Ireland and the Vatican (1885)

Chapter XVIII*

Ireland and the Vatican *(1885)

In October, 1885, I went to Kerry, as Lord Randolph Churchill asked, with William O’Brien. O’Brien possessed the larger concepts of statesmanship. He could stifle the fires of jealousy (ever latent in politicians’ hearts), and backed up as willingly as myself the Tory policy of peace. On a Saturday we took train for Killarney, and his speech there next day had a powerful effect. It kept Kerry quiet, save for one horrid crime, but an unruly element showed itself at the meeting. As it dispersed a voice cried, “Three cheers for ‘ox-tail soup’!” This was a hit at myself.

Five years earlier in Bantry I had condemned the mutilation of cattle by cutting off cows’ tails, which I jestingly attributed to the desire of the constabulary for “ox-tail soup.” This gave offence to the police, but when George Wyndham became Chief Secretary he had to dismiss Serjeant Sheridan and other constables in 1904 for perjured evidence which sent to penal servitude innocent men convicted of cutting off cows’ tails, which crimes Sheridan and his sub-constables had perpetrated.

Meanwhile an event, apparently remote from politics, had taken place which profoundly stirred Ireland. Cardinal McCabe, the last pro-English Archbishop of Dublin, died, and the filling of the See was fraught with consequences akin to those which arose in England when Thomas á Beckett, the first Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury after the Norman Conquest, was appointed. Dr. Walsh, President of Maynooth, was nominated almost with unanimity to the see by the clergy of Dublin, but British pressure at Rome became intense, and the intrigue aroused Irishmen the world over.

On the intervention of the London Government, Pope Leo XIII cabled to Australia inviting Dr. Moran, Archbishop of Melbourne, to repair to the Vatican. Dr. Moran was a most worthy and eminent prelate, as well as a faithful Irishman, but being the nephew of Cardinal Cullen, an earlier Archbishop of Dublin, lay suspect. Dr. Cullen had assailed the Fenians, and in 1862 refused to allow the coffin of T. B. MacManus, a ‘48 exile (which had been brought from San Francisco), to rest for a night in his cathedral. Dr. Moran’s writings on the Irish martyrs proved his devoted scholarship, but in the popular mind he was London’s nominee. Besides, contradictory Pastorals of his when Bishop of Ossory in 1800-1 on the Land Movement were recalled, whereas Dr. Walsh never wavered in the Cause, whatever storms buffeted, and was a gallant soul.

Leo XIII had previously been misled in Irish affairs. Poisoned by the tales of Errington (M.P. for Longiord), a Liberal envoy to she Vatican, His Holiness forbade (as already told) the Parnell testimonial in 1883, in terms unusual in churchmanship. When Dr, Healy was nominated for a Bishopric, His Holiness at first said, “I won’t appoint any member of that family” - thinking he was a relation of mine! Ireland, therefore, palpitated with anxiety as to the filling of the Dublin see. Dr. Moran’s appointment seemed certain, but suddenly a telegram from the Pope stayed him at Malta, and in a few days the Press announced that Dr. Walsh was to become the Metropolitan Archbishop. His Grace, on receiving the news, selected my poor home for his first visit. Dr. Moran was created a Cardinal, and returned to Australia, where his services to religion and civilization became, if possible, more zealous than before, while his devotion to Ireland stood unabated.

Harold Frederic, London correspondent of the *New York Times, *laughingly maintained that, as Rome was then full of American bishops, and the Vatican throbbed with their remonstrances at the proposal to appoint Dr. Moran, his Press messages to New York appointed the new Archbishop.

The outflow of enthusiasm in Ireland at the defeat of the intrigue against Dr. Walsh cannot be realized to-day. I was dragged from the office of *United Ireland *by T. P. O’Connor to the Cathedral at Marlborough Street to make a speech of welcome to His Grace. I had not a moment to think what to say, but wound up with a prayer that he might live “to lift a venerable hand to bless a liberated people.” He died just before the Peace Treaty of 1921 was signed with England.

London could not understand in 1885 the significance of the ecclesiastical revolution. Henry II would have appreciated it in an instant, whether before or after Beckett’s murder.

