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CHAP.

~THE LIFE STORY OF AN OLD REBEL

EARLY RECOLLECTIONS--"COMING OVER" FROM IRELAND.

I owe both the title of this book and the existence of the book itself to the suggestion of friends. I suppose a man of 76 may be called "old," although I have by no means given up the idea that I can still be of use to my country.

And a Rebel? Yes! Anything of the nature of injustice or oppression has always stirred me to resentment, and--is it to be wondered at?--most of all when the victims of that injustice and oppression have been my own people. And why not? If there were no rebels against wrong-doing, wrong-doing would prosper. To an Irishman, who is a fighter by temperament, and a fighter by choice against those in high places, life is sure to provide plenty of excitement; and that, no doubt, is why my friends have thought my recollections worth printing. The curious thing is that my share in the struggle for Irish self-government has been almost entirely what I might call outpost work, for I have lived all my life in England.

Indeed, it seemed but a stroke of good luck that I was born in Ireland at all. My father came to England in the early part of the last century, and settled in Liverpool, where my eldest brother was born. It was during a brief period, when our family returned to Ireland, that I and a younger brother were born there. My father was engaged for about three years as clerk of the works for the erection of a castle for Sir Francis Macnaghten, near Bushmills, County Antrim. This must be one of the least Catholic parts of Ireland, for there was no resident priest, and I had to be taken a long distance to be christened. There was a decent Catholic workman at the castle, James MacGowan, who was my god-father, and my Aunt Kitty had to come all the way from "our own place" in the County Down to be my god-mother.

Brought to England, my earliest remembrances are of Liverpool, which has a more compact and politically important Irish population than any other town in Great Britain.

Anyone who has mixed much among our fellow-countrymen in England, Scotland and Wales knows that, generally, the children and grandchildren of Irish-born parents consider themselves just as much Irish as those born on "the old sod" itself. No part of our race has shown more determination and enthusiasm in the cause of Irish nationality. As a rule the Irish of Great Britain have been well organised, and, during the last sixty years and more, have been brought into constant contact with a host of distinguished Irishmen--including the leaders of the constitutional political organisations--from Daniel O'Connell to John Redmond.

I have taken an active part in the various Irish movements of my time, and it so happens that, while I know so little personally of Ireland itself, there are few, if any, living Irishmen who have had such experience, from actual personal contact with them, as I have had of our people in every part of Great Britain. As will be seen, too, in the course of these recollections, circumstances have brought me into intimate connection with most of the Irish political leaders.

My father came to England in one of the sloops in which our people used to "come over" in the old days. They sometimes took a week in crossing. The steamers which superseded them, though an immense improvement as regards speed, had often less accommodation for the deck passengers than for the cattle they brought over.

Most of the Irish immigration to Liverpool came through the Clarence Dock, where the steamers used to land our people from all parts. Since the Railway Company diverted a good deal of the Irish traffic through the Holyhead route, there are not so many of these steamers coming to Liverpool as formerly.

The first object that used to meet the eyes of those who had just "come over," as they looked across the Clarence Dock wall, was an effigy of St. Patrick, with a shamrock in his hand, as if welcoming them from "the old sod." This was placed high upon the wall of a public house kept by a retired Irish pugilist, Jack Langan. In the thirties and forties of the last century, up to 1846, when he died, leaving over ?20,000 to his children, Langan's house was a very popular resort of Irishmen, more particularly as, besides being a decent, warm-hearted, open-handed man, he was a strong supporter of creed and country.

I am old enough to remember hearing Mass in what was an interesting relic in Liverpool of the Penal days. This was the old building known to our people as "Lumber Street Chapel." Of course, the present Protestant Church of St. Nicholas is a Catholic foundation. Lumber Street chapel was not, however, the first of our places of worship built during the Penal days, for the Jesuits had a small chapel not far off, erected early in the eighteenth century, but destroyed by a No-Popery mob in 1746. St. Mary's, Lumber Street, too, was originally a Jesuit mission, but, in 1783, it was handed over to the Benedictines, who have had charge of it ever since. Father John Price, S.J., built a chapel in Sir Thomas's Buildings in 1788. I can recollect this building since my earliest days, but Mass was never said in it during my time.

Lancashire is the only part of England where there are any great number of the native population who have always kept the faith. I once spent a few weeks in one of these Catholic districts. My employer had an alteration to make in the house of a gentleman at Lydiate, near Ormskirk. I used to come home to Liverpool for the Sundays, but for the rest of the week I had lodgings in the house of a Catholic family at Lydiate.

