Category Archives: Speeches

William Redmond’s Speech to the St. Patrick’s Society, 17 March 1914 (3/3)

Speech delivered by Mr. William Redmond to members of St. Patrick’s Society at the annual banquet in the Windsor Hotel, St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, 1914


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Bill Safeguards Minority

The man who says religious liberty is to be denied in Ireland because the majority of the people are Catholics must be ignorant or cannot believe what he says. But, after all, there are people so saturated with prejudice that they cannot believe their religion is not endangered. What do we say to them? Turning to the Home Rule Bill again we say, assuming the people are so degenerate as to act contrary to the whole history of the race, under Home Rule it is impossible for them to do so. The bill contains limitations, safeguards, very galling and almost insulting to a liberty loving people, but we have consented to their inclusion in the Bill to ensure that there is no right of liberty, or citizenship that is not guaranteed by the bill or by the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. If any fair-minded Canadian looks closely into this question he will find there is no real cause for fear in Ireland.

Ulster Dominance Over

I have nothing bitter to say against those in Ulster who are opposing this measure. I am confident that some of them will be amongst the most valued legislators in Ireland eventually. But they have enjoyed great privileges and ascendancy in the past. During the last one hundred and fourteen years the whole majority of the Irish people have been practically ignored. Ireland has been governed largely by (he opinions of people coming entirely from Ulster. We submit that our Protestant countrymen will receive equality. Their rights, even their sentiments and feelings will be scrupulously respected but they will get no more ascendancy. Every man will be judged upon his merits whether Catholic or Protestant. (Applause). Let me give you some figures to show what privileges the Unionist minority have been allowed. Ireland returns 103 representatives to the British Parliament. Of these 85 are strongly in favour of Home Rule and will vote e in the same lobby as I do in favor of it in a week or two. Sixteen of these representatives are drawn from a portion of Ulster and are opposed to Home Rule. These are the popular representatives. That distinguished man Sir Edward Carson represents the University of Dublin which is well enough in its way, but for the purposes of popular opinion we will leave the University representatives out. Of the eighty-five Nationalists seventeen are elected from North Ulster. Let me observe that there is no one county in Ireland in which the Nationalists have not elected even one member. (Applause). Now, therefore, what is the position? You have the whole of three great provinces of Ireland, Munster, Leinster and Connaught, and you have more than half of the elected representatives of Ulster itself supporting Home Rule. The contention of the Ulsterites is that if the Government does not recommend itself to the sixteen minority, even if the eighty-five majority support it there is to be civil war.

An Insupportable Proposition

Some of the prominent Unionist statesmen seem to have lent their weight to this proposition. What a proposition it is. We see in every country in the civilised world there is a great unrest, among the masses of the people; a great movement for better conditions. And what a lesson this is to teach to these unsettled people, that if their way cannot be had, if their way cannot be gained it is legitimate, and even approved in the highest quarters of England, that there shall be an appeal to arms. I do not believe it is conceivable; I cannot contemplate the likelihood of the hopes of the Irish people being frustrated, but should that take place how are these men to explain the speeches and feelings to which they have given utterance. If it is legitimate for the minority to wage war, what is to be said of the vast majority? These things only need to be enquired into ui order to justify the position of the present Government. I do not believe there will be civil war, I do not believe the world’s history shows an appeal to arms without real cause, and if our countrymen in the North wait for justification for war, they will wait for ever.

Ireland’s Indisputable Right

What is considered the duty of the great leaders of progressive thought in England to-day? These men, and all the men of surpassing talent that they have gathered round them, are as sincere in the cause as any of my Nationalist colleagues. They have watched the course of Government in Ireland, they have watched the effect of the present system, and these men and the great majority behind them, and the great majority behind Parliament, occupy the position that they are going to give us Home Rule because the Irish people have made out a case for it; and, perhaps, because they recognise that the withholding of Home Rule has brought neither credit nor profit to the British Empire.

William Redmond by Max Cowper (1860-1911)

An Imperial Achievement

This is not merely an Irish question; it is an Empire question. In spite of all the turmoil, as the thing draws nearer, in spite of all the alarmist reports, I venture the prediction that this question is going to be settled now, that if this Government were supplanted no Government that would take its place could ignore the Irish question. The day for arguing is past, and the utmost our bitterest opponents can say is that they do not like this plan of Home Rule now before Parliament. Ireland is about to be restored the right of governing herself and the result will justify the policy in Ireland as it has been justified in Africa and every other part of the British Empire. (Loud applause). And I believe before long, shortly after this great controversy is settled, our wisest men of both parties will say of Ireland that the policy of trusting the people was right, that Home Rule after all was a great achievement. (Applause). It will be so from a three-fold point of view. For England it will mend one of the really weak spots in her armour; it will reconcile to England after long years of bitterness, in every part of the Empire one of the most virile of races; it will be a great achievement for this great Empire because the day that sees Irishmen governing themselves in Ireland will move the hearts and spur the energies of Irishmen in every part of the world so that with redoubled vigour they can go into the work of building up and advancing this Empire. (Applause). It will be a great achievement for Ireland. Many in whose veins Irish blood runs to-day, cannot help feeling a strong thrill of elation, knowing that this question is so near to being settled and their home and Motherland being allowed to rule herself within this Empire.

Sorrow and Triumph

But many of the men who have made this great movement have passed away. Parnell is in his grave in Dublin, and Davitt is gone. Generation after generation has passed away who have not lived to see this great day. Even since I have come to this country I have to mourn the loss of one who was my colleague in the House of Commons for many and many a day, who brought the enthusiasm of his free Canadian heart to work for the land of his fathers, the Hon. Chas. Devlin. Only those of us who have the blood and history of the past burnt into our brains know what the settlement of this question means to us, and I can only say, and say it reverently, that the dominating feeling of Irishmen everywhere is one of humble thankfulness to Almighty God that He has allowed so many of us to live to see this day for which so many of our forefathers would have died. When Ireland does, at last, take her place as a nation she will turn with a glad smile to these great countries beyond the seas; she will turn to each and every one of you and thank you for the sympathy given to her in her hour of trial. And she will pass her word, that word which has never been broken, that freedom being granted she is yours, in any thing, hand in hand, in the advancement and development of the Empire against the whole world. (Loud and continued applause).

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William Redmond’s Speech to the St. Patrick’s Society, 17 March 1914 (2/3)

Speech delivered by Mr. William Redmond to members of St. Patrick’s Society at the annual banquet in the Windsor Hotel, St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, 1914


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Extraordinary Political Record

What are the political facts with regard to Ireland? I claim that what I am about to tell you is the most extraordinary political record that the history of any country in the world can show. In 1885, when we had the third Reform Bill the franchise was extended and the Irish people at large got the power of say- ing what they wanted. Even before that with a much restricted electorate the Irish people asked for Home Rule. When that franchise was extended what happened? In 1885 Parnell was sent back at the head of a Nationalist party 86 strong. We have had a great number of elections since then. Election after election has been held, but there has been no change in Ireland. Year after year, bill after bill has been passed for the improvement and betterment of conditions in other parts of Great Britain but all though that period the answer to our one claim has been the same, our attempts to gain what Ireland has wanted for so long have been countered in the same way, and the eighty-five Irish Nationalists in the House of Commons still stand for Home Rule exactly as they did when the franchise was first extended.

Democracy Answers the Plea

The indisputable claim of Ireland, however, has impressed the present Prime Minister of England, Mr. Asquith, as it impressed Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and the leading British statesmen, Liberal in politics, in Great Britain, and they hold by the principle that you cannot ignore the voice of the people. The voice of Ireland always has asked for Home Rule and the British Democracy at last is answering it favourably. I do not pretend to be able to speak in detail of the changes that seem to have taken place in the question of Home Rule since I was at home. But I can say this with perfect confidence that there is nothing I know of, that the members of the Nationalist party are not prepared to do, to allay, and to meet, the honest and sincere doubt, of any countryman of ours, whether Protestant or Catholic, about Home Rule. (Applause.)

Ready to Make Concessions

There was a time, I confess, when feeling ran high and bitter in Ireland, but whatever may have been said or done in the early days of the agitation, under coercion and exceptional laws, I tell you that in view of the near approach of the responsibility of Government on Irish shoulders, no member of our party will say one word of provocation calculated to make broader any difference there may be between part of Ulster and the rest of Ireland. We are prepared consistently with the principle for which our fathers struggled, of an Irish Parliament and Government by Irish people, to go to every reasonable length to disarm all reasonable opposition. (Applause).

Irishmen Will Unite

I hazard the opinion that no section of Irishmen in the long run will consent to the partition of Ireland. (Applause). There may be those, who, at the commencement, hesitate and doubt, but with my knowledge of Ulster as well as the South of Ireland I hazard the opinion, confidently, that, in the long run, the North of Ireland will throw in its lot with the South. I believe that the people of Ulster are a sturdy race, almost a stubborn race, and I believe if their rights, privileges, properties and particularly, their conscience were touched they would resist strongly and effectively and, under these circumstances every honest man must agree they would be right. But the question we have to ask is, if there be no interference with these rights, or properties of conscience are they a race of men likely to neglect their homes to take the field without just cause?

William Redmond by Max Cowper (1860-1911)

Dishonest Misleading Opposition

Since I have been in Canada I have seen a good many expressions as to resistance in Ulster. It is not surprising that they should talk about resistance if their lands and rights of citizenship are endangered, but is it fair to go on assumptions such as these? There is no interference in the Home Rule Bill with the citizenship of any man in Ulster. It is not suggested that he live under another flag to the one he is accustomed to, or that he be deprived, by one single jot, of the privileges he enjoys today. Under the provisions of the Home Rule Bill the first thing these gentlemen have to do is to elect their direct representatives and spokesmen to go to the Imperial Parliament at Westminster. That Parliament retains all its power and all its potency for the protection of minorities just as it possesses them today. And I submit, especially here in Canada, that this great question ought to be discussed fairly. Such loose talk as the destruction of citizenship ought not to be indulged in when every honest man must deem such language untrue.

A Cruel Slander

What is the real fact of the case. The public of Canada and the Empire have been told that Ulster will not submit to Home Rule because tlie residents in Ulster being non-Catholic, cannot trust themselves in any Parliament in which the men of the Ancient Faith would be predominant. Now, stripped of all subterfuge, that ‘is the kernel of the argument against the inclusion of Ulster with the rest of Ireland. I speak as an Irish Catholic representative, I speak as Catholic of the Catholics and, as such, I submit that the whole of history proves that this is a cruel and heartless and outrageous slander upon the Catholic people to say that it is in them to injure any man because he worships God in his own way. (Applause).

What of Persecution of Catholics

At this time with our hearts full of hope and the determination to banish all bitterness from our minds, it is not timely to speak of such things, but what a tale could I unfold were I to go back to the treatment accorded us all through centuries because of our faith. We were only emancipated the other day. It was not until years after our Parliament was taken from us by fraud and corruption, not until years after we lost that Parliament without any appeal to the people that we were emancipated. To this day the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland may belong to any faith the law says, but the faith of the majority of the people. It is too, only within the last few years that the present King came to the throne, only when he was crowned, that, for the first time, the slanderous reference to bis subjects of the Catholic faith, contained in the Coronation oath, was left out.

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William Redmond’s Speech to the St. Patrick’s Society, 17 March 1914 (1/3)

Speech delivered by Mr. William Redmond to members of St. Patrick’s Society at the annual banquet in the Windsor Hotel, St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, 1914.


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‘I esteem myself very favoured in having the honour of being here with you to-night. I am on no political mission in this country; I am just returning rapidly, through this great land, home where I hope to take my place within a very few days in the ranks of the great party to which I have belonged for the last thirty-one years. But the chance which enables me to be here is a happy one for me since it gives me the privilege of witnessing the extraordinary devotion exhibited here to the cause of Irish nationality. Your welcome is not a personal one to myself, but I feel it and appreciate it all the more because I know you intend to show your esteem for, and confidence in, my colleagues of the Irish Nationalist party. As the only member of that party on this continent to-night I may say that the confidence of the Irish people throughout the world is well placed in the Irish national representatives to-day, because it is our boast to be able to say, without contradiction, that the National representation of Ireland organised thirty years ago by Mr, Parnell, bas remained faithful to its trust, absolutely incorruptible, devoted at all times first, to the cause of Ireland and devoted also, to every good cause which needed support in the British Parliament until to-day, thank God, we are recognised at Westminster, not merely as the representatives of Ireland, but as defenders of [he cause of liberty and humanity in Great Britain and every part of the land. (Loud applause).

A Power the World Over

Ladies and Gentlemen, before I say a few words that I believe, you may be glad to hear, about the present position of the cause to which we are all pledged at home, will you allow me to le-echo faintly the sentiments expressed by Dr. Walsh and Mr. Fitzgerald when they referred to the wonderful strength, and power and influence of the national race to which we are proud to belong’. I have travelled round the world; I have seen our people in every part of it, in the great Commonwealth of Australia, which may be really described as the home of freedom, in the progressive Dominion of Canada, all through this land from Vancouver to Montreal, and in the mighty States of the Union. I have seen our people everywhere. I can say of the people of New Zealand and Australia, and other distant portions of the great Empire, what Mr. Fitzgerald has said of the people of Massachusetts, that wherever our people have gone, they have done honour to the cradle of our race. Not only is this true in Canada in the persons of men like Hon. Mr. Doherty, the Minister of Justice, but in every State of America, in the Commonwealth of Australia and elsewhere, the Irish people hold up their heads amongst the foremost of the land. We can say of them as has been said of the Empire, that the world round the “sun never sets” upon the greatness, the power, the influence and the honor of the Irish race m all those lands where their great qualities are given free play, and where they are allowed the great bless- ing of governing themselves. (Loud applause).

