He came over to England, and had a narrow escape from falling into the hands of the police. When William Hogan was arrested in Birmingham, charged with supplying the arms used in the Manchester Rescue, Michael Breslin was in the house at the time. Questioned by the police, he described himself as a traveller in the tea trade for Mr. James Lysaght Finigan, of Liverpool. As he had his proper credentials (samples, etc., from James Finigan, who, anticipating an emergency of this kind, had given them for this express purpose), he was allowed by the police to go on his way.

James Lysaght Finigan was a good type of the Liverpool-born Irishman, educated by the Christian Brothers. With other members of his family he was at the time engaged in the tea trade; but he was of an adventurous disposition, and afterwards served in the French Foreign Legion in the Franco-Prussian War. Later still he became a member of the Irish Party in the House of Commons.

In connection with Breslin's narrow escape, the sequel, as regards our friend Hogan, is worth relating. Those who ever met William Hogan will agree with me that a more warm-hearted and enthusiastic Irishman never lived. He was a good-looking man, of imposing presence—a director of an Insurance Company, for which he was also the resident manager in Birmingham. Living in that town, he was of great assistance to the various agents entrusted with the task of procuring arms for the revolutionary movement. It speaks much for his sagacity that a man of his impulsive and generous temperament should so long have escaped arrest in connection with such hazardous undertakings. Hogan, however, like Shemus O'Brien, "was taken at last."

Some of the revolvers brought from Birmingham by Daniel Darragh, which had been used at the Hyde Road action, had been picked up from the ground afterwards by the police. It was for supplying these that Hogan was put upon his trial. The maker of the revolvers was brought from Birmingham, and put in the witness box. He swore that a revolver produced was one of his own make, which he had sold to the prisoner. Thus, fortunately for Hogan, the whole case against him turned on this point—not a very strong one, as it was obviously possible for the Crown witness to be mistaken.

Hogan's counsel produced a similar revolver, and asked the witness if he could identify it as his manufacture? The witness unhesitatingly did so. The counsel, when his turn came, called another witness—a decent-looking man of the artizan class. The barrister handed him the revolver.

"Do you recognise it?" he asked.

"I do—I made it myself."

The Court was astonished. The prosecuting counsel asked:—

"How do you know it is yours?"

"By certain marks on it," the man replied, and these he proceeded to describe. As the description was found to be correct, and as the other witness, who had sworn that he had made the weapon, had not described any such marks, the case against Hogan broke down, and he was acquitted.

A few days afterwards he called on me, and explained how the thing had happened. When he was arrested, his friends in Birmingham, having still on hand some of the revolvers he had purchased, had an exact copy of one of them made by a gunsmith whom they could trust, with instructions to put his own private marks upon it, which he could afterwards identify. It was this weapon that had deceived the witness for the prosecution to such an extent that he wrongly swore to it as being his own manufacture.

Daniel Darragh, who was also put upon his trial for supplying the weapons for the Manchester Rescue, was not so fortunate as his friend Hogan, for he was convicted. He was sent into penal servitude on April 15th, 1869, but, being in delicate health, did not long survive, for he died in Portland Prison on June 28th of the following year. William Hogan, as the fulfilment of a sacred duty, brought the body of his friend home to Ireland, to be buried among his own kith and kin, in the Catholic cemetery of Ballycastle, Co. Antrim; and Edward O'Meagher Condon, when recently visiting this country, considered it a no less sacred duty to visit the grave.

It will be seen that William Hogan, with all his acuteness, had a very narrow escape from falling into the hands of the law and suffering its penalties. Still, it has been my experience, that men like him, who have stood their ground, following their usual legitimate occupations, were always less liable to be molested than what might be termed birds of passage, such as Rickard Burke, Arthur Forrester, or Michael Davitt.

Such, I consider, was the case of my friend, John Barry, when he was a resident in Newcastle-on-Tyne, in connection with an incident which he related to me a short time since. Some arms were addressed to him "to be called for," under the name of "Kershaw," a well-known north-country name, not at all likely to be borne by an Irishman. By some means the police got wind of the nature of the consignment, and the arms were held at the station, waiting for Mr. Kershaw to claim them. But it was a case of plot and counterplot; and when John was actually on the way to the railway station, he was warned in time by a railway employe, an Irish Protestant member of the I.R.B., and did not finish his journey. As "Kershaw" did not turn up, the case of arms was sent off to London to be produced at a trial then impending.

John Barry was at that time a commercial traveller, and, strangely enough, on one of his trips, he found himself in the same railway carriage with two detectives who were in charge of the arms on their way to the metropolis. John, as everybody acquainted with him knows, "has the music on the tip of his tongue;" the racy accent acquired in his childhood in his native Wexford. But he can put it off when the occasion requires it; and the two police officers were quite charmed with the social qualities of the genial commercial "gent" who was their fellow-traveller, never suspecting him to be an Irishman. They chatted together in the most agreeable manner, making no secret of their mission to London, and letting drop a few facts which proved useful to the counsel for the defence in the subsequent trial. Reaching London, they asked the commercial "gent" to spend a social evening with them and some of the witnesses in the case, which had some connection with the arms intended for "Mr. Kershaw." He could not do so, he said, as he had a previous engagement—which happened to be with Arthur Forrester and some witnesses on the other side. But, he continued, he would be glad to see them on the following day. Where could he see them? At Scotland Yard; and at Scotland Yard, accordingly, he met them, where they showed him, as an evidence of the desperate characters they had to deal with—his own case of arms!

They told him of the pleasant evening he had missed, the only drawback being, they said, that one of the witnesses, named Corydon, got drunk and was very troublesome.

This reminds me of another case, in connection with which I, at the time, fully expected to be arrested. The reader can form his own conclusion, but my impression was, and is, that I owed my safety to a gentleman I shall now introduce. Detective Superintendent Laurence Kehoe, of Liverpool, was a very decent man in his way. He was by no means of the type of John Boyle O'Reilly or the Breslins, who have shown that in the British army and in the police force there have been men, mostly compelled by adverse circumstances, who have for a time worn the blue, or green, or scarlet coat of Britain without changing the Irish heart beneath.

No; Larry (as he was generally called) was nothing of the kind. Still, I believe he faithfully did his duty according to his lights, in the service in which he was engaged. He was a conscientious Catholic, and a son of his is a most respected priest in the diocese of Liverpool. He was a kind-hearted, charitable man, always ready to do a good turn, particularly for a fellow-countryman. If an Irish policeman called his attention to some poor waif of an Irish child who had lost its parents, or was in evil surroundings—having parents worse than none, or in danger of losing its faith—Laurence Kehoe would take the matter in hand. He would not always go through the formality of bringing the case of such child under the notice of the managers of one or other of the Catholic orphanages. When I was Secretary of Father Nugent's Boys' Refuge, he brought one of these waifs to the Brother Director, and claimed admittance for him. The place was full, the Brother said—it could not be done. Without another word Kehoe left the child on the doorstep, and simply saying, "Good-night," left Brother Tertullian sorely perplexed, but with no alternative but to take the child in.

Now, Laurence Kehoe must have known that I was a notorious suspect—for it was his duty to know—but we were good friends, never, however, talking politics by any possible chance. I cannot, of course, state for certain how it was, but the reader, from what I am going to describe, may possibly come to the conclusion that Detective Superintendent Kehoe may have shut both eyes and ears in my particular case.

To Rickard Burke was entrusted the critical and dangerous task of buying and distributing arms for the revolutionary movement. Exit Rickard Burke, in the usual way, through the prison gate. Enter Arthur Forrester, who, in due course, found his way also—though but for a short time—within prison walls. Then, following in quick succession, came Michael Davitt, engaged in the same task as Burke and Forrester.

Forrester was a young man of great eloquence, and, like his mother and sister, a poet. Mrs. Ellen Forrester's "Widow's Message to her Son" is, I think, one of the finest and most heart-stirring poems we possess. I have often listened with pleasure to Arthur Forrester, when he used to come to address the "boys" in Liverpool. On one of those occasions Michael Davitt was with him, a modest, unassuming young man, with but little to say, although he was to make afterwards a more important figure in the world than his friend. Forrester was a young fellow full of pluck, and made a desperate resistance when, a boy, he was first arrested in Dublin.

One night, just before Christmas, 1869, he left fifty revolvers with me. Early next morning I read in a daily paper that he had been arrested the previous night in a Temperance Hotel where he had been staying. There were no arms found upon him or among his belongings. He had left them with me;—indeed, as I read the account of his arrest, they were still in my possession. You may depend upon it I quickly got them into safer hands than my own. Some compromising documents were found in Forrester's possession, including a certain letter with which Michael Davitt's name was connected. This same letter was brought forward in evidence some years afterwards, in the famous "Times Forgeries Commission," with a view to showing that the Irish leaders had incited to murder. As I expected, I was not long without a visit from Laurence Kehoe's lieutenants. Horn and Cousens, detective officers, called upon me to make enquiries about the revolvers which, they said, "Arthur had left with me." I need scarcely say they gained nothing by their visitation. I fully expected that the matter would not end here, and that I was likely to find myself in the dock along with Forrester.

