King O'Leary

“ King O’Leary squared his shoulders and looked straight ahead, but he found a moment, as they were crossing the newsboys at the subway, to slip surreptitiously a shiny quarter into the fist of a pursuing urchin.
“No public stuff,” he said, as he entered by the bar entrance. “A quiet corner where men can lounge and spin a yarn as they like. ”

“ The person whom I have blessed also shall be a king, i.e., Tuathal [Maelgarbh] ." And he [Tuathal] assumed the sovereignty afterwards, and banished Diarmaid MacCerbhaill, so that he was on Loch-Ri, and on Derg-Derc, and on Luimnech. ”

“ He laughed hugely.
“Got me that time, all right!”
“Be sensible,” she said, relenting. “It ain’t often [107] we get a chance to sit down alone. Lord, you don’t know what good it does me to slump in here for a quiet chat! You’re one of my own kind, King!”
O’Leary yielded to the temptation of the moment far enough to play with the coiled bracelet which lay against the girl’s wrist.
“Say, I’m rather curious about you,” he said, studying her gravely. “You see a queer side of life.” ”

“ As the people of Tara were thus, they saw the consecrated Easter fire at a distance which Patrick had lighted. It illuminated all Magh-Bregh. Then the king said: "That is a violation of my prohibition and law; and do you ascertain who did it." "We see the fire," said the druids, "and we know the night in which it is made. If it is not extinguished before morning," added they, "it will never be extinguished. The man who lighted it will surpass the kings and princes, unless he is prevented." ”

“ But the King Leogaire, fermenting with the gall of wickedness and deceit, knowing and marvelling how often the saint had escaped his snares, turned himself to other inventions, and whom he could not slay with the sword he plotted to destroy with poison. ”

“ Who, I pray you, can estimate in his mind the merit of Patrick? What tongue can sufficiently praise him to whom, while yet living on earth, it was given to behold the King of Glory, whom the angels desire to behold face to face, and who was permitted to declare unto men what he had been taught from the lips of the Most Highest? And the Lord promised unto Patrick that He would hear his prayers, and that He would be his assistant in all his acts to be done by him. ”

“ Patrick said to Derball: "There shall be no king nor bishop of your family, and it will be allowable to the men of Munster to plunder you all every seventh year for ever as bare as a leek."
As Patrick was in the district of the Desi, awaiting the king of the country—i.e., Fergair, son of Rossa—Patrick said to him, after his arrival: "How slowly you come!" "The country is rough" [said he] . "True indeed," said Patrick. "There shall be no king from you for ever. What delayed you to-day?" asked Patrick. ”

“ At any rate, I will take your advice, O'Sullivan, and will keep my lips sealed, as to Father O'Leary's views. As you see, by my presence here, he has not convinced me, and as long as there is a hope that, by the aid of a French army, we may yet see our king come to his own again, I shall do my best to prove myself a faithful soldier of France. I have chosen my career with my eyes open. A loyal Irishman cannot obtain employment, still less military employment, in his own country, and accordingly, we are to be found fighting as soldiers of fortune in every country in Europe. ”

“ Of this king, who, lest he should believe in the Creator of heaven and earth, hath thus doubly damned himself, the posterity shall not inherit his kingdom, but shall be bound in servitude that never may be loosed. ”

“ And all the nobles confirm the promise of the king, and the whole city yearneth toward the faith, so that the children may but be revived. Then the saint, beholding the gain of souls which was there prepared for him, poured forth his prayers, and in the sight of the king and of the people restored to life the royal children; and they, being made the assistants unto the faith, rising again in their bodies, assisted in their father and in the people the resurrection of souls. ”

“ A serpent in wisdom and cunning in regard to good; gentle, humble, mild, towards sons of life; dark, ungentle, towards sons of death. A slave in work and labor for Christ; a king in dignity and power, for binding and releasing, for enslaving and freeing, for killing and reviving. ”

“ Their school is still dominant, and John O’Leary had seen through half his life, as we have seen, men coarsening their thought and their manners, and exaggerating their emotions in a daily and weekly press that was like the reverie of an hysterical woman. He was not of O’Connell’s household. His master had been Davis, and he was quick to discover and condemn the man who sought for judgment not among his equals or in himself. ”

