Memories of Isaac Butt QC

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PART IV.**

REMINISCENCES OF A GREAT TRIBUNE.

Kilmainham Jail - Mr. Butt and General T. F. Burke - The Shooting of Talbot - Mr. Butt’s College Address - Mr. Butt and Fenianism - Mr. Butt and Home Rule.

The** **first time I saw Isaac Butt was in the Four Courts, Marshalsea, Debtors’ Prison, Thomas Street. I met him in connection with a book, which he was writing for a solicitor, Mr. Richardson, by whom I was then employed. But the book was never published as the parties failed to come to an understanding with regard to the financial details. It was on the Law and practice of the Court of Admiralty. Mr. Richardson was one of the Proctors of the Court, which at that time was thrown open to the entire legal profession, including solicitors. Mr. Butt asked me to go into his employment, promising to take an interest in me and to see to my education. I gladly accepted his offer.

Mr. Butt was in the Prison for about three months when a very important personage was arrested and brought into the Marshalsea as a debtor, and was put into the same building as my new employer. Mr. Butt, who did not appreciate the hustling of” George,” had a motion made before the judges to be transferred from the Marshalsea in Thomas Street to the Co. Debtors’ Prison in Kilmainham, where I visited him daily during the 18 months of his confinement and received the greater part of my education and instruction at his hands.

I remember sitting with him in the alcove of the prison window, which overlooks Emmet Road, one summer’s evening towards the fall of the season. The day was drawing to a close; the last rays of the evening sun glinting up here and there the foliage of the trees which then were opposite the jail walls. There seemed to hang around an unusual languor or drowsiness, such as is sometimes experienced after a heavy summer’s day. All of a sudden there was borne along on the evening air, a weird, wailing cry, which caused a feeling of sadness to come over both of us. Mr. Butt mechanically closed the book, which he held in his hand; he seemed spellbound.

After a few moments I asked him if there was anything the matter with him. At the sound of my voice he roused himself; and in reply to my query questioned me as to whether I had heard any peculiar sound. In reply I said I had, that I heard what seemed the cry of someone in sorrow. “Yes,” he said, “it is like the cry of an Irish keener.” The wail in the meantime became more and more distinct. Both of us were anxious to know its cause. Standing up in the window recess and looking towards Richmond Barracks, I at once learned what it was. It was simply a Highlander’s funeral. The Scotch wail or dirge was played upon the Highland pipes, whilst the cortege was on its way to Bully’s Acre (Kilmainham), then used as a military burial-ground.

After the funeral procession had passed Mr. Butt dropped into a sad, dreamy mood, and commenced talking about his death, and the procedure he wished at his interment. He word-pictured to me the spot he wished for his grave, in the churchyard at Stranorlar, just by the wall of the Manse, which separated it from the graveyard. He said that he had often crossed this wall and studied his lessons under the shade of a large tree which stood close to it. He also wished, if possible, that at the time of his interment a keen would be sung over his corpse, but he wished above all, that it should rain as he was being interred.

Naturally this conversation, held as it was with a master of pathos and of the English language like Isaac Butt, made a vivid impression upon my then young mind. Years rolled by. Death struck down the giant form of the father of Home Rule. At that event, owing to peculiar circumstances which need not be recorded here, there was a divergence of opinion amongst the members of Mr. Butt’s family as to where he should be interred.

I was asked if I ever heard “the master” say anything about the matter. I mentioned the Kilmainham incident, but nothing definite was decided upon till the late Dr. O’Leary, M.P., appeared on the scene with a letter in which Mr. Butt stated:- “If wherever I die the expense would not be an incovenience, I would wish to be buried in Stranorlar Churchyard, as close as may be to the south-eastern angle. The ground is, or was, a great deal lower than the rest of the churchyard. A very shallow grave would be enough, with a mound of earth or tomb raised over it.” This passage was a confirmation of that picturesque conversation which place in Kilmainham Jail, and after a lapse of 13 years it came back fresh and vivid to my mind.

But I am anticipating. Mr. Butt, to secure his discharge, made arrangements with his creditors after 18 months’ detention in Kilmainham, and went to live at 63, now 64, Eccles Street. His creditors were to take the fees as they came in from the clients, and my duty was to see that they got as little of them as possible. I carried out this part of the work to my employer’s entire satisfaction, if not to that of the creditors.

