A Triple Imprisonment (1883)

Chapter XIII

A Triple Imprisonment (1883)

Proceedings by the Crown against Davitt, Quinn and myself, for speeches in different counties, were begun in December, 1882, requiring us to give bail to be of good behaviour. Our utterances lie buried in the Law Reports, and cry out against disinterment.

My speech was made in Carlow in October, and was condensed for the Freeman by a Tory Scot reporter, Dunlop. The Government then got a policeman to swear that it was accurate, and the Court of Queen’s Bench acted on this material. The accused were not allowed to proffer evidence to the contrary

When I entered the Court of Queen’s Bench to be tried the Attorney-General (Johnson, M.P. for Mallow) shook hands with me. For this he was pilloried in the Saturday Review and Spectator. These papers argued that he greeted a “malefactor,” whom he was prosecuting. It was a good point. The case was adjourned to January, 1883, and before being resumed, Johnson was forced to resign his Attorney-Generalship and his seat in Parliament

Thus he was hoisted into a judgeship. I was sorry for his humiliation. He was one of the fairest of the Liberals. His fees and salary as Attorney-General (owing to prosecutions due to disturbance) reached £15,000 a year, while a puisne judgeship was only worth £3,500 The difference was a big price to pay for a shake-hands.

Son of the rector at Mallow, Johnson understood the Irish people, and loved their ways. A phrase of his against Parnell became a catchword in 1881, for he declared him “steeped to the lips in treason.” This was stout nisi prius rhetoric. Parnell did not resent it, and later on bestowed a modified encomium on Johnson, who, he said, “would doubtless become a judge, and an excellent judge, although the system he administered was ‘impossible.’” On the night this eulogium was bestowed, I left the House with Johnson and remarked, “Parnell paid you a great compliment just now.” “Yes,” he purred; “but did you notice how Mr. Gladstone said ‘hear, hear’?

Yet I once saw Gladstone, when Johnson was making a reply at the Treasury box, pull him down by the coat-tails!

When I reached Kingsbridge Station, Dublin, after the speech for which I was prosecuted, Johnson stepped from the train. Every hackney car was engaged, and Johnson seeing this, offered me a “lift” to my lodgings. As we drove off he said, “I hear you’re married.” “Yes,” I replied. Then he quoted sadly, “A young man married is a young man marred.” “Well,” I answered,” don’t hold my wake in your cab.” He laughed, and having left me at my door, went his way to a wifeless home.

Later on he married most happily. A Bar saga told that his wife, wishing to have some plumbing done, and knowing he hated plumbers, called in one of the craft after he had gone to bed. Roused by hammering, the judge woke up, and seizing the plumber, consigned him to the police!

Loyal to Gladstone, Johnson, at dinner at the King’s Inns about 1886, rebuked Judge William O’Brien (who reached the Bench through Johnson’s favour) for assailing Gladstone on his adoption of Home Rule. O’Brien was the ex-reporter of the Cork Examiner, who stood for Ennis as a Home Ruler in 1879.

Johnson - as strong a Protestant as O’Brien was a Catholic - turned on him, saying,” Gladstone found you a second-rate reporter, and transformed you into a first-class judge!

The London Press, which objected to Johnson’s shake-hands with me, made no protest against his ascending the Bench. Ermine notoriously works a magic change in the conscience of its wearers. Years later, when Johnson was made a baronet, I had the pleasure of congratulating him in Court.

Age had begun to tell on him, and he was dubbed “wooden-headed Billy.” He once asked me at nisi prius to take a note for him as he was disabled because of a splinter in his thumb. Denis Henry thereat whispered,” He must have been scratching his head!”

On an appeal to the Privy Council from Belfast Queen’s College as to the teaching of philosophy via the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Johnson presided, and ended matters by pronouncing, “I read his Imitation of Christ every morning.”

Two saintly Thomases lived, but the Imitation is attributed to Thomas á Kempis.

Trying a dispute between cattle-dealers, one of whom alleged that a telegram had been sent from York to the other in Liverpool when the sender was drunk, Johnson called for the message. Finding the handwriting of the telegraph clerk neat, he exclaimed in my hearing, “That’s not the writing of a drunken man.”

I wrote Maurice:

Dublin,

21st December, 1882.

“Parnell has been urging me to get you to come np, and perhaps he may have spoken to yourself; but before you come there should be a distinct engagement, and none of the understandings that are likely to be misunderstood, or doing work and getting nothing for it, as is the fate of some patriots. Had the world been told how virtuous we have been, none would believe it.