“ O'LEARY AND THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
On the 26th February, 1782, the following interesting debate took place, the subject under consideration being a clause in the Catholic Bill directed against the friars:—
"Sir Lucius O'Brien said, he did not approve of the regulars, though his candor must acknowledge that many men amongst them have displayed great abilities. Ganganelli (Clement XIV) and the Reverend Doctor Arthur O'Leary are distinguished among the Franciscans; and many great men have been produced in the Benedictine order. ”

“ At the entrance below, as O’Leary was passing curiously out, he caught him with a sudden restraining clutch and a low admonition. Then he lit a match and studied the row of mail-boxes in the vestibule.
“No, no; that’s all right,” he said at last. “Old cards, all of them. No changes here.” He blew out the match and looked back at the stairs lost in the dimness of the hall light. “Uncanny, isn’t it? Anything might happen there. All right, now. Out, and turn straight toward Amsterdam Avenue.”
“As you say,” said O’Leary, struck by the restrained excitement in the other’s voice and gesture. ”

“ It appeared that O'Leary, much more alive to the imperative necessity of avoiding detection by his sposa, than of involving himself with the police, had thrown out most dark and mysterious hints in the hotel as to the reason of his residence at Paris; fully impressed with the idea that, to be a good Pole, he need only talk "revolutionary;" devote to the powers below, all kings, czars, and kaisers; weep over the wrongs of his nation; wear rather seedy habiliments, and smoke profusely. ”

“ The door was scarcely closed when the count drew his chair closer to mine, and, with a look of kindliness and good-nature I cannot convey, said, ‘I am going, Monsieur O’Leary, to take a liberty—a very great liberty indeed—with you, and perhaps you may not forgive it.’ He paused for a minute or two, as if waiting some intimation on my part. I merely muttered something intended to express my willingness to accept of what he hinted, and he resumed: ‘You are a very young man; I not a very old, but a very experienced one. ”

“ I am greatly despised. Lo! thy sheep are torn around me, and plundered by the above-mentioned robbers, aided by the soldiers of Coroticus: the betrayers of Christians into the hands of the Picts and Scots are far from the charity of God. Ravening wolves have scattered the flock of the Lord, which, with the greatest diligence, was increasing in Ireland; the sons of the Irish and the daughters of kings who are monks and virgins of Christ are too many to enumerate. Therefore the oppression of the great is not pleasing to thee now, and never shall be. ”

“ This task O'Leary, as a staunch loyalist, may have satisfied his conscience in attempting, especially as he must have known that in 1784 the catholics as a body had no treasonable designs, though doubtless some exceptions might be found' (Secret Service under Pitt, 2nd edit. p. 224) . O'Leary's biographer represents that the pension of 200l. was not offered him until 1789, after he had finally 'left Ireland, and, although this is clearly incorrect, some doubt is justifiable as to whether the whole sum was actually paid him until he had ceased to concern himself with Irish politics. ”

“ It is certainly admitted by even O'Leary's panegyrists that at the period of the Convention of 1783 delicate overtures, which they assume he rejected, were made to him; but the magnanimous words supposed to have been used by O'Leary when parleying with his tempter rest on no authority whatever, and some will be disposed to suspect that a colour is imparted to the overtures more presentable to general readers than the naked truth, whatever it was. ”

“ They seem to adopt for their creed the words of the old song,—
“The King may make a Baron bold, Or an Earl of any fool, sir, But with all his power, and all his gold He can never make an O'Toole, sir.”
“These are very allowable feelings when sustained by wealth and fortune,” said O'Reilly, quietly.
“I verily believe their influence is greater in adversity,” said Nalty; “they seem to have a force of consolation that no misery can rob them of. ”

“ O’Connell had called the Irish peasantry the finest peasantry upon earth, and his heirs found it impossible to separate patriotism and flattery. Again and again John O’Leary would return to this, and I have heard him say, ‘I think it probable that the English national character is finer than ours, but that does not make me want to be an Englishman.’ I have often heard him defend Ireland against one charge or another, and he was full of knowledge, but the patriotism he had sacrificed so much for marred neither his justice nor his scholarship. ”