The same evening I had a visit from my sister-in-law, Miss Naughton. She had a friend, a Miss Cameron, who was sister to the wife of Lawrence Kehoe. Miss Cameron lived in the house of the Detective Superintendent, along with her sister, Mrs. Kehoe. In the middle of the previous night—Miss Cameron told Miss Naughton—her room being on the same landing as Kehoe's—she heard him called, and a man's voice saying:—

"We've taken Forrester. Shall we go to Denvir?" There was a pause; then Kehoe said, "No," adding some words to the effect that he did not think that I was implicated.

I dare say, after the manner of some pious people I know, he had persuaded himself that such was the case. After he had worked out his full term in Purgatory (for he is dead many years, God rest his soul!), I don't think St. Peter can have kept the Heavenly gates closed on Larry Kehoe for whatever he said about me that night. Nay, let us hope that it was even put down to his credit.

Forrester's explanation, when he was arrested, as to his employment was that he was a hawker. He had his licence, all quite regular, to show. Under this he could sell his revolvers. There was nothing illegal in that, unless a connection were established with the revolutionary movement.

This, it appeared, they were not able to make out; but he was kept in custody, evidently with a view to gain time to establish such a connection. In fact, his case was the same as Davitt's, who took up the work of procuring and distributing arms, after Forrester had become too well known to the police in connection with it. Davitt, too, had a hawker's licence; and, at first, there was really no evidence to connect him with the Fenian movement. The farce was gone through of bringing Corydon to identify him—not a very difficult task in the case of a one-armed man—though this was the first time Corydon had ever seen Davitt.

The evident explanation of Forrester being kept in custody, and remanded, as he was, from day to day, without being charged with any offence, was that a similar connection might be established, to prove which a little perjury would not stand in the way.

Michael Davitt, who had not yet come under the notice of the police, came to me, along with Arthur Forrester's mother, on hearing of the arrest. They had tea with us, and, I need scarcely say, were warmly welcomed in our little family circle, those in the house who were but small children then being in after years proud to remember that they had had such noble characters under their roof.

Mrs. Ellen Forrester was a homely, sweet-looking, little North of Ireland woman. She was a native of the County Monaghan, and, at this time, about forty years of age. Her maiden name was Magennis. Her father was a schoolmaster, which would, no doubt, account for her literary tastes. Songs and poems of hers appeared in the "Nation" and "Dundalk Democrat." She was quite young when she came to England, and settled first in Liverpool, and then in Manchester. She married Michael Forrester, a stonemason, and had five children. It was quite evident there was a poetic strain in the Magennis blood, for two of her daughters, and her son Arthur, inherited the gift, which her brother Bernard also possessed. She produced "Simple Strains" and (in conjunction with her son Arthur) "Songs of the Rising Nation," and other poems. She was a frequent contributor to the English press, her work being much appreciated.

Arthur Forrester, whose release we were trying to effect, was, at this time, only nineteen years old, though he looked much older. Besides the poetic strain which he inherited from his mother, he must also have had that fiery and unconquerable spirit which displayed itself in the determined resistance he made against the police who came to arrest him in 1867, in Dublin, where he had found his way for the projected rising. He was a young Revolutionist truly—being then only seventeen. He was not long kept in prison that time, there being no evidence to connect him with Fenianism, nor, indeed, was there now, when he had fallen into the hands of the police in Liverpool, though they were doing their best to manufacture some.

His warlike proclivities seem to have been ever uppermost, as will be seen later, where we find him joining the French "Foreign Legion" during the Franco-Prussian War. Besides the "Songs of the Rising Nation" in connection with his mother, he produced "An Irish Crazy Quilt," prose and verse, and was a frequent contributor to the "Irish People" and other papers over the signature of "Angus" and "William Tell."

It is too bad of me to be keeping poor Arthur in durance vile while I am going into these particulars; but I want to show what kind of people these Forresters were, and what the rebelly Ulster Magennis strain in their blood let them into.

Together, Davitt and I called upon several Liverpool Irishmen to get bail for Forrester. There was no difficulty—we could easily get the necessary security; but, name after name, good, substantial bail, was refused by the police on one pretence or another.

Ultimately, on Christmas Eve, when the prisoner was again brought before the stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Raffles, a very just and high-minded man, Dr. Commins, barrister, acting for Forrester, claimed that no charge, but a mere matter of suspicion, being forthcoming against him, the bail offered should be accepted. The magistrate agreed to accept two sureties of L100 each, "to keep the peace for one year," and Arthur Forrester was released.

It is interesting to know that while one of the bails was William Russell, a patriotic Irishman, having an extensive business, the other was Arthur Doran, a wholesale newsagent. He was a decent Irishman, of Liverpool birth, who took no part in politics. He had been induced to go bail by one of the greatest scoundrels Ireland ever produced—Richard Pigott, Doran being an agent for Pigott's papers, the "Irishman" and "Flag of Ireland." Let this one good act, at all events, be put down to Pigott's credit.

To return to Forrester. After such a close shave as he had in Liverpool, with the eyes of the police now upon him, his occupation was gone, and Michael Davitt took up the work. I am afraid that Davitt's visit to Liverpool on this occasion brought him under the notice of the police, and may probably have led to his arrest a few months afterwards.

This took place on May 14th, 1870, at Paddington Station, London, with him being arrested also John Wilson, a Birmingham gunsmith. Davitt had L150 in his possession, and Wilson had fifty revolvers, it being suggested that the gunsmith was about to deliver the weapons in exchange for the money. So far—Davitt having a hawker's licence, as in the case of Forrester—this would have been perfectly legitimate. What was wanted by the authorities was evidence to show a connection with the Fenian conspiracy. They really had no such evidence, but as Davitt was a marked man, and as it was necessary to have him removed, Corydon was brought to identify him, and, of course, had no difficulty, when a number of men were brought into the corridor, in picking out the one-armed man from among them.

At the trial Corydon swore, among other things, that Davitt took part in the Chester raid. Now, Michael himself told me afterwards that Corydon had never seen him before he "identified" him in prison; and that though he really was at Chester, Corydon could not have known this. Michael Davitt and John Wilson were convicted of treason-felony. As showing the man's noble character, it should not be forgotten that the Irishman made an earnest appeal for the Englishman, declaring that Wilson knew nothing of the object for which the weapons were wanted, and asking that whatever sentence was to be passed on the gunsmith might be added to his own. This was quite worthy of Davitt's chivalrous and unselfish nature, and I can well imagine his tall and commanding figure in the dock, with his strongly marked features and dark, bright eyes—while utterly defiant of what the law might do to himself—making this appeal for the man who stood beside him. Davitt was, on July 11th, 1870, sentenced to fifteen years, and Wilson to seven years penal servitude.

Michael Davitt will appear in these pages as the founder of another organisation, the results of which seem likely to make the Irish people more the real possessors of their own soil than they have ever been since the Norman invasion.

About this time I had started a printing and publishing business in Liverpool, and commenced to realise what I had long projected as a useful work for Ireland. This was the issue of my "Irish Library," consisting chiefly of penny books of biographies, stories, songs, and stirring episodes of Irish history.

In their production and afterwards, when I continued the issue of these booklets in London, I had valuable assistance from various friends, including Rev. Father Ambrose, Rev. Father O'Laverty, Michael Davitt, Daniel Crilly, T.D. Sullivan, Timothy McSweeney, Hugh Heinrick, William J. Ryan, Francis Fahy, William P. Ryan, Alfred Perceval Graves, Michael O'Mahony, John J. Sheehan, Thomas Boyd, Thomas Flannery, John Hand, James Lysaght Finigan, and other well-known writers on Irish subjects. Some of the penny books were from my own pen, in addition to which I wrote "The Brandons," a story of Irish life in England, and other books, of which my most ambitious work was "The Irish in Britain."



CHAPTER X.

RESCUE OF THE MILITARY FENIANS.

Before concluding the section of my Recollections connected with Fenianism, I must re-introduce John Breslin, the rescuer of James Stephens.

Though the episode I am about to describe took place some six years after the commencement of the constitutional Home Rule agitation, I think it well, as it was connected with Fenianism, for the sake of compactness, to introduce it here.

My excuse for introducing it as part of my recollections will be seen further on.

It will be remembered that John Breslin, when a warder in Richmond Prison, was the man who actually opened the door of James Stephens's cell, and, with the aid of Byrne, another warder, helped the Head Centre over the prison wall, and left him in charge of John Ryan and other friends outside.

It was no wonder, then, that, when a similar perilous and even more arduous undertaking was projected, John Breslin should be the man chosen as the chief instrument to carry it out.

This was the rescue of six military Fenians from Freemantle, in Western Australia, which was ultimately effected on Easter Monday, 17th April, 1876.

The enterprise was projected in America, among its most active promoters being John Devoy. Associated with him were John Boyle O'Reilly (himself an escaped Fenian convict) and Captain Hathaway, City Marshal of New Bedford. An American barque, of 202 tons, the Catalpa, was bought, and converted into a whaler, but was intended to be used in carrying off the convicts. She was ready for sea in March, 1875. It was more than a year before she took the prisoners away from Australia, and a further four months before she reached New York with the rescued men. The ship was taken out by Captain S. Anthony, an American, to whom was confided the object of the mission. The only Irishman on board among the crew was Denis Duggan, the carpenter, a sterling Nationalist, to whom also was made known the mission on which they were bound.

