GLADSTONE'S "FLOWING TIDE."
I was present at most of the bye-elections that led up to Gladstone's great victory at the General Election of 1892.
In this way I was brought to many places interesting to us as Catholics as well as Irishmen.
No spot in Great Britain is more sacred to us than Iona, an island off the West coast of Scotland, which our great typical Irish saint, Columba, made his home and centre when bringing the light of faith to those regions. It will, therefore, be one of the memories of my life most dear to me that I had the blessing of taking part in the famous Pilgrimage to Iona on June 13th, 1888. The town of Oban, on the mainland of Scotland, is generally made the point of departure for Iona, which is not far off.
Oban is one of the five Ayr burghs which, combined, send a member to Parliament, and it was singular that, at this time, there was a bye-election going on. As creed and country have always gone together with me, I did not think it at all inappropriate that I should do a little work for Irish self-government while on this Pilgrimage. On the contrary. Was not St. Columba himself a champion of Home Rule, for was it not through his eloquent advocacy of their cause before the great Irish National Assembly that the Scots of Alba, as distinguished from the Scots of Erin, obtained the right of self-government?
One of the best numbers of my Irish Library was the "Life of St. Columbkille," written for me by Michael O'Mahony, one of a band of young Irishmen, members of the Irish Literary Institute of Liverpool, who did splendid service for the Cause in that city. Michael was, of these, perhaps the one possessing the most characteristic Irish gifts. He has written some admirable stories of Irish life, and is a poet, although he has not written as much as I would like to see from his pen.
There are no Irish residents in Iona itself, but I found a few in Oban, on whom I called to secure their votes for Home Rule.
To hear Mass on the spot made sacred by the feet of our great Irish saint, in the building, then a ruin, erected by his successors to replace that which he himself had raised here as a centre of his great missionary labours, was an experience to treasure until one's latest day. What made the celebration the more memorable was the sermon in Gaelic by Bishop MacDonald of Argyll and the Isles. I had the pleasure, after Mass, of having dinner with him, and some most interesting conversation.
I told him I had read with great interest a pastoral of his, issued some five years before, in which he said that an interesting peculiarity of his diocese, in respect of which it stood almost alone in the country, was that its Catholicity was almost exclusively represented by districts which had always clung to the faith, places where in the Penal days no priest dared show himself in public, but visited the Catholic centres in turn as a layman by night and gathered the children together to instruct them as far as he was able. This was, he said, of extraordinary interest on a day like that, when we were specially honouring the memory of the great saint who had sown the seeds which had continued to bear fruit through so many centuries. We also spoke of the singular fact that he had that day preached on the spot on which St. Columba himself had stood, and in the same language that he spoke, a language which had been in existence long before the present English tongue was spoken. As showing that the Scottish and Irish Gaelic were practically the same, as distinguished from the Celtic tongue spoken by the Welsh and Bretons, Bishop MacDonald told me he could read quite easily a book printed in the Irish characters.
As a bye-election brought me to the sacred scene of the labours of our great Irish saint, Columba, so did another bye-election bring me to the spot where a martyr for Ireland suffered in 1798—Father O'Coigly. There was a bye-election at Maidstone, where the martyr priest had been tried for treason, and near it is Pennenden Heath, where he was executed, so that both places will for ever be held sacred by patriotic Irishmen. Besides securing a pledge for Home Rule from one of the candidates, and organising the small Irish vote in his favour, I took the opportunity of inaugurating a movement for the erection of a memorial to Father O'Coigly. With the co-operation of the London branches of the United Irish League the movement was brought to a successful issue. On two succeeding years there were Pilgrimages to the spot where Father O'Coigly was executed, at which Mr. James Francis Xavier O'Brien, who himself had been sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, was the chief speaker one year, and Mr. John Murphy, M.P., on the other.