AN EMINENT IRISHMAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 37, 14 January 1898, Page 27

AN EMINENT IRISHMAN.

Rev. Daniel William Cahill, whose name has been for half a century a household word among the Irish people everywhere, was born in Queen's County in 17%. his father being an eminent engineer and surveyor. From his earliest years he studied with earnestness the pure mathematics, as well as the popular sciences.

It would appear that his father intended him either for his own profession, or for the army. And, indeed, as regards physique, spirit, and nobility of presence, it would not be easy to find better material for a soldier. He was of Irish and Spanish origin, and his bearing, temperament, and splendid bodily development, combined the prominent characters of both races. As he humorously remarked in one of his lectures, he was as tall sitting as most men standing. He was bix feet five inches in stature, of majestic and graceful proportions, and every movement denoted grace, energy, and power. "His head," says his biographer, "was like that of Canova's best masterpiece, a model which a phrenologist would select as a specimen of perfect development, and when he became animated in the course of a lecture, sermon, or public address, the great intellectual power of the man beamed from his countenance, and especially from his dark, deep eyes — the reflex of his genius." And the triumphant success of his eloquence attended him in the broader arena of religious controversy, of polemical and political tilting ; in historical analysis and research ; in short, every department of literature in which he took the field he was a general in tactics, as well as a giant in combat. Naturally gifted with uncommon fluency of speech he cultivated it into a style of unsurpassed clearness, flexibility, and power. In this style are presented throughout his career some of the noblest productions of genius, •whether we regard poetical inspiration, logical acumen, depth of erudition, or power or elucidation.

After studying at Carlow College for some time he entered Maynooth, where he studied philosophy and theology under the late Archchbishop McHale. After his ordination, in 1824, he was for some time professor of philosophy in Carlow College.

When Ireland was emerging- from the horrible famine — years of unparalleled misery — Dr. Cahill passed over to England, and spent four years, from 1851 to 1855, almost wholly in that country. It was at this period that he commenced his series of public letters

to Lord John Russell, and his eloquent denunciation of the freetrade policy forced upon the people of Ireland, resulting in the decimation of the people by emigration and starvation, created a profound impression throughout Europe. Dr. Cahill was an enthusiastic admirer of America and American institutions. He visited the United States in 1860, and received an enthusiastic reception from Americans of every race and creed. After four years of constant travel and lecturing for charitable purposes, Dr. Cahill died at Boston, on October 27, 1864. His remains were interred in Holywood cemetery, in that city, where they rested for twenty years.

A sketch of Dr. Cahill would be] incomplete without a glance through some of his brilliant efforts of voice and pen. We append a few selections from which a partial estimate of his genius, eloquence and devotion to Ireland may be formed. At a St. Patrick's Day dinner in Glasgow, Scotland, in the course of his address, " How Irish history is learned," he said :—: — " The history of other countries is learned from the cool pen of the historian, but that of Ireland is learned from the crimsoned tombs of the dead. The history of other nations is collected from the growing population and successful commerce, but the sad story of Ireland is gathered from the deserted village, and the mournfulswelling canvas of the emigrant ship. You gave me too much, credit for those slender productions of mine, and perhaps you are not aware that it was on the graves of the starved and shroudless victims of English misrule I stood when I indited the epistles. I dated them from the grave pits of Sligo and the fever sheds of Skibbereen. If I seemed to weep it was because I followed to coffinless tombs tens of thousands of my poor persecuted fellowcountrymen. ... It was not my mind, but my bosom that dictated ; it was not my pen, but my heart that wrote the record. And where is the Irishman who would not feel an involuntary impulse of national pride in asserting the invincible genius of our own creed, while he gazes on the crumbling walls of our ancient churches, which, even in their old age, lift their hoary heads as faithful witnesses of the past struggles of our faith, and still stand in their massive framework, resisting to the last the power of the despoiler, and scarcely yielding to the inevitable stroke of time 1 And where is the heart so cold that would not pour forth a boiling torrent of national anger at seeing the children of forty generations consigned to a premature grave or banished by cruel laws to seek among the strangers the protection they are refused at home 1 "

On March 17, 1860, in his oration in the Academy of Music, New York city, on " The Fidelity of Ireland in Defence of her Liberties and lleligion," upon which occasion he was introduced by Archbishop Hughes, Dr. Cahill said : " When I went out to look at the procession (speaking of the St. Patrick's Day parade) I was delighted to see the number of banners, the cap of liberty over the harp of Ireland, and what I was very glad to see was the American flag side by side with every banner as it passed my hotel. The Stars and Stripes went, if I may use the expression, hand in hand with the harp of Ireland. How I longed to be a great man, as 1 saw everyone uncover his head as he passed the statue of Washington. I was delighted to see such worship, if I may so speak, offered to the memory of the dead. Thousands of men taking off their hats and bending themselves in humble posture as they passed by the ' Father of his country.' "

In an address on " The Famine," delivered in Liverpool, England, August 30, 1852, he said : '• I saw this famine and looked at it. Of those that left the country 10,000 alone perished at Grosse Isle.

" Two thousand perished with famine and scarlet fever, and those two thousand lay in Sligo field for two days without an awning over them, and yet there were 24,000,000 pounds of gold in the British Treasury. Who can paint that but an Irishman / '• No man could believe, going through Clare, the extermination that took place in those days. There were miles of road, and no one on it. During the famine fever I saw little children, perfectly well, except wanting food, with not a smile on their faces. The little children starving, and fever in their house, their father or mother dead, and the little things crept about without a smile on their faces. Lamentation covered the country like a cloud." The effect produced by the letters of Dr. Cahill was, if possible, greater than that caused by his oratory. Writing to Lord Russell in 1852, he thus spoke : "You have made my country a desert; you, sir, from an exchequer filled with 18 millions of bullion, you doled out in withering insult (as to the beggars of a foreign country) a miserable and totally inadequate relief ; and you called by the name of charity, an act which should be designated the first demand on the realm and the highest duty of the Crown. Lord Stanley paid

20 millions sterling to give liberty to a few descendants of African

slaves in your pretty West Indian colonies ; to men who never manned your fleets or swelled your armies, or fought for your name. But you, sir. grudgingly lent in part, and bestowed in part, the paltry sum of eight millions to aid the last struggle for life of a faithful people. But the history of all nations will tell that you permitted five in ten to perish of hunger while your exchequer was filled with gold.

" You, therefore, sir, have made my country a desert — you have banished and starved the people — you have made a grave for the Irish, and you have buried our race and name."