Ireland’s Saddest Chapter

One of the saddest chapters in the history of Ireland has been the enforced migration of its people. Looking at the population of Ireland to-day of a little over four millions of people, it is al- most impossible to believe that, seventy years ago, the population of Ireland was more than half the population of England and Wales, was four times the population of Scotland, was very nearly half the population of all Great Britain. Today there is left practically only a remnant of the race at home. On this St. Patrick’s Day when we are anxious to banish all trace of bitter- ness, it is not for me to refer to the causes why Ireland is the only country in this Empire in which men and women have been forced to leave their homes, it is sufficient for us to know that our people have gone, and surely, it is no sign of good government that they have gone. Our consolation is in the fact that they have prospered wherever they have gone. Some races would have been exterminated long ago had they had the experience which has been ours, but not so with our people. In every part of this Empire the Irish are influential and strong. (Applause).

William Redmond by Max Cowper (1860-1911)

Millions All United

If our to-morrow is to be as glorious as we confidently believe, it will be largely because the scattered seed of the Irish race has taken root and is furnishing comfort and help to those who are left. And if, on this St. Patrick’s Day, we are more jubilant than ever before, if our cause stands, as it does, in the foremost, occupying a preeminently strong position it is largely because — and how we thank you for it, because you in Canada, our kin in the United States and in Australia, our people throughout the world, have stood behind those in Parliament and enabled them to say “We are making our claim, not for a remnant of our race, but backed by, the sympathy, the support and the hearts of millions of our race, in every part of the world.” (Applause).

Nationalists Wonderful Boast

I have been for thirty-one years a humble member of the great party which Parnell organised. In that time we have had severe experiences, and prolonged struggles, but it surely is a privilege for me to be able to say that, as St. Patrick’s Day has succeeded St. Patrick’s Day, we always have been able to mark some improvement in our country. Thirty-one years ago the condition of Ireland w^as deplorable, from every point of view. The people were handicapped and penalised in every direction wherever we looked. When Parnell and Davitt took up the great movement now on the eve of consummation, Ireland’s condition cried out for betterment; now, am I not entitled to consider myself and my few colleagues who survive the stormy days follow- ing the inception of our’ party, exceptionally privileged and honoured to be able to say, as we can say to you, that every item on our programme of reform, which we set out to accomplish, under Parnell’s leadership, has been achieved. Ireland is a changed country better fitted for Government, with better conditions of the people better educated and better governed. It has been greatly transformed from the Ireland of thirty-one years ago. (Applause). And now we stand on the threshold of the one re-form necessary to make every other reform effective in the highest degree; we stand on the threshold of the concession of self-government to our country. (Prolonged applause).

All Reforms Long Overdue

I have sometimes been asked by our Conservative friends in England how it is since Ireland has so much improved, it is not satisfied with the form of Government under which these re- forms have been effected? That is a fair question which is answered very fully in this way: We in Ireland claim that every reform brought about in the last thirty years has been long overdue. Had we a Government of our own there was no doubt we would have accomplished them long before. We may point out that no single one of the reforms was carried in Ireland without paying the price of long years of agitation, of turbulence, of violence, if you will. The Irish people, too, have this characteristic, the better off they are, the more educated they are, the more independent they are, the more absolutely resolved they become never to rest until they enjoy at least a modicum of those self-governing institutions, which have been granted to all other peoples in the Empire and which have made the Empire great.

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Padraig Pearse Speech at Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa’s Funeral

It has seemed right, before we turn away from this place in which we have laid the mortal remains of O’Donovan Rossa, that one among us should, in the name of all, speak the praise of that valiant man, and endeavour to formulate the thought and the hope that are in us as we stand around his grave. And if there is anything that makes it fitting that I, rather than some other, rather than one of the grey-haired men who were young with him and shared in his labour and in his suffering, should speak here, it is perhaps that I may be taken as speaking on behalf of a new generation that has been re-baptised in the Fenian faith, and that has accepted the responsibility of carrying out the Fenian programme. I propose to you then that, here by the grave of this unrepentant Fenian, we renew our baptismal vows; that, here by the grave of this unconquered and unconquerable man, we ask of God, each one for himself, such unshakable purpose, such high and gallant courage, such unbreakable strength of soul as belonged to O’Donovan Rossa.


Funeral of O'Donovan Rossa in Glasnevin, Dublin

Deliberately here we avow ourselves, as he avowed himself in the dock, Irishmen of one allegiance only. We of the Irish Volunteers, and you others who are associated with us in to-day’s task and duty, are bound together and must stand together henceforth in brotherly union for the achievement of the freedom of Ireland. And we know only one definition of freedom: it is Tone’s definition, it is Mitchel’s definition, it is Rossa’s definition. Let no man blaspheme the cause that the dead generations of Ireland served by giving it any other name and definition than their name and their definition.

We stand at Rossa’s grave not in sadness but rather in exaltation of spirit that it has been given to us to come thus into so close a communion with that brave and splendid Gael. Splendid and holy causes are served by men who are themselves splendid and holy. O’Donovan Rossa was splendid in the proud manhood of him, splendid in the heroic grace of him, splendid in the Gaelic strength and clarity and truth of him. And all that splendour and pride and strength was compatible with a humility and a simplicity of devotion to Ireland, to all that was olden and beautiful and Gaelic in Ireland, the holiness and simplicity of patriotism of a Michael O’Clery or of an Eoghan O’Growney. The clear true eyes of this man almost alone in his day visioned Ireland as we of to-day would surely have her: not free merely, but Gaelic as well; not Gaelic merely, but free as well.

Pearse at funeral of O'Donovan Rossa in Glasnevin, Dublin

In a closer spiritual communion with him now than ever before or perhaps ever again, in a spiritual communion with those of his day, living and dead, who suffered with him in English prisons, in communion of spirit too with our own dear comrades who suffer in English prisons to-day, and speaking on their behalf as well as our own, we pledge to Ireland our love, and we pledge to English rule in Ireland our hate. This is a place of peace, sacred to the dead, where men should speak with all charity and with all restraint; but I hold it a Christian thing, as O’Donovan Rossa held it, to hate evil, to hate untruth, to hate oppression, and, hating them, to strive to overthrow them. Our foes are strong and wise and wary; but, strong and wise and wary as they are, they cannot undo the miracles of God who ripens in the hearts of young men the seeds sown by the young men of a former generation. And the seeds sown by the young men of ’65 and ’67 are coming to their miraculous ripening to-day. Rulers and Defenders of Realms had need to be wary if they would guard against such processes. Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! — they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.

James Connolly’s Lockout Speech, Co. Dublin

Speaking at a meeting in Dublin, Sunday, August 30, 1914, to commemorate the deaths of James Nolan, John Byrne and Alice Brady, killed during the Dublin Lockout, 1913-14, Connolly said:


He was glad to see so large a gathering to commemorate their comrades, because they were murdered for the sake of great principles. It had not been a mere casual murder, but a cold-blooded and premeditated one, deliberately planned with the idea in mind that as they went to their graves, so went the hopes for which they fought. That when they were murdered all the hopes of the Irish workers would be slain with them; when they were foully done to death all our aspirations for a cleaner, better city and grander nation would be murdered, too. “Where do we stand today?” he continued. “The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union and the hopes of the Irish working class, and that class itself stands erect and resolute, fearing no man, and the British Government is down on its knees praying for the Russians to come and save them. Our fight of last year was not for added wages and reduction of hours; it was for an opportunity of building up in our midst men and women, a chance to develop nobility and grandeur of character for men and women, a time to realise the nobility of life, to study the history of Ireland, to study our rights as well as our duties; time to develop men and women for the coming crisis, so that they might take advantage of it when it came. Abject servility there is in Ireland; whatever of the spirit of a slave that in you lies, lies with those who served to cripple the grandest movement ever started. If labour controlled your destinies, conjure the picture of what might have happened when after Gray and Asquith had plunged England into war, there arose a clamour for Redmond. And Redmond, without consulting you, the people of Ireland, pledged us to war with as kindly, gracious a nation as God ever put the breath of life into – what happened then? Redmond when they shouted for him might have sat still and let them shout, then before another sun rose got a measure greater than Grattan dreamed of Redmond, as spokesman of the majority of the Irish people might have risen and said: ‘I and my colleagues will go to Ireland and consult the Irish Nation.’ Then would Ireland be a nation in reality. ‘We have waited and now Germany has come, and we will start our own Parliament. Stop us if you can.’ Help would have come from all sides. Why the R.I.C. would have acted as a guard of honour!

These men have sold you. Sold you? No, by God, given you away. Whether my speech is pro-German or pro-Irish, I don’t know. As an Irish worker I owe a duty to our class; counting no allegiance to the Empire; I’d be glad to see it back in the bottomless pit. The Irish workers hold themselves ready to bargain with whoever can make a bargain. England has been fighting Germany. If it were not for the Russians, French and Japanese, the British would not have made a mouthful for the Germans. The Germans are in Boulogne, where Napoleon projected an invasion of Britain. To Ireland is only a twelve hours’ run. If you are itching for a rifle, itching to fight, have a country of your own; better to fight for our own country than for the robber empire. If ever you shoulder a rifle, let it be for Ireland. Conscription or no conscription, they will never get me or mine. You have been told you are not strong, that you have no rifles. Revolutions do not start with rifles; start first and get your rifles after. Our curse is our belief in our weakness. We are not weak, we are strong. Make up your mind to strike before your opportunity goes.

Speech to Women, Countess Markievicz

Countess Markievicz wrote in 1909: “The first step on the road to freedom is to realise ourselves as Irishwomen – not as Irish or merely as women, but as Irishwomen doubly enslaved and with a double battle to fight.”


In the same year she gave a lecture to the young women of the National Literary Society in Dublin. The following is an extract:

She began:

“I take it as a great compliment that so many of you, the rising young women of Ireland, who are distinguishing yourselves every day and coming more and more to the front, should give me this opportunity. We older people look to you with great hopes and a great confidence that in your gradual emancipation you are bringing fresh ideas, fresh energies and above all a great genius for sacrifice into the life of the nation.”

“Now, I am not going to discuss the subtle psychological question of why it was that so few women in Ireland have been prominent in the national struggle, or try to discover how they lost in the dark ages of persecution the magnificent legacy of Maeve, Fheas, Macha and their other great fighting ancestors. True, several women distinguished themselves on the battle fields of 1798, and we have the women of the ‘Nation’ newspaper, of the ‘Ladies Land League’, also in our own day the few women who have worked their hardest in the Sinn Fein movement and in the Gaelic League and we have the women who won a battle for Ireland, by preventing a wobbly Corporation from presenting King Edward of England with a loyal address. But for the most part our women, though sincere, steadfast Nationalists at heart, have been content to remain quietly at home, and leave all the fighting and the striving to the men.

“Lately things seem to be changing ….so now again a strong tide of liberty seems to be coming towards us, swelling and growing and carrying before it all the outposts that hold women enslaved and bearing them triumphantly into the life of the nation to which they belong.

“We are in a very difficult position here, as so many Unionist women would fain have us work together with them for the emancipation of their sex and votes – obviously to send a member to Westminster. But I would ask every nationalist woman to pause before she joined a Suffrage Society or Franchise League that did not include in the programme the Freedom of their Nation. A Free Ireland with No Sex Disabilities in her Constitution should be the motto of all Nationalist Women. And a grand motto it is.

“Women, from having till very recently stood so far removed from all politics, should be able to formulate a much clearer and more incisive view of the political situation than men. For a man from the time he is a mere lad is more or less in touch with politics, and has usually the label of some party attached to him, long before he properly understands what it really means…..

“Now, here is a chance for our women……….. Fix your mind on the ideal of Ireland free, with her women enjoying the full right of citizenship in their own nation, and no one will be able to side-track you, and so make use of you to use up the energies of the nation in obtaining all sorts of concessions – concessions too, that for the most part were coming in the natural course of evolution, and were perhaps just hastened a few years by the fierce agitations to obtain them.

“If the women of Ireland would organise the movement for buying Irish goods more, they might do a great deal to help their country. If they would make it the fashion to dress in Irish clothes, feed on Irish food – in fact, in this as in everything, live really Irish lives, they would be doing something great, and don’t let our clever Irish colleens test content with doing this individually, but let them go out and speak publicly about it, form leagues, of which ‘No English goods’ is the war cry…..

“I daresay you will think this all very obvious and very dull, but Patriotism and Nationalism and all great things are made up of much that is obvious and dull, and much that in the beginning is small, but that will be found to lead out into fields that are broader and full of interest. You will go out into the world and get elected onto as many public bodies as possible, and by degrees through your exertions no public institution – whether hospital, workhouse, asylum, or any other and no private house – but will be supporting the industries of your country…………

“To sum up in a few words what I want the Young Ireland women to remember from me. Regard yourselves as Irish, believe in yourselves as Irish, as units of a nation distinct from England………..and as determined to maintain your distinctiveness and gain your deliverance. Arm yourselves with weapons to fight your nations cause. Arm your souls with noble and free ideas. Arm your minds with the histories and memories of your country and her martyrs, her language and a knowledge of her arts, and her industries…….. “

Speech From the Dock, William Orr

Twelve months before Wolfe Tone expired in his prison cell, one of the bravest of his associates paid with his life the penalty of his attachment to the cause of Irish independence. In the subject of this sketch, the United Irishmen found their first martyr; and time has left no darker blot on the administration of English rule than the execution of the high-spirited Irishman whose body swung from the gallows of Carrickfergus on the 14th of October, 1797.


William Orr was the son of a farmer and bleach-green proprietor, of Ferranshane, in the county of Antrim. The family were in comfortable circumstances, and young Orr received a good education, which he afterwards turned to account in the service of his country. We know little of his early history, but we find him, on growing up to manhood, an active member of the society of United Irishmen, and remarkable for his popularity amongst his countrymen in the north. His appearance, not less than his principles and declarations, was calculated to captivate the peasantry amongst whom he lived; he stood six feet two inches in height was a perfect model of symmetry, strength, and gracefulness, and the expression of his countenance was open, frank, and manly. He was always neatly and respectably dressed – a prominentfeature in his attire being a green necktie, which he wore even in his last confinement.

