The Irish organisation in Great Britain sympathised with these views, and the various branches sending contingents showed their feelings by throwing in their part with the Amnesty Association.
The contingent from Great Britain was, on the proposition of Mr. Patrick Egan, given the place of honour in front of the amnesty procession which, on the morning of the Centenary celebration, the 6th of August, 1875, started from Beresford Place, near the Custom House. The banners of the three Liverpool branches were a picturesque feature in the procession, as also was the Sarsfield Band, a body of fine young Liverpool Irishmen who headed our contingent.
CHAPTER XV.
HOME RULE IN LOCAL ELECTIONS—PARNELL SUCCEEDS BUTT AS PRESIDENT OF THE IRISH ORGANISATION IN GREAT BRITAIN.
It was at the Liverpool Municipal Elections of 1875 that we first introduced the question of Home Rule into local politics. When we were holding our inaugural meeting to establish the Home Rule organisation in the town, we could not get any of our Irish public men to take the chair. The reason was that these had not been elected as Irishmen but as Liberals. As a matter of fact, we had in Dr. Commins a man immensely superior to any of them. But we thought that men who had been elected to public positions mainly by Irish votes should not refuse to identify themselves with the national movement, and to help it by whatever influence they possessed. We therefore decided to make some public men. In Scotland and Vauxhall Wards we had a clear majority, but though the Irish vote in these wards was expected for Liberal candidates, who were not Irish or Catholic, in no other ward could a Catholic or Irishman be elected. We, therefore, commenced to make a change by putting forward for Scotland Ward one of our own men, Lawrence Connolly, as a Home Ruler, and elected him as such. He afterwards sat in the Imperial Parliament for an Irish constituency. His election was followed in succeeding years by that of other Home Rulers, so that there was soon a considerable Nationalist Party in the City Council, and no lack of public men to do the honours for the Irishmen of Liverpool when any distinguished fellow-countryman came amongst them. Their civic utility was very great.
Though I have been over twenty years out of Liverpool, I have never lost sight of what has been going on there, and I am pleased to find that the younger generation—men whom we, the elders, have borne some share in training—have improved upon our work, and that there are now considerably more aldermen and city councillors than in our time.
That they are doing good work I am well satisfied, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than to read from time to time in the papers such items as a recent one—the presentation of a congratulatory address from the local branches of the United Irish League to Councillor Thomas Burke on the occasion of his being made a magistrate of the city of Liverpool. I am somewhat proud of Tom Burke. I remember having charge of some election that was going on, and his coming to me, a very small boy, from Blundell Street, to offer his services. I put him in harness at once, and he has been at work in the Cause ever since, and it is with pleasure that I recognise the fact that he is a good type of numerous Irishmen who were either born in Liverpool or spent most of their lives in that city.
There was a dear old Soggarth at St. Joseph's, who did good service for us in our first municipal election in Scotland Ward. He had, previous to this, been a fellow priest with my uncle, Father Bernard O'Loughlin, in the Isle of Man. As Father Peter McGrath was a good Irish scholar, he was soon able to make himself understood by such of the Manx people as still retained their native speech, its basis being, like the language spoken in the Scottish Highlands, practically—making allowance for provincialisms—the Gaelic spoken in Ireland. This was a great help to him and his brother priest in disarming prejudice.