There is an incident in connection with Kilmainham which I had almost forgotten. I think it was General Burke who was in the prison at the time under sentence of death. He was not put into the usual cell allotted to the condemned, but a folding screen covered in black was placed outside his cell door. The General was reprieved, whereupon Mr. Butt took a great fancy to the screen and, as he considered his cell rather draughty, he prevailed on Governor Price to place it outside his door where it remained for a considerable time.

During the years I was in Mr. Butt’s employment I noticed that he was peculiar in some respects. For instance, if by any chance in the hurry of dressing in the morning he turned his shirt inside out, he would not any under circumstances dream of changing it, but would get over the difficulty by purchasing a second and have it so cut that it would fit over the other. In his study he would use only candles known as “wax twos”-two to the pound. He used one of the candles for the purpose of studying, and the other was generally utilised to light the fire.

Mr. Butt used to dye his hair, and on one occasion when going to a dinner he sent for a hairdresser who lived in Molesworth Street. This artist left a number of** **bottles with Mr. Butt, so that he could use them if the hairdresser was not available.

I one evening, when Mr. Butt was to attend a social function, being asked to take the place of the hairdresser, who could not be found. I operated on his head with two bottles of fluid, which he had handed to me, and when Mr. Butt stood up and looked in the glass, he found that he was wearing-*green *hair! That was the beginning and the end of my career as a private hairdresser.

For an orthodox Protestant he observed a number of Catholic practices. On the desk in his study he kept a small cross, which was brought from Jerusalem by the late John Aloysius Blake, M.P., and by the side of the cross was always placed a little book, which he greatly treasured and used, entitled “The Glories of Mary,” which volume I have and count amongst my treasures. I often heard him, when reading the book, express in the most endearing tones his veneration for the Mother of God.

He carried with him in a little pocket-book three medals known to Catholics as miraculous medals. I may add that the medals were placed by him in the coat which he wore while practising at the bar, and when the term closed and the coat was no longer in use, the little pocket-book was taken away, and put in the frock coat which he generally wore.

After his death, and when he was lying in his coffin, I happened to come across the pocket-book containing the medals, and remembering how fondly he was attached to them in life, I thought it only right that they should remain with him in death. I placed the little morocco casket containing the medals under his head, and they were interred with him at Stranorlar.

When engaged in big cases Butt would arrange, through a friend, for a Mass to be said to assist him in his advocacy. This friend, who is since dead, also used to take contributions from Mr. Butt to a convent for the purpose of decorating and illuminating an altar of Perpetual Adoration to the Blessed Sacrament.

A short time before his death he had arranged to go to Mount Melleray and to occupy the room in which O’Connell lived during his stay at the famous Trappist monastery. All the arrangements in connection with the visit were made by the late Mr. Crosbie, of the “Cork Examiner,” but when they were settled, Mr. Butt had unfortunately been struck down by the fatal illness which brought his great career to a close.

Mr. Butt was enjoying a large practice at the Bar when I was in his employment, but owing to his improvident and generous habits, he always appeared to be in want of money, of the value of which he had not the slightest appreciation. Often when returning from court and when poor people were standing at his doorsteps looking for charity, he would borrow sixpences and shillings from me to give them, and if I hadn’t the money, he sometimes sent me with his clothes to the pawn office, in order to relieve the distress of others. His generosity was proverbial, and many people tried to impose on his good nature, not always, however, with success, as the following story will show.

One day a man came to the house in Eccles Street, and asked Mr. Butt for charity. Mr. Butt gave him some relief. In the evening the man returned, cleaner and tidier in appearance, and told Mr. Butt that he was after getting employment in an ironmonger’s establishment in the south side of the city, and that if he had 7s. 6d. more it would enable him to get over the week until his wages fell due. Mr. Butt seemed inclined to give the money, and told the man to return later on. In the meantime, as a result of inquiries he had asked me to make, he discovered the man’s story about the employment was

When the man returned to the house, Mr. Butt severely reprimanded him for his attempt to get money by false pretences, and threatened to have him arrested. The man begged for mercy, and Mr. Butt agreed to extend it to him provided he turned out the contents of his pockets on the table. He was found to have eight or nine shillings in his possession.

Mr. Butt sent me for the first poor person I met. It happened to be a poor woman in Dorset Street, and when she arrived he made the man hand her over the money lying on the table. The old woman began to pray for Mr. Butt. “Don’t pray for me,” said Mr. Butt, ” but for the man who gave you the money.” He kept the man a close prisoner for two hours until the old woman had got well away with her unexpected windfall.