There was an old ruin, which they called Lydiate Abbey, but I found it was the chapel of St. Catherine, erected in the fifteenth century. The priest of the mission had charge of the chapel which, though unroofed, was the most perfect ecclesiastical ruin in Catholic hands in South Lancashire. During the time I was at Lydiate there came a Holiday of Obligation, when I heard Mass in the house of a Catholic farmer named Rimmer. This was a fine old half-timbered building of Elizabethan days, and here, all through the Penal times, Mass had been kept up, a priest to say it being always in hiding somewhere in the district.

The priest in charge of Lydiate at the time I was there told me he was collecting for a regular church or chapel, and hoped soon to make a commencement of the building. Some years later he was able to do so. Our church choir at Copperas Hill, Liverpool, was then considered one of the best in the diocese. The choirmaster and organist, John Richardson, was a distinguished composer of Catholic church music, and held in such high esteem that, for any important celebration, he could always secure the services of the chief members of the musical profession in and about Liverpool. In this way, on one occasion Miss Santley came to help us. She was accompanied by her brother, then a boy, who has since risen to the highest position in the musical world--the eminent baritone, Sir Charles Santley.

St. Nicholas' was, as it is yet, the pro-Cathedral of the diocese, and whenever a new church had to be opened, or there was any important ceremonial anywhere in Lancashire, our choir was generally invited. In this way I was delighted to go to the opening of the new church at Lydiate, so that I was taking part in the third stage of the Catholic history of the diocese--having said a prayer in the old ruin, and attended Mass in Rimmer's, and now assisting at the solemn High Mass at the opening of the Church of our Lady, not far from the old chapel of St. Catherine.

The progress in numbers, wealth and influence of the Irish people may be pretty well marked by the gradual increase in the number of churches and schools, which have been built for the most part by the Irish and their descendants. All honour to the noble-hearted, hard-handed toilers who have contributed to such work, and greater glory still to the humble men who, after a hard week's work in a ship's hold at the docks, or perhaps in the "jigger loft" of a warehouse eight stories high, turn out every Sunday morning to act as "collectors," and go in pairs from door to door, one with the book and the other with the bag in hand, to raise the means of erecting the noble churches and schools that everywhere meet our view in Liverpool to-day.

With regard to the social position our people occupy in Liverpool, there have been many Irishmen who have come well to the front in the race of life, some of whom have occupied the foremost positions in connection with the public life of the town. On the other hand; a large number of our fellow-countrymen in Liverpool are by no means in that enviable condition. Many of them have set out from Ireland, intending to go to America, but, their little means failing them, have been obliged to remain in Liverpool. Here they considered themselves fortunate if they met someone from the same part of the country as themselves to give them a helping hand, for it is a fine trait in the Irish character--and "over here in England" the trait has not been lost--that, however poor, they are always ready to befriend what seems to them a still poorer neighbour. Those who have lived here some time are glad to see someone from their "own place," and, amid the squalor of an English city, the imaginative Celt--as he listens to the gossip about the changes, the marriages, and the deaths that have taken place since he left "home "--for a brief moment lives once more upon "the old sod," and sees visions of the little cabin by the wood side where dwelt those he loved, of the mountain chapel where he worshipped, of a bright-eyed Irish girl beloved in the golden days of youth. These and a host of other associations of the past come floating back upon his memory, as he hears the tidings brought by Terence, or Michael, or Maurya, who has just "come over." It often so happens that, from the very goodness of the Irish heart, the newcomers are frequently drawn into the same miserable mode of life as the friends who have come to England before them may have fallen into.

Irish intellect and Irish courage have in thousands of cases brought our people to their proper place in the social scale, but it is only too often the case that adverse circumstances compel the great bulk of them to have recourse to the hardest, the most precarious, and the worst paid employments to be found in the British labour market.

Nevertheless, there are Irishmen too--men who know how to keep what they have earned--who, by degrees, get into the higher circles of the commercial world, so that I have seen among the merchant princes "on 'Change" in Liverpool men who, themselves, or whose fathers before them, commenced life in the humblest avocations.

Liverpool has, on the whole, been a "stony-hearted stepmother" to its Irish colony, which largely built its granite sea-walls, and for many years humbly did the laborious work on which the huge commerce of the port rested. But, perhaps, in years to come Liverpool will realise the value of the wealth of human brains and human hearts which it held for so long unregarded or despised in its midst.