Something of what went on in Rome as to the appointment I learnt towards the end of that year at a dinner given in Monaghan (where I was M.P.) to welcome Dr. Donnelly, Bishop of Clogher, on his return from a visit to the Vatican. He informed me that Leo XIII made him aware of how his purpose changed. Said His Holiness: “We were determined to appoint Moran.” (Dr. Donnelly interrupted himself to remark, “He never put a tooth in it.”) The Pope then told that at midnight before the day on which Bulls were to be approved for the vacant sees of Christendom he hesitated, and went down to pray at the tomb of the Apostles. There he told his beads. He revealed to Dr. Donnelly, “When we finished the Rosary we rose up determined to appoint Walsh.’” His Holiness added, “Next day Cardinal Simeoni presented to us the names of the bishops for the vacant sees, and when ‘Dublin’ was reached we said ‘Valsh.’ Simeoni queried, ‘Moran, Your Holiness? ’ ‘No, we mean Valsh.’ For,” concluded Leo XIII, “we had guidance at the Tomb of the Apostles.”

In the ‘sixties, Pio Nono declared that there was no ecclesiastical vacancy within the British Empire in his gift for which its Ambassador at Rome had not a candidate. Yet while the Pope was thus besought for favours by a Protestant Power, bequests for Masses in Great Britain and Ireland remained illegal. Gifts by will to Catholic Communities under vows were held void also by the terms of the Emancipation Act of 1829. To-day, however, these blots have been removed. Moreover the Privy Council pronounced cheerfully on the “personal” rights of a Bengal idol (28th April, 1925, Nullic *v. *Mullic).

Dr. Donnelly was a veteran in Church and State. As a priest he begged through America for funds to erect the Monaghan Cathedral. He would declaim fervently against the late Lord Rossmore for pulling down his schools and using the stones to build Orange Lodges. When I addressed my constituents he used to load me up with anti-Rossmore stories, and then come to a house where, from a window near by, he could drink in what I redistilled. Flattering me that I had greatly bettered his promptings, he would take me back to dinner.

Before he died Lord Rossmore changed so much that the kindliest relations prevailed between them - an improvement due to a local Christian Brother.

In January, 1885, when I had only been sitting eighteen months for Monaghan, its open-handed priests and people tendered me a complimentary address, accompanied by a presentation of over a thousand sovereigns. Their gratitude on being freed from serfdom knew no bounds.

After the triumph at Rome, Ireland looked with derision at the wrigglings of the Tory Government, soon to be beaten at the polls. Before the Dissolution we were aglow with hope and enthusiasm. An incident at the West Belfast Revision Court may be cited to reproduce the prevailing spirit. The Conservatives there were represented by an able solicitor, Wellington Young, and the Nationalists by my brother. Devices by claimants on both sides to secure votes on shaky titles were common, and an old Nationalist, who had never had a vote, was inspired to claim, through the Tory solicitor, as an Orangeman.

Surnames in Belfast give no certain clue to religion or politics, and the old fellow got into the witness chair under Wellington Young’s auspices. He took him through his qualifications, walking delicately, and when he finished, my brother did not cross-examine. The Revising Barrister, Milo Burke, allowed the vote.

“Have I got it safe? ” asked the claimant. “Yes,” said the Judge. “Is that true, Mr. Wellington Young?” “It is.” “Is that right, Mr. Healy?” “It is.” “I can’t be struck off now?” “No, no,” said Burke. “Go down.” Leaving the box, he turned round to Young with a scornful laugh, shouting, “Another vote for Parnell!”

In October, 1885, the unexpected news came that John Dillon was returning from America. His ship was delayed, and O’Brien penned an article in *United Ireland *combining anxiety with welcome. Next day, walking through Stephen’s Green on a sunny Saturday, I told him I disliked it. O’Brien declared that Dillon’s desertion of the Party in 1881, when the Crimes Act became law, should not be remembered against him. I replied that I never had a difference with Dillon, but could see nothing save harm if a man so self-centred was again allowed to get a grip on the levers.