Here is a story told by the late Judge Adams and well worth repeating as illustrating Mr. Butt’s carelessness in money matters

“Poor Isaac Butt was a man of splendid genius, but, as all the world knew, careless to the last degree in money matters. I was in Youghal when the election petition was tried there, and Butt was counsel for Mr. Weguelin. At the close of the trial Mr. Butt was handed his handsome cheque, running to several hundred pounds. The moment he got it he went over to one of the banks and cashed it. He was staying at the house of a Youghal gentleman, and in the morning he put his hand in his pocket and found the money was gone. I will never forget the hullabaloo that followed. Consternation, suspicion, bedlam swept through the house. And in the middle of it all, just as the police. were being summoned, the young son of the house turned up with the missing bank notes. It had been a windy night, the window shook in the loose frame, and Butt, annoyed by the had got up, stuffed the first piece of paper he could find between the frame and the casement, went to bed again, and forgot all about it.”

In the parlour in Eccles Street an amusing scene was enacted. Mr. Butt had a cook who always professed to be a total abstainer, but it was only a profession. She had spoiled her master’s dinner on the previous evening, and on this evening Mr. Butt was having a dinner party, which included Lord Randolph Churchill.

In order that the dinner would not be a failure he thought it would be just as well his cook took the pledge. He asked me if I knew a priest who would give Fanny the pledge. I told him of the late Father C. P. Meehan, SS. Michael’s and John’s, who I knew was a strong advocate of the temperance cause, and who would go far to spread its principles and get disciples.

He asked me to go for Father Meehan. I did so, and brought the priest to the house. Mr. Butt said I should tell Fanny when Father Meehan arrived that there was a friend in the parlour who wished to see her. Having conveyed the message to Fanny she arrayed herself in all her finery, and put on her Sunday wig, which was an improvement on the one which she wore every day.

She bounded into the parlour to see her friend and found instead the clergyman and her employer before her. Father Meehan, in his own quiet way, suggested to the cook that she should take the pledge. Fanny asserted that she was a total abstainer, but said that as the priest was in the house, and in order not to waste his journey, he might give the pledge to her master! This broke up the conference.

Mr. Butt seemed to be blessed with servants who had a taste for drink. A short time afterwards he got a butler, who was also partial to the cup, but he prevailed on him to take the pledge. The butler was so proud of the pledge that he had the certificate framed and hung up in the place of honour in his pantry.

About a week afterwards Mr. Butt found the butler drunk in a chair, with the pledge card hanging over his head!

This reminds me that the impression amongst a great many people was that Mr. Butt himself was very much addicted to drink, but in justice to his memory I must say that for the years I was with him I saw him under the influence of intoxicating liquor only on two occasions.

The first occasion was when a case of poteen was sent to him as a present, and unfortunately not knowing the strength of it he took a sufficient quantity to knock him over. The second time was, on the night that Kelly was acquitted for the shooting of Talbot. This was the famous case in which Butt defended the prisoner, and got the jury to return a verdict that the death of the policeman was due, not to a bullet wound, but to defective surgery in the extraction of it.

Mr. Butt usually studied his briefs in the early hours of the morning, and arrangements were made the night before to have the fire set and the kettle placed beside it. He used to make his own tea, and in the preparation of his heaviest cases this was the only beverage he drank. He sipped the tea while he was working.

Mr. Butt was very fond of a joke. I remember on one occasion when he was invited by Mr. Francis MacDonogh, Q.C., who was then living in Rutland Square, to attend a service in Bethesda Church, in Lower Dorset Street (converted within the past few months into a picture house). Mr. MacDonogh offered him his own pew, and Mr. Butt accepted the offer, but subsequently changed his mind, and sent me with a note to Mr. MacDonogh stating that he was unable to avail himself of the invitation, and mentioned that as he had been absent from church for** **the previous six Sundays, he intended to make reparation by going to the Seven Churches on the following Sunday!

This sketch of the great Tribune would be incomplete unless it contained some specimens of his oratorical powers. I shall let a few passages, hurriedly chosen, speak for themselves. This is a passage from an eloquent inaugural address on Oratory delivered at the College Historical Society, in 1834, by Butt when a young man:-

“This, gentlemen, is a proud characteristic of oratory, that it ever has espoused the cause of freedom, and that liberty has never triumphed but where there was eloquence, nor eloquence been honoured but where there was liberty; and therefore it is, that if ever my mind were to soar to loftier imaginings, I would rather that the word Orator should be simply traced upon my humble tomb than that o’er my stately sepulchre should wave the trophies of the warrior, or the banners of hereditary pride - aye, or than that I should go to my grave with the honours of a Newton, a Milton, or a Locke.

