ARTICLE OCR TRANSCRIBED

FROM THE

BROOKLYN EAGLE

JULY 19, 1885

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VII

THE FENIAN MOVEMENT

An Account of its Origin, Progress

and Temporary Collapse.

By Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

Thomas Francis Meagher—General Ryan Shot in Cuba—How He and Ireland Got Me Into the Commune Funeral—Major P. R. Horgan, "What Is Ireland to Me Now ?" — "Sure, I'm a Freeman Here"—One True Man In Ireland Worth a Thousand of His Kind In America, Irish People Agents Boycotted—The Priests Denouncing Fenianism—The Maynooth Oath. The Soldier's Story—rather Collins Burned In Effigy—Famine Deaths In Cape Clear. The Landlord Beecher—Rossa Loses his Re- lieving Officership—Parrot Patriots and Pea- cock Patriots—John O'Donovan, the Cele- brated Irish Scholar—Ills Sons, John, Ed- mond, William, &c.—Father Meehan—Pagan O'Leary—The Fenian Red Coats—Organizing In the English Army—John Kearney Swear- ing In a Peeler--John J. Geary—The Cork Militia, &c.

 

As I spoke in the last chapter of meeting Thomas Frames Meagher I ought to have said a few words more regarding him. There is a sadness about the manner of his death which makes his name and his memory dearer to those who knew him. I have spoken with many soldiers of the Irish Brigade who went through the war with Meagher, and it is wonderful with what affection his memory is cherished by them. Night after night have listened to Major Patrick K. Horgan tell of his prowess on the battlefield and of his repeated exhortation to his men to bear in mind that Ireland was looking at them and that they were making a name to brighten a page of the history of their fallen land. But it is not writing Meagher's obituary or biography I am now; to do that properly I should have Major Horgan's knowledge of him. What I have in my mind is to bring forward the testimony of another man who is dead and to leave it on record in rebuttal of false stories that surround the death of Thomas Francis Meagher.

General Ryan, who was shot by the Spaniards in Cuba, came to me one day in New York and offered himself and his sword in a fight for Ireland's freedom. Ireland, he said, had a first claim on him: he was a man of Irish blood and bone, and the brand of Ireland's slavery fell as much upon him and his name its it did upon any other man. During the conversation I had with General Ryan he told me ho was in the company of General Meagher the night he was drowned in the Missouri River. "We were in the saloon of the steamer," said General Ryan. "General Meagher excused himself for a moment; he went on deck; we thought he was rather long away and we went on deck to find him; the ropes that lay around must have tripped him, and he must have fallen overboard. I had like to be tripped myself in searching for him. I have heard some of his countrymen meanly insinuate that Meagher might have been 'out of the way' that night. I assure you on the word of a man and a soldier that he was as sober as I am now and as free from drink." General Ryan was sober when he spoke those words to me, and I call God to witness that I am speaking the truth of the two dead men.

As I have introduced General Ryan into my story of the Fenian movement I must tell a tale in connection with him that may be a lesson to other public men. This is not egotism—to class myself among public men. The newspapers will have it that I am a public man; they make a public man of me, no matter how much I like to live in private and do my work in private.

The day of the Commune funeral in New York — shortly after I was released from English prisons — I was standing on the center of Fifth street and the Bowery, New York; the funeral was passing by. I was looking at it, like hundreds of others who were on the footpath. General Ryan was in a carriage in the funeral; he saw me; he drove his carriage to where I stood and invited me to a seat in it. I thanked him, but declined; he said he wanted to speak a few words to me on the subjects we were talking of a few days before. Those subjects were Ireland and Thomas Francis Meagher; I got into the carriage with General Ryan; next morning it was telegraphed in all the newspapers throughout the country that O'Donovan Rossa had a carriage in the Commune funeral. I had engagements to lecture in Manchester, N. H., and other places, and I had a telegram from Manchester saying the engagement was broken off—they did not want a communist to lecture for them. I got into that difficulty, as into many another difficulty in my life, on account of knowing General Ryan and General Meagher in connection with Irish revolutionary affairs; it is very likely I'll get into more difficulties in my life in connection with Irish revolutionary affairs unless I die out of them. The Irish people here in America are more slave souled than the Irish people In Ireland. I could not be killed out of society in Ireland for proclaiming my opinions there. I can he killed in America, and by the Irish of America, too; and the reason is that Irish born slaves are allowed to wear the garb of freemen hero — just as all slaves are allowed freedom in this land; not at all saying that Irishmen have not done their share of fighting for its freedom. But to enable the Irishman to stand erect in America his should be in the position of feeling that his native land was not a land enslaved. I meet many Irishmen in America, who say: "What is Ireland to me now? Sure, I'm a freeman here. "The negroes who escaped from slavery in former days have had some share of my regard; these Irish slaves I speak of have none of it. In Ireland they were the “satisfied slaves” of the satirist; in America they are satisfied and content, while Ireland groans in chains. One Irishman who boldly fronts the enemy on Irish soil is worth a thousand of his kind here. Well, to make myself popular, I'll put it this way: One Parnell in Ireland is worth a thousand Parnells in America. That is not committing myself to saying that a thousand Parnells here or there is worth a thraneen to the freedom of Ireland — until they go further than talk.

