John Boyle O'Reilly

“ John Boyle O'Reilly was born in Dowth Castle, County Meath, Ire., June 28, 1844. His father was William David O'Reilly, principal of the Netterville Institution, at Drogheda, a fine scholar, especially strong in mathematics. His mother was Eliza Boyle, a woman of rarely beautiful character and brilliant mind. Her love for Ireland became in her son the ruling passion of his life. Her fine literary tastes grew in him to the height of genius. ”

“ The life of John Boyle O'Reilly teaches anew the lesson that the man just and firm of purpose can conquer circumstances. The failure of his youthful patriotic dream did not discourage his brave heart; the degradation of the prison did not contaminate his pure soul; poverty did not debase nor prosperity destroy his manly independence. ”

“ This immense assembly, filling this spacious temple, is itself a proof that we have come together to do honor to the memory of an extraordinary man. The man is John Boyle O'Reilly, whose untimely death we mourn, and whose departure is a loss to Ireland and America, and to humanity.
John Boyle O'Reilly was a many-sided personage. His character presented many phases to the public eye. A natural humanitarian, he was a Christian philanthropist. He was an Irish patriot and an American citizen. ”

“ Men that are oppressed, or denied the enjoyment of any of the rights that belong to them, are apt to feel, and most keenly, the hand of the Almighty when it falls on one who is not of their peculiar kind, if he was their friend and an outspoken defender of their rights; and so it was on that early Sabbath morning when the Angel of Death visited the pleasant summer home of John Boyle O'Reilly, and softly whispered in his ear, "Your troubles are over and your triumph is complete." ”

“ Early Traits of Character—Letters from Prison—His Religious Nature Exemplified—An Ideal Comrade—Love of Nature and of Art—His First Poem—His Lavish Charity and Kindness—A Child's Tribute—The End.
KINDNESS was the fruit, courtesy the flower, of John Boyle O'Reilly's character. Its seed was that "sacrificial seed" of which he sings so often and so earnestly. While absolutely free from personal vanity or pride of intellect, no man could be more dignified on occasion than was this rare combination of bodily beauty and mental greatness. ”

“ I don't think so, because no too hard-worked man could be as genial, as pleasant, and bright at all times and under all circumstances, when not suffering from some specific illness, as John Boyle O'Reilly. A man who could take his canoe and paddle it from the head of the Connecticut river into Long Island sound was able to do all the work he needed and ought to. The man that swam the angry ocean for miles to get his liberty was a man that could not be overworked on God's footstool. ”

“ Absence from home prevented an earlier reply. John Boyle O'Reilly never broke his parole, never having one to break. From the day that he landed from the convict ship Hougoumont, in Fremantle, up to the day of his escape from Bunbury, he had been under strict surveillance, and was looked upon as a very dangerous man and treated as such. No man living knows this better than I do. ”

“ Twenty years multiplied in ever-increasing proportion by twenty years more, and twenty years more, and a fraction, and what would not John Boyle O'Reilly, if God had spared him to us, have achieved for his country, his adopted country, and for the world? ”

“ GRAVE OF JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, WITH BOULDER, HOLYHOOD CEMETERY, BROOKLINE, MASS.
one who has not felt and endured the yoke of cruel inhuman tyranny, that for centuries has weighed down a gallant, a generous, a noble people, in spite of faults incident to humanity, can properly enter into the ardent, patriotic love of Irishmen for Ireland or their hatred of oppression and the oppressor. And such, in his ardent love for his native country, was our friend. ”

“ Among those who have lived for humanity, who have lived for their country, who have lived for their people, who have lived for their religious creed and their friendships, whose broad humane hearts have been able to tolerate distinctions and difference of politics and creed, so long as they were honest and not offensive, the personality of John Boyle O'Reilly will stand prominent from generation to generation ”

“ John Boyle O'Reilly was very close to Nature and to man. He was in thorough sympathy with all created things, and saw in them the manifestation of God's power. It is not difficult to imagine the pleasure which such a man experienced, and shared with others, from a life in the woods. ”