“All arts - all sciences - all attainments of intellect have been debased to the purposes of adulation; the poet has been the minion of a court; the philosopher has been the sycophant of the tyrant, the fawning parasite at the table of the despot - but the orator is the man of the people-his rewards are found in the plaudits of the many, and therefore their cause is his cause. The tyrant may quail before him, into submission, but they fear while they flatter, and tremble while they fawn.

“Yes, tyranny and eloquence are mortal foes; eloquence has sworn eternal hostility upon the tombs of her two greatest sons, in whose blood tyranny has sealed his hate. Nay, more, gentlemen, though the assertion may be bold, the orator is unpurchaseable. Mistake me not. The tyrant may buy the man, but he cannot buy the orator; the moment he becomes a marketable commodity, he loses all his value-he cannot survive his independence - he has perished in the transfer.

Liberty was once his theme, and freedom his inspiration, and then was he great indeed; but his power is gone with the theme of his enthusiasm - the Samson is shorn of his locks, and the chains of the Philistine are thrown, not around the giant of the Hebrews that destroyed their ranks, but around a weak, a despicable, a paltry slave, that resembles him in nothing but the name.”

This is the concluding passage of the address:- “I feel - I know - I am persuaded, that from this Society great things will be produced: we will draw around us the youthful talent of our country, and train them in that power which may enable them to benefit her. The glories of the day gone by shall return with more than pristine splendour. We shall yet send forth a Grattan to represent her in the senate - a Curran to shed the blaze of eloquence upon her bar - and a Kirwan to redeem her pulpit taste.

“And I will not - I cannot believe that better days are not in store for my unhappy, but still my loved, my native land. This may not be the place to give utterance to my feelings, but I cannot help it. I see good for Ireland. An orator shall yet arise whose voice shall teach her people wisdom, and whose efforts shall procure for him the epithet of the father of his country.

“It may be but the dream of an enthusiastic heart: but I do believe the time will come, when faction shall flee away and dissension shall be forgotten; when Ireland’s orators and Ireland’s statesmen shall only seek their country’s good when law shall be respected and yet liberty maintained; when ‘in all her borders shall be neither wasting or violence, and no complaining in her streets.’”

I asked Mr. Butt on one occasion if; in this prophecy, he was speaking of himself when he spoke of the orator whose efforts should procure for him the epithet of “the father of his country.” I got no reply to the question, but the silence was far more eloquent than words.

Here are some magnificent passages from the great speech delivered by Mr. Butt at the Home Rule Conference held in November, 1873:- “Mr. Gladstone said that Fenianism taught him the intensity of Irish disaffection. It taught me more and better things. It taught me the depth, the breadth, the sincerity of that love of fatherland that misgovernment had tortured into disaffection, and misgovernment, driving men to despair, had exaggerated into revolt.

“State trials were not new to me. Twenty years before I stood near Smith O’Brien when be braved the sentence of death which the law pronounced upon him. I saw Meagher meet the same fate, and I then asked myself this - ‘Surely, the State is out of joint - surely all our social system is unhinged, when O’Brien and Meagher are condemned by their country to a traitor’s doom?’

“Years had passed away, and once more I stood by men who had dared the desperate enterprise of freeing their country by revolt. They were men who were run down by obloquy-they had been branded as the enemies of religion and social order. I saw them manfully bear up against all. I saw the unflinching firmness to their cause by which they testified the sincerity of their faith -in that cause-their deep conviction of its righteousness and truth-I saw them meet their fate with a manly fanaticism that made them martyrs.

“I heard their words of devotion to their country as with firm step and unyielding heart they left the dock, and went down the dark passage that led them to the place where all hope closed upon them, and I asked myself again, ‘Is there no way to arrest this? Are our best and bravest spirits ever to be carried away under this system of constantly defeated revolt?

“Can we find no means by which the national quarrel that has led to all these terrible results may be set right?’ I believe, in my conscience, we have found it.”

“I believe that England has now the opportunity of adjusting the quarrel of centuries. Let me say it - I do so proudly-that I was one of those who did something in this cause. Over a torn and distracted country, a country agitated by dissension, weakened by distrust - we raised the banner on which we emblazoned the magic words, ‘Home Rule.’

“We raised it with feeble hand. Tremblingly, with hesitation, almost stealthily, we unfurled that banner to the breeze. But wherever the legend we had emblazoned on its folds was seen the heart of the people moved to its words, and the soul of the nation felt their power and their spell. Those words were passed from man to man along the valley and the hillside. Everywhere men, even those who had been despairing, turned to that banner with confidence and hope.

