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| On July 27th and 28th 1846 in Conciliation Hall, Dublin, Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association met to consider the expulsion of a group of their members whom had come to be known as the "Young Irelanders." Thomas Francis Meagher was one of those "Young Irelanders." |
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| National Gallery of Ireland Daniel O'Connell, whom the eloquent Meagher defied. |
Imagine for a moment a 23-year-old speaking these word of defiance to the wishes of the "Uncrowned King of Ireland," "The Liberator" Daniel O'Connell, before a room full of his supporters, including O'Connell's sons, John and Daniel. ("The Liberator" himself was not there.) -- JEG
But, my Lords, I dissented from the resolutions before us for other reasons. I stated the first -- I now come to the second. I dissented from them, for I felt the by assenting to them I should have pledged myself to the unqualified repudiation of physical force in all countries, at all time, and under every circumstance.
This I could not do. For, my Lord, I do not abhor the use of arms in the vindication of national rights. There are times when arms will alone suffice, and when political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But, as the honorable member for Kilkenny observed, force must be used against force. The soldier is proof against an argument -- but he is not proof against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason -- let him be reasoned with, but it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone prevail against battalioned despotism.
Then, my lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say, that the King of Heaven -- the Lord of Hosts! the God of Battles! bestows His benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword in the hour of a nation's peril.
From that evening on which, in the valley of Bethulia He nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken tyrant in his tent, down to his day, in which He has blessed the insurgent chivalry of the Belgian nest, His Almighty hand hath ever been stretched forth from His throne of light, to consecrate the flag of freedom -- to bless the patriot's sword! Be it in the defense or be it in the assertion of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if, my lord, it has sometimes taken the shape of the serpent and reddened the shroud of the oppressor with too deep a dye, like the anointed rod of the High Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blossomed into celestial flowers to deck the freeman's brow.
Abhor the sword -- stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for, in the passes of the Tyrol, it cut to pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and, through those cragged passes, struck a path to fame for the peasant insurrectionist of Innsbruck!
Abhor the sword -- stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for, at its blow a giant nation started from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled colony rang into the attitude of a proud Republic -- prosperous, limitless, and invincible!
Abhor the sword -- stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for it swept Dutch marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium -- scourged them to their own phlegmatic swamps -- and knocked their flag and scepter, their laws and bayonets into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt.
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The Booker Prize-winning "Schindler's List" demonstrated that Thomas Keneally could make history as compelling as any novel. In "The Great Shame: And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World", he expands upon the achievement of his earlier fiction. Here is the story of how Irish men and women came to be dispersed all over the world, and what they made of their lives in their new homes. Thomas Francis Meagher, William Smith O'Brien, John Boyle O'Reilly, John Mitchel, all the famous, and many of the not so famous leaders of Irish revolutionary movment are here. It is the epic history of a whole people. If you could only read one book about the Irish revolutionary groups, and Irish rebels of the mid-19th century this would the one -
"The Great Shame: And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World."