Kellys and the O'Kellys , livre ebook

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304 pages

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. During the first two months of the year 1844, the greatest possible excitement existed in Dublin respecting the State Trials, in which Mr O'Connell, his son, the Editors of three different repeal newspapers, Tom Steele, the Rev. Mr Tierney a priest who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the Repeal Movement and Mr Ray, the Secretary to the Repeal Association, were indicted for conspiracy. Those who only read of the proceedings in papers, which gave them as a mere portion of the news of the day, or learned what was going on in Dublin by chance conversation, can have no idea of the absorbing interest which the whole affair created in Ireland, but more especially in the metropolis. Every one felt strongly, on one side or on the other. Every one had brought the matter home to his own bosom, and looked to the result of the trial with individual interest and suspense.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819918134
Langue	English

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I THE TRIAL
During the first two months of the year 1844, thegreatest possible excitement existed in Dublin respecting the StateTrials, in which Mr O'Connell, his son, the Editors of threedifferent repeal newspapers, Tom Steele, the Rev. Mr Tierney apriest who had taken a somewhat prominent part in the RepealMovement and Mr Ray, the Secretary to the Repeal Association, wereindicted for conspiracy. Those who only read of the proceedings inpapers, which gave them as a mere portion of the news of the day,or learned what was going on in Dublin by chance conversation, canhave no idea of the absorbing interest which the whole affaircreated in Ireland, but more especially in the metropolis. Everyone felt strongly, on one side or on the other. Every one hadbrought the matter home to his own bosom, and looked to the resultof the trial with individual interest and suspense.
Even at this short interval Irishmen can now see howcompletely they put judgment aside, and allowed feeling and passionto predominate in the matter. Many of the hottest protestants, ofthe staunchest foes to O'Connell, now believe that his absoluteimprisonment was not to be desired, and that whether he wereacquitted or convicted, the Government would have sufficientlyshown, by instituting his trial, its determination to put downproceedings of which they did not approve. On the other hand, thatclass of men who then styled themselves Repealers are now awarethat the continued imprisonment of their leader the persecution, asthey believed it to be, of "the Liberator" would have been the onething most certain to have sustained his influence, and to havegiven fresh force to their agitation. Nothing ever so strengthenedthe love of the Irish for, and the obedience of the Irish toO'Connell, as his imprisonment; nothing ever so weakened his powerover them as his unexpected enfranchisement. The country shoutedfor joy when he was set free, and expended all its enthusiasm inthe effort.
At the time, however, to which I am now referring,each party felt the most intense interest in the struggle, and themost eager desire for success. Every Repealer, and everyAnti-Repealer in Dublin felt that it was a contest, in which hehimself was, to a certain extent, individually engaged. All thetactics of the opposed armies, down to the minutest legal details,were eagerly and passionately canvassed in every circle. Ladies,who had before probably never heard of "panels" in forensicphraseology, now spoke enthusiastically on the subject; and thoseon one side expressed themselves indignant at the fraudulentomission of certain names from the lists of jurors; while those onthe other were capable of proving the legality of choosing the juryfrom the names which were given, and stated most positively thatthe omissions were accidental.
"The traversers" were in everybody's mouth a termheretofore confined to law courts, and lawyers' rooms. TheAttorney-General, the Commander-in- Chief of the Government forces,was most virulently assailed; every legal step which he took wasscrutinised and abused; every measure which he used was base enoughof itself to hand down his name to everlasting infamy. Such werethe tenets of the Repealers. And O'Connell and his counsel, theirbase artifices, falsehoods, delays, and unprofessional proceedings,were declared by the Saxon party to be equally abominable.
The whole Irish bar seemed, for the time, to havelaid aside the habitual sang froid and indifference of lawyers, andto have employed their hearts as well as their heads on behalf ofthe different parties by whom they were engaged. The very jurorsthemselves for a time became famous or infamous, according to theopinions of those by whom their position was discussed. Their namesand additions were published and republished; they were declared tobe men who would stand by their country and do their duty withoutfear or favour so said the Protestants. By the Roman Catholics,they were looked on as perjurors determined to stick to theGovernment with blind indifference to their oaths. Their names arenow, for the most part, forgotten, though so little time haselapsed since they appeared so frequently before the public.