One of the first blows aimed by the government against the United Irishmen was the passing of the Act of Parliament (36 George III.), which constituted the administration of their oath a capital felony. This piece of legislation, repugnant in itself to the dictates of reason and justice, was intended as no idle threat; a victim was looked for to suffer under its provisions, and William Orr, the champion of the northern Presbyterian patriots, was doomed to serve the emergency.

He was arraigned, tried, and convicted at Carrickfergus, on a charge of having administered the United Irishman’s oath to a soldier named Wheatly. The whole history of the operations of the. British law courts in Ireland contains nothing more infamous than the record of that trial. We now know, as a matter of fact, that the man who tendered the oath to Wheatly was William M’Keever, a well-known member of the society, who subsequently made his escape to America. But this was not a case, such as sometimes happens, of circumstantial evidence pointing to a wrong conclusion. The only evidence against Orr was the unsupported testimony of the soldier Wheatly; and after hearing Curran’s defence of the prisoner there could be no possible doubt of his innocence; But Orr was a doomed man – the government had decreed his death before hand; and in this case as in every other, the bloodthirsty agents of the crown did not look in vain for Irishmen to co-operate with them in their infamy.

At six o’clock in the evening the Jury retired to consider their verdict. The scene that followed in the jury room is described in the sworn affidavits of some of its participators. The jury were supplied with supper by the crown officials; a liberal supply of intoxicating beverages, wines, brandy etc., being included in the refreshments. In their sober state several of the jury-men, amongst them Alexander Thompson of Cushendal, the foreman – had refused to agree to a verdict of guilty. It was otherwise, however, when the decanters had been emptied, and when threats of violence were added to the bewildering effects of the potations in which they indulged Thompson was threatened by his more unscrupulous companions with being wrecked, beaten, and “not left with sixpence in the world,” and similar means were used against the few who refused with him to return a verdict of guilty, At six in the morning, the jury, not a man of whom by this time was sober, returned into court with a verdict of guilty, recommending the prisoner at the same time in the strongest manner to mercy. Next day, Orr was placed at the bar, and sentenced to death by Lord Yelverton, who, it is recorded, at the conclusion of his address burst into tears. A motion was made by Curran in arrest of judgment, chiefly on the grounds of the drunkenness of the jury but the judges refused to entertain the objection. The following is the speech delivered by William Orr after the verdict of the jury had been announced.

“My friends and fellow countrymen – In the thirty first year of my life I have been sentenced to die upon the gallows, and this sentence has been in pursuance of a verdict of twelve men, who should have been indifferently and impartially chosen. – How far they have been so, I leave to that country from which they have been chosen to determine; and how far they have discharged their duty, I leave to their God and to themselves. They have, in pronouncing their verdict, thought proper to recommend me as an object of humane mercy, , In return, I pray to God, if they have erred, to have mercy upon them. The judge who condemned me humanely shed tears in uttering my sentence. But whether he did wisely in so highly commending the wretched informer, who swore away my life, I leave to his own cool reflection, solemnly assuring him and all the world, with my dying breath, that that informer was foresworn.

The law under which I suffer is surely a severe one – may the makers and promoters of it be justified in the integrity of their motives, and the purity of their own lives! By that law I am stamped a felon, but my heart disdains the imputation.

My comfortable lot, and industrious course of life, best refute the charge of an adventurer for plunder; but if to have loved my country – to have known its wrongs -to have felt the injuries of the persecuted Catholics, and to have united with them and all other religious persuasions in the most orderly and least sanguinary means of procuring redress – if those be felonies, I am a felon, but not otherwise Had my counsel (for whose honorable exertions I am indebted) prevailed in their motions to have me tried for high treason, rather than under the insurrection law, I should have been entitled to a full defence, and my actions have been better vindicated; but that was refused, and I must now submit to what has passed.

To the generous protection of my country I leave a beloved wife, who has been constant and true to me, and whose grief for my fate has already nearly occasioned her death. I have five living children, who have been my delight. May they love their country as I have done, and die for It if needful.

Lastly, a false and ungenerous publication having appeared in a newspaper, stating certain alleged confessions of guilt on my part, and thus striking at my reputation, which is now dearer to me than life. I take this solemn method of contradicting the calumny. I was applied to by the high-sheriff, and the Rev. William Bristow, sovereign of Belfast, to make a confession of guilt, who used entreaties to that effect; this I peremptorily refused. If I thought myself guilty; I would freely confess it, but, on the contrary; I glory my innocence.

I trust that all my virtuous countrymen will bear me in their kind remembrance, and continue true and faithful to each other as I have been to all of them. With this last wish of my heart – nothing doubting of the success of that cause for which I suffer,hoping for God’s merciful forgiveness of such offences as my frail nature may have at any time betrayed me into – I die in peace and charity with all mankind.”

Hardly had sentence of death been passed on William Orr, when compunction seemed to cease on those who had aided in securing the results. The witness Wheatly, who subsequently became insane, and is believed to have died by his own hand, made an affadavit before a magistrate acknowledging that he had sworn falsely against Orr. Two of the jury made depositions setting forth that they had been induced to join in the verdict of guilty while under the influence of drink; two others swore that they had been terrified into the same course by threats of violence.

These depositions were laid before the viceroy, but, Lord Camden, the then Hon. Lieutenant, was deaf to all appeals. Well might Orr exclaim within his dungeon that the government “had laid down a system having for its object murder and devastation.” The prey was in the toils of the hunters, on whom all appeals of justice and humanity were wasted.

Orr was hung, as we have said in the town of Carrickfergus on the 14th of October, 1797. It is related that the inhabitants of the town, to express their sympathy with the patriot about being murdered by law, and to mark their abhorrence of the conduct of the government towards him, quitted the town ‘en masse’ on the day of his execution.

His fate excited the deepest indignation throughout the country; it was commented on in words of fire by the national writers of the period, and through many an after year, the watchword and rallying cry of the United Irishmen was “Remember Orr”.

Taken from Speeches from the Dock: Or Protests of Irish Patriotism. (My book is old, no ISBN numbers, published in Waterford, Ireland.)

Speech From the Dock, Robert Emmet

I am asked what I have to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law. I have nothing to say that can alter your pre-determination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are to pronounce and I must abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than life and which you have laboured to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been cast upon it. I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your minds can be so free from prejudice as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utter. I have no hope that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted and trammeled as this is.


I only wish, and that is the utmost that I can expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbour to shelter it from the storms by which it is buffeted. Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of the law, labour in its own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere, whether in the sentence of the court or in the catastrophe – time must determine. A man in my situation has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established prejudice. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me. When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port, when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field in defence of their country and of virtue, this is my hope: I wish that my memory and my name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High; which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest; which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand in the Name of God, against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or a little less than the government standard, a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows it has made.

At this point Robert Emmet was interrupted by Lord Norbury.

I appeal to the immaculate God, I swear by the Throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear, by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me, that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and through all my purposes, governed only by the conviction which I have uttered, and by no other view than that of the emancipation of my country from the super-inhuman oppression under which she has so long and too patiently travailed; and I confidently hope that, wild and chimerical as it may appear, there is still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noblest of enterprises. Of this I speak with confidence, with intimate knowledge, and with the consolation that appertains to that confidence. Think not, my lords, I say this for the petty gratification of giving you a transitory uneasiness. A man who never yet raised his voice to assert a lie will not hazard his character with posterity by asserting a falsehood on a subject so important to his country, and on an occasion like this. Yes, my lords, a man who does not wish to have his epitaph written until his country is liberated, will not leave a weapon in the power of envy, or a pretense to impeach the probity which he means to preserve, even in the grave to which tyranny consigns him.

Lord Norbury passed comment.

Again I say that what I have spoken was not intended for your lordship, whose situation I commiserate rather than envy – my expressions were for my countrymen. If there is a true Irishman present, let my last words cheer him in the hour of his affliction.

Lord Norbury said he did not sit there to hear treason.
And Emmet replied:
I have always understood it to be the duty of a judge, when a prisoner has been convicted, to pronounce the sentence of the law. I have also understood that judges sometimes think it their duty to hear with patience, and to speak with humanity; to exhort the victim of the laws, and to offer, with tender benignity, their opinions of the motives by which he was actuated in the crime of which he was adjudged guilty. That a judge has thought it his duty so to have done, I have no doubt; but where is the boasted freedom of your institutions, where is the vaunted impartiality, clemency and mildness of your courts of justice if an unfortunate prisoner, whom your policy and not justice is about to deliver into the hands of the executioner, is not suffered to explain his motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated? My Lord, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man’s mind by humiliation to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the purposed shame or the scaffold’s terrors would be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid out against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge; I am the supposed culprit. I am a man; you are a man also. By a revolution of power we might exchange places? Though we never could change characters. If I stand at the bar of this court and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it? Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence; but while I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersion; and as a man to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honour and love and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my lords, we must appear on the great day at one common tribunal; and it will then remain for the Searcher of all hearts to show a collective universe, who was engaged in the most virtuous actions or swayed by the purest motives my country oppressor, or –

At this point Emmet was told to listen to the sentence of the court!
Though he continued………
My lords, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege of exculpating himself in the eyes of the community from an undeserved reproach, thrown upon him during his trial, by charging him with ambition and attempting to cast away for paltry consideration the liberties of his country? Why did your lordships insult me? I know my lords, that form prescribes that you should ask the question, the form also presents the right of answering. This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the Castle before the jury was impaneled. Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I insist on the whole of the forms.

I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France! And for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country. And for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradiction? No, I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country, not in power nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country’s independence to France! And for what? Was it a change of masters? No, but for my ambition. O, my country, was it a personal ambition that could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of your oppressors. My country was my idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment, and for it I now offer up myself, O God! No, my lords; I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny and the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, which is its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, from the ignominy existing with an exterior of splendour and a conscious depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted despotism; I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the world. Connection with France was, indeed, intended, but only as far as mutual interest would sanction or require. Were the French to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it would be the signal for their destruction. We sought their aid and we sought it as we had assurance we should obtain it as auxiliaries in war and allies in peace. Were the French to come as invaders or enemies uninvited by the wishes of the people, I should oppose them to the utmost of my strength. Yes, my countrymen, I should advise you to meet them upon the beach with a sword in one hand and a torch in the other. I would meet them with all the destructive fury of war. I would animate my countrymen to immolate them in their boats, before they had contaminated the soil of my country. If they succeeded in landing, and if forced to retire before superior discipline, I would dispute every inch of the ground, burn every blade of grass, and the last entrenchment of liberty should be my grave. What I could not do myself, if I should fall, I should leave as a last charge to my countrymen to accomplish; because I should feel conscious that life, any more than death, is unprofitable when a foreign nation holds my country in subjection. But it was not as an enemy that the soldiers of France were to land. I looked, indeed, for the assistance of France; but I wished to prove to France and to the world that Irish men deserved to be assisted; that they were indignant at slavery, and ready to assert the independence and liberty of their country. I wished to procure for my country the guarantee which Washington procured for America; to procure an aid which, by its example would be as important as its valour disciplined, gallant, pregnant with science and experience, that of a people who would perceive the good and polish the rough points of our character. They would come to us as strangers and leave us as friends, after sharing in our perils and elevating our destiny. These were my objects; not to receive new task-masters, but to expel old tyrants. It was for these ends I sought aid from France; because France, even as an enemy, could not be more implacable than the enemy already in the bosom of my country.

I have been charged with that importance in the emancipation of my country as to be considered the keystone of the combination of Irishmen; or, as your lordships expressed it, ‘the life and blood of the conspiracy’. You do me honour over much; you have given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord; men before the splendour of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference and who would think themselves disgraced by shaking your blood-stained hand.

What! my lord, shall you tell me on the passage to the scaffold, which that tyranny (of which you are only the intermediary executioner) has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been shed and will be shed in this struggle of the oppressed against the oppressor; shall thou tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it? I do not fear to approach the Omnipotent Judge to answer for the conduct of my whole life; and am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here? By you, too, although if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed in your unhallowed ministry in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonour; let no man taint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country’s liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression of my country. The Proclamation of the Provisional Government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the foreign and domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy would enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I who lived but for my country, and have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights and my country her independence, am I to be loaded with calumny and not suffered to resent it? No; God forbid!

If the spirit of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, O, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son and see if I have even for a moment, deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for which I am now about to offer up my life! My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it circulates warm and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purpose, but which you are now bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a few more words to say. I am going to go to my cold and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished. My race is run. The grave opens to receive me and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world. It is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace; and my tomb remain uninscribed and my memory in oblivion until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then let my epitaph be written. I have done.

Our National Language, Thomas Osborne Davis

Men, are ever valued most for peculiar and original qualities. A man who can only talk commonplace, and act according to routine, has little weight. To speak, look, and do what your own soul from its depths orders you are credentials of greatness which all men understand and acknowledge. Such a man’s dictum has more influence than the reasoning of an imitative or commonplace man. He fills his circle with confidence. He is self-possessed, firm, accurate, and daring. Such men are the pioneers of civilisation and the rulers of the human heart.


Why should not nations be judged thus? Is not a full indulgence of its natural tendencies essential to a people’s greatness Force the manners, dress, language and constitution of Russia, or Italy, or Norway, or America, and you instantly stunt and distort the whole mind of either people.

The language, which grows up with a people, is conformed to their organs, descriptive of their climate, constitution, and manners, mingled inseparably with their history and their soil, fitted beyond any other language to express their prevalent thoughts in the most natural and efficient way.

To impose another language on such a people is to send their history adrift among the accidents of translation – ’tis to tear their identity from all places – ’tis to substitute arbitrary signs for picturesque and suggestive names – ’tis to cut off the entail of feeling, and separate the people from their forefathers by a deep gulf – ’tis to corrupt their very organs, and abridge their power of expression.

