IRELAND.
The first open meeting of the Repeal Association since the death of Mr. O'Connell took place on Monday. The occasion brought forward the bead of the house, Mr. Maurice O'Connell; who, with his brother John, addressed the members. Various addresses were read from different parts of the country; among them a communication from several Roman Catho- lic clergymen of Mellinger, pointing out the " more than hereditary" claims of Mr. John O'Connell to the confidence of the Irish people. That gentleman, however, intimated that he was conscious of his unfitness to act as the leader of the Irish people: still, he was prepared to work for old Ireland, with his beloved brother, and all his friends around him. Mr. John O'Connell announced the appointment of Mr. Cornelius EfLaughlin and Alderman Keshan as Treasurers; and the intention to appoint a Fi- nance Committee of thirty-one, to manage the funds of the Association, and spend them with the utmost economy. Mr. Steele, in proposing an addresss to the Reverend Dr. Miley, as "the ministering angel of O'Connell in his parting moments," announced that this was his own last appearance at any political meeting. Rent (being, we presume, the accumulation of the three weeks) 681.
In compliance with several requisitions very numerously signed, the Mayor of Dublin has called a meeting for the day after O'Connell's funeral obsequies, whenever that shall be, to consider the most appropriate monu- ment to be erected to the Liberator's memory.
A correspondence between Mr. Smith O'Brien and Mr. O'Connell's elder sons has been the subject of much conversation in Dublin. According to a current rumour, it was the wish of Mr. O'Coanell's family that the "Young Irelanders" should take no part as a body in the public funeral. In order to test the rumour, Mr. Smith O'Brien addressed a letter to Mr. John O'Connell, as "my dear O'Connell," asking "whether it is the family wish that those who dissented from the policy adopted by the Repeal As- sociation during the last twelve months should attend the funeral." The reply was a cool " note of compliments," by Mr. Maurice O'Connell; who said that " the arrangements for the funeral having been intrusted to the Glasnevin Cemetery Committee and the Reverend Dr. Miley, the family leaves it entirely in their hands." Mr. O'Brien interpreted this, very natu- rally, into an intimation that " he should not attend the funeral."
In a long letter addressed to the Nation, the celebrated Father Kenyon contends that, on public grounds, O'Connell's death is a subject for satis- faction instead of regret- " Your weeds of mourning and Mr. O'Brien's resolution imply and express that Mr. O'Connell's demise has been a great loss to Ireland, and that a tribute of na- tional respect is due to his remains. I do not believe in the truth of the fact: I deny the justice of the debt. "Mr. O'Connell's death, in my deliberate opinion, has been no loss whatever to this Irish nation. On the contrary, I think that Mr. O'Connell has been doing before his death, and was likely to continue doing as long as he might live, very
grievous injury to Ireland; so that I account his death rather a gain than a loss to the country. He was the vaunted leader the prime mover, the head and front, the life and soul, of a system of policy so servile at once and despotic, so bellow and so corrupt, so barefacedly hypocritical, and so dreadfully demoralizing, that the very organs of the Government to which it pandered laughed it to scorn." "Is it possible that this nation can remain infatuated for ever? O'Connell
has boasted that he guided us, and his toadies have vouched every word he told us, for fifty years: well, then, let ns look about and calculate our obligations for the service. Whither have we been guided? where and how has he left us? —We have been guided, step by step, self-hoodwinked, to such an abyss of phy- sical and moral misery—to such a condition of helpless and hopeless degradation, as no race of maukind was ever plunged in since the creation. We are a nation of beggars—mean, shameless, lying beggars. And this is where O'Connell has guided us. But it will be said that he could not help this. I deny it. No man ever enjoyed or abused such resources as, in the extravagance of our devotion, we lavished oil O'Connell. Since I was able to think or act as a man, till within a twelvemonth, he had me, with all that God gave me, of thought, and goods, and life, at his command. And my case was the case of millions.
