People We Hear About.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 10, 7 March 1901, Page 10

People We Hear About.

A very remarkable figure at the recent meeting of the Irish Literary Society, in London, was Mr. W. Gibson, the son and heir of Lord Ashbourne. Two or three years ago he joined the Catholic Church, and he has become a Btrong Nationalist, so far, at least, as Irish literature, history, and antiquities are concerned. At this meeting he was dressed in the ancient national dress of Ireland, and he is lean ing to ope<ik Lho Irioh language Lord Asfcbcurne, as a good old Tory, muet be rather puzzled. All of us know (says M.A.P.) that the Duke of Norfolk has vast wealth, is premier Duke of England, a K.G., and — to descend to bathos — was till lately Postmoster-General. But everyone may not realise the many privileges attached to his position. As EarlMarshail he has entire control over the arrangements in Westminster Abbey at the time of a coronation or other publio ceremonial, and all announcements as to detail are issued by him. By virtue of this office the Duke can, if he wish, claim the right to an escort of cavalry on any special occasion. He is also by birth Hereditary Chief Butler of England, and at a coronation is entitled to receive a drinking cup of pure gold. The late Mr. Ignatius Donnelly was of Irish parentage. He visited Europe in 1888, making then a protracted stay in Fintona, County Tyrone, of which his father was a native. Mr. Donnelly had many claims to distinction besides those arising from his position as a Shakespearian commentator. He was something of a poet, the author of a number of prose volumes, and most of all a politician and orator. A lawyer by profession, he held many publio offices in the United States, where he was familiarly known as Governor Donnelly, a term borrowed from an office he held in his resident State. His sister, Miss Eleanor C. Donnelly, is a poetess of more than American repute. She writes largely for the Aye Maria, and her work has the impress of a truly poetic imagination, a felicitous diction, and withal a mind thoroughly imbued with Christian sentiments and Catholio piety. The obtaining of a ' research degree ' at an English University by a French Father of the ' Missions Etrangeres ' of Paris, a missionary in British India, is an event as unique as it is remarkable. The Rev. Louis Froger, of Christ's College and St. Edmund's House, Cambridge, and a member of the above famous Missionary Society, was recently duly admitted B.A. at Cambridge as an ' advanced Research Student,' after due presentation and examination of his dissertation. The learned missionary had already successfully taken his M.A. degree at the London University last summer. He has now returned to teach in St. Joseph's College, Bangalore (Mysore), in which he was already teaching before going to England. Anothpr of the staff, the Rev. Stephen Schmitt, took hia London M A. degree two years ago. The distinguished Irish writer and journalist, John Augustus O'Shea, the ' Irish Bohemian,' who has fallen on evil days, gives a brief account of his career in a recent number of Mr. T. P. O'Connor's weekly. He says : — ' I first saw the light in Nenagh, the capital of North Tipperary, somewhere about the forties. My memory of my father — the kindest and best of men — may be said to date from Maryborough, the capital town of Queen's County, in the precincts of the ancient Pale. We lived in Coburg Row, a pretentiously named Btreet, opposite the school-house kept by '• Jerry " Gorman, who had failed for a fellowship in Trinity College and was much respected by the gentry of the district. He taught me all the Latin and Greek he knew ; his school was attended by Protestants, and I was the only Catholic there for a long period. My father was a journalist ; indeed he was the "doyen" of Irish journalist", and my first effort in journalism was as a leader-writer. I wrote the opening article to a paper of which my ancle, Mr. Peter Gill, was proprietor, while I was at the Catholic University, but before I went to the University, when I was 15 years old, I wrote a sketch of the Great Heath race meeting, near Maryborough, of which Lcrd Waterford was the hero— Harry, "The Wild Marquis," afterwards killed in the hunting-field. Destined for the medical profession, I was applying myself seriously to it when a wave of excitement passed over Ireland on behalf of the Holy See, and, as I always had a hankering for the military profession, thinking that Italy would give me the opportunity I desired to combine surgery with soldiering, I started one fine morning for that country. I joined the Irish battalion, declined a commission, and attained the rank of Foriere after a couple of months. Included in the capitulation after the bombardment of Ancona, I thought it well to make my escape through the enemy's lines, and crossed the Appenines to Rome, where I had an audience of the late Pontiff, Pio Nono.' For several years Mr. O'Shea eked out an existence in London by adapting plays from novels and such like work. Later on we find him in Paris where he acted as correspondent for Irish and American newspapers. After a time he was appointed representative of the London Standard, and was tbe first to bring prominently before the English public the Ober-Ammergau Passion Play. He acted as correspondent for the same paper during the Franco-German war, and was in Paris during the siege. His subsequent work for the Starulard included journeys 'to India to record the famines ; to Ireland, once with the Prince of Wales and once with General Grant ; to Canada with the Marquis of Lome ; to Egypt and to Cyprus with the then Sir Garnet Wolseley. I attended Dutch fetes, a Swedish coronation, a Vienna exhibition, and a Carlist campaign.'

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