But, if the Confederation was to accomplish little, the men who with Lomasney took part in its initiation were not without their claims to attention. Foremost amongst them were two bearing names destined to be familiar in latter-day politics. These were O’Donovan Rossa and John Devoy. As both will be found constantly strutting across the stage of Irish-American affairs from this date, I will pause here to refer to them in some little detail.
Jeremiah O’Donovan—the “Rossa” was, he claims, added in early years as the outward and visible sign of the alleged fact of his being directly descended from the Princes of Rossa—was, at the time of his arrival, one of the most popular men amongst the Irish in the United States. Sentenced to imprisonment for life for taking part in the ’65 movement, he had, according to general rumour, undergone the severest of sufferings and indignities in the British dungeons. A strong current of sympathy set in in his favour in consequence, and as both in public and private he lost no opportunity of dilating upon his grievance, the sentiment was in no sense allowed to waver or grow weak. The man whose name was to be so closely associated with dynamite and devilry in later years, did not at this time suggest by his appearance the possession of any undue ferocity. His face, though determined, was yet not without its kindly aspect, while his love for the bottle betrayed a jovial rather than a fiendish instinct. His fierceness, indeed, lay altogether in speech. Voluble and sweeping in his language, he was never so happy as when pouring out the vials of his wrath on the British Government.
Devoy, the notorious author of the “New Departure,” was at once seen to be a man of weighty influence. Forbidding of aspect, with a perpetual scowl upon his face, he immediately conveyed the idea of being a quarrelsome man, an idea sustained and strengthened by both his manner of speech and gruffness of voice. Experience of Devoy’s character only went to prove the correctness of this view. Quarrelsome and discontented, ambitious and unscrupulous, his friendships were few and far between; and had it not been for his undoubted ability, and the existence of those necessities which link adventurers together, he could never have reached the prominent place which he subsequently attained in the Fenian organisation.
With their fellow-prisoners who had been amnestied, General Thomas F. Bourke, Thomas Clarke Luby, Edmond Power, and Henry S. Meledy, together with James J. O’Kelly, late M.P. for Roscommon, but then a struggling reporter on a New York paper, Rossa and Devoy brought the Irish Confederation into existence, and formed its first “directory” or executive. They indulged in the wild hope of being able to gather in all the scattered Irish under one banner, and to put an end once and for all to the dissensions and divisions which had so disastrously affected Irish affairs in the past. They were disappointed. Not by their unaided efforts was this to be accomplished. Indeed, the Confederation was never popular. It was regarded as a sort of close corporation “run,” as we say in the United States, in the interest of the exiles, and, as a consequence, was jealously viewed by the rank and file. Every effort that could be made to bring about a fusion was tried by these men, but without success. Even Stephens himself was brought over from France and put at the head of affairs; but his name had lost its charm, and he had to return to Paris a discredited man.
XX.
While my Fenian friends struggled on in this way, I looked after my own affairs. Completing my studies and business in Detroit, I moved myself and my family to Wilmington, where I settled down to make a home and secure an income. I was now a fully fledged M.D., and so I immediately commenced practising at Braidwood, a suburb of Wilmington. Success attended my start, my Irish connection and record bringing me an amount of patronage almost beyond my powers of attention. I had given up all idea of anything definite happening in the way of Fenian affairs, and turned my attention to local politics. Here, of course, my Irish friends were again of use. Failing to obtain a seat on the School Board, for which I had been nominated, I succeeded in getting an appointment on the Board of Health. The office was really a sinecure, with one hundred dollars a year attached. Not content with it, I gained the much more lucrative appointment of Supervisor of Braidwood, attached to which was a daily fee of 2½ dollars, and travelling allowances when engaged on town business. Anybody acquainted with the American political system, even to a moderate extent, will know how paying such offices can be made.
Meantime I had joined the Medical Society of my State, and assisted in founding the State Pharmaceutical Society. My activity did not even stop here, and, in addition, I took a very active part in bringing about much-needed legislation on the question of the practice of medicine. In these days there was no such thing as a State law regulating the practice of medicine or pharmacy, and I—let me frankly confess it—as much for the sake of popularity as anything else, spared no pains, even going to the extent of “lobbying” in Springfield, the State capital, in the interest of legislation on these matters, in which I was very successful.
Little as I imagined it then, events were at this time shaping themselves to an end which, frequently attempted, had never yet been wholly accomplished by the aspiring leaders of the Irish in America. This was the bringing together of all Irishmen at home and abroad into one vast and perfect organisation. The hour was coming, and with it the men. Born in comparative poverty and insignificance, but under an impressive name, the association now being formed, the great Clan-na-Gael of the future, was destined to be a powerful, rich, and far-reaching organisation, healthy of limb and strong of hand, fated to leave its heavy mark upon the pages of this half-century’s history. From small beginnings have come great results.
Away back towards the end of the sixties, there came into existence one of those temporal societies, an off-shoot of the permanent conspiracy known under the name “Knights of the Inner Circle,” which was joined by many Irish conspirators, myself amongst the number. With its members there became associated, in the latter end of 1869, some three hundred members of the “Brian Boru” Circle of the Fenian Brotherhood in New York City, who, in consequence of a political quarrel over electioneering matters, seceded from their original body; and by these men, acting in concert with others under the name of the “United Irishmen,” what were really the first camps of the Clan-na-Gael were established.