I’ll take myself back to Dublin now, where I started the Irish People newspaper at the end of the last chapter and at the end of the year 1863. Agents for the sale of the paper were got in the principal towns of the country, but many of those agents had to give up the sale of it, as the priests and the landlords in several localities opposed its circulation. The word "boycott" was not then in use, but in a free country I can take liberty with the word, carry it back a distance of twenty years, and say they boycotted the paper. Many of our agents and subscribers resisted the boycotting, and very angry feelings were growing up between priests and people. About the landlords the boys did not care a pin, but to have the priests against them was something that set them mad. "Harvey Birch"—Tom Brougham, of Tipperary, now in Cupertino; "Hugo del Monte"—Hugh Byrne, of Wicklow, who died in San Francisco last year, and several other correspondents wrote down those priests who front their altars denounced the men and made known the existence of the "illegal" society. The oath these priests swore at the College of Maynooth was published in the paper — the oath that swore them to be "loyal and true to the Queen" and to make known to her all combinations and conspiracies that may be hatching against her rule in the realm of Ireland. If the priest preached that it was sinful for the Irishman to take an oath to fight for Ireland, the Irishman answered him that it was not sinful at all when the Irishman took an oath to fight for England, even against his own country, Ireland.

To answer the opposition given to the progress of OW work by the priests I contributed to the paper the following simple lines:

THE SOLDIER'S STORY.

Friends of the Irish people, you

Who'd right your country's wrong,

Will hear from me a word or two;

My tale will not be long.

 

In old lov Laoghaire by the hills

My youthful days passed by.

That Famine came which filled the keels;

I saw my father die.

 

The bailiff with his notice came,

The bit of ground was gone;

I saw the roof tree in a flame,

The crow bar work was done.

 

With neither house, nor bed, nor bread,

The workhouse was my doom;

And on my jacket soon I read,

"The Union of Macroom."

 

My mother died o' broken heart;

My uncle from the town

Came for her with a horse and cart,

And buried her in Gloun.

 

I joined the red coats then—mo leir!

What did my father say?

And. was sent before a year

On service to Bombay.

 

I thought to be a pauper

Was the greatest human curse;

But fighting in a robber's cause

I felt was something worse.

 

I helped to murder and to slay

Whole tribes of India's sons;

And I spent many a sultry day

Blowing Sepoys from our guns.

 

I told these things to Father Ned—

The murder and the booty.

"They are no sins to you," he said,

"You had to do your duty."      

 

And when that duty here was done,

A journey home I made;

And all my friends being dead and gone,

 I joined the Pope'e Brigade.

 

I got some medals on my breast

For serving this campaign;

And next I'm found in the far West,

A-soldering again.

 

With fearless Captain Billy O’

I joined the Fenian band,

And I swore one day to strike a blow

To free my native laud.

 

Back in that sinking isle again,

Where landlords suck our blood,

Where friends are scattered, starved and slain,

I'm told I'm cursed by God.

 

If I can swear my lifelong days

To fight from pole to pole,

For any power, however base,

With safety to my soul,

 

It cannot he by God's decree

I'm cursed, denounced and banned

Because I swear one day to free

My trampled native land.

*Churchyards.

