JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY

New Zealand Tablet, 21 May 1914, Page 19

JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY

In this issue we commence the publication of Moondyne, a thrilling story, based on' liis experiences as a convict in Western Australia, by John Boyle O'Reilly, poet, novelist, and journalist. John Boyle O'Reilly was born at Douth Castle, Drogheda, in 1844, his father being a National school teacher. After leaving school he was apprenticed to the printing trade in his native town, and later on joined the staff of the Guardian, Preston, England. Eventually he became a trooper in the Tenth Hussars, and at the same time entered actively into the Fenian movement. He was betrayed to the authorities, court-martialled, and received a life sentence, which, owing to his extreme youth, was commuted to twenty years' penal servitude in Western Australia. After some time in the penal establishments of England he was sent out to serve the remainder of his sentence. This is how he was described at the time in the official organ of the penal settlement: ' 20, John B. O'Reilly, registered No. 9843, Imperial convict; arrived in the colony per convict ship Hougoumont, in 1868; sentenced to twenty years', July .9, 1866. Description: Healthy appearance; present age 25 years; sft 7|in in height, black hair, brown eyes, oval visage, dark complexion; an Irishman. Absconded '" from convict road party, Bunbury, on February 18, 1869.' After suffering many hardships and numberless indignities at the hands of brutal officials, and worst of :, all having to associate with the lowest class of criminals ' murderers and burglars— with the assistance of a couple of countrymen, managed to get on board an American whaler, by which he was taken to the Cape of Good Hope, where he joined another American vessel as an ' able seaman.' and finally reached America. In the year following his arrival in America (1870), O'Reilly was appointed editor of the Boston Pilot, and later on became part-proprietor of that journal. His books include four volumes of ; poems a novel, Moondyne, and collaboration in another novel. A sincere Catholic, his great' influence, used lavishly in forwarding the interests of younger Catholics destined for special careers, and in lifting up the lowly without « regard to any claim but their need, was for twenty years a valuable factor in Catholic progress in America. ' He passed away in August, 1890, mourned not alone by Irishmen at home and. abroad, but also by the foremost men in all circles in his adopted country. In a word," his death was looked upon as a national calamity in the United States. . On hearing of it Cardinal Gibbons said: .' It is a public calamity—notvonlyl a loss to

the country, but a loss to the Church and humanity :in general.' The introduction .to O'Reilly's collected works was written by his Eminence. The best monument to a great and good man (says the Cardinal) are the works with which his hand and his head, have enriched the whole world—more fittingly than by towering shaft of granite or of marble will the name of John Boyle O'Reilly be immortalised by this collection of his writings. On this, his cenotaph, perejinius,'.' I dutifully, though sorrowfully, lay this wreath of admiration for the geniusof love for the man. ' Few men have felt so powerfully the divinus afflatus of poesy; few natures have been so fitted to give it worthy response. . As strong as it was delicate and tender, as sympathetic and tearful as it was bold, his soul was a harp of truest tone, which felt the touch of the ideal everywhere, and spontaneously breathed responsive music, joyous or mournful, vehement or soft. Such a nature needed an environment of romance, and romantic indeed was his career throughout/ In boyhood his imagination feasts on the weird songs and legends of the Celt; in youth his heart agonises over the saddest and strangest romance in all history wrongs and woes of his motherland, that Niobe of the nations; 1 in manhood, because he dared to wish her free, he finds himself a doomed felon, an exiled convict in what he calls himself "the nether world"; then, bursting his prison bars, a hunted fugitive, reaching the haven of this land of liberty penniless and unknown, but rising by the sheer force of his genius and his worth till the best and the noblest in our country vie in doing honor to his name. ' Who can recall an outburst of grief so universal and so genuine as that evoked by his all too early and sudden death ? At the sad news numberless hearts in all the lands which speak our English tongue stood still as in anguish for the loss of a brother or a friend. In accents trembling with the eloquence of emotion, countless tongues in our own and in other climes have paid unwonted tribute to his worth; great thinkers and writers have lauded his genius ; the lowly and unlettered are mourning him .who was ever humanity's friend. The country of his adoption vies with the land of his birth in testifying to. the uprightness of his life, the usefulness of his career and his example, the gentleness of his character, the nobleness of his soul. The bitterest prejudices of race and of creed seem to have been utterly conquered by the masterful goodness of - his heart and the winning sweetness of his tongue,, and to have turned into all the great admiration for the man. With all ,these voices I blend my own, and in their name I say that the world is brighter for having possessed him, and mankind will be the better for the treasury of pure and generous and noble thoughts which he has left us in his works.'