Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/554

 life anew as a barrister in Melbourne. But he soon glided into politics, and his admirers in the colony presented him with property valued at 5000l. to give him a qualification to enter the parliament of Victoria. In 1856 he became a member of the House of Assembly, quickly distinguished himself, and in 1857 was made minister of land and works, but resigned office in 1859 owing to a difference with the chief secretary, Mr. O'Shanassy, in respect of the management of public estates. It was Duffy's ambition to prove that one whose public life in Ireland had led to an indictment for treason could rise to the highest position in the state in a self-governing colony of England. After some years in opposition, he again became minister of land and works in 1862. He carried an important land bill which was known as Duffy's Land Act. Its main object practically was to facilitate the acquisition of the land by industrious inhabitants of the colony and by deserving immigrants, and to check the monopoly of the squatters. In 1865 he returned to Europe, visited England and Ireland (where he was feted by his friends), and spent some months on the continent. On going back to Victoria he took up the question of the federation of the colonies and obtained the appointment of a royal commission to consider the question, anticipating in his action subsequent events. In 1871 he became chief secretary or prime minister of the colony; in 1872 he resigned on an adverse vote which left him in a minority of five. He advised the governor, Viscount Canterbury, to dissolve, but the governor refused. The refusal was regarded as a departure from constitutional usage, and was discussed in the imperial parliament.

In 1873 Duffy was made K.C.M.G. in recognition of his services to the colony. In 1874 he again returned to Europe, spending some time in England, Ireland, and the continent. He went back to the colony in 1876, and was unanimously elected speaker of the House of Assembly in the next year. He held the office till 1880, and in that capacity was an interested but independent observer of the struggle between the two branches of the legislature in 1876 over the question of payment of members [see, Suppl. II]. The legislative assembly, which supported the payment, appealed to the home government against the council, which resisted the payment, and the prime minister, Sir Graham Berry, named Duffy as the representative of the assembly in the mission sent to London to Lay its case before the imperial government; but objection was taken to Duffy's appointment on the ground of his position as speaker, and he resigned his place to [q. v.]. In 1880 Duffy resigned the office of speaker and left the colony for good. He spent the remainder of his life mainly in the south of Europe. During this period he devoted himself to literary work, and took the keenest interest in all that went on in Ireland. He published valuable accounts of his own experiences in 'Young Ireland, a Fragment of Irish History, 1840-50' (2 vols. 1880-3; revised edit. 1896); 'The League of North and South: an episode in Irish History, 1850-4' (1886); 'The Life of Thomas Davis' (1890; abridged edit. 1896); 'Conversations with Thomas Carlyle' (1892; new edit. 1896); and 'My Life in Two Hemispheres' (1898). He also projected and edited 'A New Irish Library,' based on the principles of the old. He died at Nice on 9 Feb. 1903, and was buried in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin. He was married thrice: (1) in 1842 to Emily (d. 1845), daughter of Francis McLaughlin, of Belfast; (2) in 1846 to Susan (d. 1878), daughter of Philip Hughes of Newry; and (3) in 1881 to Louise, eldest daughter of George Hall of Rock Ferry, Cheshire (who died in 1890). Ten children survive him six sons and four daughters.

A small portrait in oils from a daguerreotype is in the National Gallery of Ireland, together with a terra-cotta plaque with a life-sized head in profile.



DUFFY, PATRICK VINCENT (1836–1909), landscape painter, born on 17 March 1836, at Cullenswood, near Dublin, was son of James Duffy, a jeweller and dealer in works of art in Dublin. Patrick studied in the schools of the Royal Dublin Society, where he was often premiated. While still a student he was elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy, and promoted three months later to be a full member. In 1871 he was elected keeper of the academy, a post he retained for thirty-eight years, until his death at Dublin on 22 Nov. 1909. His pictures are very unequal in merit. His better works show that under favourable conditions he might have taken a high place as a painter of landscape. A good example of his art, 'A Wicklow Common,' is in the Irish National Gallery. He married Elizabeth, daughter