People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 49, 5 December 1907, Page 28

People We Hear About

Count George jFjlunket, who has been appointed Direc- ' tor of the Science and Art Museum., Dublin, bears a - Papal •title. The Dublin .Metropolitan School of Art and the National Library of Ireland conic under his juris- . ' diction. Count Plunket is~ a recognised authority both-, .in art and literature. • I-Je has, paid many-visits to the art centres of Italy, and his published works include' v a book on Botticelli-. Count Plunket has taken an active part in the movements for promoting the language, literature, and industries of Ireland. Richard D' Alton Williams, whose beautiful verse was-., quoted by his Eminence Cardinal Moran at the golden jubilee celebration of St. Vincent's Hospital the other , day, wrote ' The Munster War-Song ' for ' The Nation.' when he was a schoolboy at barlow. He was born in Tipperary in 1821, tried for treason-felony in 1848, but acquitted. In 1849 he took his medical degree in Edinburgh, practised in Dublin for a few years, and then emigrated to the United States, where he became professor of Belles Lettresi in Mobile, Alabama, and in 1856 began practice # as a physician in New Orleans. He died in 1862,. A monument has been raised him by an Irish- American Regiment which camped "near his grave, during the Civil War. His poems have been published in. . book form in Dublin. ' - Senor Don Bernardo de Cologan, "recently appointed , " Spanish Minister- to Mexico, is descended from, a County Meath family, the McC'olgans, who followed the Stuarts into, exile afterj they Battle of '£he Boyne - one of the „ Wild Geese, as these emigrant families ; were called in the Irish romances of the period". His ancestors settled in Tenerifie, where Don Juan Cologan (Don Bernardo's great-grandfather), was a firm ally of the naturalists and* scientists who visited the island, and Baron Humboldt has left a warm acknowledgment of his courtesy. A ' newly discovered genus of plant was named Cologania, out of compliment to Don Juan. Later, by .intermarriage with the Franqui family, a Cologan became owner of the property on which stood the, dragon tree Orotava —one of the most wonderful trees in the world. Don Tomas de Cologan, Marquez de la Candia, the Mexican minister's father, • gave most of his children a partly English education. His first diplomatic service was as attache at the Spanish Embassy at Athens ; and his subsequent record includes service at Caracas,' Constantinople, Mexico, Bogota , Pekin (where he was minister from '1894 to 1900), Tangier and Lisbpn. The Cologans are not unmindful of their Irish descent, for, in the parish church of Orotova, there is a Cologan chapel,, in which on each St. Patrick's Day Mass is offered up for the family. An effort is being made in Australia at the present time to raise a sum sufficient to purchase an annuity or imake provision in some other way for the widow of Dr. Kevin 1,, O'Doherty, ' Eva ' of ' The Nation.' The ' Freeman's Journal' gives the ' following sketch of the lady's career :— ' Mr§. O'Doherty's maiden name was Eva Mary Kelly. She^was bom at Headfort, Co. Galway, and was but a girl when ' The Nation ' was founded. In her sixteenth year the editor, Charles Gavan Duffy, -published her first ballad. She thenceforth contributed weekly to 'The Nation' until its suppression seven years later. Among other ladies who contributed to ' The Nation ' were Ellen "Mary Patrick Downing (' Mary ') and Lady Wilde (' Speranza '). ' Eva ' also wrote for the Irish 1 Tribune ' which succeeded .' The Nation, \ with which . journal Dr. Kevin, Izod O'Doherty, Richard p'Alton Williams, John Savage, and others were identified. ' Eva ' ' became engaged to young O'Doherty, then a medical student, and' on his conviction for -writing,a leading article alleged to be seditious, he was sentenced to ten years' transportation. She promised to wait for him, and faithfully kept her promise. On his release and relurn to Dublin they were married.. Late in the fifties they settled in Brisbane, where Mrs. O'Doherty still resides with an only daughter— her husband and her other children having died. Mrs. O'Doherty also contributed to ' Irish People ' and the Sydney ' Freeman's Journal,' 'An edition of her poems .was published in 1877 in San Francisco. The Emperor of Austria states that to the plain manner in which -he has always lived he owes his excellent health and * long life. His Majesty is quite content with milk and porridge for his breakfast, and although a* somewhat elaborate menu is • prepared for luncheon when other members the Austrian Royal Family are present, the Emperor is usually satisfied with a little cold poultry, followed by cheese, of which he is very fond. His Majesty does not care a great deal for fish, and the only soup of which he can be said to be really fond is Scotch broth.