Vanity lurks in every man’s knapsack, but Dillon’s self-esteem, I thought, outdistanced his power of vision. When O’Brien secured the Wyndham Act of 1903, Dillon denounced it as leading to “national bankruptcy,” and parted with the colleague to whose genius and generalship his standing was largely due.

O’Brien held every one as honest as himself. A larger experience armoured him with a saner criticism. He believed Dillon (with whom he had not then sat in the House of Commons) as unselfish as he deemed Parnell. O’Brien would thrust his hand into a furnace if it would serve Ireland. Others whom he adored would not have suffered the loss of their finger-nails.

A committee of the Party in 1885 met daily at Morrison’s Hotel to select candidates. It consisted of Parnell, Gray, Dr. Kenny, Sexton, O’Brien, O’Kelly, Harrington, John Redmond, Biggar, and myself. Dillon, who had just returned from Colorado, was also invited. Henry Campbell took shorthand notes. Parnell wished to oust Phil Callan from Louth, having opposed him in 1880, when Callan was beaten in Dundalk. Hearing this, Gray brought Sir Joe Mekenna, M.P., before the committee, to remonstrate, and foreseeing an ugly outcome, I tried to get Parnell to yield. He sternly replied, “Healy, you know better than anyone else that, except for the time Callan was in South America, the secrets of this Party were never for a day withheld from the Press.”

He afterwards went to North Louth to oppose Callan, who, when beaten, made an allusion to Mrs. O’Shea, which was the beginning of Pamell’s end. The *Irish Times *alone reported Callan’s words, and these gave the world the first glimpse of the skeleton in the cupboard. When I vainly pleaded that Callan should be spared, I was unaware that he had been supplied by Small with the telegram to Parnell at Monaghan from Mrs. O’Shea in June, 1883, previously mentioned. I knew, however, that Callan was wont as a journalist in 1880-5 to inspect the book in the Ladies’ Gallery of the House of Commons, where members wishful of obtaining admission for women signed their names. Callan, in quest of paragraphs for the Press, noted the frequent entrances of Mrs. O’Shea’s name, under the sign-manual of Parnell. He knew that her husband could have got her admission, as M.P. for Clare, and came to the conclusion that more than a platonic friendship existed. Thus began the Parnell-O’Shea scandal, for Callan did not keep his suspicions to himself.

In November, 1885, the Dissolution came, and as a trumpet-blast to herald it, a manifesto to the Irish voters in Great Britain was launched against the Liberals by T. P. O’Connor from London. The names of several colleagues were appended, including my own. The first I knew of it was to read its contents in a Dublin evening paper. I had not even been consulted as to its flaming verbiage.

During the General Election, the late Alex Blane, a tailor, was returned for S. Armagh as a member of the Irish Party. At Parnell’s urging I went to the Convention there, which was to choose the candidate. He wanted to keep out a man named Dempsey, although Dempsey had been his nominee for Co. Derry in 1882. Meanwhile, he was supposed to have become a Davittite. An anti-Davitt prejudice swayed the minds of James O’Kelly and T. P. O’Connor, who had become the inspirers of Parnell in such affairs. Their nominee was Ivor McGuinness, of Poyntz Pass. Objections were raised against him, and I avoided putting the issue as long as I could as the Armagh priests favoured Dempsey. For this the late Canon Quinn, P.P., described me as the “most tyrannical chairman he ever knew.” His attack was just, but he knew nothing of my “sailing orders.” Parnell’s dislike of Dempsey had been fanned, on anti-Davitt grounds, and I dared not allow him to be accepted as a candidate, if a substitute could be found.

In my perplexity, after some hours’ contention, I turned to Father McElvogue, C.C., and asked, “Have you no local man on whom you could unite?” He replied, “Did you see a chap on a ladder in his shirt-sleeves putting up the decorations as you came in? ” “Yes,” said I. “Well, that fellow is good at registration and election work. His name is Alex Blane. He is a tailor, and his father was a Protestant.”

I conferred for a spell with Biggar, Reynolds, and Small - the other Party representatives - to ask them why we should not have him. It was an “affair of Arcola.” Blane knew nothing of our intention to nominate him, but I faced the Convention to announce, “In view of the differences that have arisen as to the candidates, the representatives of the Party here submit to you as M.P. for South Armagh the name of Alex Blane.” The delegates gasped, but surprise conquered. They swallowed the dose. I put the motion forthwith, and it was adopted without debate. Naturally, Canon Quinn for 30 years harboured against me a dislike well-grounded.

