August 3,
1823, saw the birth of Thomas Francis Meagher,
Irish nationalist, and later transported convict, escapee,
American Civil War general, and Governor of Montana.
In the 1840s, at the time of
An
Gorta Mor,
the Great Irish Famine, a
party of radical Irish nationalists called the ‘Young Irelanders’
wrote articles in The Nation and The United Irishman
newspapers arguing that the Irish people, if they had an Irish
Parliament, could better deal with ‘the great hunger’, than could British
parliamentarians sitting in London so removed from the Irish peasants
dying by the hundreds of thousands.
One of the Young Irelanders who came to prominence, at a
young age, was Thomas Meagher. Educated in Jesuit colleges,
allowing him to receive a better education than most Catholics at the
time, Meagher left college in 1843 with a reputation as a great patriot
and orator. He took his fervour and oratorical ability to the Loyal National Repeal
Association, the nationalist party of ‘the Great Liberator’, the
elderly Daniel
O'Connell. However, Meagher was of an impetuous nature and
O’Connell’s devotion to non-violence could not keep Meagher in
O’Connell’s ranks. The Young Irelanders had no such reservations
about the use of force, and in 1848 Meagher, aged only 23, gave a
firebrand speech that earned him the nickname ‘Meagher of the
Sword’.
Abhor the sword – stigmatize the sword?
No, my lord, for at its blow, a giant nation was started across the
waters of the Atlantic, … the crippled colony sprang into the
attitude of a proud Republic – prosperous, limitless, and
invincible!
It must have taken tremendous political, and
physical courage for a youth to stand before hundreds of O'Connell's
supporters and so defy the great man. Young Meagher’s eloquence drew
great attention to his cause, and many Irish were stirred by his words.
Thomas Meagher and the Irish flag
On
April 15, 1848, Meagher
presented the tricolor national flag of Ireland to the public for
the first time at a meeting of the Young Irelander Party. Earlier that
year – the year
of revolutions in Europe, he had travelled to Paris with a YI
delegation. Inspired by the tricolor French flag, he came up with
similar design for the Irish flag, with orange, white and green stripes.
The colours symbolized the uniting of the two traditions, Protestant
orange, and Catholic green, in one new nation. In 1916, Meagher's flag
was revived by the Irish
Volunteers, who were Irish soldiers in the American Civil War, and
later adopted by Sinn
Fein. Today, it is the flag of the Republic of Ireland, though
Meagher's version had the orange stripe closest to the staff, while the
modern version has the green stripe in that position.
Van Diemen's Land: Not as pretty as it looks
A fearsome sentence
In May, 1849, he was tried
for “exciting the people to rise in rebellion”, but the trial was aborted.
In July, the Young Irelanders attempted a rising among a people then suffering
through some of the worst ravages of An Gorta Mor, which the British
called the Potato Famine. The rising had no real prospects of success, and was
soon crushed. Meagher was among those arrested, tried for high treason, and
sentenced on October 23
to be hanged, drawn, and
quartered – the British punishment for high treason:
That you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of
execution where you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your
privy members [genitals]
shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head
severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed
of at the Queen’s pleasure.
Before
passing sentence the Judge asked if there were any words that anyone wished to
say. Meagher, speaking on behalf of his comrades, and knowing what torments
probably awaited him, showed his characteristic amazing fortitude and spirit
once again:
My Lord, this is our
first offence but not our last.
If you will be easy with us this once, we
promise,
on our word as gentlemen, to try better next time –
sure we won't
be fools, and get caught.
Following passionate support from all round the
globe, Queen Victoria commuted the barbaric sentence but another was passed:
penal servitude for life in the cruellest prison of the British Empire. On
July 29, 1849, with O'Brien and Terence Bellew MacManus, he was transported to
Van
Diemen’s Land, as the brutal ‘worst offenders’ penal colony was
known before it became Tasmania, now the southernmost state of Australia.
Though few men or women ever found a way out, Meagher escaped from Van
Diemen’s Land three years later and headed for New York, where Irish
expatriates gave him a warm welcome.
Meagher and the US Civil War
There he became a popular speaker, and studied law, being admitted to the
bar in 1855, and he started a paper called the Irish News on April 12,
1856. In 1858 he became an explorer, leading an expedition in Central America,
and his tales from that place were published in Harper's Magazine. When
the Civil War began Meagher's sympathies were with the South. However, when
Fort Sumter was attacked, he quickly made the decision to support the cause of
the Union, saying,
It is not only our duty
to America, but also to Ireland. We could not hope to succeed in our effort to
make Ireland a Republic without the moral and material support of the
liberty-loving citizens of these United States.