As John Breslin was now in America, obviously he was the man of all others to entrust with the command of the daring project of carrying off the prisoners. Happily he was available for the work, and entered into it heartily. He sent me the narrative of the rescue himself—through his brother Michael—on his return to America, after having successfully accomplished his mission.

He and Captain Desmond sailed from San Francisco on the 13th of September, 1875, and reached Freemantle on 16th of November. They were not long in opening up communications with the prisoners, so as to be in readiness for the arrival of the Catalpa. In the meantime two more men joined the expedition—John King, who brought a supply of money from New Zealand, which was most useful, and Thomas Brennan, who arrived at the last moment, just as the Catalpa appeared off the coast, and had got into communication with Breslin.

Everything being arranged, it was determined to carry off the following prisoners—Martin Harrington, Thomas Darragh, James Wilson, Martin Joseph Hogan, Robert Cranston, and Thomas Henry Hassett. They were at work outside the prison walls, or at other employment equally accessible, when they were taken away in two traps from Freemantle, about nine o'clock in the morning of the 17th of April, 1876. By the time the news of their flight, and of the direction they had taken, was known in the prison, the party had reached Rockingham, and were on the sea in the whale-boat which was to take them to the Catalpa.

The gunboat Conflict, which was usually stationed at King George's Sound, was telegraphed for by the authorities, but it was found that the wires had been cut the previous night, and by the time they were repaired the vessel had gone on a cruise.

After some hours' delay, the governor engaged the passenger steamer Georgette to go in pursuit. It was nine o'clock that evening before she left Freemantle. The police boat was cruising about also, looking for the whaler and her boat. The Georgette came up with the Catalpa about 8 o'clock on the following (Tuesday) morning. A demand to go on board and search the barque was refused. As it was found there was a short supply aboard the Georgette, she returned to Freemantle to coal, leaving the police boat to watch the Catalpa, and to look out for the whale boat containing the rescued men, which had not yet appeared, although, as it turned out, not far off at the time. The boat had been vainly searching for the Catalpa all night, and had only now discovered her. The party in the boat had actually seen the Georgette overhauling the Catalpa, and had yet themselves remained undiscovered. In order to keep clear of falling into the hands of the Georgette they stood off from the ship, and it was about half-past two o'clock in the afternoon before the boat containing the rescued men approached the Catalpa again. They then saw the police boat making for the ship at about the same distance from her on the land side as the whale boat was to the seaward. The men scrambled aboard just as the police boat was coming up on the other side.

Breslin says:—"As soon as my feet struck the deck over the quarter rail, Mr. Smith, the first mate, called out to me, 'What shall I do now, Mr. Collins (this was the name Breslin went by); what shall I do?' I replied, 'Hoist the flag, and stand out to sea;' and never was a manoeuvre executed in a more prompt and seamanlike manner."

The police boat did not attempt to board the vessel, but made its way back to Freemantle to report. There the Georgette had been fully coaled and provisioned, and had taken aboard, in addition to the pensioners and police, a twelve-pounder field-piece. At 11 o'clock the same night (Tuesday) she steamed out once more. At daylight on the following morning she came up with the Catalpa again, and fired a round shot across her bows. After some parleying, Captain Anthony being prompted by Breslin, the Georgette hailed that if the Catalpa did not heave to, the masts would be blown out of her.

"Tell them," said Breslin to the captain, "that's the American flag; you are on the high seas; and if he fires on the ship, he fires on the American flag."

Preparations were made to give the armed party on the Georgette a warm reception should they attempt to board the whaler. But the pursuers had a wholesome fear of coming into conflict with a vessel sailing under the Stars and Stripes, and, after some further parleying, left the Catalpa to pursue her homeward voyage unmolested.

I was fortunate enough to get the account of both expeditions—for there were two—for the rescue of the military Fenians in each case direct from the man having the command.

I have already given John Breslin's account, which, it will, perhaps, be remembered I published at the time as a number of my penny "Irish Library."

I had the pleasure of hearing John Walsh, who had charge of the expedition from this country, relating the part he and his friend bore in assisting the Irish-American rescuers. He told the story at a very select gathering in Liverpool, at which I was present. On the 13th of January, he said, two men, of whom he was one, left this country with money and clothing to carry out the rescue. They landed on the 28th of February at King George's Sound, whence a sailing vessel took them to Freemantle.

They soon got into communication with the two men who had come from America, and had been on the spot since November, 1875—John Breslin and J. Desmond, the latter of whom worked as a coach-builder at Perth. Walsh and his friend offered their co-operation to the men from America in any capacity, and arrangements were made accordingly. They lent the Americans arms, and they cut the telegraph wires from Perth to King George's Sound, where a man-of-war was stationed.

It will be seen from Breslin's account that this was why the man-of-war was not available to deal with the Catalpa; for when the telegraphic communication was restored, it was found that the gunboat Conflict had left on a cruise.

Walsh and his friend were on the ground on the morning when the prisoners started to escape, and if a fight took place, they were to fight and fly with their friends. If there was no fight, they were to remain behind. If the Catalpa failed, they were to fly to the bush, with the exception of some who were to remain behind to succour those in the bush.

John Walsh described how, when the rescued men were being driven in two traps from Freemantle to Rockingham, to be taken on the whale-boat to the Catalpa, which was lying off the coast awaiting them, he and his friend started with them, and remained behind to stop pursuit. He also described the attempt to recapture the escaped men, as told in Breslin's narrative, and how the attempt failed.

My own connection with this incident was that the funds, or some part of them, for John Walsh's expedition passed through my hands between their collection and their distribution.

On Monday, August 21st, 1876, while we were holding the Annual Convention of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, in the Rotunda, Dublin, the joyful news reached us that the Catalpa, having on board the rescued men and their rescuers, had safely reached New York. The news was received with the wildest enthusiasm. The terrible strain of the last four months had passed, and we were relieved from the constant dread that, after the gallant rescue, the men might again fall into the hands of the enemy.

A few more words about the Breslins before finishing this chapter. Michael went back to America after his escape from arrest in Birmingham. I have corresponded with him from time to time ever since. A letter of mine to Michael, written after he finally went to America, came back to me in a very curious manner. A gentleman came into my place of business in Liverpool one day, and presented to me, as an introduction, a letter I had sent to my friend about a month previously. I was somewhat suspicious about this. I told him there was nothing to show that my letter had ever been in Breslin's hands at all. The gentleman agreed that I was right, and said he would merely ask to be allowed to leave his luggage for a short time.

I got a careful watch kept on his movements in Liverpool, but nothing more suspicious was reported than that he had been seen to enter a Catholic church, where he had gone to Confession.

My friend William Hogan was in my place when my messenger returned, and when he heard this, exclaimed, in his usual impetuous style—"He's a spy!"

The deduction might not seem obvious, but, doubtless Hogan had in his mind one or two of the worst cases of the anti-Fenian informers, who made a parade of great piety a cloak for their treachery.

The gentleman returned and reclaimed his luggage, and I heard nothing further of him for about a month afterwards, when I had a letter from Michael Breslin, saying that his friend, whom I had treated with such suspicion and such scant hospitality, was Mr. John B. Holland, the famous submarine inventor. He was, I believe, in this country in connection with his invention.

It may be asked, after all, what did Fenianism do for Ireland? To those who ask the question I would answer that no honest effort for liberty has ever been made in vain. If Fenianism did nothing else, it kept alive the tradition and the spirit of freedom among Irishmen, and handed them on to the next generation. In so far as the men who took part in it were unselfish, were whole-souled lovers of their country, and prepared to risk life and liberty for their country's sake—and I think with pride of the thousands of such men I knew or knew of—then the whole Irish race was ennobled and lifted up from the mire of serfdom.

But it did more than merely make martyrs. Its strength, its spontaneity, and the devotion of its adherents were such that they undoubtedly awakened not merely some alarm, but also some sense of justice in England.

Gladstone admitted that what first prompted him to set in motion the movement for the disestablishment of the Irish Church was "the intensity of Fenianism." But the result did not end there. For many an Englishman was moved to the belief that surely there must be something wrong with a system which provoked such a movement, something not wholly bad about a cause for which men went with calm, proud confidence to the felon's cell or the scaffold. And, even to-day, England—with all her secret service facilities—does not know one-half of the danger from which she escaped; nor can I repeat much of what I myself could say of Fenianism in England.

There are men who have made large fortunes in business; there are eminent men in many of the professions, whose former connection with Fenianism is unsuspected, who, at the time, if the call had been made upon them, would cheerfully have thrown aside their careers and taken their places in the ranks.

Once again "a soul came into Ireland," and men were capable then of high enterprises which to-day seem to belong to another age.

Even for myself, I have many times marvelled how light-heartedly in those days I took the risks of conspiracy—how little it troubled me that there were dozens of men who bore my liberty, and perhaps my life, in their hands. But I never doubted them—and I was right!



