The Life Story of an Old Rebel

by John Denvir

At the time of the Home Rule movement connected with the name of Isaac Butt, and for some years previously, I had been brought into still closer contact with him, first, as secretary of his refuge for destitute and homeless boys, and then as manager and acting editor of the "Northern Press and Catholic Times," after that paper had come into his hands. I also assisted him in the temperance movement which he started in Liverpool.

When Father Nugent asked me to take charge of the "Catholic Times," I entered upon the work literally single-handed, like some of the editors we read of a generation or so ago in the Western States of America; for, when he left me for a nine months' tour in the States, I constituted in my own person the whole staff. We afterwards had some able men on the paper. Among these was John McArdle, who left us, as I have said, to join the "Nation." He became later a well-known dramatic author, his chief works being burlesques and pantomimes. We also had James Lysaght Finigan, of whom I speak elsewhere.

While Father Nugent was in America, we used to get great help from a fine old Jesuit priest and good Irish Nationalist, Father James McSwiney, then of St. Francis Xavier's, Liverpool. He was never happier than when smoking his short pipe by the fire in our inner office. With his help we created a much admired feature in the "Catholic Times" in our "Answers to Correspondents." With the view of drawing on real enquiries, he used to concoct and then answer questions on points of doctrine, etc. Some people were astonished at the profound knowledge—and others at what they considered "the impudence"—displayed by Jack McArdle and John Denvir in answering any theological posers that might be put to us, never dreaming we had behind us one of the ablest theologians of the Jesuit order.

When Father Nugent took the paper in hands, the readers had such confidence in it that, from being merely a local paper, we were able before long to make it a leading Catholic organ for the whole country.

The reverend father was chaplain of the Liverpool Borough jail. He was respected by all classes, Protestant as well as Catholic, not only for what he did for the unfortunate creatures who came under his ministrations, but as a public-spirited citizen and benefactor of the town. It would be wrong if I did not pay a high tribute to the splendid service done by him in Liverpool towards elevating the condition of our own people. I would be ungrateful, too, if I failed to recognise the great educational work he did in giving opportunities for culture to many Liverpool Irishmen, myself among the number, which afterwards aided their advancement in the battle of life. That is why I never regretted that I gave Father Nugent, when conducting the "Catholic Times" for him, three of the best years of my life. I never regretted my experiences in connection with that paper, particularly in the reporting department, for they were often very pleasant ones. Among these was my having been introduced to the great Archbishop MacHale, when I went to St. Nicholas's to report his sermon.

I have many vivid remembrances arising out of my connection with the "Catholic Times."

It was during the time I was in charge of it that we started the Irish national organisation on this side of the Channel—the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain, formed at our first annual convention held in Manchester, at which I was elected as the first General Secretary of the organisation.

I was at the same time secretary of the Liverpool Catholic Club, and in that capacity I assisted in entertaining the Canadian Papal Zouaves when passing through Liverpool on their way home, after their gallant but unsuccessful struggle to uphold the power of the Pope against the revolutionaries.

In the same way it became my duty as secretary of the club to organise the Catholic vote in Liverpool on the occasion of the first School Board Election. The Irish and those of Irish extraction in Liverpool being reckoned as about one-third of the population, the Catholic body is correspondingly numerous. We surprised both friend and foe in the results. There were fifteen members to be elected, and we asked our people to give three votes for each of our five candidates. They were not only elected, but the votes actually given for them—on the cumulative principle—could have elected eight out of the fifteen members of the Board.

Father Nugent, though immensely popular with all classes, was not, I think, a persona grata, any more than myself, with Canon Fisher, the Vicar-General of the diocese, who was very anti-Irish, and, so far as he could, prevented anyone connected with the "Catholic Times" coming into personal contact with Bishop Goss, who was a typical Englishman of the best kind. The bishop had a blunt, hitting-out-from-the-shoulder style of speaking in his sermons that compelled attention. But you could hardly call them sermons at all; they were rather powerful discourses upon social topics, which, from a newspaper point of view, made splendid "copy." Accordingly, during the year before his death, I followed him all over the diocese to get his sermon for each week's paper. There is no doubt that Dr. Goss's sermons helped materially to put a backbone into the "Catholic Times" and greatly to increase its circulation.