I remember when Gavan Duffy left Ireland. I think it was in 1854. He issued an address to the Irish people, in which he said that the Irish national cause was like a corpse on the dissecting table. Yet, the cause was not dead, though it was certainly stricken by a kind of trom-luighe—a kind of “heavy sleep” that came upon it after the failure of ’48, and after the recreancy of the Sadlier and Keogh gang of parliamentary patriots. The “corpse” came to life again.
I was in the town of Tralee the day I read Duffy’s address in the Dublin Nation newspaper.
My brother-in-law, John Eagar, of Miltown and Liverpool, with his wife, Ellen O’Shaughnessy, of Charleville, were with me.
I got the Nation at Mr. O’Shea’s of the Mall; I came to the hotel and sat down to read it. My friends noticed that I was somewhat restless, reading the paper; I turned my face away from them, and they asked if anything was the matter with me. Next day I was writing an account of my vacation and travels to John Power Hayes, a friend of mine in Skibbereen; he was a kind of poet, and I wrote to him in rhyme. I look to my notes in my memory now, and I find the following are some of the lines I wrote:
Dear John: it’s from Miltown, a village in Kerry,
I write these few lines, hoping they’ll find you merry;
For I know you’re distressed in your spirits, of late,
Since “Corruption” has driven your friend to retreat,
And being now disengaged for a few hours of time,
Just to try to amuse you, my subject I’ll rhyme.