“Thus far we have borne it. It is for you now to bear it on with more energy, and more strength, and with renewed vigour. We hand it over to you in this gathering of the nation. But, oh! let no unholy hands approach it. Let no one come to the help of our country,

‘Or dare to lay his hand upon the ark

Of her magnificent and awful cause,’

who is not prepared never, never to desert that banner till it flies proudly over the portals of that ‘Old House at Home’ - that old house which is associated with memories of great Irishmen, and has been the scene of many glorious triumphs. Even while the blaze of those glories is at this moment throwing its splendour over the memory of us all, I believe in my soul that of regenerated Ireland will achieve triumphs more glorious, more lasting, more sanctified and holy, than any by which her old parliament illumined the annals of our country and our race.”

The closing scenes of Mr. Butt’s life were intensely pathetic. For almost 12 months before the end came he felt that the hand of death was upon him. Writing to his friend and physician, Dr. O’Leary, M.P., on the 4th of July, 1878, he said:-

“I am not happy about myself. Yesterday I crossed over in a good passage. I lay down the latter half of the way. Before getting up I felt an uneasy sensation at my heart, with something like palpitation. Getting up, I had difficulty of breathing nearly as great as I used to have at Buxton on the night I came over with you. It has continued more or less ever since. My journey to the sittingroom here (you know the length) has been a series of relays and pantings, and all this is accompanied by vagueness in my train of thought) very perceptible, but scarcely perceivable.

“Now, surely, my dear friend, it is useless to say that this is of no consequence. Is it not better to accept the truth that it is the knell of the curfew telling us that the hour is come when the fire must be put out and the light quenched.”

Only those who knew the giant form of the man can realise the pitiful and, I may say, dramatic ending of his great career. It was my fortune to be with him during the nightly vigils attending his fatal illness, and I remember clearly how one night he got up out of bed, and imagining that he was defending a prisoner - a young lad charged with shooting a landlord - he delivered a magnificent address in defence of his imaginary client. I only regret that I was not able to commit to paper the burning words of eloquence of the brilliant advocate, whose intellect was clouded at this time.

Some time before the end came Mr. Butt was attended by Dr. Butcher. Dr. O’Leary asked me to explain to him, as far as possible; the treatment the patient was receiving, and I described it to the best of my ability. He said that the treatment was a mistake, and asked me to arrange to let him into a room in 39 North Great George’s Street, where Mr. Butt then resided, so that he could meet Dr. Butcher on his way out, and have a consultation with him.

Dr. O’Leary was described by Lord Chief Justice Whiteside as “the wonderful little doctor.” He was a very small man, and Dr. Butcher was exactly the opposite. As the two were standing in the hall together, I could not help recalling Landseer’s famous picture of the two dogs. The interview between the two medical men was of a somewhat stormy character. I remember Dr. Butcher making use of this observation, “I did not come here to learn my profession, and if I wanted to learn it I would go to someone else than to the member for Drogheda,” and he left Dr. O’Leary standing in the hall.

Three weeks afterwards Dr. Butcher adopted the treatment recommended by Dr. O’Leary, and when I informed him of the fact, his answer was, “Too late, James, too late.” Mr. Butt died a week afterwards.

I shall never forget the last sad journey in company with Dr. O’Leary, M.P., Philip Callan, M.P., A. J. Kettle, Richard Pigott, the forger, and some members of Mr. Butt’s family, to the lonely churchyard at Stranorlar. We went on to the church attached to the graveyard. It was then a bright sunny day.

On arriving at the graveside we found that there was a slight departure from the wishes of the “Grand Old Man,” viz., the sides of the grave were bricked ; there was no earth in the grave.

What was to be done? After consultation it was decided fill the grave with earth, allowing sufficient space for the coffin to rest in. The coffin was taken back into the church. We left the men at this work, and arranged to come back in two hours. This we did, and all was ready for the interment when we returned.

With sad hearts we laid the old chieftain to rest. The shades of the departing day gave a tint of sombreness to the scene. Standing as we were on the mountain side, its tops overshading us, on the east was the Gap of Barnsmore, so famed in story - the last spadefnl of earth was thrown in, when, with loving hands, we placed the simple green sods over the grave of himwe revered.

Just then the wish of Butt, expressed so many years before in Kilmainham, was fulfilled. The clouds quickly gathered across the Gap, came coursing on towards the churchyard, and the rain came gently dropping on the new-made grave, and, like gems, hung from the green turf which covered his breast.

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