I am not surprised, considering the work we have done, at the stories going round of the way we have been paid! MacDonald (Labour M.P. for Stafford), when I was joking him about his £10 a week, said I was getting £20! I should be grateful if this were translated into currency!

Warren Hastings, too, was , “astonished at his moderation.”

Let me know what Parnell suggests.”

I may here add that the landlords’ propaganda then included assertions that Irish M.P.’s were paid extravagant sums. In 1885 King-Harman depicted me as smoking cigars “as long as my arm,” I have never smoked.

Johnson’s successor as member for Mallow was William O’Brien, whose first address to the electors on the 1st January, 1883, I heard, and thought wonderful for a novice who had never spoken before in public.

In later years O’Brien electrified many an audience, and sometimes astounded the House of Commons.

Johnson’s post as Attorney-General was filled by A. M. Porter, M.P. for Co. Derry. In January, 1883, Porter recommenced the prosecution against us, and refrained from shaking hands with criminals.

Sexton urged me to attend Court and speak, as Davitt had applied for leave to address the judges.

I, therefore, defended myself, and cited British statesmen’s utterances to justify my own, notably Gladstone’s attacks on Austria and the Turks in 1879-80. The judges relished the sarcasms as I rolled off Gladstone’s “bag and baggage” policy against Turkey, and compared the R.I.C. with the “Bimbashis and Yuzbashis” of Midlothian denunciation.

Sexton was present, and though his praise mounted high, I felt a pang because I had forgotten to quote an election “poster ” issued by Porter, in his contest for Co. Derry, as Solicitor-General, the year before. Its stark simplicity outranked my crudities in Carlow, for it shrieked “Vote for Porter and fair rents.”

Every landlord organ asserted that this meant that a Law Officer proposed to “rig” the courts to reduce rents, and thus bribe his way to a seat in Parliament.

Joseph Cowen, M.P., used to maintain that preparation was the best compliment a speaker could pay to an audience. I had not the gift of preparation. If I had, Porter’s placard might have led Chief Justice May to refuse his motion. For I had not, I think, exceeded the standards of free speech laid down by the Attorney-General or Mr. Gladstone.

Forty-five years have since gone by, yet the point I missed still wrings my heart!

The Queen’s Bench ordered us to give bail to be of “good behaviour,” or in default to suffer six months’ imprisonment. Of course, we refused to give bail.

Quinn was grateful to Chief Justice May because “the old chap could have turned me into ridicule by quoting my speech in a way that would have made me a laughing-stock.” He had apostrophized a meeting with, “Friends! Look on this young face and say is it that of a criminal? ” His delight that this was not cited in Court was boyish. Quinn was the kindliest creature and proved a joy in prison, where he spent his leisure studying medicine.

Some years after his release, at the peril of his life, Quinn pulled up the runaway horses of the family of a Lord-Lieutenant, which “took head ” in the Phoenix Park, and was sent for by the Viceroy to be officially thanked.

I advised my brother:

Dublin,

1st February, 1883.

“I sent you yesterday draft Bills for next session. From the order served on us on Saturday they can’t arrest us without making a motion for a warrant on Monday.

I promised three weeks ago to speak In Clonakilty next Sunday, and will do so. Perhaps you could run over and see me, as I will be glad to have a chat with you about our County Government Bill.

I am starting for Portarlington to speak at the Election there for Mayne.”

Postscript by Mrs. Healy:

“I have taken rooms opposite Kilmainham Jail, as I think I may be allowed to supply Tim’s food.”

After our arrests it became clear that they were merely a curtain raiser for a master-stroke which the Government was about to deliver.

Meanwhile, in December, 1882, John and William Redmond were dispatched to Australia to collect funds for the National Movement after William’s release from prison, He was threatened with a further prosecution, and wanted to remain to “face the music,” and go again to jail. I persuaded him against this, and got him to go with his brother, as he was in frail health. Their tour in Australia was successful and each found a wife at Orange, a town founded by worthy and wealthy Irish pioneers (the Daltons), into whose families they married. The creation of Orange by the elder Dalton is one of the romances of Australia.

Davitt, Quinn, and I were lodged in Kilmainham in February, 1883. The Governor, as soon as we entered, prophesied that we should not be long under him, “as we have the Phoenix Park prisoners here.” This was weeks before Carey turned informer.

That day, by order of Lord Spencer, we were shifted to Richmond Prison. We soon got good conditions as “first-class misdemeanants.” Visits, letters, newspapers, and food from outside made detention bearable.

The scope we enjoyed is shown by correspondence with my brother.

