MONUMENT TO THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 88, 2 January 1875, Page 11

MONUMENT TO THOMAS FRANCIS MEAGHER.

++ Wb are rejoiced to see that in Waterford, the loved city of his birth, there is a movement afoot for erecting a mouurnent to Thomas Francis Meagher. Ireland cherishes with pride the memory of " the men of '48." They were rash ; they were unwise ; they indulged in dreams and phantasies ; they disregarded the counsels of the great chief and tribune and statesmen who had led Ireland out of a more than Egyptian bondage. But if they loved Ireland not wisely, they loved her well. In the material world they effected nothing — in the mental world much. They wreathed the cause of Ireland with an evergreen garland of eloquence and song which will be green for all time, and which makes the cause that it encircles as deathless as iteelf . The men of '48 made the cause of Ireland a centre of interest to civilised Europe, and endowed it with a grace, a buoyancy, and a brilliancy which it never can lose. Ireland has by more than one conspicuous and public testimony shown that she does not forget what Bhe owes to those children of hers, glorious in their very errors, to whom much is to be forgiven — qttia multum amarenint. A fine statue of O'Brien graces one of the best sites in the metropolis. Davis ■leeps at St. Jerome, beneath one of the noblest of Hogan's marbles ; and now Waterford is about to reproduce in marble or bronze the graceful form and open brow of the Irish Alcibiades. The career of Thomas Francis Meagher closed at an age when other men have only ripened into maturity. Greater men have sprung from the Irish carth — none more interesting and captivating. Heaven had tipped his lips with the golden fire of true eloquence, and hundreds will still recall the thrill with which they yielded to the irresistible eloquence of the wondrous boy who, a quarter of a century ago, blazed like a meteor across the Irish sky. Endowed with gifts which would have secured for him the proudest place ambition has ever coveted, Meagher gave to Ireland all he had to give — his eloquence, hie fortune, his future, his liberty. For her, the idol of his generous heart — he stood in the dock, he dared the gallows, he trod the convictthip, he died in far-off exile. In that land of exile he upheld the national honor — he maintained the high reputation of Ireland in the field and at the council-board. His career was not free from errors,

but time has obliterated their memory, Ireland only remembers the brilliancy of his genius, the depth of his patriotism, the tender lore and devotion he always cherished for her. — ' Freeman.'