Some of the recruits into the organization had seen service in the English army, in the Pope's army, in the French army, in the Austrian army, In the American army, in the Russian army—in fact, in all armies of the world; and they could fight in all armies of the world without periling the salvation of their souls; but now that they had sworn to fight for their native land it was ridiculous to think they were to be damned for all eternity. Hell was not hot enough nor eternity long enough to punish the Fenians, said Bishop Moriarty, of Kerry; "They were worse to the country than a seven years' famine," said Archbishop Cullen, of Dublin. Bad blood was growing between some of the priests and some of the people; a priest called Father Collins, in the Parish of Cape Clear, the southern point of Ireland, was burned in effigy in Skibbereen; he had denounced Fenianism from the altar of his chapel, and some few days after some men were arrested; it was said the priest's denunciation led to the arrests, hence his being burned In effigy by the people. I was sorry to see this done, as some time before that I had been the guest of that priest and had slept in his house; it was not on a mission of Fenianism, but on a mission of charity, I was at the time. The picture of that mission and all around, it is so vivid before me to-day; it is so illustrative of the conditions of Irish life that make Fenianism necessary, or make necessary some "ism" that would abate the horrors of landlordism as I saw it and felt it in Ireland, that I make no apology for penciling it for the reader now:

This Island of Cape Clear, on the southern point of Ireland, is passed closely by every ship sailing between New York and the Cove of Cork. It is inhabited by a hardy, hearty race of people, all speaking the Irish language. The land is parceled out in small farms, and the landlord is one of the Beecher family that came in for it in Cromwell's time, when it was confiscated from the O'Driscolls. Fully half the inhabitants of the island are of the name of O'Driscoll. Shortly before I came to Dublin to assume the management of the Irish people there was great distress among the people of the island, so great that the Board of Guardians of the Skibbereen Union resolved to send in special relief. Rumor had it that the people were dying of starvation; that the potato crop had failed and that the fish, oats and wheat bad been seized by the landlord for the rent.

The guardians wanted a man for the emergency who would start into the island and distribute the eight sacks of Indian meal they had ordered. They sent for me and asked me if I would do the work; I said I would, and taking with me another man, Michael O'Driscoll, we set sail for the islands of Cape Clear and Sherkin, some eight or ten miles distant from Skibbereen. We reached Sherkin first and landed three sacks of the meal there, going on farther to Cape Clear with tile other five sacks. As we were landing the meal at Sherkin we saw a man stretched on the beach, and we wondered ho did not come with some other men to our assistance. We were told he was too weak to stand; we went up to him, gave him some of the bread and meat we brought with us for lunch. When we returned to the island next day we found that the man was dead.

In Cape Clear we stopped at the priest's house .It was nightfall as we were getting in, and Father Collins, expecting the temporary relief, was on the lookout for It. He had the five sacks of meal taken to his house and word sent all over the Island to have the poor people be at his place in the morning, as a little relief had come. O'Driscoll and I slept at the priest's that night and were as hospitably entertained as a poor priest in a poor parish could entertain people. In the morning early, before breakfast, we distributed the five sacks of meal, giving a half gallon measure of it—about three and a half pounds, what the law allowed—to every adult poor person. When all were served we had one measure of meal left, and Father Collins suggested that we give that to a poor, bed ridden old woman, who was up there on the side of the hill. One of the, neighbors was present who bad got the, half gallon of meal for her. That neighbor should cook it for her, as the bedridden woman could do nothing for herself, and had no one in the cabin with her, and it would not be much out of the way of charity to give this woman for her trouble the additional measure of meal. I acted on the priest's suggestion, and recorded seven pounds of meal given to Kittie O'Driscoll.

On our way to the boat Father Collins took us to see the bedridden woman, Kittie O'Driscoll. He went on his hands and knees and crept into a hole in the aide of a hill; I crept in after him, and there, stretched on flag stones, with nothing between her and the flag stones but her shreds of body clothes and tufts of heath, was the poor bedridden woman. Leaving that place the priests took us in to some cabins whore children were lying dead—dead from hunger; took us into other cabins where the doors were flag stones—any things that wore there in the shape of wooden doors having been burned for firing.