CHAPTER XI.

THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT.

It now becomes my business to record the formation and progress of another organisation—one which appealed to me precisely on the same grounds as Fenianism, namely, first, that it was based on justice; and, secondly, that it was practicable.

This was the constitutional movement for what was known as Home Rule. My principles have never altered, and I can see nothing inconsistent in my adapting myself to changed conditions. I and those who thought like me were driven into Fenianism because it seemed likely to achieve success, and what was call "constitutional agitation" seemed hopeless. Now the position was reversed. On the one hand Fenianism had collapsed, and on the other there seemed a prospect, partly owing to the change wrought by Fenianism, that a constitutional movement might succeed.

This constitutional movement had been going on for some six years previous to the rescue of the military Fenians, having been inaugurated at a meeting in the Bilton Hotel, Dublin, on the 19th May, 1870, five days after the arrest of Michael Davitt, and his disappearance for a season from the stage of Irish history.

In the pages which are to follow I shall have occasion to introduce some of those who took part in that first Home Rule gathering in Dublin. It was a hopeful beginning, as there were assembled men who were of various creeds and politics—Catholics, Protestants, Fenian sympathisers, Repealers, Liberals, and Tories—but all of whom had in view the happiness and prosperity of their common country. There they established the "Home Government Association of Ireland," the first resolution passed being:—

This Association is formed for the purpose of attaining for Ireland the right of self-government by means of a National Parliament.

The fact was that the "intensity of Fenianism" had forced thinking men of every shade of opinion to realise that government of Ireland by outsiders was an abject failure. Even Englishmen themselves began to realise that they were engaged in an impossible task, or, at all events, one in which they were quite at sea. A humorous story is attributed to Mr. T.W. Russell on this point. It is that a certain Englishman, who was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, went to an English official of experience in Dublin, and said—

"You know what I mean to do first of all, is to get at the facts—the facts—then I shall be on sure ground."

"My dear sir," said the official wearily, "there are no facts in Ireland."

The conclusion was not a surprising one for a man who had for years been in touch with the "official sources" of information.

While all honour is due to the men who initiated the new movement, the names of those who carried on the constitutional struggle during the years that preceded this date should not be forgotten. Of all the men I ever came into contact with in the course of my experience of constitutional agitation, I think the Sullivans—especially T.D. and A.M.—deserve the most credit, for they kept the flag flying in the columns of the "Nation" and in other ways during all the gloomy years that followed after Charles Gavan Duffy left the country in despair. I am always proud to have reckoned these two men among my dearest and most trusted friends.

Another great admirer of the Sullivans was Alfred Crilly, brother to Daniel Crilly, and father of Frederick Lucas Crilly, the present respected and able General Secretary of the United Irish League of Great Britain. Alfred was one of the most brilliant Irishmen we ever had in Liverpool, and no man did better service for the cause in that city during his lifetime. It was always a pleasure to me to work in harness with him, as I did on many public occasions; for whatever was the national organisation going on in Ireland for the time being we two—Alfred Crilly and myself—always did our best to have its counterpart in Liverpool. Indeed it became the case that for many years our people there invariably looked to us to take the initiative in every national movement. Whenever A.M. Sullivan came over to our demonstrations it did not need our assurance to convince him that every pulsation of the national heart in Ireland was as warmly and as strongly felt on this side of the Channel as though we still formed part of our mother island. Indeed, the evidence of his own eyes, the enthusiasm he saw when he came amongst us, caused him to declare at a vast gathering in the Amphitheatre that he felt as if he were not out of Ireland at all, but on a piece cut from the "old sod" itself.

I felt proud when two young men of my training, John McArdle, who had been with me on the "Catholic Times"; and afterwards Daniel Crilly, on the "United Irishman," were appointed to the literary staff of the "Nation," for which they were well fitted, seeing that, with their brilliant gifts, they had, from their earliest days, been imbued with the doctrines of that newspaper.

T.D., like his brother, often came to Liverpool, and used to be equally delighted with the enthusiastic receptions he got from his fellow-countrymen. On one occasion he said to me he was at a loss how to show his appreciation. I told him how to do this. "Write us a song," I said. He did so; and with that admirable tact which is so characteristic of him he chose for his theme—"Erin's Sons in England," a song which, written to the air of "The Shamrock," has, for many years, been sung at our Irish festivals in Great Britain. As a personal favour to myself he wrote it for one of the penny books of my "Irish Library".

I need make no apology for introducing T.D. Sullivan's song here. It will be seen that he sings our praise with no uncertain note; and, in return, I may say on their behalf that he had no warmer admirers than among the Irish of England.

ERIN'S SONS IN ENGLAND.

Air—"Oh, the Shamrock."

On every shore, the wide world o'er, The newest and the oldest, The sons are found of Erin's ground Among the best and boldest. But soul and will are turning still To Ireland o'er the ocean, And well I know where aye they glow With most intense devotion.

CHORUS:—Over here in England, Up and down through England, Fond and true and fearless too, Are Erin's sons in England.

Where toil is hard, in mill and yard, Their hands are strong to bear it; Where genius bright would wing its flight, The mind is theirs to dare it; But high or low, in joy or woe, With any fate before them, The sweetest bliss they know, is this— To aid the land that bore them.

CHORUS:—Over here in England, &c.

By many a sign from Thames to Tyne, From Holyhead to Dover, The eye may trace the deathless race Our gallant land sent over. Midst beech and oak, midst flame and smoke. Up springs the cross-tipped steeple That, far and wide, tells where abide The faithful Irish people.

CHORUS:—Over here in England, &c.

And this I say—on any day That help of theirs is needed, Dear Ireland's call will never fall On their true hearts unheeded They'll plainly show to friend and foe. If e'er the need arises Her arm is long, and stout and strong, To work some strange surprises!

CHORUS:—Over here in England, &c.

It will be remembered that T.D. never allowed himself to be bound by conventionalities. There was always a refreshing thoroughness and heartiness in what he did. For instance, when he was Lord Mayor of Dublin, he on one occasion "opened" a public bath by stripping and swimming round it—the Town Clerk and other officials following his example.

I have mentioned the good work done in Liverpool by Father Nugent, and that I had the pleasure of co-operating with him in some of his undertakings.

At the time of the Home Rule movement connected with the name of Isaac Butt, and for some years previously, I had been brought into still closer contact with him, first, as secretary of his refuge for destitute and homeless boys, and then as manager and acting editor of the "Northern Press and Catholic Times," after that paper had come into his hands. I also assisted him in the temperance movement which he started in Liverpool.

When Father Nugent asked me to take charge of the "Catholic Times," I entered upon the work literally single-handed, like some of the editors we read of a generation or so ago in the Western States of America; for, when he left me for a nine months' tour in the States, I constituted in my own person the whole staff. We afterwards had some able men on the paper. Among these was John McArdle, who left us, as I have said, to join the "Nation." He became later a well-known dramatic author, his chief works being burlesques and pantomimes. We also had James Lysaght Finigan, of whom I speak elsewhere.

While Father Nugent was in America, we used to get great help from a fine old Jesuit priest and good Irish Nationalist, Father James McSwiney, then of St. Francis Xavier's, Liverpool. He was never happier than when smoking his short pipe by the fire in our inner office. With his help we created a much admired feature in the "Catholic Times" in our "Answers to Correspondents." With the view of drawing on real enquiries, he used to concoct and then answer questions on points of doctrine, etc. Some people were astonished at the profound knowledge—and others at what they considered "the impudence"—displayed by Jack McArdle and John Denvir in answering any theological posers that might be put to us, never dreaming we had behind us one of the ablest theologians of the Jesuit order.

When Father Nugent took the paper in hands, the readers had such confidence in it that, from being merely a local paper, we were able before long to make it a leading Catholic organ for the whole country.

The reverend father was chaplain of the Liverpool Borough jail. He was respected by all classes, Protestant as well as Catholic, not only for what he did for the unfortunate creatures who came under his ministrations, but as a public-spirited citizen and benefactor of the town. It would be wrong if I did not pay a high tribute to the splendid service done by him in Liverpool towards elevating the condition of our own people. I would be ungrateful, too, if I failed to recognise the great educational work he did in giving opportunities for culture to many Liverpool Irishmen, myself among the number, which afterwards aided their advancement in the battle of life. That is why I never regretted that I gave Father Nugent, when conducting the "Catholic Times" for him, three of the best years of my life. I never regretted my experiences in connection with that paper, particularly in the reporting department, for they were often very pleasant ones. Among these was my having been introduced to the great Archbishop MacHale, when I went to St. Nicholas's to report his sermon.

I have many vivid remembrances arising out of my connection with the "Catholic Times."

It was during the time I was in charge of it that we started the Irish national organisation on this side of the Channel—the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, formed at our first annual convention held in Manchester, at which I was elected as the first General Secretary of the organisation.

I was at the same time secretary of the Liverpool Catholic Club, and in that capacity I assisted in entertaining the Canadian Papal Zouaves when passing through Liverpool on their way home, after their gallant but unsuccessful struggle to uphold the power of the Pope against the revolutionaries.

