Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/109

 a costly uniform of green and gold was founded, named after the era of Independence, the 'Eighty-two Club, to draw into the national movement men who would never cross the threshold of Conciliation Hall. One of the earliest recruits was Lord Cloncurry, a Privy Councillor and a quondam state prisoner. He had lived from early manhood the perturbed life of an Irish patriot, under conditions not a little discouraging. His father had been a Catholic, and changed his religion at a convenient moment to found a family; and he had probably been a Protestant patriot till the conflict over the Union provided a favourable opportunity of exchanging his party for a peerage. But this peer's eldest son, Valentine Lawless, broke with those conditions, became the friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Connor, and Thomas Addis Emmet, and conspired with them for the deliverance of Ireland. In later times he had fierce conflicts with O'Connell, but never abated his steady devotion to Ireland. The young men aimed to bring him into the 'Eighty-two Club, and in the end succeeded. This was a time never to be recalled without pride and triumph. The work of a generation was accomplished in a few years, and, if fortune had been kind, would have been crowned with signal success. It was a time of incessant labour and responsibility, richly repaid by the conviction that we were assisting in the resurrection of our country.