The language of a nation’s youth is the only easy and full speech for its manhood and for its age. And ‘ when the language of its cradle aces, itself craves a tomb.
What business has a Russian for the rippling language of Italy or India? How could a Greek distort his organs and his soul to speak Dutch upon the sides of the Hymettus, or the beach of Salamis, or on the waste where once was Sparta? And is it befitting the fiery, delicate-organed-Celt to abandon his beautiful, tongue, docile and spirited as an Arab, “sweet as music, strong as the wave” – is it befitting in him to abandon this wild, liquid speech for the mongrel of a hundred breeds called English, which, powerful though it be, creaks and bangs about the Celt who tries to use it?

We lately met a glorious thought in the “Triads of Mochmed” printed in one of the Welsh codes by the Record Commission: “There are three things without which there is no country – common language, common judicature, and co-tillage land – for without these a country cannot support itself in peace and social union.”

A people without a language of its own is only half a nation. A nation should guard its language more than its territories – ’tis a surer barrier, and more important frontier, than fortress or river.

And in good times it has ever been thought so. Who had dared to propose the adoption of Persian or Egyptian in Greece – how had Pericles thundered at the barbarian? How had Cato scourged from the forum him who would have given the Attic or Gallic speech to men of Rome? How proudly and how nobly Germany stopped “the incipient creeping” progress of French! And no sooner had she succeeded than her genius, which had tossed in a hot-trance, sprung up fresh and triumphant.

Had Pyrrhus quelled ltaly, or Xerxes subdued Greece for a time long enough to impose new languages, where had been the literature which gives a pedigree to human genius? Even liberty recovered had been sickly and insecure without the language with which it had hunted in the woods, worshipped at the fruit-strewn altar, debated on the council-hill, and shouted in the battle-charge.

There is a fine song of the Fusians, which describes
“Language linked to liberty.”

To lose your native tongue, and learn that of an alien, is the worst badge of conquest – it is the chain on the soul. To have lost entirely the national language is death; the fetter has worn through. So long as the Saxon held to his German speech he could hope to resume his land from the Norman now, if he is to be free and locally governed, he must build himself a new home. There is hope for Scotland – strong hope for Wales – sure hope for Hungary. The speech of the alien is not universal in the one; is gallantly held at bay in the other; is nearly expelled from the third.

How unnatural – how corrupting ’tis for us, three-fourths of whom are of Celtic blood, to speak a medley of Teutonic dialects! If we add the Celtic Scots, who came back here from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and the Celtic Welsh, who colonised many parts of Wexford and other Leinster counties, to the Celts who never left Ireland, probably five-sixths, or more, of us are Celts. What business have we with the Norman-Sassenagh?

Nor let any doubt these proportions because of the number of English names in Ireland. With a politic cruelty the English of the Pale passed an Act (3 Edw. IV., c.3) compelling every Irishman within English jurisdiction “to go like to one Englishman in apparel, and shaving off his beard above the mouth,” “and shall take to him an English sirname of one town, as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, Corke, Kinsale; or colour, as White, Blacke, Browne; or art or science, as Smith or Carpenter or office, as Cook, Butler; and that he and his issue shall use this name, under pain of forfeiting his goods yearly.”

And just as this Parliament before the Reformation, so did another after the Reformation. By the 28th Henry Vlll., c. 15, the dress and language of the Irish were insolently described as barbarous by the minions of that ruffian king, and were utterly forbidden and abolished under many penalties and incapacities. These laws are still in force; but whether the Archaeological Society, including Peel and O’Connell, will be prosecuted seems doubtful.

There was, also, ’tis to be feared, an adoption of English names, during some periods, from fashion, fear, or meanness. Some of our best Irish names, too, have been so mangled as to require some scholarship to identify them. For these and many more reasons the members of the Celtic race here are immensely greater than at first appears.

But this is not all; for even the Saxon and Norman colonists, notwithstanding these laws, melted down into the Irish, and adopted all their ways and language. For centuries upon centuries Irish was spoken by men of all bloods in Ireland, and English was unknown, save to a few citizens and nobles of the Pale. ‘Tis only within a very late period that the majority of the people learned English.

But, it will be asked, how can the language be restored now ?

We shall answer this partly by saying that, through the labours of the Archaeological and many lesser societies, it is being revived rapidly.

We shall consider this question of the possibility of reviving it more at length some other day.

Nothing can make us believe that it is natural or honourable for the Irish to speak the speech of the alien, the invader, the Sassenagh tyrant, and to abandon the language of our kings and heroes. What! give up the tongue of Ollamh Fodhla and Brian Boru, the tongue of M’Carty, and the O’Nials, the tongue of Sarsfield’s, Curran’s, Mathew’s, and O’Connell’s boyhood, for that of Strafford and Poynings, Sussex, Kirk, and Cromwell!

No! oh, no! the “brighter days shall surely come,” and the green flag shall wave on our towers, and the sweet old language be heard once more in college, mart, and senate. But even should the effort to save it as the national language fail, by the attempt we will rescue its old literature, and hand down to our descendants proofs that we had a language as fit for love, and war, and business, and pleasure, as the world ever knew, and that we had not the spirit and nationality to preserve it!

Had Swift known Irish he would have sowed its seed by the side of that nationality which he planted, and the close of the last century would have seen the one as flourishing as the other. Had Ireland used Irish in 1782, would it not have impeded England’s re-conquest of us? But ’tis not yet too late. For you, if the mixed speech called English was laid with sweetmeats on your child’s tongue, English is the best speech of manhood. And yet, rather, in that case you are unfortunate. The hills, and lakes, and rivers, the forts and castles, the churches and parishes, the baronies and counties around you, have all Irish names – names which describe the nature of the scenery or ground, the name of founder, or chief, or priest, or the leading fact in the history of the place. To you these are names hard to pronounce, and without meaning.

And yet it were, well for you to know them. That knowledge would be a topography, and a history, and romance, walking by your side, and helping your discourse. Meath tells it flatness, Clonmel the abundant riches of its valley, Fermanagh is the land of the Lakes, Tyrone the country of Owen, Kilkenny the Church of St. Canice, Dunmore the great fort, Athenry the Ford of the Kings, Dunleary the Fort of O’Leary; and the Phoenix Park, instead of taking its name from a fable, recognises as christener the “sweet water” which yet springs near the cast gate. (Bright Water is the true rendering – Binn uisce)

All the names of our airs and songs are Irish, and we every day are as puzzled and ingeniously wrong about them as the man who, when asked for the air, “I am asleep, and don’t waken me,” called it “Tommy M’Cullagh made boots for me.”

The bulk of our history and poetry are written in Irish, and shall we, who learn Italian, and Latin, and Greek, to read Dante, Livy, and Homer in the original-shall we be content with ignorance or a translation of Irish?

The want of modern scientific words in Irish is un-deniable, and doubtless we should adopt the existing names into our language. The Germans have done the same thing, and no one calls German mongrel on that account. Most of these names are clumsy and extravagant; and are almost all derived from Greek or Latin, and cut as foreign a figure in French and English as they would in Irish. Once Irish was recognised as a language to be learned as much as French or Italian, our dictionaries would fill up and our vocabularies ramify, to suit all the wants of life and conversation.

These objections are ingenious refinements, however, rarely thought of till after the other and great objection has been answered.

The usual objection to attempting the revival of Irish is, that it could not succeed.
If an attempt were made to introduce Irish, either through the national schools, or the courts of law, into the eastern side of the island, it would certainly fail, and the reaction might extinguish it altogether. But no one contemplates this save as a dream of what may happen a hundred years hence. It is quite another thing to say, as we do, that the Irish language should be cherished, taught, and esteemed, and that it can be preserved and gradually extended.

What we seek is, that the people of the upper classes should have their children taught the language which explains our names of persons or places, our older history, and our music, and which is spoken in the majority of our counties, rather than Italian, German, or French. It would be more useful in life, more serviceable to the taste and genius of young people, and a more flexible accomplishment for an Irish man or woman to speak, sign, and write Irish than French.

At present the middle classes think it a sign of vulgarity to speak Irish – the children are everywhere taught English, and English alone in schools – and, what is worse, they are urged by rewards and punishments to speak it at home, for English is the language of their masters. Now, we think the example and exertions of the upper classes would be sufficient to set the opposite and better fashion of preferring Irish; and, even as a matter of taste, we think them bound to do so. And we ask it of the pride, the patriotism, and the hearts of our farmers and shopkeepers, will they try to drive out of their children’s minds the native language of almost every great man we had, from Brian Boru to O’Connell – will they meanly sacrifice the language which names their hills, and towns, and music, to the tongue of the stranger?

About half the people west of a line drawn from Derry to Waterford speak Irish habitually, and in some of the mountain tracts cast of that line it is still common. Simply requiring the teachers of the national schools in these Irish-speaking districts to know Irish, and supplying them with Irish translations of the school books, would guard the language where it now exists, and prevent it from being swept away by the English tongue, as the Red Americans have been by the English race from New York to New Orleans. The example of the upper classes would extend and develop a modern Irish literature, and the hearty support they have given to the Archaeological Society makes us hope that they will have sense and spirit to do so. But the establishment of a newspaper partly or wholly Irish would be the most rapid and sure way of serving the language.

The Irish-speaking man would find, in his native tongue, the political news and general information he has now to seek in English; and the English-speaking man, having Irish frequently before him in so attractive a form, would be tempted to learn its characters, and, by-and-by, its meaning. These newspapers in many languages are now to be found everywhere but here. In South America many of these papers are Spanish and English, or French; in North America, French and English; in Northern Italy; German and Italian; in Denmark and Holland, German is used in addition to the native tongue; in Alsace and Switzerland, French and German; in Poland, German, French, and Sclavonic; in Turkey, French and Turkish ; in Hungary, Magyar, Sclavonic, and German; and the little Canton of Grison uses three languages in its press. With the exception of Hungary, the secondary language is, in all cases, spoken by fewer persons than the Irish-speaking people of Ireland, and while they everywhere tolerate and use one language as a medium of commerce, they cherish the other as the vehicle of history, the wings of song, the soil of their genius, and a mark and guard of nationality.

Note: Today, the Irish is taught in schools to children from the age of four to eighteen. It is compulsory, in order to enter University one has to pass Irish in the final State exam, there are exemptions for those who did not begin their education in Ireland. We have an Irish television channel, schools which teach all subjects through Irish. However, when a language is forced on children they tend to resent it, especially if they fail to grasp a basic understanding in their early years. It is when they leave school and no longer *have* to learn Irish that then they may become interested. Many regard Irish as a dead language and wonder why they have to learn it. While today efforts are made to create new Irish words and to replace older ones with those which may be easier for children to remember such as ‘carr’ instead of ‘gluaistean’ for a car, these new creations are changing our native language. A friend who is a native speaker has said that his children speak a totally different language to the one he was brought up with.

Last year, we met a Dutchman on our way to a festival in west Cork, and he told us he had a friend (Dutch) who had come to Ireland to study Irish for one year and that the friend then intended to go to America and teach Irish. We found this amusing as we also have a friend who went to an all Irish school, sat her State exams through Irish, took Irish as her major subject in university, works for the Irish television channel and can still have her grammar corrected by those who know more than she does, we wondered what kind of Irish is being taught.

On another note altogether, the following in from a speech made in 1826, while it refers mainly to people from Kerry, it has to be noted that ‘any district in Ireland’ is mentioned and that this is not the only reference in existence to the fact that the Irish pessantry were well versed in the classics:
In a debate on Education in Ireland in the British House of Commons in 1826, Maurice Fitzgerald (17th Knight of Kerry) said that “the House appeared to be very much mistaken as to the degree in which education was wanted in Ireland So far from being in the state of ignorance attributed to
them, he was convinced that the peasantry of any district in Ireland would be found better educated than the inhabitants of any corresponding portion of the empire … At all events, he could answer for his own constituents, and was ready to set them against the peasantry of any part of England of
the same dimensions as the county he had the honour to represent. The very poorest class of persons in that county were not alone capable of reading and writing, but were well versed in the higher attainments, in Arithmetic, Algebra, Greek and Latin He did not mean to challenge the members of the
hon. House, although he felt that with the exception of the learned professions, and perhaps some coteries of blue-stocking ladies, the poor of the county Kerry were more learned than the majority of those who composed even the higher circles about London.- It was not an unusual thing to see a
poor barelegged boy running about with a Homer, a Cicero, or or a Horace under his arm. Indeed, it was the opinion of an individual well acquainted with Ireland, the father of a noble marquis (Lansdown), that the Irish peasantry did not want a literary education; that they already had enough of that, if not too much…” (Hansard. Parliamentary Debates. Vol. XV. Cols. 18 & 19, March 20th, 1826.)

Address to the Historical Society, Thomas Osborne Davis

Gentlemen, I am now about to surrender the office which you intrusted to me. Its duties, up to the last night of the session, may be well discharged by any man of common courtesy and firmness. But to-night your President has a harder task. At our usual meetings we seek to prepare ourselves for certain duties and pursuits, of which this society is a fit learning-place. We leave a single evening in the year for the consideration of what are or what should be those duties and pursuits, and by what rules we should guide ourselves in that preparation.


Need I defend the custom of making a periodical inquiry into the theory of this Institution? If general principles be of any use, they cannot be, without hazard, neglected when we attempt to educate ourselves, for as Swift says somewhere, “He who knows his powers seldom fails; he who is ignorant of them hardly ever succeeds.”

The maxim in self-teaching, as in all teaching, is to study wherein lie our deficiencies as well as our powers, and what are the means of supplying those defects. This Society is one means of correcting many errors and fostering many powers; and my duty is to call your attention to our more probable and dangerous defects, to state the objects of the institution, and what it is fitted to teach or un-teach us. In attempting the discharge of that duty, I labour under some disadvantages. I am the first person who has attempted to address this particular society on these topics; yet I cannot forget that addresses to similar societies, by men whose pupil I should desire to be, abound in Dublin. If I tread the same path as these men, I shall be accused of imitation; if I leave it, their example will be pointed out, and I shall be called irrelevant. Now these addresses have laid down with logical precision the divisions of eloquence and the rules for its diversified application. Principles investigated by philosophers, tested by successful orators, and illustrated by the lights of taste and fancy, exist in these addresses. They are in your hands, and you may study them with profit. They are so many abridgments of, or supplements to, the standard works on rhetoric. As I could not hope to improve on the matter or style of these papers, I should, if unable to address you relevantly on other topics than theirs, have declined to do so at all. I should shrink from rivalry, but I am now before you because I am not forced to compete. It is common to all speculators on such societies as ours to say we want to study oratory; and satisfied with that observation, they launch guileless into the ocean of rhetorical criticism. Now, this dogma conveys too wide or too narrow of what we come here for. We are associated to prepare, to make, to hear, to support, to answer speeches on historical, literary, and political subjects.

