Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 51, 19 April 1895, Page 23

Dublin Notes.

(From contemporaries.) In the latest published volume of "The Dictionary of National Biography "—the forty-first— the great Irish patriot whose name stands at the head of this paragraph receives the longest notice. " The personal appearance of O'Connell was remarkably prepossessing. Slightly under Bix feet, he was bioad in proportion. His features were good. But it was the fioelychiselled mouth which gave to bis face its chief charm. He was habitually careless in the matter of dress, and from the commencement of his political career he woreu nothing bat of Irish manufacture, and though his income was what most men would call large, he was constantly harassed by debt, for he was prodigal in hospitality. At bis death bis personal property amounted to barely £1000. Ho was an indefatigable worker, rising generally before seven, and seldom seeking rest till the small hoars of the morning. A sincere Bom an Catholic from choice and conviction, he was tolerant of every form of religious belief. Religion was to him always more than theology. He possessed an inexhaustible fund of good humour and mother wit, and spoke his mind freely on all subjects. His iatemperate use of stroDg epithets he defended on the ground that it was right to speak in tha stropgest terms consistent with truth of one's friends and one's enemies. But out Bide of politics be was remarkably lenient in his judgments, and being free from jealousy he quickly recognized merit wherever he saw it, His letters to his wife reveal a tenderness and love that are at times extremely tonching." Abont sixteen miles from Dugort, in Achil Island, out to sea, looking like a thiu line of sand in the waves of the Atlantic, is the Island of lonishkta. One fine morning our party started to visit it in a trusty hooker: As the hooker came iv sight of the shore great excitement was visible among the islanders, and it was very hard to realise that we were still but thirty-six hours journey from London The inhabitants turned out en masse. The women and children, in their scanty garments of red flanneis, crouched outside their cabins

while numbers of men ran down to the beach and put ont in their ooracles on ohance of rowing us to land. It was a strange scene, and curiously like a picture plate in a boys' book of adveuiures. We knew there was a king of Innishkeaand soon a tail brocaa-facad man was pointed out to us as his majesty. On landing all the party were introduced and conducted by him to the palace, where the queen dowager, with her daughter, bade U8 welcome in true Irish fashion. The old lady was in her picturecque native co3tuose— red dies^ and plaid shawl over her head. The prince's, however, had evidently on first sight of the hooker arrayed herself in modern fashion to do us hooonr, and we were amused on penetrating into the receptionroom to find advertisements from Bhops in Buckingham Palace road and St Paul's churchyard hung up to embellish the wall, though only by a favoured few could they be read. The island was destitute of »ny school or means of instruction for the children, a very small proportion eithtr understood or spoke English, and there was neither watch nor clock among tht people, who had a happy-go-lucky idea of time and troubled themselves little as to Greenwich regulation. There were no church bells to ring, no trains to catch, no office hours reqairing punctuality, ho when the eun was high in the heavens they would get through their not arduous farming duties, and when he sank in the great waste of waters they could sleep. Tbe king's words settled all disputes. It was an hereditary monarchy, and his people, so far as he was concerned, were untaxed. Happy there stateß, thought some of the visitors, where royalty could be maintained with so little grandeur. However, lam in honesty bound to add we found King Philip had other means of filling his coffers besides levying taxes on his faithful subjects, and learned the art of making good his opportunity whenever the Saxon Btranger ventmed to land on his shore. But Innishkea has an interest altogether apart from its situation, surrounded as it is by lovely views of monntains, cliff, and rocky headland. On this spot, hundreds of years ago, early Christian missionaries landed, and on top of a shelly mount, half a mile from the beach, are Christian remains of great antiquity. West of the island there stand also|tbe ruins of a church said to have been built by the successors of St Oolumba.

The report has been published of Mr Roberta, C.B , to the directors of tbe Midland Great Western Riilway Company of Ireland on the plans for converting Galway into a station for American mails, and the probable cost, which be places at £670,000. He mentions tbat Lord Carnavon, in 1885, employed him and other members of a commission on a plan for converting Galway into a harbour of refuge by means of convict labour, but that the Administration prevented the project being carried oof.u f . The history of the once magnificent abbey erected by the Cistercians at Mellifont ia about to be written by a member of that Order, Father Joachim Hennessy, of the Cistercian Abbey, Roscrea. Mellifont was the first Cis'ercian Abbey in Ireland, and ia intimately associated with the names of two great saints, 8t Bernard and St Malachy, and was, as its ruins attest, a splendid and extensive pile. It was, indeed the chief foundation of the Order in Ireland, where the Cistercians once had no fewer than forty-four monasteries. Father Joachim is well read in tho eclesiastical history of Ireland. Curran was once engaged in a legal argumcot ; behind him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who had origin illy intended to take orders. The Judge observed that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law. " Then," said Curran, " I can refer Your Lordship to a high authority behind nap, who was once intended for the chuich, though, ia my opinion, he wasfittar for the Bteeple." Rev Father Thomas Hearn, P.P., of Portlaw, County of Waterford Ireland, has been granted a patent for an invention for " removing' snow from railways." The contrivance consists in mounting a pair of tapering fans in front of the locomotive on longtitudinal shafts bo as to be capable of rotating at right angles to tbe direction of travel. By bevel gear these fans are driven by suitable coupling rods from the driving crank of the locomotives, and as the train moves the fans are caused to rotate (each from tbe centre outward; and Bweep the snow off the permanent way. Tbt invention is about being taken up by a Birmingham firm of locomotive and carriage builders, and also patents are about bting applied for in Canada, the United States and Russia, in which countries the necessity for such an invention is obvious.