Every day's proceedings gave rise to new hopes andfears. The evidence rested chiefly on the reports of certainshort-hand writers, who had been employed to attend Repealmeetings, and their examinations and cross- examinations were read,re-read, and scanned with the minutest care. Then, the various andlong speeches of the different counsel, who, day after day,continued to address the jury; the heat of one, the weary legaltechnicalities of another, the perspicuity of a third, and thesplendid forensic eloquence of a fourth, were criticised,depreciated and admired. It seemed as though the chief lawyers ofthe day were standing an examination, and were candidates for somehigh honour, which each was striving to secure.
The Dublin papers were full of the trial; no othersubject, could, at the time, either interest or amuse. I doubtwhether any affair of the kind was ever, to use the phrase of thetrade, so well and perfectly reported. The speeches appeared wordfor word the same in the columns of newspapers of differentpolitics. For four-fifths of the contents of the paper it wouldhave been the same to you whether you were reading the EveningMail, or the Freeman. Every word that was uttered in the Court wasof importance to every one in Dublin; and half-an-hour's delay inascertaining, to the minutest shade, what had taken place in Courtduring any period, was accounted a sad misfortune.
The press round the Four Courts, every morningbefore the doors were open, was very great: and except by thefavoured few who were able to obtain seats, it was only withextreme difficulty and perseverance, that an entrance into the bodyof the Court could be obtained.
It was on the eleventh morning of the proceedings,on the day on which the defence of the traversers was to becommenced, that two young men, who had been standing for a coupleof hours in front of the doors of the Court, were still waitingthere, with what patience was left to them, after having beenpressed and jostled for so long a time. Richard Lalor Sheil,however, was to address the jury on behalf of Mr John O'Connell andevery one in Dublin knew that that was a treat not to be lost. Thetwo young men, too, were violent Repealers. The elder of them was athree-year-old denizen of Dublin, who knew the names of thecontributors to the "Nation", who had constantly listened to theindignation and enthusiasm of O'Connell, Smith O'Brien, and O'NeillDaunt, in their addresses from the rostrum of the ConciliationHall; who had drank much porter at Jude's, who had eaten manyoysters at Burton Bindon's, who had seen and contributed to manyrows in the Abbey Street Theatre; who, during his life in Dublin,had done many things which he ought not to have done, and hadprobably made as many omissions of things which it had behoved himto do. He had that knowledge of the persons of his fellow-citizens,which appears to be so much more general in Dublin than in anyother large town; he could tell you the name and trade of every onehe met in the streets, and was a judge of the character and talentsof all whose employments partook, in any degree, of a publicnature. His name was Kelly; and, as his calling was that of anattorney's clerk, his knowledge of character would be peculiarlyvaluable in the scene at which he and his companion were so anxiousto be present.
The younger of the two brothers, for such they were,was a somewhat different character. Though perhaps a moreenthusiastic Repealer than his brother, he was not so well versedin the details of Repeal tactics, or in the strength and weaknessof the Repeal ranks. He was a young farmer, of the better class,from the County Mayo, where he held three or four hundredwretchedly bad acres under Lord Ballindine, and one or two othersmall farms, under different landlords. He was a good-looking youngfellow, about twenty-five years of age, with that mixture ofcunning and frankness in his bright eye, which is so common amongthose of his class in Ireland, but more especially so inConnaught.
The mother of these two young men kept an inn in thesmall town of Dunmore, and though from the appearance of the place,one would be led to suppose that there could not be in Dunmore muchof that kind of traffic which innkeepers love, Mrs Kelly wasaccounted a warm, comfortable woman. Her husband had left her for abetter world some ten years since, with six children; and thewidow, instead of making continual use, as her chief support, ofthat common wail of being a poor, lone woman, had put her shouldersto the wheel, and had earned comfortably, by sheer industry, thatwhich so many of her class, when similarly situated, are willing toowe to compassion.
She held on the farm, which her husband rented fromLord Ballindine, till her eldest son was able to take it. He,however, was now a gauger in the north of Ireland. Her second sonwas the attorney's clerk; and the farm had descended to Martin, theyounger, whom we have left jostling and jostled at one of the greatdoors of the Four Courts, and whom we must still leave there for ashort time, while a few more of the circumstances of his family arenarrated.
Mrs Kelly had, after her husband's death, added asmall grocer's establishment to her inn. People wondered where shehad found the means of supplying her shop: some said that old MickKelly must have had money when he died, though it was odd how a manwho drank so much could ever have kept a shilling by him. Othersremarked how easy it was to get credit in these days, and expresseda hope that the wholesale dealer in Pill Lane might be none theworse. However this might be, the widow Kelly kept her stationfirmly and constantly behind her counter, wore her weeds and herwarm, black, stuff dress decently and becomingly, and never askedanything of anybody.
At the time of which we