-
TWO:Agrarian outrage had thus been effectually put down by the special commission; but a much more formidable difficulty was now to be encountered by the Government, which was called upon to suppress a rebellion. In order that its origin may be understood, it will be necessary to sketch briefly the rise and progress of the Young Ireland party. It had its origin in the establishment of the Nation newspaper in 1842, by Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy, and John Mitchel. Davis was a native of the county of Cork, a member of the Church of England, and a barrister who had devoted himself to literature. He was a man of genius and enthusiastic temperament, combined with habits of study and a love of system. As a member of the Repeal Association, and as a writer in the Nation, he constantly advocated national independence. He was a vigorous writer, and also a poet. He was much respected personally by all classes, and would have exerted a powerful influence, but he was cut off by fever in the midst of his career. His memory received the honour of a public funeral, which was one of the largest and most respectable that had for some time taken place in Dublin. Mr. Duffy, the proprietor and editor of the Nation, a Roman Catholic and a native of Monaghan, had been connected with the press in Dublin. Mr. Mitchel, also a northerner and a solicitor by profession, was the son of a Unitarian minister in Newry. These men were all animated by the same burning love of Ireland, and unmitigated hatred of English domination. The Nation soon attained a vast circulation; its leading articles were distinguished by an earnestness, a fire, a power, an originality and boldness, till then unknown in the Irish press. Its columns were filled with the most brilliant productions in literature and poetry, all designed to glorify Ireland at the expense of England, and all breathing the spirit of war and defiance against the Government. In addition to the Nation, they prepared a number of small books, which they issued in a cheap form as an Irish library, devoted chiefly to the history of their country, and its struggles for independence. By their exertions, reading-rooms were established throughout the country, and a native literature was extensively cultivated. The orator of the party was Thomas Meagher, at a later period general in the American army, son of a Waterford merchant, who was afterwards member of Parliament. He was a brilliant, fluent, ardent, daring speaker; his appearance and manners were those of a gay, reckless, dashing cavalier; and his warlike harangues had won for him the designation, "Meagher of the Sword." His speeches fired his audience with wild enthusiasm. Since 1844, as we have seen, Mr. William Smith O'Brien had become the leader of this party, which differed in spirit and purpose from the Old Ireland party, of which O'Connell had been so long the leader. O'Connell's agitation even for Repeal was essentially religious. Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church were indissolubly associated in his mind. His habits as a nisi prius barrister made him an advocate more than a statesman; and having pleaded the cause of his Church for forty years, having been rewarded and retained for so doing by an annual "tribute" collected in the chapels of the kingdom, and having won his unparalleled popularity and almost kingly power by his services in this cause, he could not help regarding himself as the special champion of the Irish priests and their people. For them he courted Whig alliances, for them he abused the Tories, for them he sought Repeal, and for their sakes he deprecated war. He knew that the Protestants of Ireland would never sufficiently trust him or his ecclesiastical clients, to join them in a war against English supremacy, which they disliked far less than Roman Catholic ascendency. He knew that a war for Repeal must be a civil and religious war; and he too well remembered the horrors of 1798, and was too well aware of the[564] power of England, seriously to encourage anything of the kind. He talked indeed about fighting at the monster meetings, but he did so merely to intimidate the Government, confident of his power to hold the masses in check, and to prevent breaches of the peace. The State prosecutions and the proceedings of the Young Ireland party worked in him the painful and almost heart-breaking conviction that he had gone too far. Another essential difference existed between the two parties regarding religion. The Young Irelanders wanted to ignore religion in the national struggle. Their object was to unite all Irishmen in the great cause, to exorcise the spirit of bigotry, and to cultivate the spirit of religious toleration. But neither the Protestants nor the Catholics were prepared for this. The peasantry of the South especially would not enter into a contest in which their priests refused to lead and bless them; and these would neither lead nor bless except in the interest of their Church. This truth was discovered too late by Mr. Smith O'Brien and Mr. Meagher. The latter gentleman is said to have remarked in his prison, "We made a fatal mistake in not conciliating the Catholic priesthood. The agitation must be baptised in the old Holy Well."We offer the best Services in our Restarant.
-
-
TWO:Iron suspension bridges were also introduced towards the end of this reign. Chain bridges had been erected in China for nearly two thousand years, and rope bridges in India and South America still earlier. In England a foot-bridge of iron chains was erected at Middleton, over the Tees, in the middle of the eighteenth century. In 1816 a bridge of iron wire was thrown across the Gala Water; and another, on a different principle, the following year, was erected over the Tweed, at[193] King's Meadows. But now much greater and more complete works of the kind were to be executed. Captain (afterwards Sir Samuel) Brown introduced many improvements into these structures. He substituted iron ropes for hempen ones, thereby forming cable-chains, like those used in Wales on quarry tram-roads, and these he applied to suspension bridges. In 1819 he was commissioned to construct an iron suspension bridge over the Tweed, near Kelso, called the union Bridge, which he completed in 1820, at a cost of five thousand pounds. In 1827 the first suspension bridge was thrown over the Thames by Mr. William Tierney Clarke; and in 1818 Telford commenced his great work of throwing a suspension bridge over the Menai Strait, near Bangor, which he completed in 1825. The main opening of this stupendous work is five hundred and sixty feet wide, and one hundred feet above high-water mark. The length of the roadway of the bridge is one thousand feet. The cost was one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. This was Telford's chef-d'?uvre. But the same neighbourhood was destined to see a more stupendous structure span the Strait from the Welsh shore to Anglesey. This was the tubular railway bridge, connecting the London and Holyhead line, within view of Telford's elegant suspension bridge. This was erected by Robert Stephenson, from his own design, greatly improved by suggestions from William Fairbairn of Manchester. It was completed in October, 1850, at a cost of six hundred and twenty-five thousand eight hundred and sixty-five pounds. Further description of this great work is not proper here, as it belongs to a later date, but it seemed fit to mention it in passing, as an evidence of the progress of the engineering science in the reign of Victoria.We offer the best Services in our Restarant.
