IN MEMORIAM.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 50, 5 April 1889, Page 19

IN MEMORIAM.

It is with much regret we record the death of Mr. John Burk, of Bawyer's Bay, Port Chalmers. He was interred last Friday iv the old cemetery at Port. The last services of the Church were performed by the Rev. Father Burke, Port Chalmers, and the Rev. Fathers Lynch and Vereker, of Dunedin, assisted by the young choristers of St. Joseph's Cathedral. When the funeral formed at St. Mary's Church, the Requiem Mass and absolution being over, it was found to bfi tbe largest funeral ever seen in Port Chalmers. The Mayor, the councillors, the great majority of the men of Port, the officers of the Dunedin Railway Department, and maoy friends from the city were there. Certainly more respect could not be paid to any private person by his fellow-citizens. All regarded him as a man true, sincere, w ithout a particle of dishonesty, duplicity or low selfishness in his character. Mr. John Burk was born at Mallow, County Cork, in the year 1828 and belonged to a family a little remarkable. His love of Ireland and of her laith was intense ; it was an acting, abiding enthusiasm. He inherited it. His grand-father, who owned tbe place now occupied by Burke- Roche, Lord Fermoy, was " outlawed " and impovtrisbed during tbe last century. He was one of those 41 rebels who, rather than submit to the demands of the wicked regime of that period, endured " many a hard run on the mountain's bleak side," and/ nany a year without resting his head quietly on a pillow 1 His " rebel " spirit did not die with him.

At break of day one Sunday morning in October, 1829, Daniel O'Connell.jlooking out from his wiadowat Derrynane, saw a man riding towards the house with eagle speed. Knowing that some mischief was up, O'Connell hastened down to meet him. The story — a story not so unfamiliar in Ireland in days happily gone by — wan soon told. O'Leary, a gentleman farmer, and a number of the Catholics of Doneraile had been falsely accused of conspiring to murder some Protestants of the neighbourhood. Judge Penne father and AttorneyGeneral Doherty were actually trying the accused in Cork. Some were already condemned to death ; " and," said Burk — for the herald was Mr. Bark's father — " Pennefather and Doherty will hang every man of them, though they are innocent as the unborn." Though Burk had ridden all night, after two hours' rest he hastened back, announcing that " the Counsellor " was coming. Belays of men were placed along the road to Cork to meet Burk with fresh fleet horses, so that he could fly without delay with the news. At eight o'clock on Monday morning he arrived in Cork, aud a few hours later O'Connell was in the court house. His sudden appearance electrified the Crown party. Doherty turned pale with rage aud apprehension. "Ah I its little I thought I'd meet you here, Mr. O'Connell," exclaimed the principal informer, Nowlan, when breaking down under the fire of cross-examination. O'Connell procured the acquittal of all the supposed conspirators. All honour to the enthusiast who secured his presence ; a blessing must have rested on his head. His ride surpassed the ride of Sheridan or Paul Revere, but it wanted a Longfellow to make it famous. This unknown, unsung revere of Cork County waa idolised by his neighbours. During the Nation excitement in '48, '44, and '45, the men and youths of the place were wont togither on Sunday afternoons in this man's house to hear the Nation, read. Half-reproving and, we are sure, half -approving these meetings of the young fellows of the parish. Father Falvey, the curate. UPed to say :— " Whatia tne world coming to, at all? You prefer going up to old Burk's to hear the Nation to coming to church to learn the catechism." The hearing of the Nation told. " After a little, ' says Duffy, in Young Ireland, '• the young tradesmen in towns and the young peasants who listened to the Nation, read aloud around the lorge lire of an evening, or in the chapel yard on a Sunday miming, were swaying to and fro in the fever of a new faith for which they were impatient to labour and Buffer."' The sons of " old Bark " were, of course, " out "iv '48. Mr. John Burk delighted to tell of his escapes in those days. He was oftea the bearer of the secret communications of the leading Young Irelanders of the South. He used to bring the letters sawn by his mother beneath the collar of his coat ! The (ears would come into hU eyes at the mention of the names of Davis, Meagher, Doheny, Denny Lane, Maurice Leyne, and the Muns'er Young Irelanders, whom he knew. Friends learned that on the very night William O'Brien happened to be born, a police raid for arms was to be made upon his father's house. It waß Mr. John Burk and his brother who were deputed to give the alarm, and to remove all contraband goods from the place. Mr. Burk u«ed to speak of 0 Brien's mother as the finest specimen of an intelligent, open-hearted, patriotic Irish matron he had ever seen. Mr. Burk was brother to General D. F. Burk, of New York. This gentleman ia described ia the annals of the American war as "a brave, dashing soldier, and genial, efficient officer." After the 19th of October,lß64,it was he who commanded the consolidated regimenta of the Irish Brigade. He received special distinction for the success and gallantry with which he attacked and captured a portion of the Confederate lines, opposite Fort Sedgwick, on October 29, 1864. He came to Ireland in '(37 to strike a blow for the old land, but finding the country utterly unprepared fjr a " ming " he withdrew. Mr. [Burk was also a relative oi T. F. liurk, who in '67 delivered in the dock at Green Street a speech, rivalling ie fire, defiance, and eloquence, those of Meagher in '48, and of Emmet in 1803, Thomas b\ Burk, who had been a Brevet-General of the Confederate Army, was appointed to organise the County Tipperary. He was arrested near the town of 'lipperary on February C, '67, coovejel to Dublin, tried for hi^htreason, and sentenced to be hanged. A few brief extracts from the speech and letters of this brave and good man will tell better than we could the spirit which animated thia section of the Burks: — "But fully conscious that I can go into my grave with a name and character unsullied ; fully convinced of the righteousness of all my acts in connection with the late revolutionary movement in Ireland, I have nothing to recall, nothing to cause the blush of shame to mantle upon my brow, nothing that 1 1 won Id not cheerfully do over again. ... I, my lords,