To make a long story short—the next board day of the Skibbereen Union came on, and I was in the presence of the Board of Guardians with my report of what I saw and what I did as relieving officer in the islands of Inis Sherkin and Cape Clear, visiting these islands on two occasions. I told the truth—the God's truth. John Beecher, the landlord, was present, and he made a fierce attack upon my report. I told him the report was telling the truth, and that he knew it was telling the truth. He pounced upon the item that recorded the giving of seven pounds of meal to one person, whereas the poor law only allowed the giving of three and a half pounds to any one person; he declared that was going beyond the bounds of duty, that it was breaking the law. He proposed that I be dismissed from the office of temporary relieving officer; that I get no salary for my services, so far, and that the price of the three pounds and a half of extra meal that I gave the bed ridden woman be charged to me. The resolution was passed by the Board of Guardians; there was a majority of ex officio guardians—landlords—in the board room that day,

When I found myself thus summarily dismissed and declared a culprit, I summoned that Board of Guardians to appear before the barrister at Quarter Sessions. I, on oath, told that barrister my story as I tell it here, and lie gave me a decree for a quarter of a year's salary as relieving officer against the Guardians of the Skibbereen Union. He said they had no right to treat me the way they did, when I, on an emergency, volunteered to go and do their work without fee or reward. This John Beecher I speak of is one of "the quality" in Ireland; he is one of the sons of Sir Henry Beecher, I of Ballygiblin, and his wife is Lady Emily Hare, daughter to the Earl of Listowel. While you have landlordism of that kind in Ireland you never can have Ireland free, and you're bound to have landlordism of that kind there as long as England lives there.

This is not talk that the Irish parrot patriots and peacock patriots of America or of Ireland. will like to read, but it is the truth nevertheless. Irishmen were rampant mad through this country, a few years ago, singing:

"Land for the landless people

Land without striking a blow."

But England struck a few blows at them and scattered them to the winds. They will come together again in one fashion or another to carry on the delusion. I cannot help it; I cannot stop them; I'll go back to Dublin and follow up my story of the Fenian movement.

I was talking of Father Collins having been burned in effigy for denouncing that movement and saying something that led. to the arrest of some of his parishioners—the same Father Collins that with me witnessed the misery of his parishioners at Cape Clear and with me dealt out the niggardly dole of Poor Law relief to them. To die of starvation is a far worse death than to die fighting against a power that starves you while you work and produce food sufficient to sustain life. Why Father Collins and other priests of Ireland. are against people who meditate fighting for Ireland's freedom is a mystery to me. Perhaps the priests know the people better than I know them; perhaps the priests know the people are not free, able and willing to fight—to fight England successfully.

I was one evening at the house of John O'Donovan, the celebrated Irish scholar, at No. 136 Northumberland street, Dublin. His children—six or seven sons—were around and Father Meehan was at the table. It was after my first release from prison and we talked on the subject of my Imprisonment and on the cause it represented.

"The priests will never let the people fight," said John O'Donovan, "and I fear you are only laying down a life of trouble for yourself in the course you are pursuing."

I endeavored to show him that in the matter of fighting for Ireland the people were getting independent of the priests, and would not be led or frightened away from the fight by what the priests said. Ho half doubted what I said, but felt pleased when I assured him it was so. Father Meehan did not have much to say on the subject. I went to my hotel in his carriage that night. John O'Donovan's sons—three of them, John, Edmond and William—were afterward put to prison in connection with the cause of Fenianism. John was drowned In the Missouri River, Edmond was killed in the late Egyptian war, it is said, William is in New York as I write these lines; they were a happy family and a gifted family when I knew them in the old house at home. In Portland Convict Prison one day talking to John O'Leary on the likelihood or unlikehood of the fight going on whether we were dead or alive, I said I thought Edmond O'Donovan was one man who would never let the flag go down as long as he lived. When the Irish People was started the young O'Donovans used to call at tile office to see me. I introduced them to Pagan O'Leary, who is now in one of the Soldiers' Homes of America Hampton, Va., I think. The Pagan talked Fenianism to the young men, and from that sprang the trouble of their becoming inmates of some of England's prisons afterward.

An English soldier came in to the Irish People one day and asked for me. I looked at him. I knew the face, but his being in soldier's clothes staggered my recognition of him for a time. He was one of our men in the south of Ireland who had listed into the English army. As he is living still I will not tell his name. I introduced this English soldier to Pagan O'Leary. The Pagan took him in hand and swore him over again. From that connection sprang the military organization of Fenianism in the English army. To such an extent did it grow that before twelve months there were fully twelve thousand red coats sworn in in England, Ireland and Scotland. The Pagan traveled from camp to camp, carrying with him introductions from soldiers ho had sworn in to other soldiers who had not been sworn. On a mission of this kind he was arrested in Athlone in December, 1864. One soldier refused to take the oath: he made some noise about the matter, the Pagan was arrested, tried at the Assizes, found guilty and sentenced to seven years' transportation.

