Speech delivered at the Galway Election, February 14th, 1847.1
Gentlemen, you saw the men who voted for the Whig candidate on Saturday. Did they advance to the hustings like men who felt they had a country, and were conscious that their votes would be recorded for her liberty? No, they went there like slaves—insensible to the dictates of patriotism—insensible to its thrilling invocations for redress. The troops, under the armed guardianship of which they were driven to utter sentence against the independence of their country, proclaimed the cause for which their venal franchise was compelled. Did not the proud escort that attended the tenants of Lord Clanricarde to the courthouse proclaim that to the supremacy of England those venal tenants sacrificed their souls? The troops that were arrayed against your right to petition upon the field of Clontarf were fit companions indeed for the slaves who were herded together to vote against your right to legislate. Those men might as well have voted in manacles. But if their hands were free, their souls were fettered; and if they wore not the garb of convicts, they exhibited all the debasement of criminals.
Yet these men had illustrious models of depravity—models selected from the brightest page of Irish history, as some Whig orator would designate the narrative of the Union. They had Fitzgibbon—they had Castlereagh—the titled miscreants who purchased English coronets by the destruction of the Irish Senate. Castlereagh purchased something else—an English grave. This, at least, was a privilege to Ireland—to be exempt from the contamination of the dust which, when breathing, had drenched our Senate with corruption and our land with blood. Let England still claim such treasures, and let no Irish traitor—no tenant of Clanricarde—rot beneath the soil in which the bones of Swift, of Tone, and Davis, have been laid to rest. Turn from this soiled and revolting picture, and contemplate the reverse. You saw the men who voted for the Repeal candidate. Did they register their votes under the sabres of hussars? No; they voted for their country, and, were, therefore, under no obligation to the liveried champions of the English flag. They went up to the hustings like honest citizens, and were protected, not by the musket of the soldier, but by the arm of the God of Hosts. Their souls were as untrammelled as their limbs, and, recording their votes, they were distinguished for the manliness which men who love freedom can alone exhibit. They voted like men who knew well that the scheme of the Whigs is to soothe this country into degradation, and they looked like men who scorned to be soothed for that purpose—scorned the vile scheme that would prostrate this country by patronage—scorned the vile scheme that would perpetuate the Union by making it prolific in small boons.
Men of Galway, to the hustings on the morrow, in the same gallant spirit. Show no mercy to these Whigs! Swamp them before the sun sets, and let the night fall upon the broken flag-staff and baffled cohorts of the English Minister! Let the Minister hear of his defeat on Wednesday morning, and curse the virtue that had no price. There must be no jubilee in Chesham Place at the expense of Irish liberty. There must be no delegate from Galway authorised to sustain the dictation of the English Commons—authorised to sustain the dictation that has been assumed to coerce, to enslave, to starve this country. What will the Commons say when the Solicitor-General for Ireland takes his seat on the Treasury Bench as the Whig member for this borough? Will they say that the threat uttered by the Paymaster of the Forces has forced you to capitulate? No; I do not think they will charge you with cowardice, but I am sure they will arraign you for corruption. They will say that venality has accomplished what battalions could not achieve, and that the money-bags of the Mint can do more for the English interest in Ireland than all the batteries of Woolwich. And, let me tell you, these money-bags have been flung across the Channel into Galway.
Trust me, the Whig Government will fight this battle to the last farthing. This I sincerely believe—this I deliberately avow. I am justified in this belief, for it is notorious that the favourite weapon of the Whig Government is corruption. It is the boast of these Whigs that they alone can govern Ireland—that they can mesmerise the Irish beggars! Prove to them that this boast is a falsehood—prove to them that you will not be governed by them, and that Ireland shall be their difficulty and their scourge. What claims have these Whigs upon us? None save what corruption constitutes. Their liberal appointments? How do these appointments serve the country? How much wealth flows into Ireland by the member for Dungarvan2 being Master of the Mint? Recollect this, the Whigs voted twenty millions to emancipate the Africans—they refuse to sanction a loan of sixteen millions to employ the Irish.
Vote for their nominee, and you will vote against the noble proposition of the Protectionist leader. And has it come to this that you will vote for non-employment—for starvation—for deaths by the minute, and inquests by the hour. Will you vote for this Government of economists—this Government of misers—this Government of grave-diggers? Before you do so, read the advertisement on the walls of the Treasury—‘Funerals supplied to all parts of the country.’ That is the true way to tranquillise the country! That is the true way to hush the tumult of sedition! That is the true way to incorporate the countries, and make the Union binding! If we do not beat those Whigs out of Galway—if we do not fight them for every inch of Irish ground—if we do not drive them across the Channel—they will starve this country into a wilderness, and, at the opening of the next session, they will bid their royal mistress congratulate her assembled Parliament upon the successful government and the peace of Ireland.
And they insist, too, that the executive of this wilderness shall be a chief of police, a poor-law commissioner, and a commissary-general. Will you submit to this? Do you prefer a soup-kitchen to a custom house? Do you prefer graveyards to corn-fields? Do you prefer the Board of Works to a national senate? Do you prefer the insolent rule of Scotch and English officials to the beneficent legislation of Irish Peers and Irish Commoners? Heaven forbid that the blight which putrified your food should infect your souls! Heaven forbid that the famine should tame you into debasement, and that the spirit which has triumphed over the prison and the scaffold should surrender to the corruptionist at last!
I asked you, a moment since, how much wealth flows into Ireland by the member for Dungarvan being Master of the Mint? I must tell you this: there is a little stream of it always dropping through the Castle Yard; but sometimes there are extraordinary spring-tides—just about election times—and then that tide swells and deepens, and rises so high, and rushes so rapidly, that it frequently sweeps away the votes of the people—sweeps away their placards—sweeps away their banners—sweeps away their committee rooms—and, in the end, throws up a Whig official upon the white shore of England. Beware of this spring-tide; it is sweeping through Galway this moment—through lane and street. Its glittering waters intoxicate and debase. The wretches who drink them fall into the current and are whirled away—the drenched and battered spoils of England. And is this the end of all you have vowed and done? And has it come to this, that after the defiances, the resolutions, the organisation of 1843, England shall plant her foot upon the neck of Ireland and exclaim: ‘Behold my bribed and drunken slave!’
I do not exaggerate. The battle of Ireland is being fought in Galway. If the Whigs take Galway—Ireland falls. Shall Ireland fall? Incur defeat and you shall have her bitter curse. Win the battle and you shall have her proud blessing. Your virtue and your victory will fire the coward and regenerate the venal—your example will be followed—the Whigs will be driven from Wexford, from Waterford, from Mallow, from Dungarvan; their bribes will be trampled in the dust, their strongest citadels be stormed; the integrity of the people shall prevail against the venality of the faction, the Union Act shall share the fate of the Penal Code, and mankind shall hail the birth, the career, the glory of an Irish nation.
1 Cartlann: The February 1847 by-election for Galway Borough (comprising the city of Galway) resulted in the Whig candidate, James Henry Monahan, winning by a narrow minority of just four votes (510-506) against the Irish Repeal candidate, Anthony O’Flaherty. In the general election held later that year, O’Flaherty was elected unopposed.
2 Richard Lalor Shiel.