Discussion of social topics, with all its necessary preparation, and all the natural results of both the preparation and discussion, is not too comprehensive a definition of our general object. That object being so comprehensive, our individual designs are somewhat various. Some indeed want to acquire mere facility and courage; some use this society as a means of studying history; some, politics; others, the mind of man; most of you, ultimately, to study eloquence – the power of making the best use of every kind of information, and of every faculty, intellectual and sentimental, in public speaking. The addressers of such societies have usually confined themselves to the abstract theory of eloquence on the one hand, and to florid descriptions of its details on the other. But surely the other steps in the series deserve some consideration, and the more so because information is the seed-sowing, and study and experience the sun and shower, without which no harvest of eloquence can gladden the mind. Botany and the change of prices are not the sole studies of the agriculturists.

In calling your attention to the condition and cultivation of mind which must precede and prepare for eloquence, rather than to the theory of its power or the details of its application, I am not seeking to deprecate, but to guide the study of it. If eloquence required a eulogy, or if I had time for the work, though superfluous, there could be no more grateful task for my pen, “Labor ipsa voluptas.” For though unvisited by its favours, I do not the less love its brightness. “Do the stars” – asks the French peasant
“Do the stars think of us, yet if the prisoner see them shine into his dungeon wouldst thou have him turn away from their lustre?” (Claude Melnotte, in Bulwer’s Lady of Lyons) No, gentlemen, the power and beauty be its own; the worship mine, even though I vainly worship.

Gentlemen, you consist of members and students of the learned professions. Many of you cherish a literary ambition, most of you hope for success in public life; you thus, though coming here with different powers, and various qualities, are yet all under circumstances which will make the acquisition of the orator’s powers an object of ambition. Your country and your times offer opportunities for a generous – temptations to a selfish ambition. I trust, I am sure, your impulses are not ungenerous. Methinks I know the element at work within you. You aspire to political power, and you must be up and doing; you will, ere you reach the goal, need an amount of labour which you little thought of at the starting. ‘Tis no light thing to move the mind of man. ‘Tis no child’s play to wield the passions. The recruit must not seek to lead an army, nor the student to instruct a nation. Look back on those who have been the mind-chieftains in the civil strifes of Ireland – Swift, Lucas, Grattan. Did all the boasted precocity of Irish genius abridge their toils? No; a youth of hardest study, a manhood of unceasing labour, are the facts common to the lives of them all; and yet they lived under favourable auspices for individual eminence. Though the Irish leaders have not seldom been unblessed with ancestral wealth or dignity, yet the body of competitors for political power were of the aristocracy; for they inherited a monopoly of education, that which summons men to distinction. You also belong to what are called the upper classes in Ireland. But you will have competitors from whom your ancestors were free.

The college in which you and your fathers were educated, from whose offices seven-eighths of the Irish people are excluded by religion, from whose porch many, not disqualified by religion, are repelled by the comparative dearness, the reputed bigotry, and pervading dullness of the consecrated spot – that institution seems no longer to monopolise the education funds of Ireland. Trinity College seems to have lost the office for which it was so long and so well paid – of preventing the education of the Irish. The people think it better not to devote all their spare cash to a university, so many of whose favourite alumni are distinguished by their adroit and malignant calumnies on the character, and inveterate hostility to the good of that people with whose land and money they are endowed. The self-denying virtues are “passing away, passing away.”

Do you weep their departure? or are you consoled by the number of people-wrongs still endured? But away with this insulting jest – your hearts are with your country-men – yours is a generous ambition to lead them, not their foes.

But then, I repeat, you must strip for the race; you will have competitors from among the people. The middle classes of Ireland are now seeking, in spite of the most perverse opposition chronicled in the annals of even our Anglo-Irish bigotry, to establish provincial colleges – schools for their own education. When the men of the middle class once come into the field, if I do not greatly overrate the stuff of which they are made, they will compel the men of the upper classes at home – nay, with humility be it said, the men of every country – to fight a hard battle for their literary laurels and political renown. Prepare for that time. If you would rule your countrymen you must be greater than they. But even now the National Schools, the first bold attempt to regenerate Ireland, are working, ay, and, with all their faults, working well. The lower classes, for whom they are suited and designed, are beginning to add the acquisitions of science and literature to that facile apprehension, ingenuity, and comprehensive genius with which even their enemies credit them. I tell you, gentlemen of Trinity College, the peasant boys will soon put to, the proof your title to lead them, and the only title likely to be acknowledged in the people – court is that which our countryman, himself once a peasant boy, ascribes to Pericles-
“He waved the sceptre o’er his kind,
By nature’s first great title-mind.”

Gentlemen, I have not come here to flatter you. That many of you possess the highest natural abilities I feel convinced, but – that is probably true of many who preceded you. And when I compare the contemporary literature of Ireland with the gifted nature of the Irish, I am forced to think there are some gross errors in the education of the only class which hitherto has received any education. Many of you acknowledge this, and professedly join this society less for its peculiar advantages than to correct such errors. I think they do wisely these errors may be lessened by exertions here, and that belief has determined the nature of this Address. This is no professor’s chair. My opinions have no weight save from the truth they may bear and the proofs with which they are combined. Chosen from among yourselves to advise you touching your intellectual pursuits, it is my plain duty to tell you your defects: thus alone can I convince you of the necessity for a remedy, and not until then can we be prepared to discover it.

You are all, I believe, connected with the Dublin University. Of how many of its graduates may I say that to prepare for – college occupies their boyhood, to pass through college occupies the time between boyhood and manhood, and having, loaded with cautions like Swift, or (with honours, like many a dunce I know, got to their degrees, they are by their parents supposed to have, received a good general education, and to be fitted to devote the rest of their lives to spending or making a fortune, as they are endowed with an estate or a profession. If, as assuredly is the case, you, born under propitious stars, have been preserved from such a destiny, do you owe your superiority over the multitude of A.B.’s, T.C.D. to the system of the college. No; they are the result of the system – you of a generous nature too strong for it.

Yet Trinity College has a fine bill of fare. First you have mathematics, in which, to make the best of it, you are taught to follow out subtle trains of reasoning without reference to the principles of investigation, which few students will study voluntarily; and further, whole years are thus spent on subjects admitting of demonstration, with anything like to which you will seldom have to do for the rest of your lives.

Then comes that amphibious thing called natural philosophy, consisting (as taught in Dublin College) of some application of mathematics to the general properties of matter, and to the simpler physical phenomena. But so far as these sciences illustrate the human mind in the history of their improvement, and in the relations which physical science bears to human progress, they are ill-taught. Perhaps it is not the business of a college to teach, nor is it important to comprise in a general education the practical part of natural philosophy or mathematics. Indeed, the fault of the French system is that it does, so largely. But then they are equally ill-taught if you regard them as fitted to supply illustrations of mind or a guide to nature. As branches of natural history: astronomy, mechanics, and such subjects are so ill taught that I verily believe the twelvemonths members of the Mechanics’ Institute could teach them to half the medal men in college. Indeed, to the professors of medical or mechanics’ institutes, all that geology, physiology, and chemistry contain is handed over. Natural history could not be tortured into a scholastic form; it could only be taught in the way it was investigated, and as alone all subjects can be well taught, by analysis. But be that as it may, external nature supplies inexhaustible materials for thought and illustration to the philosopher, the poet, and the orator; though some of the greatest of them never studied it in the schools, yet all were familiar to its face. You have facilities for the study of it outside the university, and you may lay up a hive of such materials, useful and agreeable for both public and private life, without once fluttering a wing in the collegiate parterre. Ireland offers temptations to such pursuits of which we are at length beginning to avail ourselves.

Then there are the courses of moral philosophy: and such as they are they are thought hazardous commodities; and with some reason, for it is impossible for the student to read the bold and sceptical works of Bacon, Butler, and Locke without imbibing some of their spirit. I would augur that from such studies, even from within the walls of college, a better system must arise, that the tongue of the Silent Sister will be loosened, and unwonted words of truth and freedom will issue from her lips. Such studies forced, as they are likely to be, on the ecclesiastics of, every sect, by an unavailing hope of using them to defend their wealth and importance, must sooner or later reform the pulpit, and for superstition you may meet enlightened piety; for bigotry, generous toleration and sweet-voiced charity. And who knows but that as they advance the priesthoods may forget the calumnies of their predecessors on man, and may attain notions of the Deity as lofty as those of the philosophers whom they persecuted; and from contemplating the vindicated Supreme may, with hearts softened and souls ennobled, bid men venerate nothing more highly than their own nature, save the nature of that Deity who moulded man in His own image.

But this day would seem to be far distant. Nay, the time of even subordinate utility from such studies is remote; for by the proselytising dullness of management the mere conclusions of the ethical and psychological writers are taught by rote. A recollection of definitions insures collegiate success to whoever lets his mind be debased to its standard. The students are taught to skip the principles of reasoning and perch on the conclusions, with a touch which transmutes into dogmas the last doubts of the sceptic. Hence we do not learn the metaphysical principles of reasoning, or the moral principles by which society is tied together, nor that highest philosophy which teaches the position of man and his duties in relation to God, until driven to defend ourselves from the tricks of legal sophists or political quacks, or from the ferocity of misemployed pulpits. The cumbrous state of our literature renders a formal study of metaphysical and moral philosophy essential.

Indeed, without an early acquaintance with the abstruser philosophy, few minds will be able to force their way through the thicket of subjects and authors which surround them in modern society. And not only will the critical and comprehensive temper resulting from such enquiries marshal your way, and pioneer your path in all your studies and pursuits, but many subjects, as the foundations of government, the rationale of reward and Punishment, and the leading truths of political economy rest on facts common to all minds, and learned in metaphysical schools. If I mistake not, Butler’s, Cicero’s and Hume’s philosophical works are the proper horn-books for the lawyer, the statesman, and the divine. May I suggest to you, that contemporaneously with the process of getting definitions by rote, which is essential to collegiate distinction, some efforts might be made by the students to compare the different systems of philosophy, and the relative merits of these systems, when tested by their own or their neighbours’ minds? Such a society as ours is plainly unfit for the purpose; but whether a metaphysical society meeting to inquire, not to dispute, could be established within the walls of college, I leave you who are personally interested in its formation to determine: I am content to have suggested it to you.

The classics, even as languages, are shafts into the richest mines of thought which time has deposited. The fossils of Greek and Latin mind prove races like enough in opinions to enable us to understand and sympathise with them, were they now, for the first time, discovered by the moderns. But in sooth we have been, through every faculty of mind, and every member of society, through our literature, our languages, our laws, our arts of war and peace, galvanised, as it were, by the minds of Greece and Rome, though the force of our life may be of Gothic or Celtic origin. And this great and original difference between us and the ancients makes their literature, in some respects, the more valuable for that unlikeness. Who that has thought for himself, or been taught to think in Lord Bacon’s school, cannot feel this advantage?

Classic literature, though tinctured with its own doctrinal cavils, its own prejudices and superstitions, is free from cavils and prejudices and superstitions like to ours, and from these last is the only danger to us. The contrast of our idolatries and theirs (to use Bacon’s metaphor) is the most instructive of criticisms, while the standard truths which we find there, undisguised by such errors as could deceive us, mete our growth, or discover our degeneracy. Many a mind have they saved from doubt and dogmatism. No language of mine shall underrate the value of such a possession. Injured though they be, still are they a mighty mass of the picked thoughts of two most renowned nations – nations, too, the very death of whose states of society has stamped on their works immortal freshness and originality.

But, gentlemen, these are benefits which can only be derived from classic studies by a powerful and already disciplined mind, and which are supposed to require a very close knowledge of two difficult languages; but in my judgment the last requisite is overstated, for it is preferable to read well a good translation than to stumble through the original; and any fair man, considering how much of the spirit of classic lore can be translated, will confess the folly of expecting one man out of a hundred to learn so much from the originals as from good translations. We do not hesitate as to this in the comparatively easy modern, why then do so in the more difficult ancient languages?

I may shortly state here that my objections to the classical system of the Dublin college are, that even if well pursued it takes from a young man the best years of his life to inform him on the languages, poetry, politics, religion, manners, and conditions of nations which have perished from the earth many centuries ago; and that having so employed the spare years between boyhood and business, you insure, as far as in you lies, his ignorance of all the facts that have happened, all the knowledge that has been discovered, all that imagination has produced for some seventeen hundred years. He is ignorant of modern history, including that of his own country, whose facts would, if stored in his memory, be of direct use and application, unlike those of any remote time or unconnected country, which are of use only by analogy. He knows not of what materials the people around him are composed; he knows not the origin of their thoughts and feelings; he therefore knows not themselves. The condition of contemporary nations is surely more valuable to be known than that of extinct peoples. He is equally ignorant of modern languages; of French, essential to him if he visit any foreign nations other than Britain or America; of German, the root of that English language which it is more important for him to speak and write with critical fluency than to command every dialect of the Greeks or Italians from the Attic to the Oscan. Finally, for English literature he is left to the accidents of a circulating library, or a taste beyond that of his instructors.

I venture to assert, and could prove, that numerous works, English, French, and German, are intrinsically superior to the corresponding Greek, and still more above the parallel Roman works. But even though the ancient writers were of more value to their countrymen than the modern writers to theirs, yet lay aside the philosophical, and, so to speak, the esoteric use of the classics which I have mentioned, and fling the old writers among a modern people and instantly the superiority is lost. I do not say all their value is gone, but the living men and women teach us more of strength and beauty than the mummies or the statues of a dead race. But this is an inadequate condemnation of the system.