At this time the Irish Party was being competed with by the Ulster members who, like ourselves, resented the decision of “Adams v. Dunseath” annulling the Healy Clause, which vested improvements in the tenants. The Irish judges were determined, if they could, to tear asunder the Gladstonian settlement. Chief Justice Morris, in an attack on the 21st section which protected leaseholders, sneered at the “spirit of the Act,” saying, “Quod voluit id quod dixit.” Made a life judicial peer in 1888, he secretly resigned on the promise of a full peerage (now extinct). Lord Halsbury then appointed in his room Lord Lindley, contrary, I argued, to the intention of the Judicature Act, which contemplated an English, an Irish, and a Scotch Law Lord. Lord Lindley was a learned lawyer and author, but I moved the adjournment of the House of Commons in a protest based on international grounds.

I remarked that “Lindley on Partnership” should now be supplemented by one on “Predominant Partnership” - the latter, a phrase emitted by Lord Rosebery when Premier as describing the relations of England towards Ireland. Later on Mr. Balfour restored the correct position by appointing as a Judicial Peer the Irish Attorney-General, John Atkinson, whose silent service in forwarding reforms, both as to land and local government, although a Tory law officer, will never be adequately appreciated by the public. In his 20 years as Law Lord he never trespassed on the political domain in a career otherwise highly distinguished.

While Attorney-General he did not hesitate to criticize to his constituents in North Derry the attitude of the Irish Court of Appeal towards the working of the Land Acts. The Scotch judges when the Crofters’ Act was passed never sought to destroy its value for the Highlands, although probably liking it as little as the Victorian judges did the Irish Land Acts. It is fair to Chief Justice Morris, however, to say that he claimed he never sentenced a man to be hanged, never delivered a political address to a Grand Jury, and never was reversed by the House of Lords-a rare boast for the judges of those days.

I wrote my brother:

Richmond Jail,

4th March, 1883.

“Jail makes one lazy, and I can hardly do anything except read the papers. Feelings of lassitude have Come over the three of us.

T. P. O’Connor writes that William O’Brien is a great success in the House. It is good news The Portarlington election was wretched. Ten Catholics voted for Brewster, and all were bribed. Three of them were the largest shopkeepers in the place. Mayne, however, will be elected for Tipperary. Three or four Protestants voted for him. I suggested that his Committee should pass a vote of thanks to the 57 men who supported him. This would be an exposure of others, some of whom were his “committee ” men.”

Portarlington was then the smallest borough in the three kingdoms, with hardly 140 voters. It was a Huguenot foundation, and its chaplain, Canon Triphook, was in receipt of a pension from the Crown when I entered Parliament. So, I think, were some pretended servants of former monarchs.

Richmond Jail,

5th March, 1883.

“The drafting of the amending Ballot Bill is discreditable to the Government and fruitful only to lawyers and commentators. To save a little parliamentary time every one is to be puzzled. The Ballot Act and Corrupt Practices Act should be incorporated in one Act, as I recommended last year.”

I spent my leisure in jail drafting Bills - however imperfectly-for the Irish Party. Parnell said afterwards my Councils Bill was “crude,” and so it was. The jail had no library and I had to depend on memory and ignorance. Yet there was no other aspirant for the task of draftsman.

To Maurice I penned:

Richmond Jail,

24th March, 1883.

“The Ulster Land Bill is out and what they stole from us isn’t brilliant. I have written Biggar to send it to you.

I have also told him to forward you all Government Bills.

I am interested in the Corrupt Practices Bill, the Ballot, Criminal Law, and Appeal Bills, and am sorry I shall miss the debates thereon.

If you have leisure to draw amendments I shall be glad. I will send mine to the Party when I have gone through the Bills.”

In the spring of 1883 the Government imagined that Parnell was caught in their coils! The Secret Inquiry Clause of the Crimes Act had been put in force to such purpose that in December, 1882, several men were arrested for the Phoenix Park murders.

The acumen of Detective Mallon had solved that mystery. His clue was obtained after an attack in November, 1882, on a shopkeeper named Field, who had sat on a special jury in the Lough Mask murder trial for the death of bailiffs named Huddy.

The Park prisoners at first were accused of merely a minor conspiracy. Week after week they were remanded by a magistrate, while scraps of evidence were adduced, having no relation to the Park case. The Crown prosecutors were lawyers of ability and experience One of them, James Murphy, on an adjournment after a tedious day, exclaimed, “Next week we shall connect the accused with the Phoenix Park murders!” From the dock came a chorus of laughter.

Peter O’Brien, Q.C., who led for the prosecution, told me afterwards that the Crown advisers then had no shred of evidence to warrant this announcement. Re, as Murphy’s senior, reproved him for it, yet the forensic instinct of a craftsman proved true. Murphy trusted Mallon, who was confident that the “right men” were before the court, and his outburst put the detective on his mettle.