DISTINGUISHED IRISHMEN--"THE NATION" NEWSPAPER--"THE HIBERNIANS."

I have met, as I have said elsewhere, most of the Irish political leaders of my time in Liverpool, but I will always remember with what pleasure I listened to a distinguished Irishman of another type, Samuel Lover, when he was travelling with an entertainment consisting of sketches from his own works and selections from his songs. Few men were more versatile than Lover, for he was a painter, musician, composer, novelist, poet, and dramatist. When I saw him in one of the public halls he sang his own songs, told his own stories, and was his own accompanist.

His was one of a series of performances, very popular in Liverpool for many years, called the "Saturday Evening Concerts." He was a little man, with what might be called something of a "Frenchified" style about him, but having with it all a bright eye and thoroughly Irish face which, with all his bodily movements, displayed great animation. I can readily believe his biographers, who say he excelled in all the arts he cultivated, for his was a most charming entertainment.

One of his stories, "Rory O'More," achieved universal popularity also as a play, a song and an air. In it there is a passage which, when I first read it, I looked upon as an exaggeration, and as somewhat reflecting upon the dignity of a great national movement like that of the United Irishmen. Lover brings his hero, Rory, into somewhat questionable surroundings in a Munster town--intended for Cork or some other seaport--to meet a French emissary. One would think that a struggle for the freedom of Ireland should be carried on amongst the most lofty surroundings. But I found in after life that the incidents described by Lover were not so exaggerated as might be supposed, for, as "necessity has no law," during a later revolutionary struggle we had often to meet in strange and unromantic places, as I shall describe later, for most important projects.

Lover's wit was spontaneous, and bubbled over in his ordinary conversation with friends. An English lady friend, deeply interested in Ireland, once said to him--"I believe I was intended for an Irishwoman." Lover gallantly replied--"Cross over to Ireland and they will swear you were intended for an Irishman."

A famous Irishman, whom I saw in Liverpool when I was a boy, was the Apostle of Temperance, Father Mathew.

At this time he visited many centres of Irishmen in Great Britain, and administered the pledge of total abstinence from intoxicating drink to many thousands of his fellow-countrymen. In London alone over 70,000 took the pledge. As in Ireland, this brought about a great social revolution. The temperance movement certainly helped O'Connell's Repeal agitation, which was in its full flood about this time.

My remembrance of Father Mathew was that of a man of portly figure, rather under than above the middle height, with a handsome, pleasant face. He had a fine powerful voice, which could be heard at the furthest extremity of his gatherings, which often numbered several thousands. As he gave out the words of the pledge to abstain, with the Divine assistance, from all intoxicating liquors, he laid great emphasis on the word "liquors," pronouncing the last syllable of the word with almost exaggerated distinctness. After this he would go round the ring of those kneeling to take the pledge, and put round the neck of each the ribbon with the medal attached.

I ought to remember his visit to Liverpool, for I took the pledge from him three times during his stay in the town.

My mother took the whole family, and, wherever he was--at St. Patrick's, or in a great field on one side of Crown Street, or at St. Anthony's--there she was with her family. She was a woman with the strong Irish faith in the supernatural, and in the power of God and His Church, that can "move mountains." A younger brother of mine had a running in his foot which the doctors could not cure. She determined to take Bernard to Father Mathew and get him to lay his hands on her boy.

At St. Patrick's, with her children kneeling around her, she asked the good Father to touch her son. He, no doubt thinking it would be presumptuous on his part to claim any supernatural gift, passed on without complying with her request. Father Mathew's next gathering was in the Crown Street fields. I was a boy of about nine years, attending Copperas Hill schools. Mr. Connolly, who was in charge, was a very good master, but there was nothing very Irish in his teaching. Some idea of this may be formed when I mention that--though there were not a dozen boys in the school who were not Irish or of Irish extraction--the first map of Ireland I ever saw was on the back of one of O'Connell's Repeal cards.

It was not until the Christian Brothers came, a few years afterwards, that this was changed. I shall always be grateful to that noble body of men, not only for the religious but for the national training they gave. We had Brothers Thornton and Swan--the latter since the Superior of the Order in Ireland.

Under them we not only had a good map of Ireland, but they taught us, in our geography lessons, the correct Irish pronunciation of the names of places, such as "Carrawn Thooal," "Croogh Phaudhrig," and similar words.