In the same way it became my duty as secretary of the club to organise the Catholic vote in Liverpool on the occasion of the first School Board Election. The Irish and those of Irish extraction in Liverpool being reckoned as about one-third of the population, the Catholic body is correspondingly numerous. We surprised both friend and foe in the results. There were fifteen members to be elected, and we asked our people to give three votes for each of our five candidates. They were not only elected, but the votes actually given for them—on the cumulative principle—could have elected eight out of the fifteen members of the Board.

Father Nugent, though immensely popular with all classes, was not, I think, a persona grata, any more than myself, with Canon Fisher, the Vicar-General of the diocese, who was very anti-Irish, and, so far as he could, prevented anyone connected with the "Catholic Times" coming into personal contact with Bishop Goss, who was a typical Englishman of the best kind. The bishop had a blunt, hitting-out-from-the-shoulder style of speaking in his sermons that compelled attention. But you could hardly call them sermons at all; they were rather powerful discourses upon social topics, which, from a newspaper point of view, made splendid "copy." Accordingly, during the year before his death, I followed him all over the diocese to get his sermon for each week's paper. There is no doubt that Dr. Goss's sermons helped materially to put a backbone into the "Catholic Times" and greatly to increase its circulation.

In one of the rural districts the bishop was giving an illustration of the meaning of "Tradition," and, very much to my embarrassment, I found him taking me for his text. He said—"So far as I know, there were no newspapers in Our Lord's days; there was nobody taking down His sermons, as there is to-day taking mine; so that His teaching had to be by word of mouth, and much of it has come down to us as Tradition."

In the interest of the paper, Father Nugent was anxious that I should be introduced to the Bishop. But he knew, as well as I did, that the difficulty in the way of this was what might be called the Grand Vizier, Canon Fisher. "You should push forward, Denvir," Father Nugent would say, "after Mass is over, and ask to see the Bishop." Over and over again I did so, but was always met at the vestry door by Canon Fisher, with his suave smile. "Well, Mr. Denvir, what can I do for you?" "I would like to see his lordship," I would say. No use. The Canon would say—"No, no; don't trouble the Bishop; I can give you all the information you want;" and so it went on, and I was baffled in my attempts.

I ought to say that, though Canon Fisher was able to keep me from coming into personal contact with Bishop Goss, Father Nugent was too strong for him in the end; for, eventually, we got into communication with the Bishop regularly every week on the subject of his sermons. Each Monday as soon as my copy was set up, we sent him a proof, which he would read and correct and return. But his "corrections" often included the addition of altogether new matter, which made the sermon the more interesting and valuable to us. Indeed, on several occasions, we used his new matter, with slight alterations, as leaders. The very week he died we had one of these leaders in type, and it appeared in the same issue which announced his death.

When Cardinal Vaughan became Bishop of Salford, Father Nugent succeeded in getting his support and influence for the "Catholic Times," a most valuable thing for us, seeing that Manchester, though with a smaller Catholic population than Liverpool, was of more importance from a publishing point of view, as from that city can be more readily reached a number of large manufacturing towns, of which it is the centre. Again it was—"Denvir, you must see the Bishop." But this time there was no difficulty, as an appointment had been made for me. Accordingly, by arrangement, I reached Manchester one morning between six and seven o'clock, that being the most convenient time for him that Bishop Vaughan could give me, and together we discussed the best means of forwarding the interests of the paper in the diocese of Salford. I found him, besides being a man of courtly presence, as we all know, most broad-minded and genial, and keenly alive to the influence which a good newspaper would have upon his people.

Whenever I see the "Catholic Times," I feel gratified at its very existence, as a proof that my three years with Father Nugent were not altogether spent in vain. For when he placed its control in my hands on his departure for America, I found it with a very small circulation, and anything but a paying concern; whereas, when I yielded up the trust into his hands, I had the satisfaction of handing over to him a substantial amount of cash in hand, a statement of assets and liabilities showing a satisfactory balance on the right side, and a paper with a largely increased and paying circulation.

For many years previous to his death, I did not come into contact with him. Indeed it was only the year before he died that I had the pleasure—and it was all the more a pleasure as we had differed strongly during previous years on some points—of meeting him at his house in Formby. This was before his last visit to America, where he contracted the illness which terminated in his death soon after his return to England.



CHAPTER XII.

THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR—AN IRISH AMBULANCE CORPS—THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION.

When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, the sympathy of Ireland was naturally, for historic reasons, on the side of France. It was not surprising, then, that many young Irishmen who had served in America, or in the ranks of the Papal Volunteers, or had borne a share in the Fenian movement, were anxious to show their sympathy in a practical way, and at the same time to gratify the national propensity for a fight

—in any good cause at all.

I happened to number among my friends some of these young Irishmen, of whom I may mention Captain Martin Kirwan, James Lysaght Finigan, Edmond O'Donovan, Arthur Forrester, Frank Byrne, and James O'Kelly. There was a strong feeling in Ireland to send a considerable body of men to France, but the law stood in the way. It was evaded by the formation of an Ambulance Corps, and for this generous subscriptions flowed in, along with numerous applications from volunteers. These were all medically examined, as if for a regular army, and in this way as fine a body of young men as ever left Ireland was picked from those who had volunteered. The ambulance service was equipped in the most perfect manner, and presented to the French nation. On arriving in France, there were (as was, of course, intended) more men than were required for the ambulance duties, and these at once volunteered for service as soldiers. They were formed into a company under the command of Captain Kirwan, one of the sergeants being Frank Byrne, who was afterwards Kirwan's colleague as an official of the Irish constitutional organisation in Great Britain. The company might have developed into a regiment, and even into a brigade, had the movement started earlier to get men over to France by various means. This could have been done, notwithstanding the Foreign Enlistment Act; and towards the end of the war, French agents were in this country providing for the sending over of large numbers of men to France, when the capitulation of Paris caused the collapse of their arrangements.

The men of the Irish Ambulance Corps did their work so well as to show that not only did Irishmen make good soldiers, but that, possessing the sympathetic Celtic nature, their services were highly appreciated by the wounded who fell to their charge. Captain Kirwan's company fought bravely, sustaining the credit of their country through the whole campaign, and, under Bourbaki, were among those who actually struck the last blow the Germans received on French soil.

Arthur Forrester, who joined the French Foreign Legion, was severely wounded in the foot. After the war he came into the office of the "Catholic Times," when I was manager and John McArdle editor of that paper. We welcomed him, of course, not only as an old friend and brother journalist, but as one who had been fighting for France.

In his "Camp Fires of the Legion" written for my "Irish Library," James Lysaght Finigan tells of his adventures in the war. He found his way to Lille, in the north of France, and, with several hundreds of other Irishmen became enrolled in the ranks of the Foreign Legion. In Lieutenant Elliott he was delighted to recognise Edmond O'Donovan, who had figured so prominently in the Fenian movement, and whose incarceration in Ireland and exile in America were fresh in his memory. "The Legion," Finigan says, "showed itself worthy of its predecessors, the Irish Brigades of former days, during the reverses that constantly befel the armies of France." He gives graphic accounts of the battles they were engaged in, and how, in the defence of Orleans, he and a number of his comrades were taken prisoners, among those being his friend O'Donovan, who had been wounded by a piece of shell.

The Foreign Legion must have borne the brunt of the fighting. The fourth battalion was cut to pieces at Woerth, Gravelotte, and Sedan; the fifth battalion was reduced from 3,000 to some 300; the sixth battalion retook Orleans, was compelled to abandon it, and covered itself with glory at Le Mans and elsewhere; and the seventh was interned with Bourbaki in Switzerland until the end of the war.

Although I often heard from him afterwards, the last time I met Edmond O'Donovan, if I remember rightly, was in a North Lancashire town, in which John O'Connor Power had been lecturing the same night. I forget exactly who else of the "boys" were there—I think William Hogan was one—but there were some choice spirits, and we made just such an Irish night of it as Finigan describes they had when he and O'Donovan fought in the Foreign Legion.

Edmond O'Donovan was the son of the famous Irish scholar and antiquary, John O'Donovan, the translator from the Gaelic—with O'Curry and Petrie—of that great Irish history, "The Annals of the Four Masters," and other manuscripts. The elder O'Donovan had made the acquaintance of Sir Thomas Larcom, when both were young men together on the staff of the Ordnance Survey. John O'Donovan appointed his friend Larcom to be guardian of his children in case of his death.

It was Larcom's duty, as an official of the Government, to hunt down the Fenians, both native and foreign, so that he had undertaken a serious and perplexing charge. For O'Donovan's elder sons were strong Nationalists and Fenians; so that, on the death of his old friend, Larcom was like an old hen having charge of a brood of ducklings who could not be kept from the troubled waters of Fenianism. There is no doubt that Larcom's influence kept them from or saved them from a lot of trouble. The O'Donovans were an accomplished family, the one I knew best, besides Edmond, being Richard, who has held a responsible mercantile position for some years, and who furnished me with much valuable information about his father, when Thomas Flannery—one of our best Gaelic scholars—was writing a life of Dr. John O'Donovan for my "Irish Library" series.