“ It is hardly necessary; you who knew him so well need not be told what a delightful comrade he was, or what an inspiration he proved at times to the weary and the heavy-laden, when the battle seemed well-nigh hopeless. Many of those young men have made signal triumphs in different lines of work, and some of them are here to-night. It seems to me, however, that, in a large and broad sense, of all the group, John Boyle O'Reilly made the most conspicuous and gratifying success, especially from a journalistic and literary point of view. ”

“ The act, little enough in itself, was an uncommon one in democratic America. When the gentleman had passed by, I stopped and asked one of the laborers who he was. He answered: "There goes the first gentleman in America, John Boyle O'Reilly,— God bless him!" He was the ideal comrade for an outdoor holiday. His friend Moseley says:
There is nothing which so brings out the true character of a man as freedom from all social restraints and conventionalities, such as is found in a canoe voyage. ”

“ The pages of history, all through the ages, are dotted with achievements of men of his class. They cannot stop if they would; they would not if they could. Why it is, no man can determine; and we can only believe that God in his infinite wisdom has designed that every man must work out his destiny with the ability and with the impetus which he finds in his soul.
John Boyle O'Reilly was one of those rare, ambitious, active, industrious, zealous, enthusiastic men who had a great deal of work to do in this world. ”

“ The solitary prisoner turns the same number of days with harrowing weariness a thousand times multiplied in five years. The days and nights of those years had passed like a black and white vibration over Alice Walmsley's life. They had brought little change to the outward eye; and the inward change was only a settlement of the elements of doubt and disbelief and despair into a solid deposit in her heart.
No friends had visited her. When her mother died, there was left no living relative. She had no love nor attraction beyond her cell—beyond her own soul. ”

“ That the Grand Army of the Republic express their deep sorrow for the too early death of John Boyle O'Reilly,—poet, orator, soldier, and patriot,—and that this expression of their grief and sorrow be certified to the bereaved family of the deceased. Memorial services were held in Newburyport, Providence, Lowell, Worcester, and other New England cities, of which only a brief account can be given here. His warm friend. Father Teeling, of Newburyport, said:
A young man of forty-six, in a short space he fulfilled a long time ”

“ Nine men out of ten would have passed the unfortunate with a look of pity or of scorn. Ninety-nine gentlemen out of a hundred, going home from their club, would have given not a thought to the outcast. But Boyle O'Reilly, whether he wore the dress-coat or the convict suit, never for one instant forgot his kinship with all the poor and lowly and unfortunate of earth. ”

“ The Philistine has a right to his taste, and he is right in voting down the Zola school as the best for his children. Being a Philistine myself, I vote with him. He was anything but the Philistine which he calls himself above, save only in the matter of clean thought and speech and writing. Living in an age of so-called realism in literature, when the "poetry of passion" had leaped its sewer banks and touched some very high ground, John Boyle O' Reilly' s feet were never for an instant contaminated by the filthy flood. He never wrote a line which the most innocent might not read with safety. ”

“ Seldom has a death occurred in our midst that has more strongly affected our citizens and the community at large, or has excited such wide-spread interest and sympathy, as that of John Boyle O'Reilly. ”

“ I had been a soldier in a cavalry regiment, and had been convicted of being a republican and trying to make other men the same; and so, in the winter of 1867, it came about that I occupied Cell 32, in Pentagon 5, Millbank prison, London, on the iron-barred door of which cell hung a small white card bearing this inscription, "John Boyle O'Reilly, 20 years." ”

“ Tall, lithe, and powerful was the young bushman. He arose and leant on his handful of slender spears, speaking rapidly to Moondyne. Once he glanced at the sergeant, and, smiling, pointed to the still quivering spear in the tuad. Then he turned and led them up the valley, which soon narrowed to the dimensions of a ravine, like the bed of a torrent, running its perplexed way between overhanging walls of iron-stone. ”

