People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, 12 September 1912, Page 41

People We Hear About

Lord Bute on his pilgrimage to Lourdes was accompanied by his pipers, Messrs. Macpherson and Macphee—both staunch Highland Catholics. Speaking at a banquet given in his honor at Montreal, Sir Wilfrid Laurier declared that Canada could never become an adjunct of the United States except with the consent of the. Canadian people, which could not be obtained by all the wealth of the States. . Alexander M. Sullivan, appointed last month his Majesty’s third Serjeant-at-Law in Ireland, has law in his blood. His father, the late A. M. Sullivan,' was one of four famous brothers, of whom Mr. T. D. Sullivan (the veteran poet to whom his country is indebted for many stirring ballads) survives. Mr. Alexander Sullivan is no less favored in his cousins Mr. Tim Healy being of the number. The new Ser-jeant-at-Law is a member of both the Irish and English Bars, and took silk four years ago. Like his father, he is keenly interested in temperance reform; but, unlike his father, his three uncles, and two of his cousins, he has never sought Parliamentary honors. He married, some six years ago, Helen, daughter of Mr. John D. Keiley, of Brooklyn, New York. At a dinner given in Dublin the other day to the delegates of the Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and eland, Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., in responding to the toast of ‘Literature,’ aroused laughter by saying that it was many years since he went into a bookseller’s shop to see if anyone was buying a book of his. It was, he said, of Irish literature he had to speak, and in that connection he thought that some of the most beautiful things had been written by Dr. Douglas Hyde. He paid a glowing tribute to the works of Jane Barlow! Emily Lawless, and Bernard Shaw, the writer of The Experiences of an Irish 11. M., and said that from an Irish standpoint they must always appreciate the name of Mrs. J. R. Green. No man of letters, added Mr. Gwynn, stood higher than Mr. Yeats, and the poet who took the pen-name of ‘ A.E.,’ and he thought if a census of opinion were taken that Synge’s Riders to the Sea would be held to be the most remarkable piece of writing of its kind in recent years. In seconding a vote of thanks to Mr. Redmond for presiding at the great meeting addressed by the Prime Minister in Dublin on July 19, the Right Hon. Thomas Shillington, P.C., an Ulster Presbyterian, said: I shall not presume to repeat the admirable language in which the Prime Minister has characterised the Irish Leader, and the services he and his Party have rendered to the country. Ido not know whether the Irish people are fully aware of and appreciate the. lead which Mr. Redmond has given to the statesmanship of the world! I am a student sometimes of the foreign newspapers, and I find in the story of the proceedings of the Legislatures of Europe the action of the. Irish Leader is again and again set up for the imitation of political leaders. I am sure I, will have the full sympathy ,of every heart and mind in this great audience when I say that we, one and all, render to Mr. Redmond our best praise and thanks and our ; warmest tribute "of admiration for the amazing skill with which he and his Party have brought this great question to the verge of successful accomplishment. Mr. Redmond to-day stands higher in the estimation of the people of Ulster and I don’t exclude the Unionists of Ulster—ever he did before. They tell me that he is an amazing leader, and that if it did not happen that we had such a leader to carry the Home Rule question to a triumphant success, we would not have succeeded.. That is a tribute I have heard from Unionists in Ulster again and again towards one of the results of Mr. Redmond’s leadership. ; .