Besides being thoroughly acquainted with several languages, Edmond O'Donovan had an excellent scientific training, which was brought into requisition in connection with the projected Fenian military movements in Ireland. While a thorough classical scholar, the poems he liked best were the songs of Thomas Davis and the Young Irelanders. He was slender of figure and had a handsome oval face. In speaking, whether in private or before an audience, he had an animated and expressive manner, with a good deal of gesture, such as a Frenchman or Italian would use. I have heard him singing songs like "Clare's Dragoons" with much fire and fervour, throwing his whole soul into it in a way I can never forget.

In 1877-1878 he was a special correspondent in the Russo-Turkish war with the Turkish army, and he sent home powerful and graphic accounts of every battle and siege.

His intimate knowledge of Arabic stood to him in these and in the Egyptian campaigns in which he afterwards took part. In 1879 he went through Russia to the shores of the Caspian Sea, travelled through the north of Persia and the adjacent territory of Khorassan, to the land of the Tekke Turcomans, and to Merv, thus penetrating the mysteries of Central Asia as no European traveller had ever done so perfectly before. In 1881 he returned to England, and published his book, "The Merv Oasis," and afterwards read a paper before the Royal Geographical Society on "Merv and its surroundings."

Finally, in 1883, he went as special correspondent to the Soudan, and there this brilliant Irishman perished with the whole of Hicks Pasha's army. No tidings ever came of how Edmond O'Donovan met his death, but those who knew him best feel that he must have yielded up his gallant spirit to its Creator with a courage and fortitude worthy of an Irishman.

In January, 1906, I had occasion to call upon his brother Richard in Liverpool, and asked if they had ever got any trace of Edmond. Nothing had been heard of how he had actually perished, but an authentic relic of him had fallen into the hands of a priest in the Soudan. This was a blood-stained garment, which was proved beyond doubt to have belonged to him.

I have mentioned another name in connection with the Franco-Prussian War—that of James O'Kelly. His career, like that of O'Donovan, had been stormy and adventurous. I had previously met him in connection with the Fenian movement.

He had been in the French army, and served in the campaign which was so disastrous to the Mexican Emperor Maximilian. His adventurous temperament led him again to join the French service during the Franco-Prussian war. He was employed on the confidential mission of raising a force of Irishmen for the war. I have described the formation of the company under Kirwan, which was the outcome of the Ambulance Corps. It will be seen, too, that there were a considerable number of Irishmen in the Foreign Legion. But, after all, these did not amount to a number sufficient to have much appreciable result on the ultimate fortunes of the war. The French military authorities, knowing what splendid fighting materials Irishmen would make, commissioned O'Kelly to raise a large force. For this purpose he made Liverpool his headquarters, and I was pleased to see him again when he called upon me at the office of the "Catholic Times" My sympathies were strongly with France, and I gave him what assistance I could in furthering the object of his mission. At my suggestion, therefore, he took up his abode at the hotel opposite our office, at the corner of Moorfields and Dale Street. A large number of volunteers were got from among the advanced element in Liverpool and surrounding towns, who wanted to learn the use of arms in real warfare—their ultimate object I need not mention. From other quarters in Ireland as well as England there were volunteers for the French army. I had arranged through an emigration agent, Mr. Michael Francis Duffy, a much respected and patriotic Irishman of singular culture, for the charter of two steamers to take the men to Havre; but just then Paris fell, after a long siege; the war ended, and the Irish Legion project collapsed.

In 1872 James O'Kelly turned his attention to journalism as a profession. He got his first opening on the "New York Herald," partly through his thorough knowledge of the military profession, but still more by that singular tact that never failed him under the most trying circumstances.

Some years after, he called on me again in Liverpool, and I heard from him of some stirring incidents in his career. Amongst those were his perilous experiences in connection with the fighting in Cuba, from which he narrowly escaped with his life.

Since then he has entered Parliament. He was a staunch supporter from the first of Mr. Parnell. When the unfortunate "split" came, he took the side of the "Chief," but none is more pleased than he to be a member of the now re-united Irish Party.

In connection with the Franco-Prussian war I may be allowed to refer here to a non-combatant, who, with his brother priests, remained at their post during the terrible siege of Paris, ministering to the sick and dying. This was my cousin, Father Bernard O'Loughlin, Superior of the Passionist Order in Paris.

And yet, notwithstanding their noble services to humanity on this and other occasions, the Passionist Fathers have since been driven out of the country by the French Government. The announcement of the danger of this, when it was first threatened, caused consternation in the foreign Catholic colony of Paris, to whom the Passionist Fathers had endeared themselves by their labours on behalf of needy and stranded English-speaking people, and their devoted spiritual ministrations.

The Passionist mission in Paris was founded some forty years ago by Father Bernard, with his friend, Father Ignatius Spencer, also a Passionist, and uncle of the present Earl Spencer.

The Archbishop of Paris had invited the Passionists to establish a church in Paris, on account of the number of Irish, American, and English Catholics requiring religious ministrations, few of the French clergy being able to speak English. Father O'Loughlin first commenced his labours in the Church of St. Nicholas, in the Rue Saint Honore, where he remained three years. After this a sum of 200,000 francs was subscribed, chiefly by Irish, American, and English residents, for the site and building of a church. Father Bernard was soon joined by several other members of the order sent from England, and there were always four or five Passionist Fathers attached as chaplains to the church. The following distinguished prelates have preached in this Church—Cardinal Manning, Cardinal Newman, Cardinal Richard, Archbishop Ireland, Archbishop Spalding, and Archbishop Passadiere.

Mrs. Mackay was the most generous of the supporters of the order in Paris; and, in 1903, when the fathers found themselves unable to pay the tax created by the French "Loi d'accroissement," she paid down the 20,000 francs required to save the church.

Their devotion in remaining faithful to their flock during the long and terrible siege of Paris in 1870 ought to have recommended them to the sympathies of all patriotic Frenchmen. The Passionists not only ministered to the spiritual but to the temporal wants of those coming under their charge. They visited the sick and poor, relieved the age in need, provided for orphans, and assisted stranded Irish and English governesses, irrespective of creed, who had come to Paris in search of situations. Those who suffered most from the withdrawal of the Passionists were the poor and afflicted.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, the American Embassy, and the British Ambassador, addressed the French Government on their behalf, pointing out that the services of the Passionists were indispensable—but in vain. It is humiliating that the government of what is supposed to be a great Catholic nation like France should be appealed to in such a cause, fruitlessly, by the ambassador of non-Catholic England.

Father Bernard O'Loughlin's name in the world was John, after his father, my mother's brother, John O'Loughlin. The elder John was a brewer's traveller, and often came to our house in Liverpool, bringing his violin with him. He had a wide knowledge of old Irish airs, and to his accompaniment we had many a genuine Irish night, singing the stirring songs then appearing in the "Nation."



CHAPTER XIII.

THE HOME RULE CONFEDERATION OF GREAT BRITAIN.

In the previous chapter it will be seen that I have somewhat anticipated the course of events described in this narrative in order to give brief sketches of some of my friends who took part, in various capacities, in the Franco-Prussian war, and incidents arising out of it. I have also, for the sake of compactness, briefly touched on their subsequent careers.

I shall here now resume my recollections of the Home Rule movement from its inception in 1870.

From the first everything pointed to Isaac Butt as its leader. His splendid abilities, even when ranged against us in the celebrated debate in the Dublin Corporation with O'Connell, excited the admiration of his fellow-countrymen; but now, when he had come over to the popular side, he was welcomed with acclamation, the more so that his genial and loveable nature was bound to win the hearts of a susceptible people like ours. Moreover, his joining the popular side was due to the impression made upon him by the Fenian leaders, so many of whom he defended in the trials from '67 onward; and he has left on record a remarkable testimony to the purity of their principles and the nobility of their ideals.

He was lacking in certain qualities, the want of which in his character prevented him being such a strong leader as O'Connell or Parnell. But, all the same, while he led he gave splendid services—which can never be forgotten—to the cause.

As I have said, Alfred Crilly and I were generally expected to take the initiative in any new Irish movement in Liverpool. Accordingly, towards the end of 1871, we were asked to make a move in connection with the new organisation in Ireland. We formed a small committee, and invited Isaac Butt to our projected opening demonstration. He was not able to come to our first gathering, but we had many opportunities during the years that followed of making his acquaintance; and, personally, I received many kindnesses at his hands. With Alfred Crilly I was sent to Dublin by the Committee to find influential speakers for our public inaugural Liverpool demonstration, to be held on the 3rd of January, 1872, our association having been opened some months previously. We secured the services of Mr. A.M. Sullivan and Professor Galbraith of Trinity College.

When we returned to Liverpool it became our duty to find a chairman for our meeting worthy of the occasion. Mr. Charles Russell, who was first asked, suggested that we should get some one of more influence than himself. "Why not ask Dr. Commins?" he said.

