Speech in the Music Hall, April 7th, 1847, at the third meeting of the Irish Confederation.
The proceedings of this night, sir, will, no doubt, incur the censure of those gentlemen who maintain that politics have nothing to do with the state of the country. It will be said by them, that it is heartless to talk about Repeal when the people require relief. It will be said by them, that the doctrines of nationality should not be preached whilst the nation is on its knees, begging for its bread.
Sir, these gentlemen would adjourn the question of Irish independence, to criticise the ‘boil and bubble’ of a French cook. They would turn their backs upon the old parliament house, in College Green, to dive into the mysteries of the soup kitchen at Kingsbridge. Yet, sir, I agree with these gentlemen to a certain extent. Party politics have nothing to do with the state of the country. ‘Who is in, and who is out—who has this, and who has that?’—these questions have nothing to do with the state of the country. But national politics have everything to do with the state of the country, and these we shall guard and propagate. Gentlemen who tell us to postpone the question of Repeal, whilst the famine is on the wing, dictate a course that would perpetuate the disease and beggary of the land. They advise a step that would make the Union Act, in truth, ‘a final settlement.’ They recommend a policy that would violate our vow, disband our forces, and let in the enemy. Once down, England would keep us down.
Sir, there must be no pause, no adjournment, no truce. Repeal is now a question, not so much of political power, as of actual physical existence. Self-government has become a question of self-preservation. A national parliament is the only efficient relief committee that can be organized—the only one that can have the wisdom to devise, and the power to carry out, any measures calculated to save the life and improve the prospects of this country. The famine has already done enough for England. It shall not do more. It shall not do its worst—it shall not force us to capitulate. What has the famine done for England? The famine has been her best recruiting sergeant—it has purchased thousands into her brilliant and licentious legions. The famine has been her best miner—it has discovered gold mines for her merchants in bankrupt cities and depopulated villages. The famine has been her best swordsman—it has cut down thousands of her peasant foes. But there is one spot where this powerful agent of English lust must halt—one spot where it shall purchase no recruits—one spot where it shall plant no cypress and rear no trophy—one spot where it shall cease to do the business and the butchery of England. It shall halt—it shall be powerless and paralysed—where the Confederation sits.
What say they in England now? What says the Times, the eloquent and mighty organ of English opinion?
‘Ireland is now at the mercy of England. For the first time in the course of centuries England may rule Ireland, and treat her as a thoroughly conquered country.’
Ay, Ireland is now at the mercy of England! Ireland is now a thoroughly conquered country! England has won her crowning victory! The war of centuries is at a close! The archers of Strongbow have failed—the Ironsides of Cromwell have failed—the spies and yeomen of Castlereagh have failed—the patronage and proscriptions of Ebrington have failed—the proclamations and state prosecutions of De Grey have failed—the procrastinations and economy of Russell have triumphed! Let a thanksgiving be preached from the pulpit of St. Paul’s—let the Lords and Commons of England vote their gratitude to the victorious economist—let the guns of London Tower proclaim the triumph which has cost, in past years, coffers of gold and torrents of blood, and in this year a wholesale system of starvation to achieve.
England! your gallant impetuous enemy is dead— your ‘great difficulty’ is at an end. Ireland, or rather the remains of Ireland, are yours at last. Your red ensign flies—not from the Rath of Mullaghmast, where you played the cut-throat—not from Limerick wall, where you played the perjurer—not from the senate-house, where you played the swindler—not from the custom-house, where you played the robber—but it flies from her thousand graveyards, where the titled niggards of your cabinet have won the battle which your soldiers could not terminate. Celebrate your victory! Bid your Scourge steamer, from the western coast, convey some memorial of your conquest, and, in the hall where the flags and cannons you have captured from a world of foes are grouped together, let a shroud, stripped from some privileged corpse—for few have them now—be for its proper price displayed. Stop not here! Change your war-crest. America has her eagle—let England have her vulture! What emblem more fit for the rapacious power, whose statesmanship depopulates, and whose commerce is gorged with famine prices? That is her proper signal. It will commemorate a greater victory than that of Agincourt, than that of Blenheim, than that of Moodkee. It will commemorate the victories of Schull, of Skibbereen, of Bantry.