“ To very few is it given to be the poet or patriot above his fellows, and he is both.
It was a strange juxtaposition that gave him, an Irishman, proscribed and outlawed from England, the opportunity of welcoming in America, from a place of honor, a man who stood in Parliament, one of the foremost statesmen and historians of the British empire. Few, if any, could have made the address O'Reilly made; no man not born with the heritage of Irish blood could have compassed its peculiar poetry; no man not in the enjoyment of political freedom could have equaled its proud independence. ”

“ O’Leary is a living, earnest, and most interesting incarnation. He strikes one at once as a much younger man in all that makes the youth of the intellect and the emotions than any Nationalist M.P. of half his years whom I have ever met. No Irishman living has dealt stronger or more open blows than he against the English dominion in Ireland. Born in Tipperary, where he inherited a small property in houses, he was sent to Trinity College in Dublin, and while a student there was drawn into the “Young Ireland” party mainly by the poems of Thomas Davis. ”

“ Butler, in his Historical Memoirs, describes O'Leary's person and mode of argument thus:—
"The appearance of Father O'Leary was simple. In his countenance there was a mixture of goodness, solemnity, and drollery, which fixed every eye that beheld it. No one was more generally loved or revered; no one less assuming or more pleasing in his manner. ”

“ It was impossible that the high and distinguished claims to respect and esteem which O'Leary possessed, should escape unnoticed by the Volunteer association. Never was a more glorious era in the history of Ireland, than whilst the wealth, valor, and genius of her inhabitants became combined for the welfare of their country—whilst every citizen was a soldier, and every paltry political or sectarian difference and distinction was lost in the full glow and fervor of the great constitutional object, which roused the energies and fixed the attention of the people. ”

“ O'Leary was, and I am induced to believe is, a particularly short, fat, greasy-looking gentleman, with a head as free from phrenological development as a billiard-ball, and a countenance which, in feature and colour, nearly resembled the face of a cherub, carved in oak, as we see them in old pulpits.
Short as is his stature, his limbs compose the least part of it. ”

“ But few men would remove for their health to the purlieus of St. Giles and Soho, the mission with which O'Leary had most to do. Its fearful squalor at the period described is curiously shown in Clinch's recently published 'Bloomsbury and St. Giles.' It will be remembered that the preacher of his funeral sermon conveys that the migration in 1789 was caused by O'Leary's refusal to write in a venal Dublin print against the party with whom he had long been associated. ”

“ On Father O'Leary's arrival in London he was anxiously sought after by his countrymen residing in that capital, who all felt gratified by every opportunity which offered itself, of paying respect to one who had done so much honor to religion and their country. ”

“ Was it Sir Boyle Roche—of whom presently?
[561] See England's account of the overtures made to O'Leary in London, ante, p. 220. England puts 'country' before 'religion.'
[562] In April 1783 the Coalition came into power. Pitt's administration dates from December 1783.
[563] England's Life of O'Leary, p. 118.
[564] O'Leary was specially weak in yielding acquiescence. Buckley states (Life, p. 355) that O'Leary, having been led to connive at the legislative union, he expressed remorse.
[565] Bird's-eye View of Irish History.
[566] England's Life of O'Leary, p. 105. (London, 1822.) ”

“ It was time for the Government to exert itself, as fifteen thousand British soldiers had been enrolled in the ranks of the revolutionists. On the 15th of September, 1865, the blow fell. The Irish People newspaper, which had been for two years the organ of the physical force party, was seized by the police, and its editors, Thomas Clark Luby, John O'Leary, and Jeremiah O' Donovan Rossa, were put under arrest. ”

“ At the head of this distinguished order stood the illustrious Father O'Leary, the Catholic Dean Swift of his time, the champion of peace, and the eloquent preacher of Christian charity. His noble works live to attest his fitness to counsel his country for her good, while his brilliant wit kept up her reputation for that splendid gift which penal statutes can neither give nor take away. ”