Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/553

 new Queen's University in Ireland with affiliated colleges in Galway, Cork, and Belfast, which were to be open to both catholics and protestants.

In Michaelmas term, 1845, Duffy was called to the Irish bar, but he never practised. In the same year he made the acquaintance of Thomas Carlyle, to whom he was introduced by [q. v.]. An intimacy sprang up between them which lasted until Carlyle's death. Carlyle took some interest in the doings of the 'Young Ireland' party. He welcomed Duffy's gift of copies of the 'Nation,' and expressed sympathy with the cry 'Justice to Ireland justice to all lands, and to Ireland first as the land that needs it most.' In 1846 Carlyle visited Ireland and spent some time with Duffy and his friends.

In the same year there was a final breach between O'Connell and the young men. O'Connell supported a resolution adopted by the Repeal Association to the effect that moral force furnished a sufficient remedy for public wrong in all times and in all countries, and that physical force must be abhorred. The young men declined to admit that physical force could never be justifiable. Open war followed between O'Connell and the 'Nation.'

Duffy and his associates formed a new association the Irish Confederation which disclaimed alliances with English parties and repelled O'Connell's moral force theory. In January 1847 the first meeting of the confederation was held. O'Connell's death in May and the outbreak of the famine caused fresh divisions in the national ranks. Mitchel, assistant editor of the 'Nation,' accepted Fenton Lalor's view that the direct demand for repeal of the union should be suspended, and that there should be a general strike against the payment of rent. Duffy allowed discussion of the proposal in the journal; but he declined to adopt it as the policy of the party. Mitchel then, towards the end of 1847, left the 'Nation' and started a new weekly paper, the 'United Irishman.' A report prepared by Duffy for the confederation in 1848 suggested that an independent Irish party should be sent to the English House of Commons independent of English parties and governments, and pledged not to accept office from any government until repeal was conceded. The report was adopted by 317 to 188. Mitchel, who had no faith in a parliamentary agitation, opposed it, and leaving the confederation preached insurrection in the 'United Irishman.' The revolution in Paris in February 1848 inspired the leaders of the confederation with revolutionary projects, to which Duffy in the 'Nation' lent support. Many of his associates were at once arrested.

The confederates began preparations for a rising in August. But before anything effective was done the government intervened. On 9 July Duffy was arrested. On the 28th the 'Nation' was suppressed. Between July 1848 and April 1849 Duffy was arraigned five times. On three occasions the trial was postponed for one reason or another. On two occasions the juries disagreed. Finally in April 1849 Duffy was discharged.

On regaining freedom he revived the 'Nation,' which finally ceased many years later. Suspending the demand for repeal, which at the moment he believed to be inopportune, he flung himself heart and soul into the question of land reform. The evictions and calamities following famine and pestilence had made land reform urgent. The Irish Tenant League, which Duffy joined, was now founded to secure reform on the basis of parliamentary enforcement of the three F's—fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale. In the summer of 1849 Carlyle again visited Ireland, and he and Duffy spent some weeks together travelling throughout the country. At the general election of 1852 Duffy was elected parliamentary representative of New Ross, and the party of independent opposition (which he had proposed in 1847) was formed to oppose every government which would not pledge themselves to grant the demands of the Tenant League. This party consisted of some fifty members. In November 1852 Lord Derby's government introduced a land bill to secure to Irish tenants on eviction, in accordance with the principles of the Tenant League, compensation for improvements prospective and retrospective made by them in the land. The bill passed the House of Commons in 1853 and 1854, but in both years failed to pass the House of Lords. In 1855 the cause of the Irish tenants, and indeed of Ireland generally, seemed to Duffy more hopeless than ever. Broken in health and spirit, he published in 1855 a farewell address to his constituency, declaring that he had resolved to retire from parliament, as it was no longer possible to accomplish the task for which he had solicited their votes.

On 8 Oct. 1855 he sailed for Australia, where he was received with great enthusiasm by his fellow-countrymen, and began