The prosfilytisers arc still at work In Ireland, and it is to counteract their efforts that an addition is building to the Sacred Heart Home, Drumcondra, Dublin. Archbishop Walsh laid the cornerstone of the new building on January 27, and gave a donation of 6,000 dols. to their fund. The proselytisers succeed only with ths most degraded parents, but the children of these are more in need of Catholic protection than any. But even this success is entirely incommensurate with the money paid out to secure it. As one of the speakers at the public meeting which followed the corner-s'one laying the Very Bey W. Delaney, S.J., truly said :-"The proeelytisers are convicted out of their own reports. The promoters of the Sacred Heart Home maintained the ninety children nnder tbeir charge for a sum of £1,000 annually. The Bird's Kests, which received in one year £4,000, had seventy-four children. Tbe inference is obvious. The large balance over from the maintenance of the children went to the wicked bribing of the poor to act against their consciences." Mr Morley in the course of his speech on Mr Redmond's amendment, aßked waa there any understanding between the mover of tbe amendment and the Tory Opposition, such as astonished the political world in 1885, and proceeded— There is nothing bitter or cruel in reminding the House of those things which then happened. Does the honand learned member who proposed this motion remember the action of the leader of tbe Opposition when the Bill for the second reading of the Grimes Act was carried ? He is now going to lead the leader who then told us that the advent of a Unionist Government would be the sign for the revival of that Act if it were repealed • and with regard to the old problem and the old difficulties be would have resort to the Coercion Act. These words were so remarkable that I would ask the hon gentlemen from Ireland to consider them. He said it was not tbe time to abandon the Crimea Act whea th« necessity for it would arise so noon as the question of Home Bule was saen to be receding into space. The hon and learned Member for Waterford tells us that the question is receding into space, and we are invited to deal with a political paradox by turning out a Government that is willing to give Home Bule and pot in its place a Government that is pledged to refuse Home Bule.

There are English and Scotch demands that have to be met by the Government, and in helping them forward would the Irish Party opposite not be helping the Irish cause itself ? The hon menabar says that Home Rule is abandoned. He spoke of shelving Home Rule. He referred especially to the Prime Minister. I cannot find one word u:tered by the Prime Minister since he first occupied tbat great office which justifies the construction he chooses to put upon the Prime Minister's utterances. 1 am not going to quote all his utterances, but I take the very hist of all. Lord Rosebery, speaking on Tuesday night in another place, and talking of the reduction of crime in Ireland s*id — " I believe the reduction of crime in Ireland is due to another cause. It is the knowledge that the policy of an Irish Legislature for distinctly Luh on-c^rns satisfying the just aspirations of the Irish people, and consistent with Imperial unity, remains in the forefront of the Liberal programme." Does the bon. and learned member for Waterford suppose that L >rd Rosebery is cap ible of making in bis place in Parliament, under the most solemn circumstances in which any Piime Minister can speak, a declaration of that kind, not meaning to carry it out, cot believing that policy, and not intending to do the beat ho can to press it forward at a speed which aay question in the forefront of the programme ought to command. I will tell the bon and learned member my view of what he described as the slackening of interest in the Irish cause. There was in 1886 and onward until 1892 a passionate awakening of the national conscience in respect of Ireland, and to those treasures cf genius and eloquence and enthusiasm which were formed by the member for Midlothian into the most heroic task of all his heroic life. By this time that pastionate awakening has been transformed, so far as my observation goes, from the stage of passion into a firm and steadfast conviction of National honour and National duty. I repeat, in my judgment, this firm conviction of the impossibility of governing Ireland on the old lines, the necessity of regenerating the national character in Ireland, and building up institutions in Ireland by selfgovernment is not one whit slackened and not one whit weakened. Mr Healy, in the course of bis speech, said— When we are told of what tbe deceased Mr Parnell would have done on this occasion and what he wonld have done upon another, and remembering the fact that there is now a Land Bill in promise from the Government,

my mind goes back to May, 1881, when Lord Edmund Fitzmanrice, from an opposite bench moved a hostile amendment with reference, not to the policy of the Government, but with reference to a minute portion of the Act of 1881— viz., the question whether what are called English managed estates should be cxc uded from the free sale provisions of the Act. We had the Government at our mercy, because there was a large section of tbe Liberal party, since mainly the Liberal-Unionist party, then attacking the member for Midlothian (Mr Gladstone). We could have put the Government oat of office. It wag a Coercion Government. It was the Government that held Mr Davitt and macyo'herß in gaol. What was the policy of the late Mr Parnell ? Did he eeizo the opportunity lo turn the Government out of office when he could have done it, and could have come back thirty stronger even upon the old franchise ? No, sir, the member for Cork (Mr Parnell) said we could put the Government ont of office, but we should lose the Land Bill, and he voted and we voted, and probably tho member for Waterford (Mr Bedmond) voted with the Liberal Government upon that occasion merely for tbe pake of keeping in office, not a Home Bule Government, but a Government tbat offered remedial tenure for Irish farms. What is the occasion to-night? Tbe member for Waterford recites in Sbakesperian style the seven stages of Home Rule. But there was one Btage of Home Bule which it was remarkable that he should have forgotten, and that the only stage to which I attach any considerable importance — namely, the passing through the House of the; Home Bule Bill of 1895, and fancy a gentleman getting up in tbe House and giving an account of the progress of Home Bule who omits the slight incident of the framing and drafting and passage of taat measure.