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 The Green Bag VOL. XX.

No. 9

BOSTON

SEPTEMBER, 1908

LORD O'HAGAN' BY E. J. MOORE THOMAS O'HAGAN was born on the life, it was decided that he should go to the 2Qth of May, 1812. His father was bar. At the commencement of Michaelmas Edward O'Hagan, a small trader; his mother term, 1831, he entered his name at the was Mary, daughter of Captain Bell. When King's Inns, Dublin, the certificate for his the time came to think about his education, admission being signed by Daniel O'Connell. It was the practice in those days for candi he was first put under the care of Dr. Mont gomery, after which he was placed in the dates for the Irish bar to spend a part of famous Belfast Academical Institution. the time of their probation in London. The head master was then Dr. Hicks, a Thomas Chitty, the special pleader, was a Protestant clergyman of high renown for noted coach for such candidates, and his scholarship. Sheridan Knowles was O'Hagan became his pupil. In Hilary, O'Hagan's teacher, and among his school- 1836, when O'Hagan was not yet 24, he was • mates were to be found Cairns, afterwards called to the bar of Ireland, and chose Lord Chancellor of England; Napier, after the Northeast Circuit. During his earlier wards Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and years he was a contributor to the press both numbers of others destined for distinction of London and Ireland, especially the in various walks of life. The school was Newry Examiner. But even as a barrister remarkable in many respects. The prizes he rose rapidly into notice. Like most were awarded on the votes of the scholars young lawyers, he won his early successes themselves. The plan seems to have in defending prisoners. Some men had answered very well in O'Hagan's case: been tried, convicted, and executed in although he was the only Catholic in the Armagh for an agrarian murder. The jury school, prize after prize in various subjects had been packed according to the system was voted to him. There was also an then prevalent, not one Catholic being academic debating society attached to the permitted to serve on it. The Belfast school, which gave O'Hagan full oppor Vindicator protested against this unfairness, tunity to display his powers as an orator. and a criminal information was laid against He gave a particularly stirring address as Mr. Duffy (afterwards Sir Charles Gavan president of this society, which attracted Duffy), the editor. His counsel were Mr. great attention to his abilities. When the O'Connell, Mr. O'Hagan, and Sir Colman time came for him to choose his walk in O'Loghlen, who had then been scarcely a year at the bar. O'Connell was unexpectedly 1 Our facts are drawn from the obituary notices detained in London, and the speech for immediately after the death of Lord O'Hagan Mr. Duffy fell to O'Hagan. His defense in the Times and in all the Dublin daily papers: was so masterly that the young lawyer at the Law Times, the Irish Law Times, the Tablet, once acquired a splendid reputation. Of the Annual Register; also Burke's "Peerage." course Mr. Duffy was found guilty, and Mr. Oliver Burke's "Lord Chancellors of Ireland,'' Lampson's "Ireland in the Nineteenth Century," O'Hagan distinguished himself on a new trial motion by a most telling and effective "The Dictionary of National Biography," etc.