I have no desire for the name of a martyr. I seek not the death of a martyr. Bat if it is the will of the Almighty God that my devotion for ttte land of my birth shall be tested on the scaffold I an willing > there to die in defence of the right of men to free government— tht* right of an oppressed people to throw off the yoke of thraldom, I am an Irishman by birth, an American by adoption ; by nature a lover of freedom, an enemy to the power that holds my native land in the bonds of tyranny. . . Ireland's children are not, never were, and never will be willing or submissive slaves ; and so long as England's flag covers one inch of Irish soil, just so Ion? will they believe it to be a divine right to devise means to hurl it from power and to erect in its stead the God-like structure of self-government, . . On the ere of his trial he wrote to his mother from Kilmainham prison :—": — " On last Easter Sunday I received Holy Communion at late Man, I calculated the difference between this longitude and yours. I knew that you and my dear sisters were'p&rtaking of that Sacrament at early Mass on that day and I felt that our souls were in communion together." . . . When sentence of death had been pronounced upon him he wrote to a priest — a friend of his :— Kilmainham Gaol, 4th Month of Mary. ... lam perfectly calm and resigned. My thoughts are centred with hope in the goodness and mercy of that kind Redeemer, whose precious Blood was shed for me, and in the intercession of His Blessed Mother, who is my star of hope and my consolation. ... I have only one thought which causes me sorrow, and that is, that my good and loving mother will break down under this affliction. And, Oh God, that I, who loved her more than my life, am the cause of it. Tnis thought nnmans and prostrates me. . . . Good bye. dear father, and that God may bless you in your ministry, is the prayer of an obedient child of the Church," The devotion to country and the tender piety that breathe in these extracts were exactly the Bame in Mr. John Burk. Placed in like circumstances he would speak ia the same strain. Yet his love for Ireland was mainly owing to his love for her old religion. " Were Ireland right," he often remarked, " then the Catholic Church would soon be on her feet in the British Umpire." The delight of bis soul was to see Catholic churches springing op in the townships around. Wherever his lot was cast— in Western Australia, in Melbourne, at Port Chalmers— he was a pillar of the local congregation, often, it was well known, denying himself and his family things needed, ia order that he might be able to help the Church more largely, "Is not this our destiny," he would say ; " there goes old Mrs. So-and-so selling a bundle of ' tickets ' for the church ; grand 1 I look upon her, and myself, and all of ns, as missionaries." " Will you come, Burk, and have a drink?" was a common mode of address to him by sailors newly come on the wharves. The reply was, " No ; you know I don't drink ; but fling us here that shilling for the church fund." And they often did so. Needless to say that be waa constant in the reception of the Sacraments, and that he was never known to omit the Sunday obligation. Twentyfive years ago, he regularly walked to town on Sunday mornings (10 miles, mostly through scrub and Duah) from Port to old St. Joseph's. To his family he was much attached ; but his chief ambition was, not that they should be *' up " in the world, but that they should, when he was gone, cherish the faith of their fathers and remember the grand old Irish traditions he had taught them. How firmly this humble man, guided by the instinct of the faith, grasped the three great ideas underlying Christian civilisation — family, country, religion ; children, fellow-citizens, God ! His kindness, frankness of manner, and his scrupulous honesty gained for him the esteem of all who knew him and the stron? affection of hia fellow-Catholic*. Many of these — men and women — might be seen sobbing like closest friends around his grave on the day of his burial. May the influence of his example live, aad may his soul rest in peace.