Mallon visited the cells in Kilmainham, and to Carey hinted that his comrades (especially Curley) had betrayed him. He next assured Curley that Carey had given way, and after several such interviews Carey believed Mallon, and broke down. Carey then made a statement implicating his confederates.

His collapse came on the morning when the adjourned hearing by the magistrate was to take place. The London Government at first opposed the acceptance of his testimony. Yet had he not peached, neither his comrades nor himself could have been convicted.

Lord Spencer regarded Carey’s breakdown as the greatest event since the landing of Henry II, and brushed aside the hesitations of Downing Street. So before noon Murphy, Q.C., visited Carey’s cell in Kilmainham, and there wrote down the wretch’s confession. Thence he went into court to make good his promise of a week earlier, for by 2p.m. Carey was in the box as a witness on behalf of the Crown.

That day in the House of Commons lobby Sir William Harcourt, Home Secretary, grew so jubilant that he boasted to Joseph Cowen, “the starch will soon be out of the boys!” Cowen interpreted this as implying that Parnell would be implicated.

At that date an official named Jenkinson (brother of a Clerk at the Table in the Commons) was head of the Crimes Department in Dublin, and may have wished to earn credit for Mallon’s insight. Jealousy and envy being the mainsprings of human action, it is possible he may, in advising the Government, have over-estimated the importance of Carey’s confession, believing that more could be made of it than subsequently resulted.

Mallon knew that he had squeezed the last ounce of information out of Carey. Yet he lost caste instead of gaining credit with the Executive. Functionaries drifted into Ireland in 1882-3, who believed in Parnell’s complicity in the Park murders. This tradition persisted until it was exploded by The Times Commission of 1888. Lord Spencer told J. A. Blake, M.P., in 1883, that gutter-pests, to earn money, offered to implicate the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the ex-Lord Mayors (C. Dawson, M.P., and E. D. Gray, H.P., of the Freeman), the most moderate of men, in the murders.

Mallon’s knowledge saved the Viceroy from availing himself of the perjury of such creatures. Yet his underlings gave permission to “Red Jim McDermott,” one of their New York agents, to visit us in prison. Davitt, Quinn and I were brought down to a special room to enjoy the honour of his acquaintance. The head warder came on duty to be regaled by his intimacies with us, but Davitt knew all about the fellow (whom I had never heard of), including his trial in America for murder.

So he broke off the interview, and I told the head warder that if “Red Jim” called again I was “not at home.” Next day Phil Callan, M.P., published the fact that “Red Jim “had slipped an extreme Irish-American paper into his top-coat pocket in a Dublin restaurant.

When Carey passed into the witness-box be was hooted from the dock by Curley and his fellow-prisoners. Carey ejaculated to Curley: “Ah, Dan, I was too quick for you ! Curley, however, had then given no information.

Carey had been elected a Councillor for a Dublin Municipal Ward a month before the arrests. He was a builder, and had made allegations of bad workmanship in civic drain-laying. E. D. Gray, M.P., told me that when he was challenged as to what drains were ill-laid, Carey was able to go to the spot and, getting the surface removed, verified his statements. “He who hides can find,” said Gray, who assigned an evil significance to this knowledge.

Amongst the prisoners was an old cabman dubbed “Skin-the-Goat,” who had driven the assassins to the Park. He shouted from the Dock at Carey, “Where’s your cocked hat, James? ” in allusion to the headgear then worn as part of the robes of Dublin Corporators. Another of his gibes was: “Carey is adequate to swear anything!”

The last man to suffer death on Carey’s evidence was Tim Kelly, of whom our warder (Foster) told me that he was a choir-singer in the Franciscan Church with Joe Brady. Foster narrated that the night before his execution Kelly spent in song. The airs he favoured were from the operas of Balfe and Wallace. When the night was far through the warder implored him, saying, “Mr. Kelly, would you not lie down to take a sleep against the morning?

The boy smiled, and said, “I will, but let me sing one more song.” Then he lilted “The Memory of the Past,” and lay still to take his sleep “against the morning.”

After the executions the informers, other than Carey, were transferred to Crown Colonies. Australia protested against their being sent there. One of the gang (Delaney) was brought forth as a witness at The Times Commission of 1888-9.

Carey himself was exported to South Africa, and when about to land at Port Elizabeth, was shot by a fellow-passenger, Patrick O’Donnell. It was supposed that O’Donnell sailed with Carey in order to kill him, but O’Donnell’s ticket was bought at a steamship agency in London a fortnight before the Irish Government made up its mind to send Carey to South Africa. The murder, therefore, could not have been the result of premeditation.