He raised a company of Zouaves and went to to the
front with the 69th New York
Volunteers, participating in the first battle of Bull Run, and was one of
the last members of the unit left on the field during that massacre.
The battle was over,
the dead lay in heaps,
Pat Murphy lay bleeding and gory.
A hole in his head, from a rifleman's shot
Had ended his passion for glory.
No more in the camp shall his laughter be heard,
Or his songs he was singin' so gaily.
He died like a hero, in the Land of the Free,
Far away from the Land of Shillelagh.
Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade
Always a man of action as well as words, Meagher then
organized other ‘Wild
Geese’ – the famous Irish
Brigade, and was commissioned its brigadier-general, and fought with the
Army of the Potomac with distinction. He was given command of a military
district in Tennessee, and when the war finished he was made, in July, 1865,
Territorial Secretary of Montana. It was while he held this office that he
fell overboard from a Missouri River steamer one night and was presumed drowned,
for his body was never found.
'Paddy's Lament'
Traditional
Well it's by the hush, me boys, and sure that's to hold your noise
And listen to poor Paddy's sad narration
I was by hunger stressed, and in poverty distressed
So I took a thought I'd leave the Irish nation
Well I sold me ass and cow, my little pigs and sow
My little plot of land I soon did part with
And me sweetheart Bid McGee, I'm afraid I'll never see
For I left her there that morning broken-hearted
Here's you boys, now take my advice
To America I'll have ye's not be going
There is nothing here but war, where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin
Well myself and a hundred more, to America sailed o'er
Our fortunes to be making we were thinkin'
When we got to Yankee land, they put guns into our hands
"Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln"
Here's you boys, now take my advice
To America I'll have ye's not be going
There is nothing here but war, where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin
General Meagher to us he said, if you get shot or lose your head
Every murdered soul of youse will get a pension
Well in the war lost me leg, they gave me a wooden peg
And by soul it is the truth to you I mention
Here's you boys, now take my advice
To America I'll have ye's not be going
There is nothing here but war, where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin
Well I think myself in luck, if I get fed on Indianbuck
And old Ireland is the country I delight in
To the devil, I would say, it's curse Americay
For the truth I've had enough of your hard fightin
Here's you boys, now take my advice
To America I'll have ye's not be going
There is nothing here but war, where the murderin' cannons roar
And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin
I wish I was at home
I wish I was at home
I wish I was at home
I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin
John Mitchel and the pro-slavery cause
Perhaps
ironically, most of the Irish in the southern states were pro-slavery, and as
ever, "the hip-pocket nerve" was behind it, because they feared that
if the slaves were freed, they themselves would find it harder to compete for
jobs, such as work on the docks and railroads.
Even more ironically, Meagher's Young Irelander
colleague John
Mitchel (1815 - 1875) published The
Citizen in New York, as an expression of
radical Irish-American
anti-British opinion but the paper became controversial for its passionate
defence of slavery
and famously published a letter by Mitchel to the clergyman and reformer, Henry Ward Beecher, in defence of slavery.
Later, in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1857, Mitchel established the pro-slavery
journal, Southern Citizen, before returning to Ireland to become a
politician. Three of Mitchell's sons fought for the South, and one imagines
them firing on Meagher's Wild Geese, though I know of no record of this.
Mitchel had left the Young Irelanders by
January 1848. He was described by historian Cecil Woodham-Smith as:
... the most remarkable and the most formidable of the Young Ireland leaders ... and the principal leader-writer on the 'Nation'. His abilities were outstanding, and his 'Jail Journal', a minor masterpiece, has won him immortality. John Mitchel possessed an extraordinary capacity for hatred directed at the British Government, and an equal talent for burning invective. He had also the gift, which the other leaders of Young Ireland lacked, of arousing the masses of the people and inspiring them with intense devotion... Yet side by side with outstanding qualities of leadership, courage, integrity and fanatical sincerity, Mitchel possessed fatal defects. He was wildly unpractical, he was obstinate, he did not foresee the consequences of his actions, he did not merely lack organising ability, he regarded method, organisation and system with lofty
contempt.
At the end of the
Civil War, Mitchel
was imprisoned by the Federal authorities for aiding the Rebellion, but a deputation of Irishmen asked President Johnson for his release on the
grounds that he was vital for the cause of Irish freedom, and this was
granted. In 1874 he returned to Ireland and was elected to parliament from
Tipperary ("the people in their enthusiasm took the horses from his carriage and dragged it themselves through the
streets"), but was declared ineligible on the grounds that he was a
convicted felon, and not allowed to take his seat. He contested the seat again
in the resulting by-election, again being elected, this time with an increased
vote. However his sudden death avoided a constitutional crisis, with his
opponent being returned unopposed in the third by-election. He was the
grandfather of John Purroy
Mitchel, who was Mayor of New York City, 1914 - 17.