If the student knew the politics and philosophy, and felt the poetry, or even appreciated the facts to be found in the Greek and Roman writers, I might forgive the error of selecting such studies in preference to native and modern; but still he would leave college, if not well instructed, yet possessed of much valuable thought, and prepared to master the more important subjects which he would want in his professional, literary, or political career. But no, his memory is crammed with phrases and rules of prosody, and what is called literal, that is to say, erroneous translation of words, or correct translation, if you will; familiarising him, I may remark, with a foreign idiom ere he has learned his own, and therefore almost precluding him from ever writing good English. Seriously, what does the student learn besides the words of the classics? The thoughts are obscured not merely by the foreign language, but by allusions and opinions which he begins to guess at towards the close of his career. How strange would it be if a young man could benefit by such an occupation!

Men cannot master all knowledge. If you believe this, conclude with me that a knowledge of his own nature and duties, of the circumstances, growth, and prospects of that society in which he dwells, and of the pursuits and tastes of those around him, accompanied too by the running comment of experience, is what every man should first learn; if he does learn this, he has learned enough for life and goodness; and if he finds this not enough, he is prepared in the only feasible way to profit by studying the works and thoughts of ancient Italy, or Greece, or France, modern Italy, or Germany. If the student take more interest in the history, and feel more admiration for the literature, or even derive more profit from the contemplation of those modems than of these ancients, let us not condemn his taste or doubt his wisdom. The varieties of feeling, interest, and opportunity make these differences, and a preference for the study of the modern continental nations is fostered and vindicated by the greater analogy of the people of these islands to them, than to the men of old Greece or old Italy.

I do not mean to say that some knowledge is not picked up by all the students, and much knowledge by some; and yet college may be an inferior school to the few, and is mischievous to the many, by leading them into a five years’ specious idleness. Even for a knowledge of the classics the plan of beginning with them is bad. To a man of genius they cannot be mischievous or useless; he has thought or read up to them. But I believe that if no one foreign literature were preferred, a much larger number of men would be apt and good classical scholars than are so now; and therefore, as it is only to those who succeed that the present system can be called good, that such would be a better means of encouraging classic studies than the present.

I ask you again, how can the student profit by the study of the difficult literature of any foreigners, ancient or modem, till he learns to think and feel; and these he learns easiest from world or home life, refined and invigorated by his native literature; and even if by chance the young student, fresh from a bad school, (our private schools are absolutely contemptible. One hardly knows who to condemn most, the stupid ignorance of the teachers, or the niggardliness of the parents, whose stinginess has produced and endures such schools; yet there are men of learning and genius pining and annually dying away) has got some ideas of the picturesque, the generous, the true, into his head, he is neither encouraged nor expected to apply them to his classic studies. Classics! good sooth, he had better read with the hedge-school boys the History of the Rogues, Tories, and Rapparees, or Moll Flanders, than study Homer and Horace in Trinity College. I therefore protest, and ask you to struggle against the cultivation of Greek or Latin or Hebrew, while French or German are excluded; (There are Professors of French, German and Italian, and medals are given each year to promote such studies, but they form no part of the graduate course) and still more strongly should we oppose the cultivation of any, or all of these, to the neglect of English and, perhaps I should add, Irish literature.

I may as well say something here on the study of that language which is spoken by the majority of our country-men, and by the people of the countries immediately east and west of this kingdom. English philological studies are, to say the least, useful in the formation of style. I do not say they are essential, but they certainly give an accuracy and aptness to the writing of him who is familiar with them. There are so few English works on the Philosophy of words, that I may enumerate them. Tooke’s ‘Diversions of Purley is the most valuable for acquiring a critical habit in etymology and grammatical analysis; for the common use of words, Webster’s Dictionary is the best; Todd’s Johnson, as an authority and illustration for the modern variations; but Richardson is the hand-book for him who would cultivate a pure English style. Horne Tooke, to be sure, was of opinion that each word had but one and an unalterable meaning in a language. Richardson has pressed this error still further, and has thereby enfeebled the otherwise admirable essay prefixed to his larger Dictionary, but his errors (if so they be) only give a sterner purity and force to the language he teaches. His faults are on the right side, for one whose native language is English, though inconvenient enough to a foreigner.

Cobbett’s Grammar, the book on words in Locke’s Essay, some chapters in the first volume, of Mill’s treatise on the mind, are the only other books of consequence; at least, if I add a few articles in the magazines, the list is complete. When you have examined these books, and they are well worth reading, you must trust to the effect of your other literary studies, to the eager and full mind, to supply you with words and varieties of style, and to your metaphysical studies, to a patient taste, and habits of revision to correct them.

The standard authors, especially the older writers – the writers who preceded Lord Bacon, contain the best vocabulary. These books, in common with their successors to Queen Anne’s time, are rather affluent in words than critical in the application of them. Shakespeare is more exact and felicitous, and equally copious. The fault of most writers since Shakespeare’s time has been the neglect of Saxon words for Latin, and the employment of a Latin, and more lately a French idiom. I may mention that Spenser was the favourite leisure-book of that word-wielder, William Pitt, and of his greater father, Chatham. Erskine and Fox are said to have known Milton and Shakespeare almost by heart. Curran’s inspiration, next to the popular legends of Ireland, was the English translation of the Bible. Coleridge, indeed, says that a man familiar with it can never write in a vulgar style; but this, like many of Coleridge’s show-sayings, is an exaggeration.

I could add many other authorities for my liking for the language of the early English poets and chroniclers; but their fault, a profusion of imagery, more often fitted to obscure than illustrate, to confuse than make plain, went on increasing. For ordinary use, therefore, Bolingbroke, Swift, Hume, and even Cobbett, with all his coarseness, and the common letters and narratives of the last century, are safer though not so, splendid models. Amongst the orators whom you will, and, perhaps, ought to copy more than other writers you can study the speeches of Pitt for a splendid plausibility; Fox, for an easy diction and fluent logic; Sheridan, for wit; Curran, for wit and pathos; Burke and Grattan, (In wealth of imagination and in expressive power, Grattan is next to Shakespeare; his speeches are full of the most valuable information on Irish Politics, and are the fit hand-book for an Irish-man. But his style is not for the imitation) for grandeur and sublimity of thought language, and illustration. Erskine possesses most of these qualities, but with a chaster, and methinks, less racy manner; but perhaps surpassing all, by combining the best qualities of all, are the speeches so valuable, and so little known, of Lord Plunket. His precise vigour marks him the Demosthenes of the English language.

But I am coming to our contemporaries. Criticism on them could not be unprejudiced. I shall hazard but one piece of advice : keep to the plainer styles. However you may dislike their opinions, or question their depth of judgment, the style of Southey, Smith, and some few more of the older reviewers is excellent. Coleridge, Carlyle, and the rest of the Germanic set are damaging English nearly as much as the Latinist’s did; their writings are eloquent, lively, and vigorous, to those who understand them; curry and mulagatawny to the literary world, but “caviare to the general.” Just as the dish possesses a high-cooked and epicurean flavour, is it unfit for the people or the men of the people. The literary style most in fashion is corrupt, and corrupting; the patois of the coteries, it is full of meaning and sensibility to them. But as your horoscope tells not of coterie fame, shun that jargon. The orator should avoid using it as one would a pestilence; for the people own not its power; it belongs not to the nations.

I have mentioned and illustrated the vices of the university system. I need not say that it is with its system I quarrel. Some of its members are my very good friends, and many pleasant hours have I spent within the walls of the merry monastery. I have not, personally, one sad or angry reminiscence of old Trinity, and it is therefore with pain I sum up its defects; which are, that the subjects of its studies are not adapted to the different tastes, interests, and capacities of the students; that this evil is aggravated by the peculiarr direction of this exclusive system, shutting out the literature of modern nations, especially the English, which should be the first and principal study, and the Irish, which should at least be in the second rank; lastly, that the studies, of what kind so-ever, are pursued in a dogmatical and shallow spirit, loading the memory with the words of the ancient liberators, and the definitions and conclusions of the modern philosophers; but neglecting, making indeed no effort to cultivate the reason, imagination, or sentiments of the students. Is my reasoning fallacious? I pray you to look around your different circles, and you will see the native abilities of hundreds of young men ruined in our college. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

Gentlemen, the Dublin University is the laughing-stock of the literary world, and an obstacle to the nation’s march; its inaccessible library, “the mausoleum of literature” and effete system of instruction,(with the exception in favour of the medical and surgical school) render it ridiculous abroad; add its unaccounted funds, and its bigot laws, and know why it is hated, at home.

I have already pointed out to you how some faults of the collegiate system may be remedied by voluntary association. I shall presently show you that many of its defects may be compensated by this society. But then comes the question, “Would not an academic reform accomplish all these objects at once?” I doubt it. Material improvements could be made, but that university education should be continued at all seems questionable; and this, doubt extends to the collegiate systems generally, metropolitan and provincial, though to the latter in a less degree. I might rely on their being in this dilemma, that if they do not enforce residence they are intellectually useless; and if they do they are morally pernicious, by destroying family ties and, too often, purity of character.

But I do not rest on this. I contend that theory and experience show the superiority of the Lyceum to the University system. That during childhood the mind requires to be guided though not schooled, as it commonly is, and that the affections do then most deserve and repay cultivation, form conclusive reasons for the domestic education of children. But in more educated years I believe that a young man, whether, a hermit, he seclude himself with nature and his own breast to instruct him, or more wisely combine for mutual instruction with his fellows, will by either way grow into an eager, thorough-thinking man, and become better informed and of more vigorous faculties than had he been dry-nursed by a candidate bishop, or tied to the apron-string of even such an alma mater as Trinity College.

Gentlemen, the Lyceum system was that of Greece in its best days, of Greece when it produced in two hundred years more eminent men than did all Europe with all its universities in twice that period. Universities at best can only store the memory which wants no aid; they are unfit to develop the other powers of head or heart. I entreat of you to bear this assertion of mine in mind when I come to speak of the working of this society on its members. I cannot now discuss the question at length; suffice it, in support of the truth and relevancy of my opinion, that such societies as this are strictly Lyceums, bearing a close resemblance in their mode of operation to the famous schools of Athens; and further-more, such societies have existed among the students of Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany, indeed of all Europe, to compensate the evils of the Universities. Indeed, I at first intended to have traced out what would be a good education, and then to have shown the fitness of the Lyceum system to teach it; but I remembered that my reasoning would be met in the mind of every good, easy man, with the question, “Was not Trinity College after all a very good thing?” Therefore I have gone to the trouble of showing it to be a bad thing in theory, I appeal to the experience of every disinterested man of sense in proof of its – positive inefficacy; and if I be told that the general idleness or dullness of the students would make any higher system so much too good as to be good for nothing, I shall then appeal to the history of the Lyceum system, to the minute experience of every man on mind-formation, and lastly to poor calumniated human nature itself.

I would suggest the propriety of forming an Irish Lyceum, with sections for the study of the different branches of philosophy, history, and literature. Sections should be specially devoted to the cultivation of the Irish language, and to promoting a knowledge of Ireland’s natural history, its statistics and civil history, and its native literature. I have spoken to many persons about it, and all thought the plan feasible.

But be the University education good or bad, with it, and such knowledge as they have smuggled from novels, newspapers, and experience, the students are flung out to spend, as chance may lead, the years till business compel them to, industry. How is this interval generally passed? You recollect the song-
“Now I’m of age and come into my property,
Devil a ha’p’orth I’ll think of but fun.”
Gentlemen, let the Purists and Calvinists pour out their gloomy and often hypocritical invectives against the weak-ness of man; I have no sympathy with their declarations; the path of reasonable virtue may be narrow; they may make it a sword-bridge – God made it wider. He made man, and the path of his pilgrimage or triumph. He limits our aberrations as He steers the courses of the suns – to no unvarying road – employing our errors to instruct us, justifying His attributes to Himself, and ultimately to us; and He has so made man that “to step aside is human.” Do not therefore suppose me a “pedant in morals,” when I tell you that to spend the noon of life in trifles or indulgences is for a feeble and degenerate mind. God forbid that we should so sin against human nature as to become cold, gloomy, and ambitious men. No! I rejoice that is not the side we err to.
“O Life! how pleasant is thy morning,
Young fancy’s rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing caution’s lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like schoolboys, at the expected warning,
To joy and play.
We wander there, we wander here,
We eye the rose upon the brier,
Unmindful that the thorn is near,
Among the leaves;
And though the Puny would appear,
Short while it grieves.”

But, gentlemen, a manhood of mere pleasure preludes an old age of care, a death of contempt. In that dangerous time, therefore, ere Professional business, like a Mentor, comes to our aid, how useful such societies as this must be ill leading the mind from frivolous thoughts to grave studies, and preparing the spirit far stirring scenes; even then, as an occupation of so much time otherwise likely to be fooled away, a membership of our society is useful. But it does much more; and first, it is a noble indeed the only effective institute of the social sciences. It is perhaps more valuable in this way than as a school of oratory; whether it shall be a school for eloquence or loquacity depends more on the management of it, but whether well or ill-used, it teaches things which a citizen should know. If a member prepare himself for your debates, and listen to, or engage in them, how many valuable subjects must he learn! In politics the various questions relating to local and central governments, the host of disputes on doctrines of representation, its proper extent and restrictions, and the plans for its improvement. How far, if at all, monarchy and aristocracy should be imposed on democracy, the undoubted basis of free government; and whether a social equality should or indeed could be added to the political; and when, in addition to these, you discuss such details as the influence of a free press, of the jury system and penal code, you lay a broad and deep foundation for political knowledge.