But our old master, Mr. Connolly, was a good man too, according to his lights. Hearing of Father Mathew's visit, he asked how many of the boys would go to Crown Street to "take the pledge"--their parents being willing? Out of some 250 boys there were about a dozen who did not hold up their hands.

I had an aunt--my mother's sister--married to a good patriotic Irishman, Hugh, or, as he was more generally called, Hughey, Roney, who kept a public house in Crosbie Street. The street is now gone, but it stood on part of what is now the goods station of the London & North Western Railway. Nearly all in Crosbie Street were from the West of Ireland, and, amongst them, there was scarcely anything but Irish spoken. I have often thought since of the splendid opportunity let slip by O'Connell and the Repealers in neglecting to revive, as they could so easily have then done, so strong a factor in nationality as the native tongue of our people. My Aunt Nancy could speak the Northern Irish fluently, and, in the course of her business, acquired the Connaught Irish and accent.

After a time Hughey Roney retired, and the house was carried on by his daughter and her husband, John McArdle, a good, decent patriotic Irishman, much respected by his Connaught neighbours, though he was from the "Black North." It used to be a great treat to hear John McArdle, on a Sunday night, reading the "Nation," which then cost sixpence, and was, therefore, not so easily accessible, to an admiring audience, of whom I was sometimes one, and his son, John Francis McArdle, another. This younger McArdle, originally intended for the Church, became in after life a brilliant journalist, and was for a time on the staff of the "Nation," the teaching of which he had so early imbibed. The elder McArdle was a big, imposing looking man, with a voice to match, who gave the speeches of O'Connell and the other orators of Conciliation Hall with such effect that the applause was always given exactly in the right places, and with as much heartiness as if greeting the original speakers.

After Father Mathew's visit, their trade fell away to such an extent that John McArdle, determined to hold his ground--while still keeping the public house open, though the business was all but gone--broke another door into the street, and made his parlour into a grocery and provision store. This enterprise on his part was only necessary for a short time, as the abnormal enthusiasm in the cause of temperance which, for the time being, had swept all before it, had subsided to such an extent that McArdle, after a time, turned the room to its original purpose, and was able to resume his readings from the "Nation" to admiring audiences, as heretofore.

Yet, though so many fell away from their temporary exaltation, there were still large numbers who remained firm, and the lasting good from Father Mathew's work was undeniable.

So popular was John McArdle's house, that it was used as one of the lodges of the Ancient Order of Hibernians--then very strong in Liverpool, and stout champions of country and creed. In regard to this organisation, I find in the "Irish World" of New York a high tribute paid to them by the Very Rev. Thomas J. Shahan, of the Catholic University of America. In his paper on "Hibernianism" he said there was a tradition in the Ancient Order that they first started in Ireland in the Penal days as a bodyguard to their poor parish priest when he said Mass in the open air. Anyone who has spent most of his life in England, as I have done, can well understand that this is not simply an effort of this good priest's imagination, for, over and over again I have seen the Hibernians among the first to come forward in defence of their priests and churches when these were threatened. In the course of his paper Dr. Shahan quoted a letter from the Brethren in Ireland, Scotland and England to the Brethren in New York. It sent instructions and authority to the few brothers in New York to establish branches of their Society in America.

These were the qualifications laid down: Members must be Catholic and Irish, or of Irish descent. They must be of good moral character, and were not to join in any secret societies contrary to the laws of the Catholic Church. They were to exercise hospitality towards their emigrant brothers and to protect their emigrant sisters from all harm and temptation, so that they should still be known for their chastity all over the world. The members of the Order in America were to be at liberty to make laws for the welfare of the Society, but these must be in accord with the teaching of the Church, and their working must be submitted to a Catholic priest. The letter says--"We send you these instructions, as we promised to do, with a young man that works on the ship and who called on you before." Directing that a copy of the document should be sent to another friend, then working in Pennsylvania, the letter concluded--"Hoping the bearer and this copy will land safe and that you will treat him right, we remain your brothers in the true bond of friendship this 4th day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1837"--

"PATRICK M'GUIRE, County Fermanagh. "JOHN REILLY, County Cavan. "PATRICK M'KENNA, County Monaghan. "JOHN DURKIN, County Mayo. "PATRICK REILLY, County Derry. "PATRICK DOYLE, County Sligo. "JOHN FARRELL, County Meath. "THOMAS O'RORKE, County Leitrim. "JAMES M'MANUS, County Leitrim. "JOHN M'MAHON, County Longford. "PATRICK DUNN, County Tyrone "PATRICK HAMILL, County Westmeath. "DANIEL GALLAGHER, Glasgow. "JOHN MURPHY, Liverpool."