O’Donnell was brought to London for trial and hanged, but Sir William Harcourt would have reprieved him only that he gloried in the deed after conviction. A. M. Sullivan, M.P., one of his counsel, conveyed to me Harcourt’s state of mind.

In 1892 Mallon called at my house by night, after Gladstone came again into office, to ask influence towards his promotion. I had not met him before, and noted the humility with which he bore himself. He told me the usual tale of the boycotting of Catholics by Dublin Castle, and said he had been shut out from advancement.

This surprised me, for I assumed that he was their “star turn.” “Ah, no,” said he, “others have earned the credit of my work. Now there is an Assistant-Commissionership of Police vacant, and unless I get it under a Home Rule Government, who knows what king will reign in a few years’ time?” John Morley then was Chief Secretary, and gave Mallon the post he ambitioned.

A detail in Carey’s evidence throws light on the value of “expert” testimony. There were found in the house of his brother, Peter, surgical knives purchased from Weiss, Strand, London. The blades corresponded to the wounds in the bodies of the dead statesmen. Sir Charles Cameron, analyst of the Dublin Corporation, before Carey confessed, swore that the spots on the knives were bloodstains. Carey afterwards proved that the knives used for the murders had been broken up and thrown into the canal.

Sir Charles often appeared in the police courts to support milk or butter prosecutions on behalf of the Corporation. He used, therefore, to be asked roguishly by Dick Adams, when he supported a charge of excess water in butter or shortage of fats in milk, “Did you testify that the rust on the knives in the Park case was a bloodstain? ” “Yes “was of course the answer, and Sir Charles had -to beg Dick that this line of cross-examination should be dropped. A wag of his own profession then sent him a sample of water for analysis in which arsenic had been mixed, and alleged that he got back a certificate: “This is a potable water.”

An attempt by Ministerial whisperers to frighten Parnell new began. It is spoken of in the following letters to my brother:

Richmond Jail,

25th March, 1883.

“They have been having a bad time in the House, O’Brien tells me, and the efforts by private hints and innuendoes to frighten Parnell into night have been disgraceful. He has acted magnificently. Send a subscription to his testimonial, and a suitable letter.”

The revelations in the Phoenix Park trials and the attacks of Forster on Parnell led to the Government tightening up their procedure against their jailbirds.

I wrote Maurice:

Richmond Jail,

5th Apri1, 1883.

“The explanation of the delay in your getting my letter last week is that it was opened by the Government, who are carefully attending to cur correspondence. I wish them much comfort with glad tidings of great joy.

I have warned O’Brien that the Government will smash him if they can invent anything against him, as detectives display themselves ostentatiously wherever he goes. Having got so many informers, the Castle’s stupidity is amazing.

The seizure of Mat Marris’s private papers was “magnificent, if not war.” Yet when they succeeded in convicting unfortunates like those from Crossmaglen, anything is possible. Negroes from the Sudan would be as competent to handle this country as the blunderers in Dublin Castle. They are laying up a store of trouble for themselves (and for us, unfortunately) that will last this generation - triumphant as they think themselves now. There is relief in the thought that another year or two will see the end of them, and of Liberalism for some time to come… .

The Slaney fishermen, whose new season began on the 1st of April, sent my wife a magnificent salmon in token of my labour on their behalf. What poor men do, they do splendidly!

I have gone through the two first Gaelic books with Davitt and Quinn, and so have picked up a little.”

John A. Blake, Member for Waterford, used to visit me in prison, and before doing so would first wait on the Lord-Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, who had appointed him a Fishery Inspector in earlier years. A prophecy of Blake’s to Spencer sticks in my mind. He told me that the Earl praised the police, upon which Blake remarked, “Yes, a splendid force - until the moment they are seriously wanted.” This nettled His Excellency. Yet Macchiavelli’s satire on “mercenaries” anticipated Blake by four centuries. I told him this for his comfort.

Blake, though a teetotaller, kept a wine cellar in Westland Row, and whenever he was allowed to see me, brought bottles of fine claret for my enflagonment. He was a tall towardly man, with a pale face that never relaxed in spite of constant jesting.

He resigned his seat in the House of Commons to travel abroad, and narrated that when in Egypt a female fakir asked him to show his palm. Blake did so, and she declared, ” You have sat on green benches for a long time. You have given them up, but you will sit on them again.” This turned out to be true, for Blake was so liked by Parnell that he was elected a third time to the House of Commons.

