John Denvir

“ I was too young to have known John Murphy, who signed the letter for the Liverpool Hibernians, but, from what I knew of these afterwards, it is likely that he was a dock labourer. As I will show, these men, over and over again, to my own knowledge, gave splendid proofs of their courage and love of creed and country. Their love of learning, too, has been equal to that of their fathers in the days when our country was "The Island of Saints and Scholars." Some of these poor men may not have had much learning themselves, but they made great and noble sacrifices that their children should have it. ”

“ I could not take an oath of allegiance to any but an Irish Government. At the same time, I have always been practical, and willing to fight Ireland's battles with the weapons that come readiest to my hand. I, therefore, always gave what support I could to the Irish Parliamentary Party, who could conscientiously enter the House of Commons, and to the recognised Irish organisations for the time being.
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. ”

“ Most of us have, no doubt, taken part in a family gathering on some joyous occasion when the mother realizes that all her children are not around her, and is overcome with sadness. So it was with us. Well might mother Ireland ask why were not all her children in the one fold, to be one with her and with each other in the hour of rejoicing, as they had been loyally with her in all her sorrows? Why was the bitter feud over the leadership of the Irish Party so long kept up? ”

“ On Sundays we used to have long walks. We did not often go near Newbridge—it was too much like an ordinary English military station. We preferred going to Kildare, where stands the first Irish Round Tower I ever saw, and where the fine old ruined church of St. Brigid put us in mind of the patron saint of Ireland; or to Kilcullen, where the brave Kildare pikemen routed General Dundas in 1798; and to others of the neighbouring places. We reviewed, too, every part of the famous Curragh itself, so full of memories—glorious and sad—of Irish history. ”

“ And so, to the young men of Ireland I would say: Be true to yourselves; hold fast to the ideals which your fathers preserved through the centuries, in spite of savage force and unscrupulous statecraft. The times are changing; new impulses are constantly shaping the destinies of the nations; have confidence in God and your country; and who shall dare to say that the future of Ireland may not yet be a glorious recompense for the heroism with which she has borne the sufferings of the past. ”

“ From the time when I made the acquaintance of Parnell, when he came amongst us, a shy-looking young man, under the wing of Isaac Butt, we were drawn towards each other—he because he looked upon me, from my life-long experience of them, as an authority upon our people in this country, and I because I was impressed by the terrible earnestness that I soon recognised underlying the young man's apparently impassive and unemotional exterior. ”

“ It was the main artery through which the flying people poured to escape from what seemed a doomed land. Many thousands could get no further, and the condition of the already overcrowded parts of the town in which our people lived became terrible, for the wretched people brought with them the dreaded Famine Fever, and Liverpool became a plague-stricken city. Never was heroism greater than was shown by the devoted priests—English as well as Irish—in ministering to the sick and dying. ”

“ If there were no rebels against wrong-doing, wrong-doing would prosper. To an Irishman, who is a fighter by temperament, and a fighter by choice against those in high places, life is sure to provide plenty of excitement; and that, no doubt, is why my friends have thought my recollections worth printing. The curious thing is that my share in the struggle for Irish self-government has been almost entirely what I might call outpost work, for I have lived all my life in England. ”

“ 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 institutions she feels so proud of, but which Irishmen have no reason to respect. To Mr. Butt is due a debt of gratitude by the Irish people which they can never repay, for he has taught them self-reliance and knowledge of their power. ”

“ With regard to the Irish land question, we have every reason to be hopeful of the final and complete success of the great movement commenced by the organisation founded by Michael Davitt.
We have had, since the days of Strongbow, many conquests and confiscations and settlements, the main object of each being the acquisition of the land of Ireland. Is it not marvellous, notwithstanding all the attempts to destroy our people, how they have clung to the soil and so absorbed the foreign element that you still so often find the old tribal names in the old tribal lands? ”

“ A National Anthem can never be made to order. It must grow spontaneously out of some stirring incident of the hour. Never in those days were our people so deeply moved as by the Manchester Martyrdom. There is no grander episode in all Irish history. The song of "God Save Ireland," embodying the cry raised by Edward O'Meagher Condon, and taken up by his doomed companions in the dock, so expressed the feelings of all hearts that it was at once accepted by Irishmen the world over as the National Anthem. ”

“ Catholic Emancipation had, five years before I was born, allowed our people to raise their voices, and give their votes through their representatives in an alien Parliament.
I am not one to say that no benefit for Ireland has arisen through legislation at Westminster, but the system that allowed our people to perish of starvation has always been, to my mind, the one great justification for our struggle for self-government by every practicable method. It has been a struggle for sheer existence. ”

“ As often as not, in Ballymagenaghy there would be sung, to the accompaniment of fiddle, flute or clarionet, one of those stirring songs which, week after week, appeared about this time in the "Nation" from the pens of Thomas Davis, and the brilliant young men in O'Connell's movement known as the "Young Irelanders "—songs "racy of the soil," like the "Nation" itself, which stirred the hearts of the Irish race like the blast of a trumpet, songs which are still sung by Irish Nationalists the world over. ”