But, sir, this is a false alarm. Whatever the monarch journalist of Europe may say, Ireland, thank God! is not down yet. She is on her knees; but her withered hand is clenched against the giant, and she has yet the power to strike. Last year, from the Carpathian heights, we heard the shout of the Polish insurrectionist—‘There is hope for Poland whilst in Poland there is a life to lose.’ Sir, there is hope for Ireland whilst in Ireland there is a life to lose. True it is, thousands upon thousands of our people have been swept down, but thousands upon thousands still survive, and the fate of the dead should quicken the purpose of the living. The stakes are too high for us to give up the game, until the last card has been played—too high for us to fling ourselves in despair upon the coffins of our starved and swindled partners. A peasant population, generous and heroic, is at stake. A mechanic population, intelligent and upright, is at stake. These great classes—that form the very nerve and marrow of a nation—without which a nation cannot be saved—without which there is, in fact, no nation to be saved—without which a professional class is so much parchment and powdered horsehair—and a nobility a mere glittering spectre—these great primary classes are at stake.
Shall these, too, be the spoils of England? Has she not won enough already; has she not pocketed enough of your money? And what she has got, is she not determined to keep? You have seen a letter from Mr. Grogan, a few weeks since, to the Lord Mayor. It appears that England will ship off the Irish beggars from Liverpool; she will not ship off the Irish absentees from London. And, tell me, has she not eaten enough of your food, and has she not broken down enough of your manufactures, and has she not buried enough of your people? Recount for a moment, a few of your losses. The cotton manufacture of Dublin, which employed 14,000 operatives, has been destroyed. The 3,400 silk-looms of the Liberty have been destroyed. The stuff and serge manufacture, which employed 1,491 operatives, has been destroyed. The calico-looms of Balbriggan have been destroyed. The flannel manufacture of Rathdrum has been destroyed. The blanket manufacture of Kilkenny has been destroyed. The camlet trade of Bandon, which produced £100,000 a year, has been destroyed. The worsted and stuff manufactures of Waterford have been destroyed. The rateen and frieze manufactures of Carrick-on-Suir have been destroyed. One business, alone, survives! One business, alone, thrives, and flourishes, and dreads no bankruptcy! That fortunate business—which the Union Act has not struck down, but which the Union Act has stood by—which the absentee drain has not slackened, but has stimulated—which the drainage acts and navigation laws of the Imperial Senate have not deadened, but invigorated—that favoured, and privileged, and patronised business, is the Irish coffin-maker’s.
He, alone, of our thousand tradesmen and mechanics, has benefitted by the Union—he, alone, is safe from the general insolvency—he, alone, has reason to be grateful to the Imperial Senate—he, alone, is justified in voting, at the next election, for the accomplices of the Whig minister of England. Sir, the fate which the prophet of the Lamentations announced, three thousand years ago, to the people of Israel, has come to pass this year in this island of faith, of genius, and of sorrow:
‘And I will bring a nation upon you from far—an ancient nation—a nation of mighty men, whose quiver is like to an open sepulchre; and they shall eat up thine harvest and thy bread, which thy sons and daughters should eat; and thy vines and fig trees; and they shall eat up thy flocks and thy herds, which thy sons and daughters should eat; and they shall impoverish thy fenced cities, wherein thou trusted.’
Yet, sir, out of this tribulation and this woe, there is a path to a brighter fate and a happier land. The God of Israel and of Ireland never yet sent a scourge, that He did not send the means whereby its evils might be alleviated. The same voice that bid the fiery serpents to the desert, ordained that an image should be erected there for the chastised to look to, and be saved; and the same tongue that uttered the prophecy I have recited to you, promised that ‘the city should be built up—that the vines should grow again upon the mountains of Samaria—that the song should be heard once more from the height of Zion—and they who were in captivity and mourning should sing again with gladness, and shout among the chief of the nations.’
