Fire in the House of Commons.

Chapter XIII.

The Gibs’ Parliamentary Privileges - Fire in the House of Commons.

From the manuscript before referred to, we extract also the following sketch

“The Irish House of Commons was a rotund; the most ill-contrived in point of convenience that ever was built. Round it ran a narrow circular gallery for spectators. This was enclosed by a high partition, having behind it a passage opening into the seats in front, which looked down into the body of the house below, but were so narrow that very few spectators filled them. The greater number who were admitted were squeezed together behind the high partition between it and the wall, where they could neither hear nor see. The inconvenience and danger in case of fire was fearful; the whole of the persons shut up in this gallery must have perished of suffocation before they could extricate themselves. Admission to this place was obtained by a member’s order only, except by students of the university, who were always admitted.

“The student’s passport was his gown. He rapped at the wicket, and the porter looked through a grating; the applicant held up his gown, and the door was opened, admitted him, and again closed. This was a privilege often abused. The students’ gowns were lent out indiscriminately to friends and acquaintances, and the gallery appeared sometimes half full of gownsmen, not half of whom were members of the university. When I first entered college I was very fond of using this privilege. It was a proud thing for a ‘Gib’ to present himself to a crowd round the door, hear many a cry, ‘make way for the gentleman of the college,’ pass the avenue made for him, find the door expand to the ‘open sesame’ of his gown, and himself admitted alone to the great council of the nation, while the suppliant crowd were excluded.

“Some of the hot-headed members of the ‘Back-lane Parliament,’ as the society of United Irishmen who met in Dublin were called, had committed themselves on a point of privilege with the House of Commons. The most prominent was James Napper Tandy. It had been determined by some of them, that if anything offensive was said by a member of the House of Commons, the individual offended should seek personal satisfaction from the offender. Tandy became committed thus with Toler, then solicitor-general, and it was supposed that a hostile meeting must ensue between them; but it did not take place; for Tandy, apprehensive of arrest by a messenger of the speaker, made his way out of a back window, and absconded. He was afterwards arrested, and imprisoned in Newgate with other distinguished leaders of the United Irish Society. It was currently reported that these men intended, after a very seditious publication which they avowed, to present themselves in the gallery of the House of Commons, dare the arrest, and so try the question of privilege with the Speaker. As this became a subject of universal excitement and deep interest, I was determined to be present if possible.

“On the 27th February, 1792, a group of collegians, of whom I was one, sacrificed our commons, and were seated from an early hour, in breathless expectation, in the gallery of the House. Between five and six o’clock, just as the Speaker had taken the chair, after prayers, a voice was heard issuing from the root shouting down ‘Fire, fire!’ Smoke was seen rolling down, and in a short time filled the space between the roof and the gallery. An immediate rush was made, and notwithstanding the comparatively small number of persons in the house at that early hour, the avenues were nearly choked up. I found myself jammed in the narrow winding passage between the high partition and the wall, in total darkness, and with a sense of suffocation coming over me; and it was not till a rush was made along the avenue, and I was carried in the current, and found myself pushed into the open air, that I breathed freely. A vast crowd of spectators was collected outside, and the scene appeared to me unspeakably grand and awful. The fire had by this time run round the base of the dome, and appeared to raise it up and support it on a column of flame. For a short time it appeared to remain suspended above its base, and hovering in the air, when suddenly the fiery columns appeared to give way, and the vast dome sank, with a crash, within its walls. The circle of the wall was 175 feet in circumference, and a volume of smoke and flame seemed to issue from it as from a crater, and exhibited the aspect of a natural volcano. The flames ascended in a cone of fire to a considerable height, with a roaring sound, and the vibration seemed to shake the houses in College-green, like the accompaniment of an earthquake. After some time the smoke and flame sank within the wall, the torrent of molten metal from the covering of the dome pouring down like a stream of lava. It was the most magnificent imitation of nature that was ever artificially displayed.

“Among the crowd that filled College-green were seen prominently some of the most violent demagogues of the day. A rumour was spread that the fire was not accidental, but the result of a premeditated design to crush at once the members of the House of Commons, take advantage of the confusion that would ensue, and instantly proclaim a provisional government, independent of England. This sudden conflagration, while the house was sitting in secure debate within, seemed so like the design and attempt of the ‘gunpowder-plot’ that many yielded readily to the conviction that the motives and actors in both were similar, and the escape equally providential. It turned out however, on a close inspection and strict examination of the circumstances, that the fire was purely accidental. It was caused by the breaking of one of the flues which ran round the walls to heat the house, and by which the fire was communicated to the woodwork supporting the roof. The massive walls of the rotunda protected the other part of the magnificent building, and the damage of the fire was entirely confined to the seeming volcano in the centre.

“After the fire the business of the house was adjourned to the Speaker’s chamber, and the students of Trinity College were particularly favoured. At the end of the apartment, behind the Speaker’s chair, there was a deep and convenient gallery, which was exclusively devoted to the gownsmen. They were instantly admitted here, on presenting themselves, and listened to the debate at their ease, while the public in general now found it difficult to obtain passes, and when they got admission, were confined to a narrow strip of a gallery, from some parts of which they could neither see nor hear.

“This proud distinction the gownsmen, however, soon forfeited. Lord Fitzwilliam had been sent over as a popular viceroy, and, on his sudden recall, a strong feeling of disappointment prevailed. On a night when the subject was brought before the House, our gallery was full, and I remember well the irrepressible excitement that seemed to actuate us all. At length it broke out. Grattan rose to deprecate the measure as one calculated to cause the greatest disturbance in Ireland, by what was considered the perfidy of the Government, first exciting the high hopes of the people by promised measures of liberal policy, and then dashing them, by the sudden removal of the man who had been sent over expressly to accomplish them. At the conclusion of Grattan’s inflammatory speech, the enthusiasm in the gallery was no longer capable of restraint. We rose is one man, shouting and cheering with the boisterous tumult of a popular meeting. When this subsided, Foster’s peculiar voice was heard through his nose, ordering the students’ gallery to be cleared, and a sergeant-at-arms, with a posse of messengers, entered among us. We were pushed out in a heap, without the slightest ceremony, and were never again suffered to enter as privileged persons.

“The Speaker had counted on the loyalty and propriety of the students of the university, and this display of what he considered riot and sedition, at once changed his estimate of their character. Many a penitent memorial was presented, and solemn promises were made of better manners in future, but Foster was inexorable. No student ever after found his gown a passport to the house, till the Union removed the parliament, and extinguished the hope of recovering the lost privilege for ever. Groups of us were constantly seen in the passages, waiting to intercept the Speaker, or entraing, with uplifted hands, a passage to the gallery, but stern Charon passed in at the door, leaving us, like ghosts on the banks of the Styx, casting wistful and unavailing looks on the Elysium on the opposite side of the house.

“On the 13th of October, 1796, the House of Commons was re-opened - a renewed edifice, risen like a phoenix from its ashes.”

Content of “Ireland 60 Years Ago” Home.