The Immortal Irishman

by Timothy Egan

  Kennedy recalled some of this history, Ireland’s misery and Ireland’s triumphs, in his speech before the parliament. When he ran for president, many in his own country doubted whether an Irish Catholic could serve a nation of many creeds. In Texas during the campaign, Kennedy minced no words before an audience of Protestant ministers. “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” he said, a nation “where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.” It sounded remarkably similar to the speech that Meagher, a man of faith, had given in San Francisco, praising the design of a constitution that kept the state out of the affairs of the soul—a reaction to Britain forcing the church of a hated monarchy on the people of Ireland for centuries.

  At the time his great-grandfather fled, the Atlantic was “a bowl of bitter tears,” Kennedy told his Irish audience, quoting James Joyce. Many tears followed. From 1851 to 1921, nearly 3.8 million people left Ireland for the United States. He noted that Benjamin Franklin had sent leaflets to Irish freedom fighters, that Daniel O’Connell was inspired by George Washington and that the emancipator Abraham Lincoln was influenced by the rebel Robert Emmet. Kennedy’s longest anecdote was the story of General Meagher and his Irish Brigade. He recounted the bloodbath at Fredericksburg, a band of 1,200 men going to battle with a pinch of green in their caps, only 280 surviving. And after telling about the immigrants of the New York 69th, Kennedy displayed a present he had brought from the United States—one of the flags from Meagher’s Irishmen.

  What was it, Kennedy asked, that got so many families through centuries of subjugation, through starvation, through mass eviction, through exile, through Know-Nothing persecutions, epics of tragedy broken only by temporary periods of joy? What was it that made people like Thomas Meagher never lose faith? The “quality of the Irish,” the president concluded, is “the remarkable combination of hope, confidence and imagination.” In a short few months, Kennedy would be gone, killed by an assassin in Dallas. He left words on that early summer day in Dublin that the Irish recall today—praise for “one of the youngest of nations, and the oldest of civilizations.”

  The Civil War flag that the president gave to the people of Ireland joined other mementos of Meagher’s life in the land of his birth. The lad’s clarinet, silenced as an act of schoolboy civil disobedience at Stonyhurst, then used to entertain his cellmates awaiting death at the prison in Clonmel, was put on display in Waterford. Around town, bright banners proclaim, “Birthplace of the Irish Tricolour, First Raised Here by Thomas Francis Meagher in 1848.” A large equestrian statue, a match for the one in Montana, was erected in 2004, just off the River Suir at the entrance to the city. This Meagher is tall in the saddle, next to the 1,100-year-old Viking round tower that still holds a cannonball from Cromwell’s rampage. A few doors away, a plaque adorns the house of Meagher’s birth, now a hotel, with these words: “With my country, I leave my memory.” In 2015, the new Waterford Bridge over the river, the longest single-span crossing in Ireland, was named for the favorite son of the nation’s oldest city. Across the Atlantic, in the same year, the artist Ron Tunison was commissioned to create a bronze portrait of Meagher. The general’s visage will be placed next to the grave of his widow in the country that took him in, at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery.

  It is the living, of course, who need these markers of the dead in order to make sense of their place in this world—more than eighty million people with some Irish blood, most of them no longer looking for a country to call home. For them, memory is not an unwelcome burden but the raw material of stories that will always be passed on, in song, verse or tale, the great survival skill of the Irish.

  Acknowledgments

  Tracking a ghost from the Victorian Age across three continents is not the easiest of pursuits. But I’ve been helped by the keepers of Erin’s history among the global Irish diaspora. My roll call of gratitude starts in the home country, where the National Library of Ireland is a fine-functioning storehouse of letters, diaries, photographs, charts and paintings of the nation’s past. They made me feel like a Dubliner with a library card. In Waterford, the house where Meagher grew up—now the Granville Hotel—was welcoming, as were the custodians of family artifacts at the Georgian-era Bishop’s Palace, an excellent museum. And I was happy to have a professional excuse to visit another part of County Waterford, where my family—on my mother’s side—hails from.

  Across the Atlantic, the Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University—and its related institute, run by the tireless Christine Kinealy—is a bountiful source of art, letters and assorted firsthand accounts of Ireland’s worst tragedy. Dr. Kinealy, whose famine scholarship has broken fresh ground on several fronts, also gave me guidance on Young Ireland and was enthusiastic about this project. Thanks also to Boston’s John F. Kennedy Library and Museum for help on the president’s family roots and details of his visit to Ireland in 1963. In Manhattan, I’m grateful to the New York Public Library for giving a westerner access to its vast vaults, to the city’s Tenement Museum for bringing some of the grittier aspects of the immigrant experience to life, and to the American Irish Historical Society for letting me into its rich interior space on Fifth Avenue. May their doors always be open to citizen scholars. And a tip of the cap to McSorley’s, New York’s oldest Irish pub. Meagher himself drank there.