It will be noticed that of the twelve Irish counties represented above, six are in the province of Ulster, three in Connaught, and three in Leinster, so that the Hibernians appear to have had their stronghold in the Northern province and the adjoining counties in Connaught and Leinster. This is exactly as one might expect, seeing the necessity for a defensive organisation against the Orangemen of Ulster. The Order took deep root in Glasgow and Liverpool on account of the convenience of access by sea from Ireland to these cities.

I was too young to have known John Murphy, who signed the letter for the Liverpool Hibernians, but, from what I knew of these afterwards, it is likely that he was a dock labourer. As I will show, these men, over and over again, to my own knowledge, gave splendid proofs of their courage and love of creed and country. Their love of learning, too, has been equal to that of their fathers in the days when our country was "The Island of Saints and Scholars." Some of these poor men may not have had much learning themselves, but they made great and noble sacrifices that their children should have it. I noted with interest in the Irish papers recently that the name of the Secretary of the Hibernian Order at the Bridge of Mayo, County Down, was "Brother Denvir."

Our country sent over to Liverpool, besides sterling Nationalists, as bitter a colony of Irishmen--I suppose we can scarcely deny the name to men born in Ireland--as were, perhaps, to be found anywhere in the world. These were the Orangemen. If there was one place more obnoxious to them than another it was the club room of the Hibernians in Crosbie Street. But though in their frequent conflicts with the "Papishes" they wrecked houses and even killed several Irishmen--for they frequently used deadly weapons against unarmed Catholics--they were never able to make a successful attack on McArdle's. One of my earliest experiences was being on the spot on the occasion of a contemplated assault on the Hibernian club room on the day of an Orange anniversary. This was in 1843.

Parallel to Crosbie Street, where the club room was situated, was Blundell Street, where my uncle, Hughey Roney, lived in a house immediately behind McArdle's--the back door of the one house facing the back door of the other. This side of the street, with the whole of Crosbie Street, has long since been absorbed by the railway company before mentioned.

I cannot imagine why my mother chose this particular day to take me to see our relatives, except it was the inveterate longing which her early surroundings and training had given her to assist at the "batin' of an Orangeman," or why I should have been the chosen one of the family to come, unless it was that she thought I was the one most after her own heart in her warlike propensities. However this may have been, there we were in the first-floor front room of my Uncle Hughey's. Every room, from cellar to garret, was crowded with stalwart dock labourers--at that time these were almost to a man Irish--prepared to support another contingent of Hibernians who garrisoned McArdle's in a similar manner. Hearing outside the cry--"he Orangemen!" I looked out of the window and up the street, and there, sure enough, was a strong body of them marching down, armed with guns, swords, and ship carpenters' hatchets. At once the word was passed to the contingent in Crosbie Street to be prepared to meet the threatened attack.

Nearer and nearer the Orangemen came. They had got within some thirty yards of Roneys when, between them and the object of their attack, out of Simpson street, which at this point crosses Blundell Street at right angles, there intervened the head of a column of police, under the Liverpool Chief Constable, an Irishman, Michael James Whitty. There was a desperate engagement, but, notwithstanding their murderous weapons, the Orangemen were utterly routed, flying before the disciplined charge of the police, who freely used their batons on their retreating opponents.

A few words about Michael James Whitty, who led the charge with right good will, may not be inappropriate here. Many years afterwards, when we were both engaged in the profession of journalism, I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance through my reviewing in the "Catholic Times" a very able book of his, a "Life of Robert Emmet." He asked Mr. Thomas Gregson, his private secretary, a friend of mine: Who had written this review? Upon hearing who it was, he asked Mr. Gregson to bring us together. When we met, he told me how pleased he was with my review, and that there was somebody on the "Catholic Times" who could appreciate his book.

He became Chief Constable of Liverpool in 1828. About this time Messrs. Rockliffs published a weekly newspaper called the "Liverpool Journal," which came into the hands of Mr. Whitty after he had resigned the office of head constable. An offshoot of the "Journal" was the "Daily Post," which, in Mr. Whitty's hands was a powerful organ of Liberalism. One of Whitty's sub-editors on the "Daily Post" was Stephen Joseph Meany, a somewhat prominent figure in the Young Ireland and Fenian movements.

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