Young Ireland
- 
Listen
(RAM)
|
What
became of the others?
These Young
Irelanders were compatriots of Meagher, and many were sentenced with him.
The later careers of these traitors and terrorists were remarkable, to say
the least:
Charles
Gavan Duffy (1816 - 1903): Became Member of Parliament for New Ross, County
Wexford, Ireland in 1852. He emigrated to Australia in 1855, becoming a
moderately liberal Premier of Victoria, Australia in 1871. Knighted in
1873 he also became Speaker of the Australian Assembly in 1877. One
of his sons, John Gavan Duffy, was a Victorian politician between 1874 and
1904. Another, Frank
Gavan Duffy, was Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia 1931 -
1935. Yet another son, George
Gavan Duffy (born 1882) was an Irish politician and later (from 1936)
a judge of the Irish High Court, becoming its President from 1946 until
his death in 1951.
Thomas D'Arcy
McGee (1825 - 1868): Member of Parliament, Montreal, Minister of
Agriculture and president of Council Dominion of Canada, and 'Father of Confederation';
assassinated 1868;
John
Mitchel (1815 - 1875): Became a public voice for the pro-slavery
viewpoint in the United States in the 1850s and 1860s before ending up
elected to the British House of Commons, only to be disqualified because
he was a convicted felon;
Thomas Devin Reilly: Evaded the authorities in a remarkable series
of Houdini-type escapes, before eventually making his way to America.
NB:
Many Internet sources say that Morris Lyne (or Morris Lyene) and Michael
Ireland each became Attorney
General of Australia, the latter succeeding the former. However, I can
find no evidence to support this claim and believe it to be incorrect;
perhaps they were attorneys general of some Australian State, but I have
found no evidence of that either. Likewise, many sources say Richard
O'Gorman became Governor-General of Newfoundland. I have been unable to
trace him in either the lists of Lieutenant-Governors
of Newfoundland nor Governors
General of Canada. Many sources also say Patrick Donahue (O'Donoghue)
and Terrence McManus both became Brigadier-Generals in the United States
Army. I have no evidence for these assertions and would be very pleased if
anyone could provide further information.
|
The Young Irelanders in battle, Ireland
|
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The
Great Shame: And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World
by Thomas
Keneally (Australian author of Schindler’s Ark, which became Schindler’s
List, the movie)
The Exile
(Fictional biography of Meagher)
Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847
Out of Ireland
The Irish in America
Irish on the Inside: In Search of the Soul of Irish America
Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century
The Fatal Shore
An
Gorta Mor Irish History: The
'Famine' and Emigration An Gorta Mor
An Gorta Mor, the
"famine"
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Letter from Taylor Kingston concerning errors in
various online versions of this story
Dear Mr Wilson,
While doing research on the story commonly called "Nine Famous Irishmen," I
happened upon your website, and was pleased to see that it was one of the
few that expressed any skepticism about the story's factuality. I became
aware of the story only recently, reading it on a pub menu in Alexandria,
Virginia, and have since found it spread all over the Internet like measles.
While appealing (especially to someone of Irish ancestry, like myself), I've
found that the story is, alas, full of errors. I thought I would share with
you those that I've uncovered, in case you would like to add any you do not
have already to your web-page. I am continuing my research (for example I've
contacted the compilers of the soon-to-be-released Dictionary of Irish
Biography), and will keep you informed of further findings, if you are
interested. Also, if you find any errors in what I've given below, please
contact me to correct them.
Yours truly,
Taylor Kingston
Shelburne, Vermont USA
PS The sources I have checked were the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, the web-sites
Wikipedia,
Library Ireland,
Dictionary of
Canadian Biography and
Australian Dictionary of Biography,
A History of
Canada by Dr. Carl Wittke (1928), and, by e-mail, the office of the
forthcoming Dictionary of Irish Biography. Wikipedia is not always
authoritative, but it had some entries other sources did not. To sum up my
findings from them:
• Some names appear to be misspelled. McManus should be MacManus, Mitchell
s/b Mitchel, Donahue s/b O’Donoghue, and Morris Lyene s/b Maurice Leyne.
• These nine men were not all tried together. In fact, some were never even
charged, let alone brought to trial. As far as I can determine, Meagher,
MacManus, and O’Donoghue were tried together, along with a man named William
Smith O’Brien, who is not mentioned in the story. But Duffy, McGee,
O’Gorman, Leyne, Mitchel and Ireland were not tried with them.
