Railway accident at Straffan, John Finlay, LL.D., the Ball before the Battle.

Chapter VII.

On May the 24th, 1853, the right band of Frederick William Conway lost its cunning, and “the ablest man ever connected with the Irish Press,” [“History of Penal Law against Roman Catholics,” by R. R. Madden, p. 50.] to quote the words of Dr. Madden-sank to rest in Glasnevin Cemetery. His life was spent in the clangour of conflict, and if written would prove a valuable fragment of Irish history. The “Journals” of Thomas Moore often record his interviews with Conway, to whom he was warmly attached. But Conway, though a prominent actor in the political struggles of the time, would regularly bare his wounds in the society of the Muses, whose healing powers he held in high esteem. Wit, Poetry, and Philosophy were his divinities, and he constantly sought renewed strength in worshipping all three. His splendid library of books, all uniformly bound, were dispersed after his death by the auctioneer’s hammer, and the book-hunter of to-day, when pursuing his tramp, recognises with mingled feelings solitary survivors of the old set, “clad in leathern panoply,” lifting their heads haughtily amid mushrooms of modern literature. Conway died at his picturesque residence, St. Kevin’s, Old Rathmines, at the age of 71, and was buried on the 27th of May, 1853. A fine marble bust of Conway remained in the possession of his son-in-law, Michael Dwyer, Esq., late Registrar of Deeds; but he is more graphically depicted in a well-known oil painting by Haverty, supported on each side by Daniel O’Connell and Patrick Vincent FitzPatrick.

Another old member of the Catholic Association died at this time, Sir Simon Bradstreet, Bart., of Stacumney, County Kildare. He was nearly connected with the houses of Mountgarret and Cavendish, and represented a family which had obtained from Cromwell grants of land in Kilkenny. He died in October, 1853. On June 24th, 1853, Maurice O’Connell, the ablest son of the “Liberator,” was buried. He had the voice, manner, and figure of his father, and stood shoulder to shoulder with him in the struggles of the time. His gentler moments were given to the muses. His poem, “Dunkerron Castle,” was much praised by John Cornelius O’Callaghan, [Maurice O’Connell was a duellist and so good a marksman that, at Derrynane, he could hit an eagle with a single ball. He challenged Blennerhasset, of Ballycudy. Three shots were interchanged; O’Connell’s second and third pistol missed fire, luckily for Blennerhasset. - Letter of James Conor, first cousin of Maurice O’Connell.] and to him also we owe the “Memoirs of General Cloney,” [His sister, Mrs. Fitzsimon, mentioned this fact.] which he unostentatiously compiled under the dictation of the rebel chief, whose neglected early education disqualified him for the task. In the midst of a bright parliamentary career, Maurice O’Connell died at his post, aged 49. His “Recruiting Song for the Irish Brigade,” a spirited lyric, appears in Barry’s “Songs of Ireland” -

Is there a youthful gallant here

On fire for fame - unknowing fear -

Who in the charge’s mad career

On Eire’s foes would flesh his spear?

Come let him wear the White Cockade,

And learn the soldier’s glorious trade,

‘Tis of such stuff a hero’s made,

Then let him join the Bold Brigade.

A tomb, also dated June, 1853, on which the name of Sir Walter Blake, Bart., of Menlo Castle, is inscribed - though it does not appear that he himself is buried there - is found in the Chapel Circle. Here rests his son-in-law, Stephen Burke, County Inspector of constabulary, after an active career in stirring days.

On October the 5th, 1853, an appalling accident occurred at Straffan, on the Great Southern & Western Railway. An express from Killarney and the South had been brought to a stand-still owing to some defect in the engine, and was run into by a heavy goods train also *en route *to Dublin. It went clean through a first-class carriage that was last in the express train, driving the remainder into a heap of ruins. The carnage was dreadful. A fine poem by William Allingham, descriptive of this tragedy, opens with a fond adieu bade to Killarney’s woods, its purple mountains, and falling floods..

