Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/341

Rh The following years also were devoted to foreign travel. At Paris he interested himself in financial, literary, and journalistic projects, and proceeding thence to St. Petersburg he attracted the notice of the czar, who appointed him a lieutenant in his international bodyguard. Subsequently he hunted bears in Finland with the czarevitch, fought against the Tartars, travelled in China and India, and served under the Turkish and Austrian flags. About 1862 he returned to Paris, and afterwards made his way to South America. He served as general under the government during the civil war in Uruguay, had command of a Chilian fleet in the war with Spain, held the post of colonel under the emperor of Brazil, and took part in the American war on the side of the north. On returning once more to Paris, in 1866, he obtained a colonelcy in a regiment of chasseurs from Louis Napoleon, but, always restless, proceeded in 1867 to Berlin, where he became intimate with Bismarck and the crown prince, and mixed much in society. He reappeared in Ireland in 1871, and took part in the home rule conference of 1873. As a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell [q.v.] he was in 1879 elected member for Clare, and was re-elected in 1880. In June 1887, after two years' absence from parliament, he was returned for Carlow, and that constituency he continued to represent until his death in Sidney Street, Chelsea, London, on 15 June 1891. In spite of his great age he retained all his faculties to the end, and his last public act was to repudiate Mr. Parnell, of whose treachery to the Irish cause he was convinced. He was buried in Glasnevin cemetery, within the O'Connell circle, on 21 June 1891. An oil portrait is in the possession of Mr. Charles Mahon Hagan of New Park, co. Clare.

The O'Gorman married in 1830 Christina, daughter of John O'Brien of Dublin, and had an only son, St. John, whose death on 22 Sept. 1883 was perhaps the greatest affliction of his life.

The O'Gorman Mahon was one of the last of the old race of dare-devil Irish gentlemen, and was more in his element upon the famous ‘fifteen acres’ than on the floor of the House of Commons. He fought thirteen duels in all; in how many the result proved fatal is not known. One of his duelling pistols bears two notches that seem significant, but he was able to say that he had never done anything to provoke a challenge; and to his gentleness of demeanour, in times of peace, all who knew him have borne testimony.

 MAHONY, CONNOR, CORNELIUS, or CONSTANTINE, called also (fl. 1650), Irish jesuit, was born in Muskerry, co. Cork. He resided at Lisbon, and Patrick Plunkett, titular bishop of Ardagh, and subsequently of Meath, made his acquaintance there between 1650 and 1660. John Serjeant, an English secular priest, who studied at Lisbon, also met him there. Both to Plunkett and Serjeant Mahony owned himself author of the small book which has alone preserved his memory, and to the former he gave a copy. The title-page of this volume is ‘Disputatio Apologetica de Jure Regni Hiberniæ pro Catholicis Hibernis adversus hæreticos Anglos. Authore C. M. Hiberno Artium et Sacræ Theologiæ Magistro. Accessit ejusdem authoris ad eosdem Catholicos exhortatio. Francofurti Superiorum permissu typis Bernardi Govrani. Anno Domini 1645,’ 4to.

The object of these treatises, which were really printed at Lisbon, is to claim Ireland for the Irish in the strictest sense, and to show that the kings of England had no right to it. ‘The Irish Catholics,’ says Mahony (p. 98), ‘had a perfect right to cast off the heretic government as they did in 1641, and are still doing while I write. … The Portuguese did the same thing for the same reason in 1640, and chose for themselves King John IV, hitherto Duke of Braganza.’ And he strongly advises the Irish (p. 103) ‘never again to admit the yoke of English heretics, but to elect a Catholic King for themselves, who should also be a vernacular or aboriginal Irishman—vernaculum seu naturalem Hibernum.’ The natives were exhorted to kill heretics, and to drive out even Irishmen who gave them any help.

In 1647, or perhaps earlier, some copies of this inflammatory book reached Ireland through France or direct from Portugal. One was found with John Bane, parish priest of Athlone, and the nuncio Rinuccini was called upon by the confederate catholics at Kilkenny to punish him. This the nuncio refused to do; but they had the book burned by the common hangman, and rigorous search for copies was made at Galway. Peter Walsh, by command of the supreme council, preached nine sermons running against it in Kilkenny Cathedral, all on the text Jer. ix. 12: ‘Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth?’ Rinuccini says (1 Oct. 1647): ‘The great out-