Sir, out of our captivity and mourning we shall surely go forth, if we truly love this land, and act with the courage which true love inspires. We must have nothing to do with these whining counsellors who bid us sound a truce, retire from the field, visit the sick, and bury the dead. The minister has committed too many crimes against this country to have an hour’s repose. In this very hall, a few days since, an honest and an able fellow-citizen of yours, Mr. Fitzgibbon, distinctly proved, in a speech of great argumentative power, and great statistical research, that the present desperate condition of the country was to be ascribed, not to the ignorance, not to the negligence, not to the mistake of the minister, but to a downright and deliberate compact of his with the mercantile interest of England, by which the lives of the Irish people were mercilessly surrendered to the cupidity of the British merchants.
Sir, I know not when, or where the scourge inflicted by this minister will cease to devastate. Those whom the famine has spared are flying to the emigrant ships, and rushing, panic-struck, from the land where England has lodged the foundations of her despotism in the graves of the people. I hold in my hands returns of the number of emigrants from the ports of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and Cork, for the present season. Now, it appears from these returns, that, although the season has only just somewhat commenced—that, although, in fact, one month only of the emigration season has expired—the number of emigrants from the above-mentioned ports is nearly treble the number that left during the entire season in ‘46. Again, I must observe that these returns are imperfect—the emigrants that have sailed from Liverpool, and other English ports, not being included in them. And the worst of it all is, that it is not the mere bone and sinew we are losing in this way, but the only current capital of the country.
Yet, sir, it is almost selfish to deplore this emigration. Why should we grudge our generous and heroic peasantry a better home, in a new country? Why should we grudge them their emancipation from English rule? Why should we grudge them their life, their bread, their liberty? The sun, each evening as he passes over the graves of their fallen brothers, beckons them to follow him, in his golden track, across the waves, to a land of freedom. Let them go! For a while, at least, let them leave this island, where England has planted her own beggars, in the shape of chief secretaries, and poor-law commissioners, and archbishops. Let them go to the land where English law was flung to the four winds—where a young stripling of a colony sprang up, and dashed an old and sturdy empire to the earth. There they will be safe from English law, and, therefore, safe from beggary, from starvation, and from pestilence. But, sir, we have vowed to remain here, and meet whatever fate is coming. And now, that thousands have rotted into the earth which gave them birth—and now, that thousands are flying from our shores, that they may not tempt the scourge to strike them—we are bound to work the harder—to do double duty—that, at least, the remnant of an old and honourable nation may be saved.
Sir, we must adopt a policy suited to these times. We have now to struggle, not merely against adverse opinions, but against death itself. The desperate condition of the country demands a bold and decisive policy. From this hour, sir, let us have done with the English parliament—on this very night, sir, let us resolve to close our accounts with that parliament. Send no more petitions across the Channel. For fifty years you have petitioned, and the result has been 500,000 deaths. Henceforth, be that parliament accursed! Spurn it as a fraud, a nullity, a usurpation. Spurn it as such on the authority of Saurin, who declared that the Union Act was not obligatory on conscience; that, in the abstract, resistance to it was a duty; and the exhibition of that resistance a mere question of prudence. Spurn it as such on the authority of Plunket, who declared that the incompetency of parliament to pass the Act of Union—declared that if such an act should pass it would be a nullity, and no man in Ireland would be bound to obey it. Spurn it as such, on the authority of Grattan, who declared that the competency of parliament to pass the Act of Union, was the competency of delinquency, the competency of abdication, the competency of treason!
