A PRACTICAL IRISH PATRIOT

New Zealand Tablet, 14 December 1916, Page 51

A PRACTICAL IRISH PATRIOT

A hundred years ago this year, Charles Gavan Duffy, the Irish poet, patriot, and practical statesman, was born. In an ' article on his achievements,’ the Dublin Leader stresses the practical quality of his patriotism. It says : Duffy was a man in whose life, both private and public, practical wisdom and practical ability were conspicuous and these are qualities that Irishmen who take part in public affairs will do well to cherish. His first important undertaking- was the founding and editing of the X at ion newspaper, and surely no more useful or practical work could have been planned or executed at that period of our history. It was on October 15, 1842, that the first number appeared. The editor was only twenty-six. He was self-educated save for a few months spent in a Presbyterian academy at Monaghan. But he gathered round him a memorable company of men of genius and public spirit, including Thomas Davis, Clarence Mangan, Denis Florence McCarthy, John Cornelius O’Callaghan, John Mitchel, John O’Hagan, Lady Wilde. The Nation during the six years of its existence prior to its suppression in 1848, under Duffy’s able editorship, conferred benefits on the Irish people the magnitude of which it would be difficult to exaggerate. It is sometimes said in disparagement of the paper that its writers were dreamers and poets, and men of unpractical ideas. It is no doubt true that one, at least, of its most gifted contributors, poor Clarence Mangan, led an unpractical life ; but the paper itself in Duffy’s able hands was as sane and practical an organ of opinion as any country could boast of. It fostered Irish talent, it afforded an outlet for Irish literary genfus; it revived interest in Irish historical study it encouraged Irish industries; it defended the Irish name and character from a host of unscrupulous assailants. What can be more sane and practical than to give scope and liberal encouragement to the poet, the orator, the essayist, the historian, the reformer of abuses, the fosterer of native products. The writers of the Nation , under the guidance of their editor, focussed the light of their genius with a view to kindling the flame of Irish learning and exploring the dark places of Irish history. They pooled their energies in a supreme effort to rebuild the Irish nation on industrial and economic, no less than on political lines. And they succeeded to an extraordinary extent. Not even the famine and the plague of later years by which our unhappy country was scourged could wholly destroy the edifice they had .set about erecting or obliterate the landmarks of national endeavor they had succeeded in tracing. Thus was the Nation a wise and pr ctical organ of Irish opinion, the creation of the brain of a highly gifted and practical man. After the famine of 1847 and the State prosecutions of 1848, Duffy, whom the Government had failed to convict, turned the stream of his energies into another practical channel. He was for five or six years one of the leading figures in the Tenant Right’ movement that united North and South for a season. The movement was conducted by sincere and able men of the stamp of George Henry Moore and Frederick Lucas, founder and editor of the Tablet. But the defection of William Keogh, who left the popular party ‘ just for a handful of silver’ and for the ribbon of the judgeship to stick in his coat,’ and the wholesale forgeries and melancholy end of Sadlier, as well as other difficulties that can not be dwelt on here, broke up the party, and Duffy, declaring that there was no more hope for Ireland than for a corpse on the dissecting table, sold his interest in the Nation and sailed for Victoria in 1855. ■ . In the colony of Victoria he was destined to spend a quarter of a century broken only by visits to Europe in 1865 and 1874. He rose to eminence in the legislature, becoming Prime Minister in 1871, and Speaker of the House of Assembly in 1877. His life in the

southern hemisphere was guided my the.same practical spirit which directed his energies in Ireland; \ -7 .