The magic car of modern skill,

Nor hour nor distance heeds;

With heat and roar and whistle shrill,

On through the dusk it speeds.

Our friends in Dublin city gay,

Expectant name our names;

“The fog is out to-night,” they say,

And stir the kindly flames.

Oh! chiller than October’s touch

Is freezing many a smile!

Terror and mortal torments clutch

What love expects the while.

Love’s self, however true and warm,

Might fail to recognise

The dear, the well-remember’d form,

If set before its eyes

‘Mong twisted metal, splinter’d wood,

Half buried in the ground,

‘Mong heaps of limbs crush’d up in blood,

Must wife, child, friend he found.

No hostile cannonade, or mine,

Perform’d the cruel wrong;

Through peaceful fields they sped to join

The city’s sprightly throng.

Not a few of those so suddenly hurled into eternity were coming to attend the ceremonial with which Dargan’s Great Exhibition of that year closed. Others were solely intent on prosecuting, as the great aim of their lives, the craft in which each had anxiously embarked. One of the passengers, Mr. Jelly, put his head out of the window for a moment and was instantly decapitated. Christopher MacNally, a well-known solicitor of Dublin, also instantaneously perished. MacNally, with other victims, was laid in Glasnevin Cemetery on October the 9th, 1853. A monument has been erected by his widow. The death of O’Connell’s nephew Mr. MacSweeney and his wife were specially deplored.

John Keogh, the leader of the Irish Catholics previous to O’Connell, had sons who inherited much of his fire and patriotism. John Keogh, his second son, was buried here on September 13th, 1854, and others of the family followed.

On October 12th, 1854 died Patrick O’Higgins, or, as he is described, “The O’Higgin’s” an active leader in the Chartist movement and President of the Universal Suffrage Association.

Here lies an editor” is said to have been rudely graven on an equally rude tombstone at Arkansas. But editors are treated with scant courtesy in America, and are “hided” as often as they are *feted *nearer home. Richard Barrett, editor of the Pilot, received not a few ovations as a Repeal Martyr and fellow-prisoner of O’Connell in 1844. **As a Protestant, his adhesion to the standard of the Great Tribune was joyously hailed, and thus it came about:- O’Connell’s first acquaintance with him was formed at what professed to be a charity dinner, but which was really a political reunion. Barrett was then attached to the Conservative Press. However, in a postprandial speech the genial expression fell from him that while Wilberforce was earning the thanks of philanthropists for his efforts to liberate black slaves abroad, O’Connell had earned lasting gratitude for his exertions on behalf of white ones at home. The Pressman and the Tribune soon came to know each other well, and O’Connell was specially glad to secure him as confidential colleague in political work. He brought *prestige *with him, too. Barrett’s family were not unknown to fame; his brother, Eaton Stannard, who died in 1820, had won literary distinction, and the earlier volumes of *Notes and Queries *show the interest which attached to his name.

James Lamb’s “Impressions of Ireland and the Irish” includes (I., pp. 88-9) a long description of Barrett: “In his face you confidently read energy and determination of character. In the management of his paper he is free and fearless, slashing away at the enemy regardless of their cries for mercy.” [Personality intermingled with the polemics of that day. Barrett accused Robert Holmes of being a hunks, who for every guinea he got spent merely the shilling and boarded the pound. Holmes challenged him to mortal combat. Barrett replied that, having a wife and a large family depending on him for bread, he did not conceive that he was bound to risk his life to gratify an enemy. Holmes then wrote a stinging letter, of which the pith was that this consideration need not deter him, for he solemnly promised, in case Barrett fell, to settle a fair annuity on his family. Barrett also assailed Charles Gavan Duffy, who in his great book, “Four Years of Irish History,” returns his fire.]

Between Barrett and Conway a fierce battle had long raged. Conway deserted and maligned O’Connell, while Barrett’s newspaper became the organ of his policy. It may be said that Conway and Barrett fell together -

Mamilius smote Herminius

Through head-piece and through head;

And side by side, those chiefs of pride,

Together fell down dead.

