ARTICLE OCR TRANSCRIBED
FROM THE
BROOKLYN EAGLE
August 2, 1885
Note: OCR [optical character recognition] is an imperfect way of transcribing documents there are always errors in spite of my editing the result. A researcher wanting to be precise in their quotations should consult the actual newspaper as presented online by the Brooklyn Public Library. Copying this transcription for commercial use is prohibited. Any questions should be directed to the staff at the Brooklyn Public Library
Brooklyn Eagle web Page:
http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/eagle/index.htm
X
THE FENIAN MOVEMENT
An Account of its Origin, Progress
and Temporary Collapse.
By Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa
The Mission in Connacht - Edward Duffy. Meeting in Galway--The Irish Language. Meeting Men In Athenry, Ballinasloe, Ballymote, Sligo and Other Places–P. W. Dunne's People–Meetings in the Mountains Near Keish Caves–Society Against Society–In Ireland and America–The Clan nu Gael Society Turned Into an American Republican Politician Society–Saddled on Ireland's Miseries–Moyne Abbey–Killala's Round Tower–Irish Protestant Nationalists Faithful. Protestant anti-Catholic Bishops Denouncing Fenianism–Meettng George Henry Moore, of Mayo–Arranged Interview Between himself and Stephens – The Fenians of England. Want Permission to Fire the Cities–Marrying a Fenian Poetess–Opposition of the Priests
Having made my arrangements for a month's tour in the west of Ireland, I set out and met Edward Duffy, by appointment, in my travels. In Galway, the City of the Tribes, we met some of the men, and it was arranged that a more general meeting for consultation would ho held the following Sunday, On the banks of a small river, a few miles to the north of the city. Sunday came and the men came, too, bringing with them as much food and kitchen as made a small picnic. A number of the men I met that day are dead, the only one of them I can catch living now is Patrick O'Connor, a gunsmith, doing business in New Haven, Conn. He, too, may ho considered dead–dead to Ireland–because in America he joined in with the crowd who went in for getting "land without striking a blow." Gracious goodness, when I think of the good men at home who grow rotten when they come to America, I begin to think there is a far seeing wisdom In England's policy of trying to get the Irish to emigrate to America. She pretends it is of the Irish in America she is afraid, but it is only pretense; it is of the Irish in Ireland and England she Is afraid; one rebel Irishmen at home is worth 100 of his kind in distant America.
After Edward Duffy and I had spent the day with the Galway men outside of Galway town, we came into the city in the evening, went down to the Claddagh where the fishormen live and were taken over the bay in one of the large hookers. Those Claddagh fishermen dress in a kind of blue uniform, they speak the Irish language, and English is little known to the older people of the community. England establishes national schools, as she calls them, but when children go to these sellouts they must learn the English language, not the Irish. No Irish books are allowed in the National schools of Ireland–at least were not allowed in my days at school. I learned the English language at one of those National schools. I learned the Irish language at home, away from school, because I, too, was born in a part of Ireland whore the Irish language is the business language of the people. People say I Speak English with a brogue; ‘tis no wonder, English is not my natural tongue. I speak it as correctly as a German speaks it, and the German is not, ridiculed because of the manner in which he speaks English. I grant an Irishman who does not speak grammatically English the same immunity from the charge of ignorance as I grant the Gorman or Frenchman who does not speak English grammatically, that is, provided the Irishman can speak the Irish language.