Confederates of Dublin! you know that this Imperial Parliament is a fraud, a nullity, a usurpation. You know it is worse than all this. You know that it is a curse—a penalty—a plague. You are knaves if you do not speak your conviction—you are cowards if you do not act as your conviction bids you act. If you adopt petitions send them to the Queen. She has a right to wear an Irish crown. We shall assert that right. She has a right to summon her Irish Parliament to sit in this city, and, spite of the disloyal and defrauding minister—spite of the disloyal and defrauding Commons, who would suspend the royal functions—we shall boldly and loyally assert that right. The Irish crown must no longer be a cipher. The Irish sceptre, and the Irish flag, must cease to be mere figures of speech—they must become empowered and recognised realities. The members of your Council have determined, by a recent resolution, to support at the hustings no candidate for representative honours who will not pledge himself to an absolute independence of all English parties—who will not pledge himself, against taking or soliciting, for himself or others, any office of emolument under any English government whatsoever.
Some gentlemen may say, this is going too far. I contend it does not go half far enough; and I am delighted to find you agree with me in the opinion. The fact is, we must go much farther. At our next meeting—I am speaking my own sentiments very frankly to you, and, of course, no one is responsible for them but myself—at our next meeting, I think it would be most advisable for us to adopt a resolution to this effect: That the members of the Irish Confederation shall support, at the hustings, no candidates for representative honours who will not pledge themselves to stay at home, and deliberate in this city and in no place else, upon the best means to save this kingdom. One circumstance, at least, is favourable to our policy, and assures us of success—the power of the Whigs is at an end in Ireland. No man now dare stand up, in an assembly of Irish citizens, to recommend the ‘paternal Whigs’ to the filial confidence of the Irish people. The country, thank God, is done with them for ever. Their patronage will no longer save them with the people. Their jail deliveries will no longer save them with the people.
Nothing, sir, will save them with the Irish people. They may have their command nights at the theatre and they may bow, and kiss hands, to an enchanted dress circle, and a gazing pit—they may dine at the Mansion House—take wine, all round, with the Sword Bearer, the Water Bailiff, the City Marshal, the Town Councillors and Aldermen of the Reformed Corporation, and drink the ‘Prosperity of Old Ireland’ to the tune of ‘Rule, Britannia, Rule!’—on the same day that the new docks at Birkenhead are opened by Lord Morpeth, they may graciously open, on the Irish side of the Channel, a Grand Metropolitan Head Soup-Kitchen—they may furnish a select party of the blind, the crippled, and the dumb of the Mendicity, with a ‘guard of honour,’ during their experimental repast—they may embellish the beggary of the nation with all the elegance of the Castle, and all the pageantry of the barrack—they may make a most glittering display of our most sickening degradation, and the bugles of their garrison may summon the fashion of the squares, and the aristocracy of the clubs, to the coronation of Irish pauperism, and the final consummation of the Union—nought will avail them. Their fate is decided—there is a sentence written against them, in the blood of the people, upon the walls of their council chamber, and many other inquests, besides that of Galway, have found them guilty of the wilful murder of the people.
And now that we are done with these Whigs—now that we fully understand what their ‘comprehensive measures’ mean—what their ‘ameliorations’ mean—what their ‘political economy’ leads to—what their ‘reductions of 20 per cent.’ accomplish—now that we are fully convinced that they are the most complimentary and the most conscienceless—the most promising and the most prevaricating—the most patronising, and the most perfidious—the most paternal, and the most murderous—of our English enemies—now that we have broken, from henceforth and for ever, from all English parties—now that we shall pest them no longer with our petitions, nor rack them with our prayers—now that we hold their Commons, as far as we are concerned, to be a fraud, a nullity, and a usurpation—now that we scout it as a penalty, and loathe it as a plague—now, indeed, that, in our souls, we firmly and passionately believe, that
‘Our hope, our strength, is in ourselves alone.’
Let us look, with all the anxiety and earnestness which a last struggle should inspire, into our own country, and see what power we have there to save its life and win its freedom. Let us see if we cannot give a few practical answers to a few of Bishop Berkeley’s queries. Let us see, in fact, if we cannot devise some mode by which the quiver of this mighty foe, that has come upon us, shall cease to be like an open sepulchre; by which this nation shall keep to itself the harvest, and the bread, and the flocks, and the herds, which her sons and daughters should eat, and by which our fenced cities shall not be impoverished.