He often enlivened my cell with reminiscences. Himself a Prince Mason, although bred a Catholic, he said the rites of the Degree were such that no consideration would induce him to go through them again. Perhaps he exaggerated, for on the same occasion he narrated that his predecessor in the Irish Fishery Department, in a Blue Book, reported to Parliament, “It is a strange coincidence that since the late Harbour Master of Dublin died, the herring has deserted Dublin Bay.”

In 1884 he passed away. The night before, I sat next him in the House chatting. He seemed in his usual health. It was a Friday, and the debate being dull, Blake made up for this by his chaff. He recalled that when elected for Waterford he was hunted by a mob, and had to escape through the skylight of his hotel, and fly the town, escorted by a troop of dragoons.

“Much the same will be your fate, popular as you are now, Healy,” said he. “You will be hunted as I was, and your life threatened. When you got married I thought that, like the Indian wrestlers, you would fall off. Yet you have not done so, but still snap your teeth like a shark, and command an audience. How long will it last?”

The seer then went home, and died before dawn in his sleep. His last will and testament was a charming bit of fun. He left £500 each to Richard Power, T. P. O’Connor, Sexton, the late Lord Justice Barry (for “his splendid conduct when I was challenged in the House”), Speaker Brand, and myself. Having thus distributed his assets, Blake next day bought an annuity, so that not a halfpenny could come to the legatees!

To Maurice, further prison letters ran:

Richmond Jail,

23rd April, 1883.

“The “Council Bill” was only circulated two days previous to the debate. Experience shows that, unless men are paid for an appointed task, things will go higgledy-piggledy…

This reminds me of a thought that persistently returns to my mind lately, of the way in which the Irish Movement has been managed by one man, although hundreds may he involved in responsibility for decisions that have been taken. Yet the people have been kept in the dark and never consulted.

Loyalty of the highest kind only would endure this strain, and 1 am not clear that it would not have been better if there had been more displays of what would be termed “vanity” or “faction.” Still it may be that, without the “ring” system, it would be impossible to conduct affairs.

Father spent an hour in my cell yesterday. He was allowed up by favour of the Governor. What a wealth of talent and probity has been thrown away for a few pounds a week in his case these last thirty years! “Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest.”

If you can, go again through the Criminal Code Bill. I have made a lot of memoranda on my copy, which I will knock into amendments. It is one of the most impudent measures that has ever been presented, and if passed, would give the Irish Government a far more potent engine than the Crimes Act for crushing political opponents. Our Party made a poor fight on it. From all I hear they are demoralized by the desertions and half-heartedness of the “cods.” …

William O’Brien is great value. He is worth a hundred trainloads of ordinary men. I hope his health will continue good.

I don’t know what Tim Harrington will turn out as regards ability, and was agreeably surprised to find he was able to make a decent speech, like the one after his release. He is combative and “factious,” which are great qualities for his position. I think he will make a first-rate second-rate man…

It is Mayo-Irish that Davitt and Quinn speak, though they don’t agree on some points. For instance, for “andiu” (to-day) one of them says “aniu,” and the other “aniuf.” Davitt had in his youth more practice than Quinn, but has forgotten more, as was natural. A little revives words and phrases with him.

Sexton told me some time ago that until he was 13 he understood spoken Irish, though never having occasion to speak it he has forgotten it. What a fine thing it would be if he kept up his knowledge and could address a mob! From what I have seen of Davitt, I am sure a little teaching would revive Sexton’s memory.

I applaud your determination to learn the tongue, but I hope you will not wait for my textbook! If I ever reach the pinnacle of briefless barristerhood it shall appear!”

Quinn told me with emotion that the Good Friday sermon in Claremorris in 1883 was (for the first time since St. Patrick) delivered in English, although the preacher, Canon Ulick Bourke, was the author of one of the earliest instruction-books in Gaelic. Canon Bourke had lamented the decline of Gaelic in these words: “To neglect and decry the living spoken language of the present, speaks insincerity at heart, and proves such flippant eulogists of the Gaelic to be actuated for its preservation or advancement only by that kind of regard for which stepmothers are proverbial. Good wishes without practice are like flowers without fruit!”

Davitt related that the Lancashire postmaster at Haslingden in the ‘seventies acquired many Irish words and phrases - so large was the number of harvesters coming for money orders to send home. His favourite phrase to gain attention was, “Wil tu gaisthoc l’yum?” (Are you listening to me?)

The attacks on Parnell in 1883 led to the starting of a testimonial to reward him for his services, and pay off the mortgage on Avondale. T. D. Sullivan, in the Nation, first recommended it. The mortgage amounted to £11,000 (claimed by Paul Askin). A rescript from Rome on the 11th May, 1883, condemned the project and attacked Parnell and his Asseclae.

