Some Irish Members of Parliament.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 47, 20 November 1902, Page 15

Some Irish Members of Parliament.

Reference was made in our columns a few days ago (says the London ' Daily News ') to a report which had appeared elsewhere to the effect that Mr. James F. X. O'Brien intended to resign his membership for Cork. We neither denied nor endorsed the rumor, but we are glad now to be able to give the following characteristic contradiction from the hon. member. Mr. O'Brien writes to the ' Daily News ' :—: — ' I have no .idea who the person is who takes such an interest in my affairs. A friend would hardly venture to send such a statement to the Press without assuring himself of its .correctness by communicating with mci, and toy obtaining my consent. Permit me to say the statement has not been authorised by me, and, further, it is untrue ' Mr. J. F. X. O'Brien is one of tho two members of the House who have been sentenced to death,, but the only one who ever incurred, or is likely to incur, the barbarous sentence to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Mr. O'Brien learned to shoulder a tyun in the American civil war. The agitation conducted by Stephens brought him back to old Ireland to take part in the Fenian rising. Mr. O'Brien was arrested for his share in the exploit, and sentenced as aforesaid, though the capital senr tence was aftenwards commuted, in view of his humanity at a police barracks, to penal servitude for. life. Some, years later Mr. O'Brien received benefit of an amnesty, and became a grocer and wiine merchant in Dublin. He has been in the House of Commons since 1885, and is both liked and respected there. The othier member of Parliament who has narrowly escaped execution is Mr. James O 'Kelly, the Nationalist member for Roscommon, than whom few men have had more adventurous careers. In the days of his youth ho proceeded from Dublin University to Sorbonne in Paris, and, during the ■Franco-German War he joined tho French army, in which he attained the rank of captain. After Sedan he went to America, and joined the staff of tho ' New York Herald.' Acting as the correspondent of this paper during the insurrection in Cuba, he \entured within the rebel lines, and was captured and sentenced to be shot. Thanks, however, to the intervention of Senor Castelar, his life was spared. Mr. O'Kelly afterwards accompanied, as a journalist, the expedition against tho Indian chief, Sitting Bull. During the first Soudan campaign he acted as correspondent for the ' Daily News,' and attempted to reach the camp of the Mahdi, but was stopped by the Egyptians at Dongola. M. Olivier Paiin, who was with him, got through the Egyptian lines — and has never been heard of since .