Sir, I desire to have this done, not by the isolated power of one great section, but by the aggregate power of all sections of the Irish community. I desire that the Irish nation should act, not in divisions, but in one solid square. I am one of the people, but I am no democrat. I am for an equality of civil rights—but I am no republican. I am for vesting the responsibilities and the duties of government in three estates. I think that, in a free state, an aristocracy is a wise—an ennobling institution. Like all human institutions, it has its evil susceptibilities; and the history of aristocracy, like all other histories, has its chapters of crime and folly. But I can conceive no state complete without it. It is the graceful and pictured architrave of the great temple, sacred to law and freedom, of which the people are the enduring foundations and the sustaining pillars. Whilst the peasant tills the land, in which the law should recognise his right of proprietorship, as it is in France, as it is in Prussia—whilst the mechanic plies his craft, from which the law should keep aloof the crushing influences of foreign competition, as it is in Germany, as it is in Belgium—whilst the merchant supplies the deficiencies of the soil with the superfluities of other lands, and drives a princely trade beneath the auspices of a native flag—whilst the priest protects the purity of the altar, and the scholar vindicates the reputation of the schools—let the noble—residing amongst those who enrich his inheritance by their toil, or contribute to his luxury by their skill—be the patron of those pursuits in which the purer genius of a nation lives—pursuits which chasten and expand a nation’s soul—which lift it to what is high, and prompt it to what is daring—which infuse the spirit of immortality into the very ruins of a nation, and which, even when the labours of a nation are at a close—when its commercial energies are dead—when its mechanic faculties have ceased to act, bids it live—as Athens lives, as Florence lives, as Venice lives—in the lessons of the historian, and the raptures of the poet.
Thus, sir, with each of the several classes of the community fulfilling its distinct mission, and, in a separate sphere, contributing to the peace, and wealth, and vigour of the entire state, do I desire this island to advance in a righteous and an eminent career—sustained by its inherent strength—governed by its native wisdom—ennobled by its native genius—thankful for its sustenance to no foreign sympathiser—thankful for its security to no foreign soldier—a model, rather than a warning, a blessing, rather than a burden, to the nations that surround her—no longer exciting their pity by the spectacle of its infirmities, but commanding their respect by the exhibition of its powers.
But, sir, a time comes when the people can wait no longer for the aristocracy. There is a time when the titles of the nobility must give way to the charter of the people. There is a time when the established laws of the land forfeit their sanctity and become a curse. The time when these titles of the nobility must give way—when these ‘established laws of the land’ must cease to act—is when a nation’s life is quivering on its lip. Standing in this assembly of the people, I, who have sprung from the people; I, who have no honours to boast of, save those honours which the people have conferred upon my father; I, who never sat at the table of a lord, and am as thoroughly indifferent to the compliments of the order as I am thoroughly anxious for their co-operation in this struggle; standing in this assembly of the people, in the name of the people, I now make this last appeal to the aristocracy of Ireland. I do so, that in our day of triumph, we may lead no fellow-countryman in chains, nor scout him as an alien from our ranks. There is not an hour—no, not an instant to be lost. Every grave that opens to receive a victim of English rule, widens and deepens the chasm that has, for years, divided the two great classes of the country.
Sir, it is useless to argue it—the people, without the aristocracy, when driven to the last extremity, have the power to win their freedom. One thing, at least, is certain—the people will not consent to live another year in a wilderness and a graveyard. I alone do not say so. The bold historian of the crimes and victories of Cromwell has said so. Lords and Commons of Ireland! hear his words, and be instructed by them—
‘And when the general result has come to the length of perennial, wholesale starvation, argument, extenuation, logic, pity, and patience on that subject may be as considered as drawing to a close. All just men, of what outward colour so ever in politics or otherwise, will say—‘This cannot last. Heaven disowns it—Earth is against it. Ireland will be burnt into one black, unpeopled field of ashes rather than this should last.’’