When the Pagan was arrested other men took up his work; five or six of them wore engaged on such a mission. I knew them. It was my business occasionally to furnish them with "resources of civilization," or resources for recruiting, but I have not permission to mention their names here.

The most strange and singular things occurred in connection with this recruiting business; every organizer has some curious story or another to tell. I was going from Dublin to the races at Punchestown one day. The train left me off at Celbridge. and I had two hours' Stay before I could make connection with Punchestown, I walked into the country and, meeting a dragoon soldier, I got chatting with him. He was from Carlow, and I happened to know some of his family. Ile had enlisted through some freak of folly or of anger, or it may be through a freak of love. Many a decent mother's son gets into the English Army that way. It is a kind of self imposed transportation or ostracism from the home and family. But to make a long story short, .I swore in this dragoon soldier before I parted with him; I swore him to renounce allegiance to England and to fight for Ireland's freedom when called upon. Some months after he called at the office in Dublin to see me, but I was away. In 1864 I swore him in, and in 1865 I went again to the races of Punchestown. During the day a drunken soldier riding through the race course attracted crowds of people. I drew near to him. I recognized in him the man I had sworn in a year before that; William Roantree, of Leixlip, was with me. "William," said I "we must try and save that man, he is one of ours, I swore him in a year ago."

I went in front of the horse and caught the soldier's eye; he recognized me, held down his head and walked his horse quietly away. The people who saw him so actively drunk a minute before that were expressing surprise that he could have sobered so suddenly.

This recruiting of men in the English Army was not going on without having the English government notice it. They did not make any clamor about it, but they quietly drafted off to India and China and other foreign places the regiments that were most demoralized. One regiment was sent away in which were seven hundred men who had been initiated into the organization. The night before they left I met some of the sergeants in Thomas street and they swore, again, wherever they would be when the fight was going on that they would turn and fight against England too. Dublin was ours at that time any night or day we wished to have it. These soldiers asked that they be not called upon to open the fight—that they be not called upon to turn on their Englishmen comrades and slaughter them, "but any night," said they, "that you desire to continence the work, let us know. The barrack gates will be open to you, come in and take possession; we will march out with you and fight side by side with you for our country's freedom against whatever enemy opposes us." More than that could not ho expected or required from them.

Whenever any of our men knew a decent father or mother who had a son in the soldiers a letter of introduction was got from the father or mother to that son and it was easy to make a Fenian of him; wherever any of our men knew a man or woman who had a brother in the army a letter of introduction was got to the soldier. It was very seldom that the missioner who carried the letter failed to make "a man" of the soldier. I was at a private meeting of Fenians in Hardman Street, Manchester, one night. An old man said a son of his was sergeant in a certain place in England, and had charge of the whole citadel. I got a letter from the father to the son, and before a week that son was a sworn Fenian. The old man is dead, but I will not tell his name, as the son may be still living, drawing a pension from England. Not having an opportunity to fight for Ireland, those Irishmen fought their time through for England; it is the Irishman's story all over the world—a sad. and sorrowful one, singing mournfully-

"A home or a country remains not to me."

In the spring of 1864 I was called from Dublin to Cork; the men who burned the priest's effigy were on trial at the assizes and other men from Bailincollig were on trial charged with walking the public roads in military order. Nine or ten of those Ballincollig men were found "guilty" and sentenced each to twelve months' imprisonment; the effigy men escaped without any punishment. At this visit of mine to Cork I met, for the first time, a man who to-day is pretty well known in New York and Brooklyn—that is John Kearney—a traveler for the large importing house of H. K. Thurber & Co. John was then an Irishman and a Fenian, whatever he is now. I suppose he's too rich now to be anything good for Ireland. He and I slept in a double bedded room at the hotel of John J. Geary the first night we met in Cork City. A policeman from Limerick, who was on duty at the Assizes, was introduced to John as belonging to a decent family in Limerick, and John swore him in a Fenian that night. He often told me since that that policeman through all the troubles of '65, '66 and '67 remained as true as steel.

John J. Geary went with me to Bandon next day, as the North Cork militia were In training there, and he knew some of them to belong to us. When I got among the regiment I found that nearly the whole of the men belonged to us. We spent the evening among them, one of them singing with smiling significance,

Oh, my heart Is weary, weary,

Weary waiting for the fray!