Again in political economy, there are the disputes, whether of the agricultural or manufacturing systems one should be encouraged to the exclusion of the other; ending generally in the conviction that all classes in the country should be left to their own natural development; only taking care that no matter how connected with, or dependent on, each other, they shall, if possible, be independent of the stranger. Then the questions on Poor and Corn Laws, on Absenteeism, Colonies, and Finance afford opportunities for acquiring a knowledge not only of these particular topics, but of fixing in the memory, and applying the doctrines of supply and demand, wages, capital, rent, and taxation, so hard to learn, and indeed so ill learned by systematic reading, but which, always of importance, have become still more so in our day. The production, accumulation, distribution, and consumption of wealth occupy much, indeed too much regard. You must, and here you can, learn these things. The, people are pressing on in a career certain of sweeping away every law and custom which impedes their physical comfort, though in doing so they may overthrow some of the barriers which protect their morals, and therefore guard their happiness.

Gentlemen, if we stopped here, it only these subjects I have named were earnestly studied (and voluntary studies are always earnest), would you not have learned more of the things which you would want in life, more of what goes to make a wise and influential citizen, than from the demonstrations and “dead vocables” of the whole college course? – But we do not stop here. I shall not mention your discussions on literary subjects; for except when such a society contains a number of men practised in debate and of vast information, it is vain to think of debating them; and even then they do not excite a sufficiently warm interest. Yet familiarity with the standard writers is an essential preparation for your political debates; and the critical habits which grow up naturally from competition render this a mere literary society of some value. But, gentlemen, this is an Historical Society, and ample means does it afford for studying history; not as a record of facts, but with that philosophy which first examines these facts as parts of political and social institutions, as manifestations of human nature on great occasions; and having done so, and not before, applies them to the circumstances occurring around it, to the institutions and men of its own time.

Without knowing the history of a time we cannot accurately comprehend its philosophy.

Taste and politics alike receive from history correctives which prevent over-refinement. I would especially point to the opinions of the middle ages, when an ingenuity in speculation, quite unequalled, led to profitless refinement, from the want or neglect of the touchstone of experience, which history combined with personal observation (that is, past, and contemporary history) could, and could alone, supply.

But is it not more than this? What! will you tell me that history is no teacher of the head and heart? It is – it is example that gives impulse and vitality to principles. I might tell you of the faults from which a knowledge of history shields us. Is it nothing to warn us against the brilliant vices of an aristocracy? Is it nothing that its beacons gleam to keep the people from beginning to shed blood?

Philosophy may account for the danger, and may on its Principles forewarn the people; but without the garnered thoughts of history would philosophy have discovered those truths? or will a man, or a senate, or a people, be more influenced by a string of metaphysical truths, or by the portrait taken from life of the blood-stained and jewelled despot, or the picture of a scaffold-applauding mob?

History well read is a series of pictures of great men and great scenes, and, great acts. It impresses, the principles and despair, the hopes and powers of the Titans of our race. Every high hill and calm lake, every rich plain and rolling sea in the time-world is depictured in history’s pages. With rare exceptions national history does dramatic justice, alien history is the inspiration of a traitor.(I mean the histories of a country by ‘hostile strangers’. They should be refuted, and then forgotten. Such are most Histories of Ireland, and yet Irishmen neglect the original documents, and compilations as Carey’s ‘Vindiciae’; and they sin not by omission only – too many of them receive and propagate on Irish affairs ‘quicquid Anglia mendax in historia audet.’)

In home-history the best is generally the greatest; though the clatter of contemporary fame may have concealed the good by the celebrity of the great, yet Washington is more dear to history than Frederick, Brutus than Cesar. Historic writing begins now to be improved, or rather regenerated, restored to what it was in Greece. ‘Tis a glorious world, historic memory. As we gaze long to resemble. Our mental bulk extends as each shade passes in visioned pomp or purity. From the grove the sage warns; from the mound the hero, from the temple the orator-patriot, inspire; and the poet sings in his shroud.

The field of fame, the forum of power, the death-bed or scaffold of the patriots, “who died in righteousness” -you look – you pause – you “swear like them to live, like them to die.” You have a list of questions not long, which I defy any man to study, with the view of making really sound speeches in this room, without learning much, and that well too. Men (I speak, having known its working) learn history in this society with a rapidity and an case, a profundity in research and sagacity in application not approached by any other mode of study. Suppose a man to prepare a defence of what most histories condemn, or to censure some favourite act, or man, or institution, or policy: he makes use of all the generalities of criticism, he shakes the authority of popular writers, or shows our reasoning inapplicable from the different state of society on which we reason from that in which we live, and by which alone we are apt to judge. In his eagerness to persuade he becomes more sensitive of the times of which he speaks than could the solitary student, and we half follow him to the scene over which his spirit stalks.

In aught that could be called a good speech on an historical subject there is not merely a laborious selection of such facts as have an argumentative or illustrative value and of those alone; they must be united, not by crude generalities, or tiresome details, but by practical intermediate principles. Familiar command of such principles justly confers a character for maturity in thought, and they are more readily suggested by close thinking on historical analogies than by refinements on general principles. Gentlemen, you will find that the employment of facts by the lawyer and senator is exactly similar to this which I have described as ours; and if so, a practice of speaking here would seem no bad discipline for the bar or the senate. I would suggest to you that your questions might be so systematically chosen as, without at all diminishing the interest, to take in the more important changes and conditions of ancient and modern states. For example, are there not questions which open up the nature, both theoretical and working, of the constitutions of the leading states of Greece, separately, and also as a confederation, bearing some likeness to those of the Netherlands, Lombardy, and America? The effects of the conquest of Asia by Alexander give a question not unlike that of India by the English -alien civilisation -native ruin. It were easy to name many questions from Grecian history, affording ample and accessible materials, which we do not sufficiently use.

Rome fares better from our hands. We have its whole early constitution displayed in the question on the tribunician power; the feuds of the aristocracy, first of race, then of wealth, with the plebeians; the institutions which so long remedied these disorders, and at last failed, and why they perished. The wisdom of adopting the imperial constitution, if well discussed, would develop the circumstances which defeated the policy of Cicero and Pompey, the patriotism of Sulpicius and Brutus.

Then comes the time when “Rome imperial bowed her to the storm,” and by the deluge of rushing war the seeds of renascent freedom were spread over southern Europe; and though the trees which sprung from the diluvium wore a rude form, yet tough was the fibre, deep the root, and healthy the sap. The autumns of war, the winters of superstition have come and gone, and yet are many of them sound at the core; and even were they dead they have leaved and fruited, and their kind has been transplanted to far lands. But as yet we are in the vestibule: let us pass in this temple of history from the antique periods; and as we advance through the aisles of time we stop to gaze on, perchance we open, the tomb of the crusader, and demand the hopes that maddened him, the state and circumstances of his peers and vassals.

We glance in anger at the brutal conqueror of the Saxons, or with more interest eye the trophies of Azincourt, or the standards so often lost and won in the wars of the Roses; and we question the gain, motives, and effects of this civil fray, or that foreign conquest; or we turn with holier emotions to the banners which waved over the peasants of Sempach and Dalecarlia, or the civic emblems which led on the leaguers of Lombardy and Holland to victory and confederate freedom. But hastily, too hastily, we move to the altar of modern civilisation, and yet it is a glorious show; glorious in the names of its saints, more glorious in those of its martyrs; splendid, if not always free from idolatrous rites, is the sacrifice of its priests; yet more noble is the occasional, the interrupted worship of the laity and the democracy; sublime are the hymns of rejoicing for the past; melting its songs of sorrow over the departed great; divine its thanksgivings for the blessings present; yet more sublime, yet more pathetic, divine are the anticipations of the future which its prophets sing. Who can discuss the nature of each revolution which reformed England, convulsed France, and liberated America, without becoming a wiser man? who can speculate on their destinies, and not warm with hope?

I shall not now reprove your neglect of Irish history. I shall say nothing of it but this, that I never heard of any famous nation which did not honour the names of its departed great, study the fasti, and the misfortunes – the annals of the land, and cherish the associations of its history and theirs. The national mind should be filled to overflowing with such thoughts. They are more enriching than mines of gold, or ten thousand fields of corn, or the battle of a thousand hills, more ennobling than palaced, cities stored with the triumphs of war or art, more supporting in danger’s hour than colonies, or fleets, or armies. The history of a nation is the birthright of her sons – who strips them of that “takes that which not enriches him, but makes them poor indeed.”

Such is a partial and feebly-drawn sketch of the information which may be learned here; and incomplete as is my account of it, it still is so extensive that I may seem to exaggerate; but the wonder ceases when we look to the advantages inherent in our mode of study. Gentlemen, we hear frequent invectives against what is clumsily called universalism in education; and certainly, if this refer to authors, or even languages, no invective seems necessary; it will be sufficient to send the bold aspirant, into any public library, even of Trinity College (if not in winter), and after a week’s rummaging he will come out convinced of the utter hopelessness of any attempt at universalism. Authors are a cannibal race, they devour each other’s carcasses, and the death of one set supports the lives of another.

There is a certain set of books which any man mixing in literary circles must read to please the world; there is another set which he ought to read for his own sake, and there are the few masterpieces of his own, and, if convenient, of foreign literature. Perhaps about twenty writers in English, a dozen in Greek and French, and half of that number in each of the other popular languages will comprise this class. With these exceptions, which may be reduced still further, every prudent man will study subjects, not authors. Thus alone can you go through the wilderness of writers, and it is only by requiring ourselves to master subjects that we render this society what it is – a means of sound general education.

When once this is acquired you can get that sort of knowledge of writers which enables you to refer to them on occasion. Learning, as such, is the baggage of the orator without it he may suffer exhaustion or defeat from an inferior foe; with it his speed and agility are diminished. Those are best oft who have it in magazines, to be drawn on leisurely occasion. That which should be carried by the memory should be borne after the expedite fashion, leaving the other faculties free; but borne some of it must be. Learning is necessary to orator, and poet, and statesman. Book-learning, when well digested, and vivified by meditation, may suffice, as in Burke and Coleridge; but otherwise it is apt to produce confusion and inconsistency of mind, as it sometimes did in both these men.

Far better is the learning of previous observation, the learning of past emotions and ideas, the learning caught by conversation, invented or dug up by meditation in the closet or the field; impressions of scenery, whether natural or artificial, in the human, animal, or material world. Such learning is used by every great poet, philosopher, and orator; perhaps it requires propitious training or nascent genius to be able to acquire it, but ability to acquire ensures ability to use.

When Grattan paced his garden, or Burns trod his hillside, were they less students than the print-dizzy denizens of a library? No, that pale form of the Irish regenerator is trembling with the rush of ideas; and the murmuring stream, and the gently-rich landscape, and the fresh wind converse with him through keen interpreting senses, and tell mysteries to his expectant soul, and he is as one inspired; arguments in original profusion, illustrations competing for his favour, memories of years long past, in which he had read philosophy, history, poetry, awake at his call. That man entered the senate-house, no written words in his hand, and poured out the seemingly spontaneous, but really learned and prepared lullaby over Ireland’s cradle, or caoine over Ireland’s corse.

Read too Burns’s own account of the birth and growth of some of his greatest lyrics. Read, and learn to labour, if you would be great. There is no more common error than that great works are usually the result of extemporaneous power. You have all read an article on Sheridan by Lord Brougham, full of depreciating criticism, founded on the evidences, the chisel-marks of composition which Sheridan left, and so many others (Brougham among the number) concealed. Henry Brougham is a rnetaphysician; he made no mistake on this; but Lord Brougham is an egotist, and he misrepresented.

You are familiar to weariness with the talk about inspirations and sudden efforts of genius, in novelists, and the daily press. The outbursts of most minds, until highly educated, are frothy or ashes-laden. The instances adduced to the contrary will be found fallacious. The continuous and enthusiastic labours of men brimful of knowledge proved the energy of the men, not the inutility of learning. But then, as I have told, or rather described to you, experience is even a greater well of knowledge than books. Without experience book-learning makes the pedant and spoils the man.

The common fault of all education, public and private, is that memory, which requires less care, receives an exelusive attention. No crop is sought from the other faculties – reason, fancy, imagination; and accordingly the business of life finds too, many unschooled in thinking, unprepared to act.

The best way of teaching others the things we know, and of analysing or discovering things now unappreciated or unknown, is this: – On the very threshold of every art, and science, and subject of thought, men, either from its known uses and applications, from some knowledge of a particular detail of its exterior, or working, or of the materials used in constructing it; or from knowing the history of its formation; or from any or all of these; or from the analogy of some combinations of them, should try to judge of other parts, and their origin; or, if you will, guess at the whole from any part of it. Analogy is the first law of thought, and therefore we may do thus, naturally and without presumption, “worms in the cabinet drawer” though we be, and proceeding as I have described, and testing and correcting our guesses and fancies by learning; these particular facts acquired by deliberate study become mixed with our other information or familiar knowledge, and we arrive always at characteristic, if not actual truths, and ultimately acquire that power of general analysis which is the main force of a great mind.

If our memory or information be deficient, our reason is exercised in the highest and most inventive way. Thus only can the inventive faculties, reason, fancy, imagination, be trained. Once they have been so trained, once the mind can readily anticipate, combine, and compare information, the acquisition and use of knowledge has no imaginable limit.(most writers underrate the power of improving or forming faculties. When I see a man who knows or foreknows his powers, and plans his own faculty formation, I think of Napoleon, who when someone said it was impossible to do a certain thing, replied, “Do not let me hear that foolish word again”. This is the creed of a man of action, rather than a speculator.) Here, fortunately, invention and judgment are as much demanded and are therefore as well supplied as mere information. And this forms the distinctive superiority of Lyceum teaching over every other kind.

Gentlemen, do not, however, suppose that information and matured powers, such as I have named, can be produced by an occasional or idle attendance at our meetings, or by chattering speeches without preparation; no, to borrow an expression, you must “read yourselves full, and think yourselves hungry,” on the society’s questions for at least two or three years. I entreat of you to abandon the notion that you will speak well merely from speaking often. Of a surety, all your faculties grow with use, but this very quality of mind behoves you to he judicious as well as earnest in the exercise of your powers. A bad style grows worse by repetition, as much as a good style improves; or more generally, bad habits grow as rapidly as good ones.