Front Galway Edward Duffy and I traveled to Athenry, and met some of the men there. We went into that old abbey of which Hardiman, in his books of Irish minstrelsy, tells this story: the castle and abbey were occupied by the English. O'Connor laid siege to the places and was setting them on fire; one of his lieutenants asked him not to lay the abbey In ruins, as the bodies of some bishops were buried there. "I care not," said he, "if it was my mother was buried there. I would lay it in ashes rather than that, the Sassenagh should occupy it." From Athenry, Ned Duffy and I went to Ballinasloe and spent a night there. Ned was known in Ballinasloe and had a standing invitation to the hospitality of Mr. Larkin, a pretty wealthy man who was a brother-in-law to P. W. Dunne, of Peoria, one of the Fenian senators. We should go to supper there, but we should meet the men at suppertime, too. We met the Fenians in a Inn public house, aunt conducted our business with much dispatch as possible, but one member was rather demonstrative; he should get up and make a speech ; he did not see what we were to be afraid of that we would not speak our mind and proclaim our Opinions; as for him he was afraid of no one, and was as ready to fight for his country as he was to proclaim to the world that he was ever ready to do so. From Ballinasloe we went to Roscommon town and spent a night there; from Roscommon to Castlereagh, and spent another night there. From Castlereagh we took a jaunting car to Ballaghadereen, in the County Mayo; we were traveling by night, and passing near a place called Loughglin, Edward Duffy stopped the car at a house on the roadside, saying to me: "It is here my mother lives; let us go in and see her. She'll want to keep us all night, and I know we'll have work to get away from her." He went to the door, the mother met him and kissed him. "Won't you stay till night, Eddie?" said she. “No, mother,” said he, "we have to be in Ballaghadereen to meet the people tonight, and we cannot break the appointment," She parted with him shedding tears, giving him her blessing, Saying: "You can't break the appointment, Eddie, but you can break down your health in this way, night after night as you do." Twas true for the poor mother, Ned Duffy worked the Irish Revolutionary movement for what his health and his life wern worth; when cast into prison, he had not sufficient strength to stand for any length of time the ill treatment of his jailers.
We made Ballaghdereen our headquarters for a few days and from there took drives into the country to see some members of the organization. It was decided to hold a meeting one night on one of the mountains that lay central between Ballymore, Boyle and Ballaghdereen. "Shamus Andy," James Hyland a school teacher who taught school in Scranton. Pa., some years ago, was my guide to the meeting place, and such a night of travel through bogs and brakes I had not before or since. When we got to the meeting place we learned that a few hundred of the men of the district had by mistake gone to another mountain top some three miles distant, near the Keish Caves. the two parties communicated with each other by signal, but did not come together that night. One thing discussed in that mountain that night was this: The brothers of the Irish Revolutionary Society had been working a few years past against much opposition: men who belonged to another Irish society in the locality used to beat them at fair and market and waylay them coming home at night; now they had grown too strong to be beaten, they in fact were able to beat the others, and they wanted permission to beat them into the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. We would not give them the permission. We told them as they were strong they could he merciful, and that the erring brother Irishmen would in time see their way and join the society that would in time effect the freedom of their land. In America this same folly is going on to-day of society fighting against society, every Irish society jealous of the other, and having as much bad blood against each other as the men of the different counties and provinces are said to have had against, each other a half a century ago. Fenianism killed that folly of county against county in Ireland, but the Irish fools of America revive it in the animosity of society against society here; there are thirty-two Irish counties in Ireland, there are thirty-two Irish societies in America and no two of them working harmoniously to do anything for the freedom of Ireland. A society that makes the greatest pretension to patriotism and liberality – the Clan na Gael Society–exempts you from membership if you belong to any Irish revolutionary society. I am ineligible for membership in it because I belong to the Fenian Brotherhood, a brotherhood that receives every man of every creed, provided he be a man of good character and a man of Irish blood. But this Clan na Gael Society has been virtually turned into an American Republican politician society, every prominent man in it was stumping the country for the Republican party at the election last year; they and their schemes were defeated, and the devil mend them. It arouses my ire to see men mount to eminence and prominence making a ladder of my country’s misfortunes, and saddled on the mountain of her miseries, resting content that they are the recognized--the visiblo–leaders of the Irish people, and that it is through them the Irish vote can be managed.
The night Ned Duffy and I met the men on the mountains near the Keish Caves, we traveled into Boyle; It was about one o'cloek when we got to town, we were rapping at the hotel door when Red James MacDermott, who is now living In Philiadelphia, came up and recognized us; he led us to quarters for the night; another good man in Ireland, but a man lost to Ireland in Philadelphia. Next day we went to Carrick on Shannon and met more McDermotts there, good men too; one of them, .Arthur, drowned in a river while he was gunning a short time after we met him. When I think of all these good Irishmen dead–when I think of myself dead, perhaps without striking a blow for Ireland's freedom–I think and ask myself wouldn't it be just as good for oursolves and the world if we had all fighting for freedom of our land and race?