The year 1855 is mentioned in Webb’s “Irish Biographies” as the date of Barrett’s death. It appears from the records of the Cemetery that the order for his burial was taken out on October the 17th, 1854. At this time also one of the last surviving friends of Curran, John Lube, of the Middle Temple, was laid beside him.

Glasnevin Cemetery was thronged on Ma14th, 1856, for on that day a once well-known man, John Finlay, LL.D., was buried in presence of troops of his co-religionists, as well as of Catholics and Dissenters, who remembered how ungrudgingly he had given his great talents in furtherance of their emancipation. “The London Catalogue of Books” (1816 to 1851) records a long list of his works dealing with law and equity; but it is as the miscellaneous writer that one prefers to recall him. His writings on the “Foreign Relations of the British Empire,” the “Natural Resources of Ireland”; his sketches of Bushe, Paget, Bedford, Whitbread, Luke White, Barthelemy, Lord FitzGerald, William Orr Hamilton, and Feinaigh, but especially his dramatic criticisms, are always pleasant reading. [“Finlay’s Miscellanies” were published by Cumming in 1836.] He had been a thinker almost from the cradle, and a philosopher in the nursery. In 1809 he was Auditor of the Historic Society. Dealing with History he used language which must have made MacNally wince [Leonard MacNally, a popular barrister, who was associated with Finlay in various liberal movements. In “Secret Service under Pitt ” extracts from his letters to the Irish Government were published, clearly showing him to be a spy.] -

“Tremble the wretch who, in the mask of hypocrisy, hopes to deceive her searching eye, and escape the grave, eluding punishment or evading detection; let him tremble at the certainty that history at last plucks off the vizor of the villain, and that not even the tomb can afford concealment to guilt, or shelter to the guilty, when History is the prosecutor and Posterity the judge.”

It was not until Lord Anglesey became Viceroy that the services of this able man were recognised. The Waterloo veteran, in his distribution of patronage, when pressed by high interests on all sides, selected for promotion a man without such aids, and vindicated his labours from a long neglect. Finlay became Chairman for Roscommon, or, as it would now be called, County Court Judge. Moore’s “Diary” records his intercourse with Finlay. Speaking to Moore of Irish history, he said: “The lies are bad and the truth still worse!” [Moore’s “Diary,” VII., p. 232.]

Publishers not a few rest at Glasnevin - Grace, Duffy, Mullally, Powell, Kelly; but the earliest and oddest of the tribe was Richard Coyne. His solemn visage; his long, sleek hair, and sacerdotal leggings, gave him a sanctimonious aspect, and marked the man as something between a puritan and a presbyter. “Peter,” he was once heard to say to his assistant from a remote corner of his shop “have we any Confidence in God left?” O’Connell, who overheard the question, was puzzled by it; but it may be here explained that Coyne named a book which had proved a financial success. The earlier meetings of the Catholic Association had been held in Coyne’s house. Coyne survived until June 1st, 1856. He did good work in his day. He was the first to introduce to the public the “Letters of J. K. L.” - written by the illustrious Bishop Doyle, whose statue, from the chisel of Hogan, is a noble work of art.

John Hogan - the Irish Canova - was the next man of mark whose remains were laid in Glasnevin. His “Dead Christ”; his colossal statue of “O’Connell”; his “Cloncurry and Hibernia,” “Brian Boroimhe,” and the “Drunken Faun” are all triumphs of artistic skill, and it is on record that Thorwaldsen said, in reference to the last, and specially of the “Dead Christ,” “*Avete fatto in miracolo.” *“As the procession approached Trinity College, the students, wearing academic cap and gown, and headed by some of the Fellows, issued two by two from the inner entrance, and lifting their caps as they passed the hearse, took up their position and headed the procession in its passage through the city.”

