Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/351

 ii s. vin. NOV. LUIS.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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picture of the times, and of the wise, strong, just man who solved the problems that they presented. It is like a rare beam of sunshine amid the dark- ness of the story :

" * Prior to his arrival, Ireland was the scene of political agitation, social disorder, and religious feuds. The Orangemen, irritated and alarmed at the emancipation of the Catholics, had formed an army of not less than two hundred thousand men to uphold the prerogatives of the dominant class. Orange processions and armed demonstra- tions terrorized Ulster, and overshadowed the

Executive in Dublin The agrarian war raged

with wonted fury, faction fights disgraced the land, and O'Connell loudly called for Repeal of the Union as the only remedy for the country's ills.'"

Drummond was equal to the occasion. He was moved by the miseries of the people, and " Ireland became to him a second father- land." He died in office, "loved and lamented by the peopfe, who mourned his loss as a national calamity."

Another man whoss influencB for good should not be forgotten is Father Mathew, the Apostle of Temperance. The effect of his appeals to the Irish people was marvel- lous, and the country was profoundly affected by them. His work and influence form the topic of many articles which appeared in The Freeman in the early part of 1840.

It was fortunate that a man like Gray had control of The Freeman, for while he was devotedly attached to O'Connell, he was not prepared to follow him wherever he might lead. Gray was a man of peace, while O'Connell had a propensity for quarrelling with his friends. His attacks on the English Press ; his anger with The Times, which he called " the venal lady of the Strand " ; and his defeating a con- spiracy of London journalists not to report him, were natural ; but to fall out with his friends on the Dublin Press was to show- ingratitude and forgetfulness of the support he had received from them. To give one instance :

" When Plunkett, as Attorney-General, sought to make him amenable for a speech concerning Bolivar, the insurgent liberator of Spanish lands in South America, which contained a very obvious suggestion, the Dublin men stood most loyally by him. Mr. Leache of The Freeman's Journal, who had reported the speech as printed, refused to swear to its accuracy without consulting his notebook, which by some mischance had been lost, and could not be found. Mr. Elrington, of another paper, would only say that he had gone asleep during O'Connell s speech, being tired out from overwork, that he had been aroused by a thump on the reporters' table, that he had asked what was the matter, and had then taken down the words incriminated at the dictation of a third party clearly impossible evidence."

But when O'Connell demanded that he- should be given ten or fifteen columns at a time, the reporters revolted, and the best compliment he had for them was a public^ sneer at the " pack of nibbling mice."

O'Connell made it a practice to repeat many of his speeches, believing, as he pro- tested, that " a good thing could not be- said too often." ~A reporter on The Free- man's Journal once took advantage of this.. He had been assigned to report the speech, of O'Connell at some annual charity dinner ,. but had forgotten all about it. Late IIL the evening (too late to report the speech); he remembered it, and

" in despair turned back upon O'Connell's speech* of the previous year, which he promptly cut from the, file, and sent to the printers' room with an orthodox introduction and ending. He was immensely grati- fied when O'Connell two days later animadverted severely upon the garbled reports of his speech in all the other papers, and advised the public to take- the excellent and accurate account published in The Freeman'' s Journal as the true and only correct version of his words ! "

The Freeman's Journal warmly supported the Repeal movement, and records that on March 16th, 1843, the first of O'Connell's " monster " meetings was held at Trim ; while at one on the 15th of August, held or* the Hill of Tara, a million of people, it is- estimated, were present. But great trials were coming to Ireland. The leading article- in The Freeman's Journal on New Years- Day, 1848, began with the words :

" The year 1847 opened on us dark and lowering. Famine stalked through the land at noon, and pestilence brooded over it in the night season. As the year advanced the darkness thickened, famine and pestilence became more exacting, our people- fell before them by thousands and tens of thousands."

In 1851 Gray purchased the shares of hi partners in the paper, and became sole pro- prietor. At that time Gavan Duffy was- proprietor of The Nation, Frederick Lucas- of The Tablet, and John Francis Maguire of The Cork Examiner. At the general election in 1852 Gray put up for Monaghan, but^was defeated " by the landlords " ; there was, however, a majority of members elected pledged to labour for the recognition of the tenant's fixity of tenure whilst he paid his rent.

" But in the new Independent Party the old gang called ' the Pope's Brass Band,' from the loudness \vith which it proclaimed its Catholic zeal, was to be reckoned with : it could not be trusted or thrust aside."

JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS.

(To be continued.)