Ballymote was the next place we visited, we stopped at Boyle and Carrick-on-Shannon. We stopped at O'Hara's and met our friends there; it was in this neighborhood General Michael Corcoran, of the American war, was born, and we met some of his friends and acquaintances. Here is the famous old Irish abbey and castle of Ballymote, where the holy fathers wrote the historical "Book of Ballymote." I went through that castle, and a grand castle it must have been in the days of its glory. As it stands now, or as it stood twenty years ago, there was a hallway running through the center of its outer wall, and through that hallway I walked all around, the windows here and there giving you a view of the surrounding country.
From Ballymoto we went to Tubbercurry, the home of P. J. Sheridan, who had to go "on the run'' after Cavendish and Burke were slain in Dublin. I did not meet him in Tubbercurry that time, he was rather young, then, but I met some other good men there. Pat O'Brien, who is now in the Street Cleaning Department of New York with. Commissioner Coleman and Mr Cook, of Providence, Rhode Island, whose faather kept the hotel at which we put up. From Tubbercurry we went to Swineford, thence to Ballina and thence to Killala, where the French landed the last years of the last country. John Sheridan, of Ballina traveled those places with us – another man who thought he would never die till he would see Ireland's fight for freedom, but he went to his long home five or six years ago without seeing the long long wished for hour to hand.
We held a meeting in the ruins of the old Abbey of Moyne, a mile or two outside of It is one of the best preserved relies of those monuments of old Irish grandeur. There is an old Irish round tower in Killala which is the best preserved monumont of the kind that I have seen in Ireland. Anthony Timony's fainmy, now in Brooklyn, saw me at
Killala that day.
Sligo was our next place of meeting. The night we entered thin town the Sligo militia wore on drill there, and we held consultation with thirty or forty of them. They said they would have nearly the whole regiment sworn in before they would disband. Next night we met Tom Ward, Paddy Marrin and Dominick Kilcullen, who were the best trusted men in the locality; they belonged to another Irish society and promised to be with us When the time came to fight against the common enemy, bringing into the field two thousand men. Those three men, Paddy Marrin, Dominick Kilcullen and Tom Ward, are dead. So it is not treasonable or dangerous to them to talk of their names, but their death ought to be a lesson to all men to fight for their rights while they hays youth and strength, and not be waiting for a “time” or an “opportunity” that never comes unless to those who make their own time and opportunity.
From Sligo Edward Duffy and I made our way down to Castlebar, crossing the Mayo lakes over tht Pontoon bridge. There was a police barrack at the off end of the bridge. Some of the polico were playing hand ball in a ball alley attached to it. Ned and I stopped our jaunting car and looked at the game for awhile; we thought it was the best way to avert their attention from us. Dan Donnelly, a baker, was one of the principal men we had to meet in Castlebar. We met him with some others. Dan is gone to his long home, too. After spending a day and night in Castlebar we went to Westport. One of the best workers there was a Protestant young man named Rosengrave, who is now doing business in one of the big dry goods houses in Walker street, New York. The Protestants who belonged to the organization all proved to be good men and none of them turned out informers, if I except Warner, of Bandon, but he was a Protestant who had previously turned himself into a Catholic-had bonnie a turncoat. In the work of organization in Ireland, England and Scotland, I never trusted a man who had been a Protestant and turned Catholic, or a man who had been a Catholic and turned Protestant. I was in North Shields, England, one night; the men told me there was a very patriotic man there who was an officer high up in the labor organizations; they were taking me to his house, but learning on the way that he was a holy Roman Catholic now, but had been bred, born and reared a Protestant, I declined to travel further toward his house, and declined seeing him on the subject of my missionary work. Barney Kane, of Berry Edge and Belfast, was with me that night. If a man is bred, born and reared a Protestant I like to see him live and die one; if a man is bred, born and reared a Catholic I like to see him live and die one; I take no stock in the patriotism or piety of men who change their religion; there may be good stock in them, but I have not trained myself to put trust in it. I saw in America seven or eight years ago that seven or eight of the Catholic bishops in America had been Protestants in their day, and as Catholic bishops they were vehement denouncers of Fenianism. Speaking to a priest on that matter and on the injustice of making those converts or perverts bishops over the heads of priests whose "seed, breed and generation" were ever faithful to the true faith, "Yes," said the priest, "and when one of them turns over to us he thinks there is nothing in the church too good to pay him for what he has done; he thinks the mere act of his turning from a Protestant to a Catholic should entitle him to the highest position the Catholic Church could bestow." This was said of converts who had been in holy orders in the Protestant Church before they turned.