“ But their shrewdest expectation was based on the disaffection which they hoped, and not in vain, to be able to sow in the ranks of the British army itself. More than thirty-one per cent, of the rank and file of that army, in 1860, were Irishmen.
The proportion of potential rebels was morally increased when John Boyle O'Reilly went over to Ireland, in May, 1863, to enlist as a trooper in the Tenth Hussars. One does not weigh dangerous consequences against generous impulses, at nineteen years of age. ”

“ John Boyle O'Reilly, of Boston, to Miss Mary Murphy, of Charlestown." The romance of love thus happily culminating had existed for over two years. The young poet first heard of his future wife through reading a little story written by her in The Young Crusader, a very successful juvenile magazine edited by Rev. William Byrne, the present Vicar-General of Boston. Something in the little story took his fancy; he made inquiries about the writer, whose nom de plume was "Agnes Smiley," and sought and obtained an introduction to her. A mutual love soon grew up between them. ”

“ The United States is ours, whether on the shores of California, Maine, Texas, or Washington. There is one freedom, one brotherhood of man.
“I could detain you longer, friends, but the time allotted me forbids. I have lingered longer than I should, but I know of no sentiment with which I might more fittingly conclude than that of one of your great New England worthies, the man who is enshrined in the sanctuary of your hearts, John Boyle O’Reilly. He says, in his own peculiar but grand way:
“‘No treason we bring from Erin, nor bring we shame nor guilt! ”

“ The boats' keels on the shingle! Mothers! wives! ye well may grieve,—
The fishermen of Wexford mean to sail on Martin's Eve!
"Oh, stay ye!" cried the women wild. "Stay!" cried the men white-haired;
"And dare ye not to do this thing your fathers never dared.
No man can thrive who tempts the Lord!" "Away!" they cried: "the Lord
Ne'er sent a shoal of fish but as a fisherman's reward."
And scoffingly they said, "To-night our nets shall sweep the Bay,
And take the Saint who guards it, should he come across our way!" ”

“ Reviewing the editorial work of John Boyle O'Reilly during twenty years, and understanding, as only newspaper men can understand, the difficulties under which such work is performed, especially the necessity which it involves of deciding quickly on matters, often of gravest importance, the unerring instinct with which O'Reilly decided rightly in almost every case is little short of marvelous. The editor of the ordinary weekly paper is supposed to have abundance of leisure for forming and expressing his opinions. ”

“ He was able longer than most men; but the cup was filled at last. The clay came when the worm turned—when the quiet, patient man blazed into dreadful passion, and, tearing the goad from the tyrant's hand, he dashed him, maimed and senseless, to the earth. ”

“ A dozen determined men could hold such a pass against an army. Above their heads the travellers saw a narrow slit of sky, sprinkled with stars. The air was damp and chill between the precipitous walls. The dismal pass was many miles in length; but at last the glare of a fire lit up the rocks ahead.
The young bushman went forward alone, returning in a few minutes. Then Moondyne and the sergeant, proceeding with him to the end of the pass, found themselves in the opening of a small valley or basin, over which the sky, like a splendid domed roof, was clearly rounded by the tops of the mountains. ”

“ Day and night were as an outward breath to the soul of the thinker. The light faded and the darkness fell, but he knew it not. His whole being was turned within, and he would have groaned with sorrow at what he saw, were it not for an adamantine faith in God, love, and justice, that bridged the gulf of doubt with a splendid arch.
It was midnight when the train arrived in Liverpool. The black man, Ngarra-jil, who had watched so long and tirelessly the marvellous face of his master, rose from his corner, purposely arousing Mr. Wyville's attention. ”

“ The magnetism of the boyish soldier won more converts to treason than his fervid eloquence. Even the uncompromising loyalty and Protestantism of an Orangeman from the "black North" succumbed to his fascination and did not recover from the spell until the Fenian malgré lui found himself a life convict and wondered how it had come about. From a dozen letters written by O'Reilly to his heart-broken mother and family, while he lay in Arbor Hill prison, I quote:
They all like me here, and if I sent you all the notes I get thrown to me for "dear J. B." or "J. B. O." you would be amused. ”