Dr. Commins was a barrister on the same circuit as Charles Russell. We did ask him. He cheerfully consented, and from that hour he was for a long time the leading figure in the struggle for Home Rule in Great Britain, being for several years President of the organisation. There is no more homely and unassuming man, ever accessible to the humblest of his fellow-countrymen, than "the Doctor," as his friends affectionately call him.

He had a brilliant university career, and was a man of such wide attainments that I think there was a general belief amongst Liverpool Irishmen that he knew everything. Accordingly, they used frequently to go to him to settle some knotty point beyond the ordinary conception, and they seldom came away unsatisfied.

Dr. Commins is an accomplished poet, and was for many years a contributor to the columns of the "Nation" and the "United Irishman" (of Liverpool). In 1876 he was elected as a Home Ruler to represent Vauxhall Ward in the Liverpool Town Council. He has ever since been a member of that body, being now an Alderman of the city. In due time he became a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, of which several other Liverpool Irishmen have been members.

Liverpool was not alone in forming its Home Rule Association; most of the large towns had them in due course, but for some time there was no bond of union between them. This, however, was formed in due time, the man to take the first step in bringing us together being John Barry, then residing in Manchester, and the chief man in our organisation there.

John was, therefore, practically the founder of the great organisation which, under its various names—of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain. Irish National Land League of Great Britain, Irish National League of Great Britain, and United Irish League of Great Britain—has been in existence since 1873, working in accordance with and taking the name of whatever has been the recognised organisation for the time being in Ireland.

John Barry, who had borne an active share in the struggle for self-government—irrespective of the methods being constitutional or unconstitutional—was a man of attractive personality and an indefatigable worker and organiser. He was the Secretary of the Manchester Home Rule Association, and, seeing the want of some body in which the various associations in Great Britain would be represented, he, in the name and with the authority of his branch, issued invitations to the associations then known to exist to send delegates to a Convention to be held in Manchester. To give importance to the occasion, and the necessary authority, Isaac Butt was invited to preside, and to attend a great demonstration in the Free Trade Hall, on the night of the Convention, January 18th, 1873.

Although I bore an active part in the organising of that first Home Rule Convention of Great Britain, it is only a short time since, after a lapse of over thirty years, that I heard from John Barry himself the difficulty he had in securing the presence of the Home Rule leader. It was a long time since we had seen each other, but I found him the same cheery, warm-hearted, generous, and patriotic John Barry as ever. It was in the office of his firm in London we met, and took advantage of the opportunity to fight our battles over again; and he reminded me of the sort of inner circle of the I.R.B. to which he and I, and others who have since been prominent in Irish politics, belonged.

He was always, however, a practical patriot, and would use every legitimate method to serve Ireland. That was why he threw himself with such ardour into the Home Rule movement.

He told me of how he went over to Dublin to secure the promise of Isaac Butt to preside at the projected Convention, and to attend the demonstration in the evening. He got the requisite promise, and the announcement was made in all good faith in Manchester. So far all looked promising; but what was his alarm to hear, within three days of the event, that Isaac Butt's professional engagements would prevent his being able to attend. Added to this he had heard that Butt, who was of a somewhat irresolute temperament, was being warned that he was falling into the hands of a "Fenian gang."

Barry spent all the money he had in sending to the Irish leader a telegram as earnest, hot, and forcible as he was capable of, beseeching him to come, and pointing out to him the serious consequences to the Cause in Great Britain of his failure to do so. This telegraphic budget reached Butt in Court; and, as he turned over leaf after leaf of the message, he said to a friend sitting alongside of him—"This man's in earnest, at any rate," and immediately wired back—"Will go, if alive."

Apart from the offensiveness of styling us a "gang," those who had warned Butt of the hands into which he was falling may not, probably, have been far astray as regards some of those from whom he had received the invitation; seeing that when the organisation for Great Britain was duly formed, John Barry, John Ryan, John Walsh, and myself were elected on the Executive; but, at all events, Isaac Butt turned up.

Some twenty Home Rule Associations responded to the invitation by sending delegates to the Convention. There is a remarkable contrast between this, the first of these Conventions, and those held every year since; for, at some of those, several hundreds of branches have been represented—showing the growth of the organisation since 1873.

At this Manchester Convention, at which Mr. Butt presided, it was resolved to form a central body from the existing local associations, to be called the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain. Isaac Butt himself was elected the first President. I was elected the first General Secretary, and it became my duty to find out the existing associations which had not sent delegates to Manchester, and to invite them, as well as those who had been represented at the present gathering, to a supplementary convention. It was decided to hold this in Birmingham, to complete the arrangements made in Manchester for the future working of the organisation.

On the night of the Manchester Convention Mr. Butt was the chief speaker at the public demonstration. Mr. John Ferguson, of Glasgow, was our Chairman. He was a sterling Ulster Protestant Nationalist. Many used to think he was a Scot. Indeed, I thought at one time myself he must be of Scottish extraction at all events, there being, I thought, more Scottish Fergusons than Irish. Speaking to him on the subject, I was reminded by him of the Irish king, Fergus, the founder of the Scottish monarchy; and he claimed to be of genuine Irish descent.

He often used to call on me when I was conducting the "Catholic Times." At that time he was travelling for his firm of Cameron & Ferguson, who published a good many popular works on Irish subjects. We were both pleased to hear of the initiative John Barry had taken towards the formation of the Irish organisation of Great Britain. If I remember rightly, John Ferguson was in Liverpool at the time, and we went to Manchester together to attend this our first Annual Convention.

After the Manchester Convention, I found there were considerably more Home Rule Associations in existence than had been represented at our first gathering. As a consequence we had a much larger and more representative attendance at our adjourned Convention in Birmingham. Mr. Butt presided in the morning and Mr. A.M. Sullivan in the afternoon.

The Chairman at the public demonstration at night was Father Sherlock, one of the finest specimens of the good old "soggarth aroon" type it has ever been my privilege to meet. Several years afterwards, when I was organiser for the League in the Birmingham district, I was right glad to have the opportunity of renewing my acquaintance with him. The very contact with Father John Sherlock was elevating and inspiring, so transparent were the simplicity and purity of his life. Here was a saint, I thought, if ever there was one on earth.

In my experience I have generally found that the men who have taken the lead in most places have been professional men rather than traders. This was true of Birmingham as well as elsewhere. There were no men who did better service than Hugh Heinrick, an able journalist (who afterwards became editor of the "United Irishman," the organ of our Confederation), and Professor Bertram Windle. I was glad to see in the newspapers the announcement of such a genuine Irishman as Dr. Windle being appointed President of the University College, Cork.

Professor Windle is an honour to his new position, and is as devoted to the cause of creed and country as he was when one of the Professors of the Queen's University, Birmingham.

During the years when I was organiser for the League in Birmingham; I became intimately acquainted with him. I found him not only a man of great learning, but an earnest Catholic and devoted Irish Nationalist. No man in our organisation did better service, and he was always ready to go at a moment's notice to speak or lecture wherever required.

As a further illustration of what I have said about the aid given to the cause by professional men, I ought to mention Dr. James Mullin, of Cardiff. He was a leading and active man in his district when I travelled in South Wales as an organiser. His talent as a poet has made him well known in Wales, and his accounts of travels in many lands have found many admiring readers. His heart is as warm as his brain is active, which is saying much.



CHAPTER XIV.

BIGGAR AND PARNELL—THE "UNITED IRISHMAN "—THE O'CONNELL CENTENARY.

The General Election of 1874 was remarkable as the first since the Union which had clearly and distinctly returned a majority of Irish members of Parliament as Home Rulers. Previously most of them had been returned as Liberals or Tories. It is memorable in my eyes, as it was the occasion when two of my personal friends, Alexander Martin Sullivan and Joseph Gillis Biggar, first entered Parliament. It was in the year after he was elected that Mr. Biggar made his debut as an "obstructionist."

Charles Stewart Parnell having been, in the spring of 1875, elected as successor in the representation of Meath to "honest John Martin," it was not long before the famous "Biggar and Parnell" combination, which was destined to revolutionize the whole system of Parliamentary procedure, was created.

Feeling the necessity for a newspaper representing the views of the Home Rule Confederation and chronicling its work from week to week, the Executive promoted the formation of a limited liability company for the purpose, and the outcome was the issue of the "United Irishman," the first number of which appeared on June 4th, 1875. I was appointed manager, and was also the publisher, the paper being produced at my place of business, 68 Byrom Street, Liverpool. The following were the Directors—Andrew Commins, LL.D., Chairman; and John Barry, Joseph Gillis Biggar, M.P., John Ferguson, Richard Mangan, Bernard MacAnulty, and Peter McKinley. William John Oliver was Honorary Secretary, with Hugh Heinrick as Editor at the commencement, and Daniel Crilly afterwards.

The newspaper was fortunate in its Honorary Secretary, for William John Oliver was one of the most enthusiastic workers we ever had in the Home Rule movement. He was at this time engaged in commerce in Liverpool, having previously been an officer in the Royal Navy. He was ever willing to be "the man in the gap" in case of an emergency, and that was how he became for a time the Honorary General Secretary of the Home Rule Confederation. He was always a cheery and, at the same time, an eminently practical man. He took a leading part in our local elections in Liverpool from the time we began to fight them on Home Rule principles—when the necessity arose, as I have elsewhere explained, to have public men who were not afraid to identify themselves with the national cause.