It was signed by Cardinal Simeoni, and made a big stir amongst Irishmen the world over. Bishop Butler, of Limerick, at once sent a subscription to the testimonial with a letter which touched the deepest chord in Irish hearts in vindication of Parnell. Four Maynooth professors, who later became Bishops, including His Eminence the late Primate, Cardinal O’Donnell, braved displeasure and disadvantage by also sending donations to the fund.

The Irish Cause, which lay near low-water mark at that moment, was rescued from shipwreck by these ecclesiastics. The heartthrobs which sent the blood coursing through the National veins quickened at their protests. Under the Penal Laws Irish priests and bishops resisted English monarchs. In 1883 they withstood the Vatican itself to uphold the political rights of their country. when Cardinal Simeoni’s condemnation appeared only £7,688 had been subscribed to the fund. Three weeks later it had risen to £15,102, and on the 11th December, 1883, a cheque for £37,000 was handed to Parnell. Moneys from abroad arrived afterwards, bringing the total to £40,000.

We incurred the loss of prison privileges for smuggling out a subscription to the testimonial. Davitt, as we walked the jail-yard, angrily exclaimed, “It is time to draw the sword!” “Yes,” said Quinn, taking out a cigar and lighting it in the presence of the warders. “I’ll begin by throwing away the scabbard.” Neither Davitt nor I smoked, so we could not compete in defiance. The breach of rule was amiably overlooked, and visits and newspapers were allowed after a week’s deprivation.

Richmond Jail,

26 May, 1883.

“I must tell you a good thing our warder, Foster, said about Shakespeare. While we were at exercise, or in each other’s rooms, Foster devoted his leisure to reading our books. Quinn had an old copy of the immortal William, which the warder took to studying, having, I think, previously digested what he considered the more interesting portion of our literature. After a few days’ perusal of the Bard of Avon, a new light dawned upon him, and he observed to Quinn in a tone of slight exhilaration, “Begor, Mr. Quhin, I never knew that that Shakespeare was such a lad!” Is not this heavenly?

I have drawn a hundred amendments to the Criminal Code Bill, most of which have been put down in Sexton’s name, and will send them for your remarks. I don’t think the Bill can pass this year.”

In June we were discharged from jail after four months’ seclusion. Thanks to questions in the Commons by Joseph Cowen, M.P. for Newcastle-on-Tyne, two months of our sentences were remitted.

When the news of our release reached Warder Foster, he came with tears in his eyes to bid us good-bye, saying he could no longer remain in the prison service for lack of company.

He begged for a letter of recommendation to Irish friends in Canada. This we gave him. He had been transferred from Kilmainham Jail for our benefit, being a Protestant Tory.

His stories of the Galway prisoners there, convicted by Dublin special juries under the Crimes Act, and sentenced to death, were heartrending. He said none of them could speak English, and that they bewailed their fate in Gaelic, holding up their hands to try to make him understand. They numbered their children on their fingers, and by signs tried to show him their ages and heights. Crimes Act convictions were so common then that I did not attach special significance to his accounts. One conviction, however, was soon to have a sequel which bred rancour in British parties, and led to a political change.

Foster’s narratives related to men accused of the Maamtrasna murders of 1882. These were committed before the crime in the Phoenix Park, and were the worst that had occurred until then. A whole family except a boy was wiped out on a mountain-shieling in Galway, although no political motive could be traced nor any palliation suggested. The police brought the boy to Dublin.

There were whispers of trespass by sheep, but nothing more. At night, by the light of a paraffin lamp (then little used by rustics) the slaughter was accomplished. Necessarily Lord Spencer sought to bring the criminals to justice. A sweep was made, and a dozen men of the migratory labourer class, who had been working in South Shields, Co. Durham, were arrested. Taken before Mr. Brady, R.M., son of Sir Thomas Brady (Fishery Inspector), they were sent to Dublin for trial. Verdicts of guilty by special juries led to death sentences, and the condemned men were taken to Galway for execution. One of then, Myles Joyce, on the scaffold, vehemently protested in Gaelic his innocence. A few weeks later an English soldier stationed in Galway Jail vowed that on his rounds as sentry he saw Joyce’s ghost at night.

This tale passed into the Press, and, coupled with Joyce’s protests on the trap-door (recorded by the prison chaplain), made a deep impression. T. Harrington, M.P., was then serving a sentence in Galway Jail for a speech to his constituents. When released he raised an outcry against Joyce’s conviction. This he followed up with such dexterity that, backed by United Ireland, the country seethed in protest.