But I must come back to my story: I must not leave Edward Duffy travel through Connacht alone. Ned and I hired a jaunting car at Daly's hotel in Castlebar one day and drove out to Balla, a distance of seven or eight miles. When we got into the town we learned that George Henry Moore, Justice of the Peace of Moore Hall, was in town, and as I had a letter of introduction to him from Thomas Neilson Underwood, of Tyrone, I determined to deliver it. He was in tile Court House, and into the Court House I went; I sat down there listening to the magistrates trying a case. Mr. Blake, a brother in law of George, Henry Moore, was either plaintiff or defendant in the case, on which account Mr. Moore did not take a seat on the bench; he sat among the spectators. By and by, when the hearing in the lawsuit was concluded. George Henry Moore came out and walked toward the hotel. As he was going to the house I arrested his attention quietly, saying;
"I beg your pardon, sir, 1 understand you are Mr. George Henry Moore, of Moore Hall, I have a. letter of introduction to you from Mr. Neilson Underwood of Strabane. I wish to deliver it to you privately." "Walk along with us into the hotel." said he. I did so. I gave him tho letter. He read It. He asked tine," How are you here – have you any conveyance? Where are you going?' I told him I had a friend with me, that we brought a car with us front Castlebar and were on our way to Tuam.
"Now,” said he, "Mr. Blake, my brother its law is here with me. I want to have some talk with you, but we cannot have him present and I cannot get away from him intro; can you not drive on to Moore Hall an hour or so after I leave here? It is on your way to Tuam; we can then talk this business over.'' " All right, Mr. Moore," said I, "We’ll do that," and
1 slipped away from him.
Moore Hall was five or six miles distant, and we got there in due time. Mr. Moore walked through the lawn with us and talked over the past and the present and the future of Ireland. He had an idea that the best tray to meet the difficulties that beset us was to have men at the chapel gates on Sundays with pen, ink and paper, taking down the names of all who were willing to fight "in defense of the country in time of danger." That would be working within the law, or at least in evasion of the law, and then when the danger came, when the time to fight came, those men who put down their names to fight should be made to fight whether they liked it or not." You cannot," said he, "get the messes of the People into your society against the wishes of the priests, nor can you keep the existence of a secret society secret against their public denunciations of it. I am not speaking now for myself; I am only speaking for what you have to encounter in organizing your resources."
George Henry Moore Impressed mo with the belief that he was one of the most important men in Ireland for our cause. I could not go any further with him than I wont; he was ready and willing to go with me as far an I liked. I wished him to meet James Stephens, and he expressed his willingness to do so as soon as I could arrange a meeting. James Stephens was then in England, and it was arranged that as soon as he returned to Dublin I was to send word to Mr. Moore that “the horses had arrived from England, and it he wished to see them before they were taken to the Curragh he could come up to Dublin immediately.”
Moore Hall is one of the lordly mansions of Ireland. George Henry Moore told us that day that it cost him as much every year to keep all its old Irish appurtenances in repair as would build a moderate mansion. He asked us to see his stable of race horses; he took us into the dinning room and ordered some wine from the cellar; he said we should stay for dinner, only that it was Friday and on Fridays the family observed the observances of the Catholic Church and had only fish dinners. We spent a most agreeable evening, with George Henry Moore, and parted with him, promising him to let him have the earliest notice of Mr. Stephens return home. Ned Duffy and I were in high spirits at our interview with him. Our carman kept waiting for us for fear we would miss Bianconi's stage coach that was to pass that way to Tuam, and just as we came out on the road we saw the stage coming toward us in the distance. We paid off our Jarvey and sent him toward Caslebar. As the stage came up we got seats on it. About two miles down the road we stopped at the stables to change horses, and as the stable man canto out, leading the fresh horses, he gave a screech that frightened around him. "Holy Jehosophat: Mr. O'Donovan how in the world are you, and what brought you into Connacht?" said he as he let go the horses and caught, me by the two hands. His name was Hogan: he was a Tipperary man and was in Bianconi’s stables in Skibbereen a few years before that, where he came to know me. Lately he had been transferred to Connacht. I told him to keep his knowedge of me to himself, to tell no one who I was, and as the coach rolled on he had a bonfire of straw lit and kept hurrahing and waving the burning sheaves after us till we were out of sight. Poor Hogan! ‘tis in hearts like yours the fire of Irish patriotism burns brightly; 'tis spirits like yours that cheer me on my way.