" Had O'Connell been moulded in a juster type—had he cultivated the virtues
which it was his duty to cherish, of integrity, frugality, sincerity—had he studied his plans maturely, and pursued them consistently—had he been liberal of judg- ment, and sparing in equal proportions of monies, of censure, and of praise—had he cultivated disinterestedness among his followers, and selected his counsellors from the ranks of honesty and virtue, there is no destiny too glorious to which he might not have conducted Ireland. But, unfortunately for his fame and for his country, he was a mere time-serving politician—a huckster of expediencies. He
i
said things, and did them not. He issued orders, and jeered the men who obeyed him, as the powder-monkies of Cork can testify. He patronized liars, parasites, and bullies. He brooked no greatness that grovelled not at his feet! He con- ducted a petty traffic in instalments. He boasted. He flattered grossly, and was grossly flattered. He forestalled his glory; and enjoyed with a relish a reputation that he forgot to earn. Above all, he was unsteady, because he was unprincipled. The gentry of Ireland could never unite with him; and no man in Ireland could calculate upon his policy for a month. Thus the lives, and loves, and treasures of this trusting land were frittered into nought—thus were our resources squan- dered, our hopes thus levelled to the grave. "I deny not the good points of O'Connell's character. And if I do not enume- rate them it is only because all his points, good, bad, i and indifferent, have been ex- tolled overfrequently and overmuch. He was, all n all, un grand homme mar- que, possessing great elements of greatness, but alloyed below the standard. He failed in his mission, and he deserved to fail in it. The real liberators of nations' have steered a straight course. Instead of stultifying ourselves by another na- tional demonstration, we should rather study the ways of Providence for our in- struction, and learn from the signal failure of O'Connell a lesson of greater confi- dence in God's truth, and less trust in man's devices," Election news is still of' the most scanty and trivial description; nothing certain, nothing important. ' That which is of the most importance is of &- negative kind; a striking confession of the utter prostration of the Relkal energies in election matters, uttered by Mr. John O'Connell at Conciliaticer Hall, on Monday- "'Tis now two months since, in this Association, we called the attention of the constituencies throughout the country to the approaching elections. We then, in an address and a series of resolutions unanimously adopted, endeavoured to im- press upon the people the great importance of giving their immediate attention to this matter. We warned them that circumstances had made us comparatively powerless to assist them, if they were not themselves prepared to make a bold and manly initiative in the assertion of the principles of Repeal. We bade them mark our diminished funds—diminished in consequence of the distress of the country— and our inability to assist them. We told them we could done more than exhort, advise and suggest, whenever our exhortation, advice, and suggestion may be desired. We implored them in the sacred name of country to consider well of the elections that were fast approaching—to consider well of the duty they owe to that country, bleeding with a thousand wounds—to consider well of their pre- sent position, and to make a bold effort to wrest that country from the gripe of that alien Legislature, whose misgovernment has plunged us into this abyss of misery. The calamities with which the country is afflicted—the existence of famine, and the spread of pestilence—have so much disturbed men's minds, and almost unseated their reason from its throne, that they have not attended to these calls of ours. They have not responded to them; and now when the elections are known to be imminent, I am bound m sorrow to confess, that we have not received one answer from any part of the country to our urgent appeal two months ago, and the private letters that some of us have written, endeavouring to excite the tor- pid public spirits"
The accounts of the grain and potato crops are very favourable- and ru- mours of a reappearance of the potato disease appear less entitled to credit than they did at first. The report is attributed to interested parties, who- have cargoes of Indian corn hanging on hand.
The cooler weather is believed to have operated in checking the progress of fever. It rages still in Clare.
The Dublin Evening Post mentions an oasis in the desert—" In Blarney, not a single death has occurred from starvation, nor from fever; it is per- fectly free." The Morning Chronicle observes that 'at the survival and flou- rishing of blarney are not surprising in Ireland; but adds a substantial reason for the pluenomenon: about twenty years ago, a wool-spinning fac- tory was established in the village, by Messrs. Mahony of Cork, and some hundreds of children have ever since been paid money wages; hence habits of industry and providence. Messrs. Mahony are brothers of the accom- plished wit " Father Front."
Previous page