“ Apart from this, we have, in the descendants of the various invaders, what would be a most valuable element in a self-governing Ireland, for whatever be the creed or the race from which men have sprung, it is but natural that all should love alike the land of their birth. As a result of Michael Davitt's labours, that land is to-day more nearly than it has been for centuries the property of the people, and it seems now, humanly speaking, impossible that they should ever be dispossessed of it again. ”

“ But with the appalling tragedy of the Famine half way in the last century, with half our people gone and the population still diminishing, one is bound to admit that the nineteenth century was one of the most disastrous in Irish history. ”

“ I have taken an active part in the various Irish movements of my time, and it so happens that, while I know so little personally of Ireland itself, there are few, if any, living Irishmen who have had such experience, from actual personal contact with them, as I have had of our people in every part of Great Britain. As will be seen, too, in the course of these recollections, circumstances have brought me into intimate connection with most of the Irish political leaders. ”

“ Nevertheless, emigration, the most unanswerable proof of English misgovernment, is a terrible drain on our country's life-blood, and no entirely hopeful view of Ireland's future can be held until this is stopped. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If Ireland had had the making of her own laws when the potato crop failed, not a single human being would have perished from starvation. That I am justified in introducing the terrible Irish Famine and its consequences into these recollections as part of my own experiences I think I have shown in my description of its effects upon our people when passing through Liverpool as emigrants or as settlers in England. ”

“ We come of a race that, through the long, dreary centuries, has never known despair, nor shall we despair now. I am assured that, before long, the drain on our life blood that has gone on for sixty years will stop, and that we shall stand on solid ground at last, ready for an upward spring. ”

“ A man with a face of brass, who might be an able man, but who, on the other hand, might be some low ignorant fellow, might easily do better than Thomas Davis with his fine intellect and varied learning.
At the same time, I have known men of the highest attainments who have made excellent agents, such a man as John Renwick Seager, who has for many years been connected with the London Liberal organisation. Just such another we have in our own ranks in Daniel Crilly who, before he became a journalist or entered Parliament, was a very successful agent in the Liverpool Courts. ”

“ It must be remembered that the era of Grattan's Parliament and of the Volunteer movement of 1782, of which present-day Nationalists are so proud, was also the era of the Penal laws. Since then the Protestants have seen the Irish Catholic rising from the dust of serfdom and standing in the attitude of manhood. They have seen him gradually obtaining a share in the making of the laws of the land, and, naturally, becoming the predominant political power in Ireland—the Catholics being the majority of the population. ”

“ Concessions have so far been wrung from the British parliament that there is now a university to which Irish youths can be sent. Here there is a great factor for good, for while, on the one hand, knowledge is power, on the other hand the thirst for knowledge has always been ineradicable in the Irish character. There are also the beginnings of technical training so long badly needed. Under self-government we should have been a couple of generations earlier in the race than we are, but it is not too late. ”

“ Moreover, if there is one thing that is certain, it is that the future is on our side. In my own time I have seen a most startling change come over the attitude of the working classes of England towards Ireland as they progressed in knowledge and political power themselves. They are the certain rulers of England to-morrow, the men whose democratic ideals are our own, and who have in fact largely been trained by us. ”

“ Charles Russell, though always a Home Ruler and sincere lover of his country, made a brilliant career for himself as a great lawyer and Liberal statesman. I have often wondered since, if he had become chairman of our meeting in 1872, and had then identified himself with the Home Rule movement, if his statue would be to-day as it is in the London Law Courts, or if he would ever have been Lord Chief Justice of England and Lord Russell of Killowen? ”

“ Mark Ryan reminds me of how often I have noticed in my travels through Great Britain, what a number of Irish doctors there are, and also that they are almost invariably patriotic. They are of great service to the cause, for it frequently happens that, in some districts, they are almost the only men of culture, and are not generally slow to take the lead among their humbler fellow-countrymen. ”

“ I noted with interest in the Irish papers recently that the name of the Secretary of the Hibernian Order at the Bridge of Mayo, County Down, was "Brother Denvir."
Our country sent over to Liverpool, besides sterling Nationalists, as bitter a colony of Irishmen—I suppose we can scarcely deny the name to men born in Ireland—as were, perhaps, to be found anywhere in the world. These were the Orangemen. If there was one place more obnoxious to them than another it was the club room of the Hibernians in Crosbie Street. ”

“ The ordinary Englishman, who knows the police as they are in his country as the guardians of the public peace, must not confound them with those in Ireland. The Irish constabulary are simply the permanent British army of occupation, well armed and drilled, and, physically, as fine a body of men as any in the world. These were the forces under the command of Lord Roden's agent, for the invasion, for such it was, of a peaceful Catholic district. ”