At Tuam, in the County Galway, we put up at Daly's Hotel, and met the men of the district. We took a car out as far as Dunmore and met some more of them there. Wo then went into Longford, Westmeath and Meath, and gave the men in those places all the encouragement we could. Many men now in America will think I am forgetting them or slighting them, because I do not mention meeting them in those travels of mine, but I am neither forgetting nor slighting them. Tom Masterson, of New York, will think I forgot having met him at his home in Navan. Edward McCloskey, 570 Myrtle avenue, Brooklyn, will think I forgot having met him at his home in Glasgow; others will think like them; but I forget nothing in connection with those travels of mine in Fenianism. I am prisoned within a certain inclosure. I get space for ten letters on my subject, this is the tenth. I have done my best to be brief, but I find I have not told half my story. As I said already, I traveled through thirty-one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. My experience in all places are similar to those I have spoken of in some of the places I passed through.
When I got back to Dublin, a week after my visit to George Henry Moore, I learned that James Stephens had come in the same day. I saw him that night. Next day I sent a message to Mr. Moore telling him the horses had arrived, and the second day following he called into the Irish People office, Mr. Stephens met him that night. He never told me what the nature or result of the meeting was. He simply said everything was all right; but I could suspect every thing was not all right. John O'Leary, our editor told mo tho proposition Mr. Stephens made to Mr. Moore was that he (Mr. Moore) go to America and travel, and speak there as an organizer of resources for the movement.
It seems it was not convenient or agreeable to Mr. Moore to go to America on that mission; anyway he did not go. I know no more of what passed between the two gentlemen; but this I know, the when I was in prison George Henry Moore was instrumental in getting me released therefrom; Its made some noise in Parliament about the ill treatment the Irish prisoners were subjected to; that noise led to a commission of inquiry. We established the truth of the charges George Henry Moore made against the Government, and the day the report of the Commission of Inquiry was published in a blue book, that day an order was issued for our release from prison, provided we quit the country. George Henry Moore was dead; the good people die young in Ireland.
In the Autumn of 1864 a delegation of Irishmen came from Sheffield, England, to see Mr. Stephens. I took their papers and delivered them to him and arrangements were made for a meeting. It was at Joe Deniffe’s in 32 Anne street, Dublin, he read the papers. They represented that the Irishmen of England, when the rising took place in Ireland, wanted permission to give the enemy such trouble in England as would engage all the soldiers that were in the country; in a word, the Irishmen of England wanted permission to set fire to the towns and cities of the country and so prevent any of the redcoats from going to Ireland to shoot down the Irish people. Mr. Stephens told the delegation their proposition would have due consideration and they would hear from him in due time before the eve of action. When the delegation withdrew he handed me the papers they had presented to him, "What am I to do with them?" said I, "Do as you please with them," said he. I took a match off the mantelpiece, lighted it and set fire to the papers, putting them in the grate and seeing they were burnt. I know Mr. Stephens would rather that I had preserved the papers, but his standing orders to mo were to destroy all dangerous documents that would come into my hands, and in his presence on this occasion I carried out his orders. He then told me I had better put my house in order and take a tour through England and Scotland; the men in these places were calling for some one to visit them.
I told him it was very inconvenient for me to make the journey just then as I had promised a young lady in the South of Ireland that I was going to marry her in a week's time, and for fear of “breach of promise” as well as for regard and affection for the lady, I should keep my word. "Well," said he, "keep your word, and tell the men over the water you will be with them in a week's time."