• Charles Duffy (see here and
here), though tried and convicted of sedition,
was released on appeal and was not transported. He emigrated to Australia
voluntarily in 1855.
• Duffy was never Prime Minister of Australia. He was Premier and Chief
Secretary of the province of Victoria from June 1871 to June 1872. By 1874,
when supposedly Queen Victoria learned he was Prime Minister, he was no
longer in office, and in fact had returned temporarily to Europe. For more
details on the offices Duffy did hold, read
here.
• Meagher, MacManus and O’Donoghue were transported to Tasmania (then called
Van Diemen’s Land), not to Australia.
• I can find no evidence that either MacManus or O’Donoghue ever served in
any military, let alone were US brigadier generals. The Wikipedia article on
MacManus indicates he worked in the shipping business in San Francisco from
his arrival in 1852 until his death in 1861, as does Library Ireland
here;
neither mentions him being in the army.
O’Donoghue died within about two
years of his arrival in the US, making it very unlikely he could have become
a general. Perhaps in this connection they have been confused with Meagher,
who did hold that rank in the US Army.
• Though a warrant was issued for Thomas D’Arcy McGee, he fled Ireland, and
was not arrested, tried or transported.
• Though McGee did become a member of the Canadian Parliament, he never was
Minister of Agriculture, as can be seen
here.
• I can find no evidence that the office or title “President of Council,
Dominion of Canada” ever existed, let alone that McGee held it. This may be
a garbled reference to the two conferences on Canadian confederation, held
in 1864. McGee played an important part in these, but he was not the
president or chairman of either. Or perhaps McGee has been confused with
John Alexander Macdonald, who became Canada’s first Prime Minister.
• The closest reference to McGee holding any office like “President of
Council, Dominion of Canada” is
here in the
Dictionary of Canadian
Biography, which says “McGee was asked to become president of the council in
the moderate Reform administration of John Sandfield Macdonald.” This was
closer to a national (rather than provincial) office, but at this time the
Dominion did not exist; as seen
here, Macdonald’s title was Joint Premier of
the Province of Canada (Canada West).
• As can be seen
here, no one named O’Gorman (nor anything close to that
name) has ever held any office called anything like Governor General of
Newfoundland. In 1874 the title was Colonial Governor of Newfoundland.
• Neither Wittke nor the Dictionary of Canadian Biography has any reference
to anyone named Richard O’Gorman (or Gorman), making it unlikely he attained
any prominence in Canada.
• According to the DIB office, a Young Irelander named Richard O’Gorman
(died 1895) did become a judge of the Superior Court of New York. Perhaps
this is the person the story had in mind.
• Concerning “Morris Lyene,” the DIB office says this: “We have an entry on
Maurice Leyne, 1820-54, from Kerry. He was a Young Irelander right enough,
but according to our contributor escaped conviction because he had not
actively promoted sedition. He
owned part of the Nation newspaper and planned to open a nationalist
newspaper in Thurles, co. Tipperary on 1 July 1854, but he contracted
typhoid fever in mid-June 1854 and died 29 June. So as far as we know, not
ever in Australia.”
• As can be seen
here, the office of Attorney General of Australia did not
exist until 1901. Neither Leyne nor Ireland ever held it. The story’s author
may have confused Michael Ireland with
Richard Davies Ireland, who briefly
held the offices of Solicitor General (1858-59) and Attorney General
(1860-61) for the Victoria province, but not for Australia as a whole.
Richard Ireland was never accused of any treasonable offense; rather, he
moved to Australia voluntarily for better professional opportunities.
• No one with a name like Michael Ireland nor Morris Lyene is mentioned in
the Australian Dictionary of Biography, making it unlikely they ever
achieved any prominence there.
• As can be read here and
here, the trial of John Mitchel was a proceeding
separate from any of the other defendants.
• Mitchel was first transported to Bermuda, then later Tasmania, but never
to Australia.
• In New York, Mitchel was a newspaper editor/publisher, but never held
political office, let alone became a “prominent politician.” He was,
lamentably, extremely pro-slavery, and sided with the Confederacy during the
Civil War.
• Back in Ireland in 1875, Mitchel was elected to Parliament, but he was not
seated due to being a convicted felon.
• Mitchel was the grandfather, not the father, of John Purroy Mitchel, mayor
of New York 1914-1917.
• At least with regard to Meagher, both
Wikipedia and
Britannica largely
support what the story claims.
• Entirely missing from the story is
William Smith O’Brien, who with
Meagher, MacManus and O’Donoghue, was tried, convicted and transported to
Tasmania. This is probably due to his having attained no special prominence
afterwards.