The Tory who ruled Armagh then was the Town Clerk, T. G. Peel. I went to him fearing that Blane would be treated as an “outrage,” to offer that if the Orangemen would refrain from starting a candidate in S. Armagh, where we held a big majority, we would put up a Nationalist in Mid-Armagh to defeat the Gladstonian nominee, James Wylie, Q.C., afterwards judge. It was with pain I opposed a man so honest and high-minded as Wylie. My situation, however, was forlorn if Blane were opposed, for nobody knew him, and snobbery was rampant. Peel was sensible and agreed, so Blane next day was elected without a contest.

That night Peel came to me in the dark. His friends, he mourned, were suspicious because they had seen us talking together. Said he, “You’ll be speaking to-night to celebrate Blane’s election, and I’d like you to give me a few ‘touches ‘just to show the Nationalist hatred of me.” I gladly agreed, and before the meeting assembled I got “made wise” on Peel’s seed, breed, and generation. I descanted, therefore, on his misdeeds, past, present and to come, to the delight of the crowd.

Next morning, on leaving Armagh, I found Peel at the railway station. Greeting me ruefully, he took me to the waiting-room and complained, “Oh, sir, I asked you to give me a few touches,’ but I didn’t expect such a scourging!” “Well,” I apologized, “how could I gauge what would dispel the suspicions of your friends? Now they can’t blame you for a little talk with me!

I told him Leamy, M.P. (who had no chance of winning), would be put up for Mid-Armagh, and this forced Wylie to withdraw. So Peel’s nominee was returned.

While in Armagh, Leamy and I were entertained by the venerable Primate, McGettigan, one of the most hospitable of men. He showered such kindness on us that we were made to feel what a “Northern welcome” meant. A native of Donegal, he had as a priest been sent to jail for refusing to disclose (in a lawsuit about property) confidence which he regarded as having been reposed in him in his capacity as a priest. He swore he felt it was entrusted to him under a seal as sacred as that of the confessional, but the Judge ruled this to be “contempt of Court.” If so, it was never purged!

He became Primate unexpectedly. His predecessor in Armagh wanted as “coadjutor” a cleric whom he liked, and the parish priests assembled to make a choice. They knew his leanings, and almost unanimously voted for his friend. When the votes were to be counted the Bishop of Dromore, who presided, asked for a box in which the papers should be deposited. A cry arose, “Your Lordship’s hat will do.” “Oh, no,” he said. “The law prescribes a box, and the votes must be placed in a box and then counted by me.” No box was forthcoming, and while one was being searched for, a telegram arrived from Dundalk announcing the death of the Primate. The Bishop then ruled that a “coadjutor” to a dead man could not be appointed, and declared the proceedings at an end without counting the votes.

At the next meeting of the clergy they cast no votes for the previous favourite, and Dr. McGettigan, who had not been previously thought of, was declared “Dignissimus.” He was loved by every-one, and the only failing he showed was want of confidence in the railway viaduct which spans the Boyne at Drogheda. Here he would leave the train, take a car to the next station and get a slow train home.

When he became old, his priests selected another Donegal prelate to rule them, Dr. Logue, who was soon made Cardinal. That eminent man in his later years also asked for a coadjutor, and a third Donegal bishop, the late Dr. O’Donnell, was translated and became Cardinal. Thus three Donegal ecclesiastics in succession have ruled as Primates in Armagh for half a century.

If the Bishop of Dromore had not insisted that a “box,” and not a hat, should receive the votes of its clergy, things would have been otherwise.

