Besides this, chiefly through the exertions of Mr. John Brady, District Organiser, funds were raised, and there have been erected in the Catholic Church at Maidstone a Celtic Cross and three beautiful stained-glass windows, of Irish manufacture, to commemorate the martyrdom of Father O'Coigly.
A gratifying thing in connection with our Pilgrimage was, I reminded those I addressed on Pennenden Heath, that a man pledged to support self-government for Ireland, the Cause for which Father O'Coigly had suffered, had been elected to Parliament for Maidstone.
In the bye-elections about this time, we often got the most satisfactory results from places where the Irish vote was but small. I have before my mind the Carnarvon Boroughs bye election of 1890. Here the seat had been held by a Tory, and the Irish vote in the five towns, all told, was not much more than 50. I was sent to the constituency by our Executive to use every exertion to get our people to poll for David Lloyd-George, a thorough-going Home Ruler, at that time an unknown man, though he has since risen to the first political and ministerial rank. It was then I made his acquaintance, and time has only increased the friendly feeling between us.
Our meeting happened rather curiously. While on my round I came across an unpretentious-looking young man who, I discovered, was also working on the same side. We had chatted together for some time when I happened to make some reference to the candidate. "Oh," he said, with a laugh, "I am the candidate." It was Mr. Lloyd-George. We worked together with all the more ardour being brother Celts. I frequently expressed to him my admiration for a striking feature in their great meetings during the election campaign. This was the singing in their native tongue of songs calculated to rouse the enthusiasm of an emotional people like the Welsh, the climax being reached at the end of each meeting with their noble national anthem, sung in the native tongue of course, "Land of my Fathers."
Since that time it is gratifying to realize the great progress which has been made in the revival of our native tongue through the instrumentality of the Gaelic League. The success of our friends in this direction ought to be an encouragement to us. The old Cymric tongue is almost universal throughout Wales, side by side with the English, so that it is not all visionary to think that a day may come when ours, too, may become a bi-lingual people.
Mr. Edmund Vesey Knox, an Ulster Protestant Home Ruler, who was then a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, came to assist in the return of Mr. Lloyd-George. At one of their great gatherings he told his audience how much he was impressed by the enthusiasm created by their native music and song. This reminded him, he said, that one of their great Irish poets, Thomas Davis, was partially of Welsh descent, which no doubt inspired one of his noblest songs "Cymric Rule and Cymric Rulers," written to their soul-stirring Welsh air, "The March of the Men of Harlech." After Mr. Knox, more singing, and then came a delightful address from a distinguished Irish lady, Mrs. Bryant, who did splendid service at many of these bye elections. Doctor Sophie Bryant, to give her full title, is a lady of great learning and eloquence, and not only a thorough Nationalist in sentiment, but an energetic worker in the Cause. A literary lady colleague thus sums up her chief qualities: "She is more learned than any man I know; more tender than any woman I have ever met."
Mr. Lloyd-George was elected by the bare majority of 18 votes, so that without the small Irish vote in the Carnarvon Boroughs he could not have been returned at his first election for the constituency. Nor did he forget the fact. On one occasion we were speaking together in the lobby of the House of Commons when a friend of his came up. "This," said Mr. Lloyd-George, slapping me on the shoulder, "is the man who brought me here." In a sense it was true, so that I might claim to have assisted in making a British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
I have spoken of the series of bye-elections which Mr. Gladstone described as the "Flowing Tide" which had set in for Home Rule. I remember with special pleasure one of these—that for the Rossendale Division of Lancashire. It was a sample of all the other bye-elections in 1892. The registration had been well done, and we knew to a man the strength of the Irish vote. We had 438 on the Register. This was no mere estimate, and we could give the figures at the time with equal accuracy for most places where we had an Irish population. Every voter of ours living in Rossendale had been visited. If he had removed from place to place inside the district it was noted. If he had gone out of the district he was communicated with, if possible through the medium of the branch of his new location. We knew where to find them all, and it was astonishing from what distant places men turned up to vote on the election day, through the agency of the local branches of the places to which the voters had gone.
In this Rossendale election I had two of the most capable lieutenants a man need wish to have, Patrick Murphy and Daniel Boyle, both then organisers of our League. Dan Boyle (now Alderman Boyle, M.P.) took the Bacup end of the Division; Pat Murphy took Rawtenstall; and I made my headquarters at Haslingden, for I had a grah for the place, on account of its connection with my old friend, Michael Davitt.
There can be no better test of a man's sterling qualities than the opinions held of him by the friends of his youth. Several times I had had occasion to visit Haslingden, the little factory town in North-East Lancashire, where Martin Davitt, the father of Michael, and his family lived when they came to this country after being evicted from their home in Mayo. Here I met Mr. Cockcroft, the bookseller, who gave Michael employment after he had lost his arm in the factory, and he and his family bore the Irish lad in kindly remembrance. But it was among his own people—those who had been the companions and friends of his youth—that I found the greatest admiration for "Mick," as they familiarly called him. I need scarcely say that they watched with pride the noble career of one who had grown to manhood in their midst.