Hugh Heinrick, our editor, was a brilliant writer, who had, for several years, been a strenuous worker in the Home Rule cause. He was a frequent contributor of poetry to the "Nation" and other national journals, generally over the signature of "Hugh Mac Erin." He was born in the County Wexford in 1831. Before taking up the editorship of the "United Irishman" he was for many years resident in Birmingham, where he was a schoolmaster. He died in 1887.

Daniel Crilly, one of the most active and eloquent advocates of the Irish cause in Liverpool, succeeded him—this being his maiden effort in journalism. He was afterwards on the staff of the "Nation," and also did good service while a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Among other contributors to the "United Irishman" were Isaac Butt, Dr. Commins, Frank Hugh O'Donnell, Michael Clarke, Captain Kirwan, and Frank Byrne. Our poetry was a strong point with us—Dr. Commins, Frank Fox, John Hand, Patrick Clarke, Heber MacMahon, and Miss Bessie Murphy being among the contributors.

When the "United Irishman" was started, the offices of the Home Rule Confederation, which had previously been in Manchester, were for convenience removed to my place of business. As the executive meetings and the meetings of the newspaper directors were held there, I frequently had the pleasure of meeting under my own roof Irishmen who either then were or afterwards became prominent members of the Irish Parliamentary Party, including Isaac Butt, Charles Stewart Parnell, and Joseph Biggar.

Mr. Biggar and I were always great friends. He had the reputation of being close-fisted and penurious; but that this was not so I knew from many circumstances, though it is quite true he would not allow himself to be defrauded of a penny.

He became a Catholic in his later days. Though such of us as were of the household of the faith welcomed him into the fold, his conversion did not increase his value in our eyes—indeed, from a political point of view, he was of more service to the cause as an Irish Protestant, there being too few of them in our ranks. He had a fresh, pleasant, shrewd-looking face, and spoke with a decided northern accent, which had somewhat of a metallic ring. Some of his brother Members of Parliament thought his "obstruction" methods highly ungentlemanly, but he believed in fighting England with her own weapons. If good Irish measures were not allowed to pass, he would throw every obstacle in the way of English measures being carried. The tempest of rage that assailed him in the "House" only added to his popularity outside. Not only was he an immense favourite amongst Irishmen, but with democratic Englishmen also; and at great mass meetings of English miners and agricultural labourers he could always get resolutions carried by the honest, hard-handed sons of toil in favour of the restoration of Ireland's rights.

Biggar used to get many letters approving of the attitude he and Parnell had taken up in Parliament. One in particular, from a warm admirer, he used to show to his friends with great glee. It was a song in the old "Come-all-ye" style. A few lines I can remember sang in words of high commendation of—

—Joseph Biggar, That man of rigour, Whose form and figure Do foes appal!

My place being the head-quarters of the Confederation at this time, the fact of my being known to be generally on the spot made me a kind of "man in the gap," to fill up engagements likely to fall through for want of a speaker. In this way I was often rushed off to distant parts of the country at the shortest notice.

The most important Irish event in 1875 was the celebration of the O'Connell Centenary in Dublin, on Friday, August 6th. Our Confederation was well represented in the processions, there being, as might be expected from its proximity, a large contingent from Liverpool. So great was the rush to cross the Channel for the celebration that we chartered several of the fine steamers of the City of Dublin Company, and kept them for several days fully employed in crossing and recrossing.

The pity of it was that there should be two processions—the magnificent display organised by the official Centenary Committee and the procession got up by the Amnesty Association.

The speeches of Messrs. Butt, Sullivan, and Power on the platform erected in what was then Sackville Street, when the outdoor display broke up, explained why the Amnesty Committee and their friends considered that a protest was necessary and justifiable—hence the second procession. The chief objections to the action of the official committee were that, while all honour was to be paid to the memory of O'Connell as the Liberator of his Catholic fellow-countrymen, his services as the champion of the political freedom of the Irish people were being kept in the background. Also—and that was why the Amnesty Association for the release of political prisoners took the initiative in the protest against the action of the Centenary Committee—because, on a great national occasion like this, the very existence of the martyrs for freedom, who were suffering in English prisons, appeared to be forgotten. Such forgetfulness was considered at the least highly inappropriate.

There was much indignation, too, that Lord O'Hagan should have been chosen to speak the panegyric on O'Connell, seeing that he had actually sentenced some of those very prisoners.

The Irish organisation in Great Britain sympathised with these views, and the various branches sending contingents showed their feelings by throwing in their part with the Amnesty Association.

The contingent from Great Britain was, on the proposition of Mr. Patrick Egan, given the place of honour in front of the amnesty procession which, on the morning of the Centenary celebration, the 6th of August, 1875, started from Beresford Place, near the Custom House. The banners of the three Liverpool branches were a picturesque feature in the procession, as also was the Sarsfield Band, a body of fine young Liverpool Irishmen who headed our contingent.



CHAPTER XV.

HOME RULE IN LOCAL ELECTIONS—PARNELL SUCCEEDS BUTT AS PRESIDENT OF THE IRISH ORGANISATION IN GREAT BRITAIN.

It was at the Liverpool Municipal Elections of 1875 that we first introduced the question of Home Rule into local politics. When we were holding our inaugural meeting to establish the Home Rule organisation in the town, we could not get any of our Irish public men to take the chair. The reason was that these had not been elected as Irishmen but as Liberals. As a matter of fact, we had in Dr. Commins a man immensely superior to any of them. But we thought that men who had been elected to public positions mainly by Irish votes should not refuse to identify themselves with the national movement, and to help it by whatever influence they possessed. We therefore decided to make some public men. In Scotland and Vauxhall Wards we had a clear majority, but though the Irish vote in these wards was expected for Liberal candidates, who were not Irish or Catholic, in no other ward could a Catholic or Irishman be elected. We, therefore, commenced to make a change by putting forward for Scotland Ward one of our own men, Lawrence Connolly, as a Home Ruler, and elected him as such. He afterwards sat in the Imperial Parliament for an Irish constituency. His election was followed in succeeding years by that of other Home Rulers, so that there was soon a considerable Nationalist Party in the City Council, and no lack of public men to do the honours for the Irishmen of Liverpool when any distinguished fellow-countryman came amongst them. Their civic utility was very great.

Though I have been over twenty years out of Liverpool, I have never lost sight of what has been going on there, and I am pleased to find that the younger generation—men whom we, the elders, have borne some share in training—have improved upon our work, and that there are now considerably more aldermen and city councillors than in our time.

That they are doing good work I am well satisfied, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than to read from time to time in the papers such items as a recent one—the presentation of a congratulatory address from the local branches of the United Irish League to Councillor Thomas Burke on the occasion of his being made a magistrate of the city of Liverpool. I am somewhat proud of Tom Burke. I remember having charge of some election that was going on, and his coming to me, a very small boy, from Blundell Street, to offer his services. I put him in harness at once, and he has been at work in the Cause ever since, and it is with pleasure that I recognise the fact that he is a good type of numerous Irishmen who were either born in Liverpool or spent most of their lives in that city.

There was a dear old Soggarth at St. Joseph's, who did good service for us in our first municipal election in Scotland Ward. He had, previous to this, been a fellow priest with my uncle, Father Bernard O'Loughlin, in the Isle of Man. As Father Peter McGrath was a good Irish scholar, he was soon able to make himself understood by such of the Manx people as still retained their native speech, its basis being, like the language spoken in the Scottish Highlands, practically—making allowance for provincialisms—the Gaelic spoken in Ireland. This was a great help to him and his brother priest in disarming prejudice.

Before I met Father McGrath in Liverpool I had heard from my uncle of his delightful and saintly character. He was a ministering angel among our people in his district, which was one of the poorest in Liverpool. His charity was unbounded. Going on a sick call and being at the end of his monetary resources—for let his friends give him ever so much he would never leave himself a penny—he had been known to give away his own underclothing, and even to carry away his bed-clothes to relieve some case of abject poverty.

He was a thorough Nationalist, and was delighted when we first raised the banner of Home Rule in Scotland Ward and made honest Lawrence Connolly our standard bearer. As part of the Ward was in his district, he was by far the best canvasser we had. Day by day he used to call on me to hear of the progress we were making. With the active personal help and the prayers of a saintly man like Father McGrath how could we lose?

The return of a Home Ruler at an English municipal election was the forerunner of a still greater victory won in the same Scotland Ward, which as a Division of the Parliamentary Borough of Liverpool returned to Parliament some ten years afterwards the only Irish Home Ruler who, as such, sits for a British constituency—Mr. T.P. O'Connor.

At the Annual Convention of the Home Rule Confederation, held in the Rotunda, Dublin, August 21st, 1876, Dr. Commins in the chair, a vote of confidence in Mr. Butt was passed. At the same time what was known as the "Obstruction" policy was endorsed, though Mr. Butt had given its chief exponents, Biggar and Parnell, no countenance. It was also resolved to remove the headquarters of the Confederation from Liverpool to London.