Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/381



The O'Connell Centenary promised to be a triumphant success. Dublin was full of deputations sent to represent a hundred cities, towns, and hamlets, and a vast number of stalwart men came to take part in the procession to his monument.

Princes and ecclesiastics from Germany and France, who sympathised either with the great Catholic or the great Nationalist arrived to grace the occasion, and the recognition of Ireland as an ancient, pious, and indestructible nation promised to be complete. But in all our annals before and since the spirit of faction has played a fatal part, and when I arrived in Dublin I found the committee of the Centenary