Give up the idea of being great orators without preparation, till you are so with it. When you are, with your utmost labour, able to make one really great speech, you will be above me, my criticism, and my advice, but will, perchance, agree with my opinion. The advantage of speaking generally with a complete preparation, both of matter and style, is that when occasionally you speak (voluntarily or otherwise) with incomplete preparation, your usual arrangement and style will present a good, and, what is more, an easily-imitated model; and thus, not only will your manner of speaking be kept accurate and forcible, but you will acquire that quality useful to all men of business, and essential to the orator and the public man. “Presence of mind” I think there is scarcely a finer expression in the language. It conveys, in picturesque words, a vigorous thought. Great orators have not only great but present minds. They are self-possessed, and have all their resources at command. The memory, the knowledge must be prodigious that can carry a man through the common business of life without the position strange, and the occasion sudden opening in his path, to trip or pitfall the stargazer. But in the great contests of public life, no day but demands the presence of a mind unembarrassed by prejudice, unimpeded by knowledge obsolete, or wisdom inapplicable; a mind whereby a man can think on his legs, and act discreetly even when he acts from his intuitions, steering his course by the same power that impels him. But the men who, by often extemporising as the spirit moved them, have got unabashed brows and flippant tongues, are as far from this noble attainment as the pert ness of the sparrow differs from the valour of the eagle. But let me reiterate that a prudent and industrious use of this society can alone make it a means of improvement.

To the idle and the vain your membership may be a probation in folly. I have known men of some capacity come here, professedly with the design, of learning oratory. I have watched them till their patriotism was cooled, their sagacity lessened, their courtesy not improved, all from reckless misuse of the society. There is another danger I would warn you against. Eloquence is contained in words, and therefore some men would turn an oratorical society into a word-school. There are worse employments than inventing smart sentences, though some men would quarrel with a friend for the sake of uttering one. There are worse pastimes than spinning periods, though some men prefer the display of such fabrics to character for sense, or the cause of justice. I do not object to the study of language; I commend it to your early and learned care, but do not suppose that a court of justice, that a political assembly, that a senate, or even a vestry, that a mob of peers or peasants, will care for fine words, unless there be strong thoughts within them.

The successful orator must be prepared in a good style, ready with a fluent one; but he must also be learned in the sympathies and the prejudices of all his audience, but especially of their influential men; he must have a thorough knowledge of the materials on which, and with which, he is to work. Common industry will inform him on the immediate subject of discourse, and his task is done. Some will tell you not to rouse the animosity of a judge, or the suspicions of a jury, with showy words, or wear mob with cold words. No, gentlemen, but thoughts, thoughts; the wise man against the wordy man all the world over. And even for style’s sake, study thoughts before words. The style suggested by long meditation on a subject is mostly apt to it, forcible and consistent. A style formed by verbal studies or imitation is generally inflated, unequal, and obscure. In fine, then, the order of your noviciate should be, much research, and more meditation preceding, combining with, and following that research.

When you have acquired a facility in discovering information, and inventing and combining thoughts, it remains for you to make opportunities for gradually learning to speak well without particular preparation. Act thus with eagerness, enterprise, and with much reflection, and you will succeeds Gentlemen, I have detained you very long; bear with me yet a little while. I would give you my parting advice.

If you suppose it possible to be great orators, great statesmen, greatly known, without having expanded hearts and mighty imaginations, without being great men, you sadly deceive yourselves. Hear the second poet of Scot-land (for Burns is the first), hear how Scott murmurs his requiem over the tomb of Charles Fox –
“Mourn genius high and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy’s glow –
They sleep with him who sleeps below.”

If you want to be great orators, you must not set about learning the mountebank juggles – the phrase-spinning tricks of little men attempting great parts. I shall not wrong you by supposing that any petty vanities or selfish hopes brought you here. No; I do believe that the bold aspirations of your boyhood (for the foundation of greatness is laid in childhood), those pure and dazzling visions which have flashed upon you in dreams, and caught the steadier glance of your young waking eye, have not yet faded wholly away. What though many a glorious expectation has failed? What though even you have learned that toil and danger guard the avenue to success? What though disappointment and suffering have somewhat touched you, and made you less sanguine; yet, has not time rewarded your sorrows – has it not refined – has it not purified – has it not strengthened, even when it humbled you? This world is called hard; ’tis the outside of each little circle of feelings and ties that is so, and who is not within the bounds of at least one such?

None here, I trust, and yet if there be one so wounded and desolate one who longs for that solitude which it has been said is “fit only for a demon or an angel,” or for the equally dubious quiet of the tomb, – such a soul must, under the benign influence of early feelings, and the propitious circumstances and the teaching nobler than that of manhood, which is given to us then, have felt the generous resolve to serve a world which might not thank him. Oh, if I had the power to “bid the happy thought of innocent days play at his heart-strings,” and in enthusiastic strains to melodise the conviction, that nor prosperity, nor content, nor the blessings of friendship or love (which are dearest to the best minds) can lift to the same sublimity, or should warm with the same proud joy, as the consciousness of him who is a benefactor of mankind. Let not gentleness or virtue shrink from the boisterous elements of publicity; such a spirit makes a calm around; nor let want of rank or of wealth awe him into silence,
“For service comes of gentleness,
And lealest hearts of low degree.”

To each age has God given a career of possible improvement; it may exceed, it may fall short of that in other ages. The march during the daylight of our age may he limitited by the time and training; but we have it in our power to accelerate that march.

The time is past when the omnipotence of the sword might excuse the sentimental, or learned, or melancholy retirement. The man who now avoids his citizenship has no defence but imbecility; for if we have sagacity and learning he has power and sins in folding up his talent want of zeal to use it. He lacks not means, but a virtuous will.

I would especially desire the diffusion of civic zeal, because in it I see the means, the only means, of human improvement. The effect of modern civilisation up to a certain point has been good; it has tended to free man from the dominion of an armed minority, who stupefied and worked the human race as if they were so many machines which they had made, and could make, and had no reason to abstain from abusing, save the prudence of perpetuating them. This step has been taken in some countries, and seems likely to be taken in all. But on the shore of democracy is a monstrous danger; no phantasm is it, but alas! too real-the violence and forwardness of selfish men, regardful only of physical comfort, ready to sacrifice to it all sentiments – the generous, the pious, the just (victims in their order), till general corruption, anarchy, despotism, and moral darkness shall re-barbarise the earth. A great man has said, if you would qualify Democracy for power, you must “purify their morals, and warm their faith, if that be possible.” How awful a doubt! But it is not the morality of laws, nor the religion of sects, that will do this. It is the habit of rejoicing in high aspirations and holy emotions; it is charity in thought, word, and act; it is generous faith, and the practice of self-sacrificing virtue.

To educate the heart and strengthen the intellect of man are the means of ennobling him. To strain every nerve to this end is the duty from which no one aware of it can shrink. A sphere of influence belongs to every man and every age, and over every man, and every nation, and every succeeding age; but that of action is more confined. The influence of moral power extends but gradually and indirectly over contemporary foreign nations. Those whose acts can directly influence the republic of nations are few, and at so lonely an elevation above common habits that they usually lose our common sympathies, and their power is a curse. But no man is without a sufficient sphere of action, and of direct influence. I speak now of private life; in it, blessed be God! our people are tender, generous, and true-hearted. BUT, GENTILMEN, YOU HAVE A COUNTRY. The people among whom we were born, with whom we live, for whom, if our minds are in health, we have most sympathy, ore those over whom we have power – power to make them wise, great, good. Reason points out our native land as the field for our exertions, and tells us that without patriotism a profession of benevolence is the cloak of the selfish man; and does not sentiment confirm the decree of reason ? The country of our birth, our education, of our recollections, ancestral, personal, national; the country of our loves, our friendships, our-hopes; our country – : the cosmopolite is unnatural, base – I would fain say, impossible. To act on a world is for those above it, not of it. Patriotism is human philanthropy.

Gentlemen, many of you possess, more of you are growing into the possession of, great powers – powers which were given you for good, which you may use for evil. I trust that not as adventurers, or rash meddlers, will you enter on public life. But to enter on it in some way or other the state of mind in Ireland will compel you. You must act as citizens, and it is well, “non nobis solum nati sumus, ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat.” Patriotism once felt to be a duty becomes so. To act in politics is a matter of duty everywhere; here, of necessity. To make that action honourable to yourselves, and serviceable to your country, is a matter of choice. In your public career you will be solicited by a thousand temptations to sully your souls with the gold and place of a foreign court, or the transient breath of a dishonest popularity; dishonest, when adverse to the good, though flattering to the prejudices of the people.

You now abound in patriotism, and are sceptical of public corruption; yet most assuredly, if you be eloquent and strong-thinking, threats and bribes will be held out to you. You will be solicited to become the barking misleaders of a faction, or the gazehounds of a minister – dogs who can tell a patriot afar off. Be jealous of your honour and your virtue then; yield not. Bid back the tempter. Do not grasp remorse. Nay, if it be not a vain thought, in such hours of mortal doubt, when the tempted spirit rocks to and fro, pause and recall one of your youthful evenings, and remember the warning voice of your old companion, who felt as a friend, and used a friend’s liberty.
Let the voice of his warning rise upon your ear, think he stands before you as he does now, telling you in such moments, when pride or luxury or wrath make you Waver, to return to communings with nature’s priests, the Burns, the Wordsworths, the Shakespeares, but, above all, to nature’s self. She waits with a mother’s longings for the wanderer; fling yourselves into her arms, and as your heart beats upon her bosom your native nobility will return, and thoughts divine as the divinest you ever felt will bear you unscathed through the furnace. Pardon the presumption, pardon the hope (’tis one of my dearest now), “forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.” And I do not fear that any of you will be found among Ireland’s foes. To her every energy should be consecrated. Were she prosperous she would have man to serve her, though their hearts were cold in her cause. But it is because her people lieth down in misery and riseth to suffer, it is therefore you should be more deeply devoted.

Your country will, I fear, need all your devotion. She has no foreign friend. Beyond the limits of green Erin there is none to aid her. She may gain by the feuds of the stranger; she cannot hope for his peaceful help, be he distant, be he near; her trust is in her sons. You are Irish-men. She relies on your devotion. She solicits it by her present distraction and misery. No! her past distraction – her present woe. We have no more war bills: we have a mendicant bill for Ireland. The poor and the pest-houses are full, yet the valleys of her country and the streets of her metropolis swarm with the starving. Her poet has described her
“More dear in her sorrow, her gloom, and her showers,
Than the rest of the world in its sunniest hours.”

And if she be miserable, if “homely age hath the alluring beauty took from her poor cheek, then who hath wasted it?” The stranger from without, by means of the traitor within. Perchance ’tis a fanciful thing, yet in the misfortunes of Ireland, in her laurelled martyrs, in those who died “persecuted men for a persecuted country,” in the necessity she was under of bearing the palms to deck her best to the scaffold-foot and the lost battlefield, she has seemed to me chastened for some great future.

I have thought I saw her spirit from her dwelling, her sorrowing place among the tombs, rising, not without melancholy, yet with a purity and brightness beyond other nations, and I thought that God had made her purpose firm and her heart just; and I knew that if He had, small though she were, His angels would have charge over her, “lest at any time she should dash her foot against a stone.” And I have prayed that I might live to see the day when, amid the reverence of those once her foes, her sons would
“Like the leaves of the Shamrock unite,
A partition of sects from one foot stalk of right;
Give each his full share of the earth and the sky
Nor fatten the slave where the serpent would die.”

But not only by her sufferings does Ireland call upon you. Her past history, furnishes something to awake proud recollections. I speak not of that remote and mysterious time when the men of Tyre traded to her well-known shores, and every art of peace und a home on her soil; and her armies, not unused to conquest, traversed Britain and Gaul. Nor yet of that time when her colleges offered a hospitable asylum to the learned and the learning of every land, and her missions bore knowledge and piety through savage Europe; nor yet of her gallant and romantic struggles, against the Dane, and Saxon, and Norman; still less of her hardy wars, in which her interest was sacrificed to a too-devoted loyalty, in many a successful, many a disastrous battle. Not of these. I speak of sixty years ago. The memory is fresh, the example pure, the success inspiring. I SPEAK OF “THE LIFETIME OF IRELAND” (Ireland was then a confederation of local governments, and her stubborn and protracted resistance may be added to the many such incidences accumulated by Sismondi to show the greater stability and greater defensive forces of countries with a minute local organisation and self-government over the larger centralised powers.)

But if neither the present nor the past can rouse you, let the sun of hope, the beams of the future, awake you to exertion in the cause of patriotism. Seek, oh seek to make your country not behind at least in the progress of the nations. Education, the apostle of progress, hath gone forth. Knowledge is not virtue, but may be rendered its precursor. Virtue is not alone enjoyment, is not all happiness; but be sure, when the annunciation of virtue comes, the advent of happiness is at hand. Seek to take your country forward in her progress to that goal, where she, in common with the other nations, may hear that annunciation of virtue, and share that advent of happiness, holiness, and peace.

Gentlemen, I have done. You have been disappointed; you expected, your partiality expected, from me prescriptions to make the best of good speeches, at the bar, pulpit, and senate-all in a brilliant address. Yet, though to hear them has given you little pleasure, and to write them has cost me little time, the thoughts are not rash or inconsiderate; they were the best I had. It would have been easier, much easier, for me to have written rhetorical precepts, and the distinctions of a shallow metaphysics, and to have conveyed such thoughts in a showy diction and with pointed periods. I should have avoided the trouble of combining my scattered thoughts on the subject of our education, but I should have violated my conscious duty. I should have won a louder and more frequent cheer. You would have cheered and have forgotten me. I shall heartily wish you, gentlemen, what each of you will, I know, wish me in return: that you may struggle and succeed in a career, honourable and useful to yourselves and those who are dear to you, in time; and which, I say it in the sincerest solemnity of my heart, may render you better fitted for eternity.