Hogan’s mother, Frances Cox, was great-grand-daughter of Sir Richard Cox, the Chancellor; but the family had been reduced by vicissitude. John was a native of Waterford, and was patronised by a priest, who one day found to his surprise most exquisitely-carved designs on the legs of an old four-post bed, on which at night he used to stretch his wearied limbs. Friends raised some money to send young Hogan to Rome. Here he attained high rank as a sculptor, and married an Italian lady; but, like Goldsmith’s hare, his gentle nature “panted to the spot from whence at first it flew,” and he died in Dublin on March 27th, 1858. The Committee placed at the service of his family the plot in which his ashes rest! [An interesting biography of Hogan, full and sparkling, from the pen of the late Mrs. Atkinson appeared in the *Irish Quarterly Review *for 1858. See also the *Irish Monthly, *Vol. II., p. 383. Dublin Gill. 1874.]; it remains for Ireland to raise a monument to his memory.

Major Nicholson, who died on March 15th, 1858, had previously erected a monument to his deceased wife on which he records: “She accompanied him in his campaigns to the East Indies and Cape of Good Hope; St. Helena; and was in Antwerp during the three days of Waterloo,” where her husband had been engaged.

The tomb of Lady Mary Hodges, in Curran’s Circle, records her death on March 24, 1858; and subsequent interments in her vault include the remains of Madame Charlotte Aubrey, Charles Strickland, and members of the family of Mr. Commissioner Farrell.

The funeral, on May 28th, 1858, of John O’Connell - the favourite son of the “Liberator” - was almost the largest which, up to that time, had journeyed to Glasnevin. In 1832 he had entered Parliament for Youghal, and afterwards represented Athlone, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Clonmel. He died at the age of 47, having caught his death-illness when writing, in a damp, green bower, a paper for one of the quarterly reviews. Like Barrett, he had been a State prisoner with the “Liberator,” and is fully referred to by James Grant in “Ireland and the Irish.” His “Recollections of a Parliamentary Career” (2 vols.: Colburne), were reviewed in the *Quarterly *by John Wilson Croker. He also wrote “The Repeal Dictionary” and “The Argument for Ireland,” and brought out a collection of his father’s speeches, connected by a silver thread of biographic comment, which, though fragile, is sometimes sparkling.

Stephen Coppinger was amongst those who attended John O’Connell’s funeral; on the following day he suddenly died. “He was a distinguished member of the old Catholic Association,” states his epitaph, “and was well known for his vigorous exertions in the cause of civil and religious liberty. He served his country with zeal and assiduity, not for sordid gain, but through pure and disinterested patriotism. He was respected and esteemed by all classes and creeds for his honourable independence, uncompromising principles, and his many virtues.” An allusion in the above is explained by the “History of the Coppingers”:- “In early life he was a great friend of O’Connell’s; but he carried an address to Washington against O’Connell’s opinion, at the Catholic Association, and from that time they ceased to be good friends.” He (O’Connell) nick-named Stephen the “Knight of the Rueful Visage,” and when he joined the Board of the Cemetery, Dan’s remark was: “We should be grateful to Mr. Coppinger for lending us his countenance.’ Thomas Wyse, who married the daughter of Lucien Buonaparte, sought Coppinger’s help when writing his “History of the Catholic Association,” and Stephen, observing in it a severe reference to Napoleon, exclaimed *“Et tu, Brute!” *Stephen Coppinger had graduated in Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1815, joined the Irish Bar. A long account of him, with samples of the anecdotes of which he was full, appears in the *Irish Quarterly Review. *He died on May 29th, 1858.

John O’Connell and Stephen Coppinger were soon followed by a man who had given, in other ways, useful help to the popular cause. Of Pat Costello many laughable anecdotes are recorded. Costello died on July 10th, 1858, aged 68, and his tomb is near that of John Reynolds, whom, in rugged outline, he resembled.

Another of O’Connell’s bodyguard followed - Fergus Farrell, J.P., who had discharged the duties of Lord Mayor, and was a very useful and respected citizen, died October 29th, 1858.

