriage, which it so happened we had to ourselves, we discussed the probabilities of the result of a resort to physical force for securing Irish freedom, should circ.u.mstances justify such a course, for Parnell would not have shrunk from taking the field if there had been a reasonable hope of success. Singularly enough, I find in Michael Davitt's book that he himself, on the day of that same St. Helens meeting, made an advance to Parnell with a view to getting him to join the revolutionary organisation, should the conditions be somewhat modified. Up till then I had seen more of Parnell than Davitt had and had enjoyed his full confidence. I had, therefore, come to the conclusion, from my conversations with him, that he was of far more service to the Irish cause as he was than if he had actually joined the revolutionary movement. I am not surprised, therefore, at Parnell's answer to Davitt: "No, I will never join any political secret society, oath bound or otherwise. My belief is that useful things for our Cause can be done in the British Parliament."

Nevertheless, I remember one public utterance of his which always struck me as most statesmanlike. After a frank statement that he was in favour of const.i.tutional Home Rule, he, with equal frankness, declined to subscribe to the entire finality of that solution of the Irish problem.

How, he asked, could he or any man put bounds to the progress of a nation?

Seeing that Gladstone gave as one reason for the disestablis.h.i.+ng of the Irish Church "the intensity of Fenianism," so, in the same way, no one recognised more than Parnell did that the existence of a physical force movement was a strong argument for those engaged in the moral force agitation. Therefore he was always anxious to conciliate and even cultivate the advanced element. Of this I will here give one ill.u.s.tration, out of many I could mention, and this in connection with the custom of drinking what was called "the loyal toast," which at one time used to be observed at some Home Rule celebrations. It is a matter on which I have already explained my point of view.