When I reached Dublin after the election of Blane, Parnell greeted me mockingly, “Healy, who the devil is this tailor you have brought in on us?” I turned on him with the thrust, “He’s as good as Gilhooly who was forced on you at the Cork Convention yesterday”

He said no more, and I blamed O’Kelly for inspiring his sneer. My “tyranny” in securing Blane’s election was chiefly due to a letter in shorthand which I received the year before, from Henry Campbell conveying that James O’Kelly and others were prejudicing Parnell against the agrarian activities of O’Brien and myself, alleging them to be “disloyal to the Chief.” Parnell, ensnared in Capua, would not attend meetings in Ireland, and his jealousy was fomented at whatever we did. So Campbell wrote me recommending that when next I addressed a crowd I should pay Parnell a tribute as the leader of the Movement.

On this suggestion at Killucan, Co. Westmeath, I quoted a line from Thomas Davis’s Dirge for Owen Roe;

“Sure we never won a battle;

‘Twas Owen won them all.”

This smoothed matters, but O’Kelly’s bellows-blowing to fan Parnell’s jealousy kept on. When Parnell came to Ireland to prepare for the 1885 Elections he was perturbed, because he could not find a seat for Captain O’Shea. He sent T. A. Dickson, M.P., to Mid-Armagh, to see whether O’Shea could be nominated there. Mid-Armagh was a constituency which might have returned a Nationalist if the boundaries settled by the Ordnance Survey had not been disturbed by Dilke’s Commissioners.

So I was anxious at the South Armagh Convention that no one should be selected who, rightly or wrongly, was under suspicion of being hostile to “the Chief.”

Blane, true as the needle to the Pole, afterwards described himself in *Dod’s Parliamentary Guide *as “an electrical engineer.

When Parnell saw him for the first time he asked Henry Campbell, “Who is that convict-looking fellow?” Yet at the Split of 1890 Blane stood by Parnell against all persuasion.

In January, 1891 (after the Split), at a meeting in his constituency in favour of Parnell, women shouted at him, “Who spiled (spoilt) the Primate’s breeches ?

In the Commons tea-room Blane, sitting opposite Sir Richard Temple and another Indian authority, who were discussing the famine in Hindustan, exclaimed, topping his egg, “I presume, sir, you were a famine clerk out there?” Temple’s companion coldly rep;ied, “Sir Richard was Governor.”

Blane spooned in silence the remainder of his egg.

In 1885, Parnell, though hating the idea of associating himself with O’Shea, was driven to speak and work for him in the Exchange Division of Liverpool. O’Shea stood there with the support of Gladstone and Chamberlain. Under such auspices, and with the help of T. P. O’Connor and John Redmond, he nearly won.

I wrote my brother:

Dublin,

21st November, 1885.

“I was sure you heard from Parnell and had been adopted for Cork. Yet I would rather you were not Member there for reasons I explained to you. Parnell begins to take opportunities of snarling at me, and these strained relations will increase, instead of diminish, as I am not a man to make any overtures or explanations. Let him take his own course.”

In our electoral committee, knowing nothing of Small’s disclosure to Callan of Mrs. O’Shea’s telegram in 1883, I supported the retention of Small in his Wexford seat, and advocated that John Redmond (like William) should attack an Ulster constituency. This angered Redmond, who complained to me of unfriendship. I tried to soothe him by saying I was mindful chiefly of the Ulster situation, but he would not be pacified.

I wrote Maurice:

Dublin,

22*nd November, *1885.

“Deasy goes down to-morrow to have you put in nomination for Cork. The matter was discussed at a meeting last night, but Parnell had gone to Liverpool to try to elect O’Shea, and Campbell read a memorandum from him saying that either M. J. Morgan or Maurice Mealy was to be the candidate, and that he had no preference one way or the other. I regarded this as an expression in Morgan’s favour, but the Party were all for you.”

Greatly as we rejoiced in the appointment of Archbishop Walsh, it led to an unlucky change in the “Educational Endowments Bill.” Lord Randolph Churchill had accepted Sexton’s amendments, including one which doubled the commissioners’ salaries. Father Finlay, S.J., a Professor in the Royal University, was to be named as a Commissioner. The Archbishop preferred the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D., a genial soul, as fit to cope with the chairman, Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, as a shrimp with a shark. The Erasmus Smith Endowment was a vital question. Its funds came mostly from rents paid by Catholics on confiscated estates. Yet no Catholic was educated in its schools, and, though 44 years have since flown, things as regards that endowment remain as they were in 1885.

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