Francis White, F.R.C.S., Inspector-General of Prisons, and afterwards Inspector of Lunatic Asylums, in Ireland, was an important man in his day. The apprentice of Abraham Colles, he established a hospital for diseases of the eye and an anatomical school; was active during the cholera; served as secretary to the Board of Health; wrote on tracheotomy and rupture, and gave valuable evidence before the Warburton Committee; and was President of the College of Surgeons at a time when Catholics rarely succeeded to the post. He died on August 16th, 1859, from the effects of a railway accident near Waterford.

On the 10th November following, Annie wife of St. John Butler, and only child of Walter Arcedeckne Burke of Gortromona, County Galway, was buried.

Terence J. Dolan, Clerk of the Crown for Tyrone and Chairman of the Rathmines Commissioners, had given to the Catholic Association valuable work in his professional capacity as an attorney, and also to the Board of the Cemetery, of which he was an active member until his death, in December, 1859.

Bishop Blake, whose interrupted ministration beside the grave of Mr. D’Arcy led to the establishment of a Catholic Cemetery, had served for many years on its Board, died March 6th, 1860. His life is an interesting fragment of ecclesiastical history. He made a special mission to Rome with the object of opposing the veto, and later on founded anew in the Eternal City the *Collegio Irlandese. *He revived the glory of the Irish College, presided as its Rector, and then came home to help in organising local charities and worthy enterprises. He never relinquished an asceticism of character which first showed itself as a schoolboy in always giving away his lunch to the poor. After the fast of Saturday had been abolished, he obtained from the Pope a rescript, dated 25th May, 1834, by which an indulgence was gained by those who voluntarily abstained from flesh meat on Saturdays. While Vicar-General of Dublin the same spirit of vigour was shown. During his absence from Ireland Dr. Yore, an indulgent pastor, acted in his stead, and some people were known to contrast the cold Blake (bleak) nights unfavourably with the sunny days of Yore. Bishop Blake’s remains rest in his Cathedral Church at Newry.

O’Connell’s letters are loud in praise of the energy and intelligence of William Ford, an attorney so genial that he went by the nickname of “Civil Bill” Ford. When the aged Liberator had been committed to prison for a period which few thought he could survive, Ford took charge of the proceedings on appeal to the House of Lords for a reversal of the judgment, and *mirabile dictu! *succeeded. Sir Gavan Duffy, one of O’Connell’s fellow-martyrs, as the State prisoners were described, writes: *“*Pale and panting, the aged attorney who had posted night and day from London with the record of the Lords’ judgment in his pocket, stumbled into the room, flung his arms round O’Connell, and thanked God that his friend and leader was entitled to walk out of prison.” The ovation that followed was memorable. There was no electric wire in those days, and Ford’s race home with the news was an exciting one. When the express stopped at Chester he hastily announced to the passengers and porters that O’Connell was going to get out. “Did you say it was at this station the gentleman would get out, sir?” asked a matter-of-fact porter. Ford, aged 69, died at Kilcairn, Navan, Co. Meath, and was buried at Glasnevin, 6th June, 1860.

An Irishman of undoubted grit was Sir Edward McDonnell, the original chairman of the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland. In 1854, when war was declared against Russia, he happened to be Lord Mayor of Dublin, and his brilliant ball to the regiments which were ordered to the East, recalled the more impressive features of the Duke of Richmond’s ball before Waterloo. Of those who danced in gay uniform at the Dublin ball, but few returned. The Great Southern trunk line, which owed so much to McDonnell’s energy, was opened in 1849. His career of usefulness closed prematurely on November 22nd, 1860. He had been one of the governing body of the Cemetery and his tomb will be found in the O’Connell Circle.

Arthur Close, a very promising member of the Bar, died December 28th, 1860, aged 33. A tomb has been raised to him in the O’Connell Circle, “in testimony of the talent, learning, and zeal which distinguished his career at the Bar. He was fast rising to forensic eminence when his life became a sacrifice to the arduous duties of his profession.” Close’s tomb faces the vault of the wife of Chief Baron Palles, over which rises a beautiful statue in white marble by Sir Thomas Farrell, inscribed ’ *Sursum Corda.” *

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