In August, 1884, I visited the scene of the massacre with Harold Frederic, of the New York Times, T. P.O’ Connor, and my brother. There was no road to Maamtrasna, and we had to ride on ponies up the bed of a mountain stream which in summer was dry. When we reached the place an uncanny feeling overcame us. A month later the late Edward Ennis, a barrister, who was a frequenter of Green Street Courthouse, Dublin, came to me with a bundle of papers. He had gained access to a room where Crown briefs were carelessly thrown after trial, and found the brief held in the Maamtrasna case by Peter O’Brien, Q.C. (afterwards Lord O’Brien, Chief Justice). Taking the printed “informations” from it, he gave them to me. It was the right of the accused to be furnished with “depositions.” Moreover, Lord Justice Barry declared from the Bench at Limerick in July, 1891, that as Attorney-General his practice was to hand a copy of the entire Crown briefs to the prisoners’ counsel.

In the Maamtrasna case the accused had not been furnished even with the” informations.” The chief witness against them was an informer named Casey, who swore that Myles Joyce was one of the murder party with himself, and that all of them came to their victims’ cabin dressed in black or with black overalls. The Crown brief, however, contained printed copies of an “information” by the surviving boy, who had been brought to Dublin to make it.

He swore that the murderers wore “baunyeens” (white flannel jackets) - the usual garb of a Galway mountaineer. This testimony, straight from the scene of the assassination, was in complete conflict with Casey’s evidence.

The Prosecution not only suppressed it, but did not produce as a witness the sole survivor of the tragedy. Until I got sight of this “information” I never encouraged Harrington’s protest. It began with the scare of a sentry in Galway Jail, whose ghost story seemed absurd. Yet it preluded a fateful series of political incidents, which helped to bring down the Liberal Government in 1885.

A startling confession was to come. A mission (or revival) took place in the parish of the informer Casey in 1884. The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr. McEvilly, unaware that anything unusual was to happen, came to give greater solemnity to the devotions. Casey entered the church unexpectedly, and after parley with the curate, publicly confessed his perjury against Myles Joyce. With a lighted candle in his hand before the astonished congregation, he owned that to save his neck he had sworn falsely. Furthermore, he declared that the real murderer was “Big Pat Casey of Bunnacric.”

Amazement stirred the Irish public mind. United Ireland boldly accused” Big Pat Casey” of the crime, and dared him to prosecute the publishers for libel. Again and again, for weeks, it returned to the charge, but “Big Pat Casey” lay low, and Lord Spencer refused to hold an investigation into the facts.

Harrington raised the case in pamphlet and in Parliament. Lawyers on both sides, like Sir Charles Russell, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir John Gorst, and others took the view that there had been a miscarriage of justice, and voted with us for inquiry. Gladstone was disturbed and summoned Peter O’Brien, who had prosecuted, to London, but he ended by accepting O’Brien’s excuses.

Each knew that the crime was non-political, but felt that if a wrong in the administration of the Crimes Act was acknowledged, the argument for miscarriage in political cases would be strengthened. So there was no admission of a mistake.

In June, 1885, the Irish Party joined the Tories to defeat the Liberals, and the ex-Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, described the junction as the “Maamtrasna Alliance.” He could not pronounce the word “Maamtrasna,” and always called it “Manstrasma.” Airily he used to twit the new Government with “stewing in Parnellite juice.” One or two of the prisoners had not been hanged, but the Tories did not release them. Not till 1903 did the last of them get free, and then thanks only to the visit of the late Queen Alexandra and King Edward to Connemara. The wife of the surviving convict (at the Marble Quarries in Galway) fell on her knees before the Royal pair, sobbing that she was lonely for her man. Guilty or innocent, he had been twenty years in jail, and the Queen, touched by her sorrow, asked the King to telegraph a pardon. Next day the prisoner was set at large.

The Irish members had not pressed for his release - for a reason which would not strike outsiders. We knew that year after year Gaelic-speaking priests visited Maryboro’ Jail to enable him to go to confession. The decrees of the Council of Trent bind Catholics annually (at least) to approach the Sacraments. This convict, the warders told us, refused to do so. That carried to our minds the inference of guilt, and, besides, showed that he was so ignorant of his religion that he distrusted the integrity of priests nominated specially for his benefit. Coupled with the infamous nature of the crime, this restrained us from lifting a finger to hasten his enlargement.

Harrington, who relentlessly pursued the case of Myles Joyce, never contended that all the prisoners were innocent. He merely maintained that the Crown lawyers cared little whether they were guilty or not. The ghost story of the English sentry walking the ramparts of Galway Jail in 1883 bred a weird offspring in 1885.

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