33/53 Now that "Conservative" Englishmen have come to treat the main points of Chartism almost as commonplaces in politics, it is surely time for them to recognise the honesty and integrity of the spirit which revolted in the Ireland of 1848 against the then seemingly hopeless condition of that country. Of that spirit Mr.O'Leary is a living, earnest, and most interesting incarnation. He strikes one at once as a much younger man in all that makes the youth of the intellect and the emotions than any Nationalist M.P.of half his years whom I have ever met. No Irishman living has dealt stronger or more open blows than he against the English dominion in Ireland. |