He gave me £30 for thirty days' traveling expensed; then I asked him for £30 of my own money which I had lent him for the starting of the newspaper, and he gave it to me. I wanted this to meet my coming wife's expenses; it would not do to marry an Irish poetess one day and run away from her the next— staying away for a month— I know she was not the kind of Irish girl that would stand it quietly, so I made up my mind to make my tour of treason her honeymoon tour.
I bade goodby to James Stephens, telling him I’d go down to Cork to get married, and take shipping in Cork for Liverpool. That I may make all due preparation for the ceremony of marriage I went to the priest of my parish to get a marriage license. Mr. Stephens' brother in law, George Hopper, went with me. I think the priest was Father Meehan, of St. John's parish. Everything was all right till he canto to get My name and address and occupation; but when he came to learn that the man who was going to get married was Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, publisher of the Irish People newspaper, 12 Parliament Street, Dublin, he hesitated, and thought he could not give me a formal license. I asked him why, and he said I had not been at confession. I told him 1 was ready to go to confession to him.
"Oh," said he, "it would be no use, I could out give you absolution; now that I know you. I should ask you certain questions, and your answering them would preclude the possibility of my being able to give you a certificate. Then ho talked of the late pastorals of Bishop Cullen, of the late councils of other bishops, of the Pope's condemnation or someone’s condemnation of "Fratres Fenianores," and such other wicked people, all of which I told hint did not affect my case. I pressed him for the license, he gave me the 'informal one, the one which said I had not been to confession and had not conformed to the requirements of the occasion. I gave him a gold pound, the customary gratuity, and took the train for Cork City.
I had to go to Clonakilty, some forty miles outside of Cork City, to meet the young lady I wanted to marry; all the priests there knew me, and I know the parish priest, Father Leander, would be mad with me and mad with the handsomest girl in his parish for marrying me. So for fear of trouble about the question of going to confession in Clonakilty where I was known by the priests, I thought I would seek out a priest in Cork City who did not know me, and go to confession to him.
I went into a chapel at the north side of the Myer Lee, near the north gate bridge, and knelt at the feet of a priest who was robed in white flannel. I confessed my sins to him, and as if he was inspired to suspect there was something wicked connected with my life, he began to ask me questions about secret societies: Did I belong to any secret society? I did not. Did I belong to any oath bound society? I did. What was It? A military organization sworn to fight for Ireland's freedom. "I cannot give you absolution for it,” said he. "I do not want absolution for it," said I. “Tis for my sins I seek absolution, not for my virtues.” “You must give it up,” said he: "I must not give it up," said I, "I have come into your presence to make a confession of my sins. I have made that confession. You question me on matters that I do not regard as sinful, that I in the presence of God do not feel are sinful. And you refuse me the sacraments because of some crotchet of your own or of some other men in the church. I fool before God that I have done my duty in approaching the confessional. You turn me away from the tribunal of penance. I will go away, and henceforward I will leave myself in the hands of God and His mercy."
I Went to Clonakilty, went to the parish priest, Father Lea[n]der, and showed him my "Informal" license. He said I should go to the bishop before he could marry me. I told him I had not time to go to the bishop, that I should sail for England next day, that Miss Irwin would go with me to Cork, where we could get married, her father accompanying us—if he did not marry us in Clonakilty. He said Miss Irwin would not show such a bad example to the young girls of the parish as to leave it with a strange man without getting married. I told him I was not a strange man in that parish, that everyone belonging to me was known there for generations before me. The bride, and her father were present. He asked the father would he let his daughter go out of the parish with me without getting married; he said he would if the priests in Clonakilty would not marry us and that he himself would accompany us to Cork. He asked the bride if she would leave the parish with a strange man without being married to him; she said she would go to Cork and get married to me there, if he did not marry us. At this he raged furiously and. addressing me, said:
"Oh, whatever be your hostility to our poor old Mother Church, that has protected us and promises to protect us through all ages-whatever you do to create disrespect of the ministers of our holy religion and to corrupt society, leave us-do leave us one thing: leave us the virtue of our women,"
By Jove, didn't I feel this to be hard? But the man who said it was a priest and there was no strength in my arm. He is dead and God be merciful to him; but my wife is living to bear witness to the truth of what I say. We got an order to the curate of the parish to marry us, and "If we don't live happy that you may."