  In Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress, as usual, proved its worth as the nation’s archival mother lode—for photographs, letters and Civil War battle details.

  Many kudos to the National Park Service, perennially underfunded if not underappreciated, for ensuring that the Civil War battlefields where Meagher fought—at Fredericksburg, Antietam and Bull Run—are the kinds of solemn and moving experiences that they were for me. And in Richmond, Virginia, the National Battlefield Park was quite helpful.

  For the penal colony section, I’m grateful to Professor Stefan Petrow, at the University of Tasmania, for sharing some of his work with me, particularly on the spy John Balfe. Thanks also to the Allport Library and Museum of Fine Arts and the Tasmania Archive and Heritage Office for allowing me to use pictures from their collection. And thanks to the writer Kip Greenthal, a fellow Pacific northwesterner, who shared with me some of her original observations on Tasmania, after a visit, and for a literary supplement that helped when I was trying to find the right tone for this book.

  I couldn’t have put together the Civil War section, or the part on Montana, without the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Particularly helpful were the custodians of history at the Munger Research Center there. The Huntington gardens, by the way, are a great diversion from the claustrophobia of indoor research. The Montana Historical Society, in Helena, was most useful in all things related to Acting Governor Meagher. Also, my gratitude to them for documents on the vigilantes. Thanks to Fort Benton, on the Missouri, and Virginia City, the onetime territorial capital, for keeping their stories alive in the streets, in museums, on guided walks and other places of living history. And to Butte, where my great-grandfather lived and died in the glory days of New Ireland—a proud, resilient town. In the Big Sky State, I’m most grateful to Paul Wylie of Bozeman for reaching out to a fellow author. This lawyer/scholar/writer/historian was kind enough to send along a video of the 2012 inquest into the death of Meagher, which he masterfully put together.

  The crew at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was first rate in all the sometimes sausage-making aspects of building a book. Andrea Schulz, the editor in chief when we started this journey (she’s now at Viking in a similar role) was a loyal and creative editor—two descriptions that do not always pair with that job title. I’m immensely grateful to her for the collaboration we shared. A surfeit of thanks to Deanne Urmy for bringing out the best in this manuscript, handled with style and intelligence; to publisher Bruce Nichols for keeping the wind at our backs as deadlines loomed; to Larry Cooper for the expert weir of his manuscript ed
iting, filtering out the bad, refining the good; and to the tireless efforts of Carla Gray, Lori Glazer and Megan Wilson—who build bridges for authors to the real world. None of these working relationships would have been possible without the matchmaking skills of my agent and friend Carol Mann.

  I owe a debt to those in my circle of early readers and critics, who risked friendship and family slights in service of this epic story. Starting with my wife, Joni Balter, I take a bow to you, and to our kids, Sophie and Casey—now old enough to set their father straight and have it stick. Thanks to Sam Howe Verhovek, who deserves status as an honorary Irishman, and to Tim Golden, whose extraordinary talents in the craft of editing are just starting to blossom.

  Finally, my thanks to the late Giovanni Costigan, an Irish-history professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, for his passionate love of the poetry and spirit of a people who were so long under an oppressor’s thumb. He lit a fire of pride in many lapsed Irish Americans, myself included.

  Source Notes

  INTRODUCTION: LAST DAY—JULY 1, 1867

  Most details of the last day of Thomas Francis Meagher (TFM) come from the account of John T. Doran, pilot of the G. A. Thompson, who gave a narrative of that day in a letter written on December 16, 1868, to Captain W. F. Lyons, as recorded in Lyons’s book Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher, published by D & J Sadlier & Co., 1869. This includes the quotes “Johnny, they threaten my life in that town” and “There he goes.”

  Description of Fort Benton, the Missouri River and surrounding area, hours of sunlight and history, from two visits by the author to Fort Benton, Montana.

  British authorities looking for Meagher in Fort Benton, from Fort Benton: World’s Innermost Port by Joel Overholser, Falcon Publishing Co., 1987.

  Meagher still a fugitive, from story on Meagher in the Missoulian, July 4, 2010.

  Vigilantes, from “Montana Vigilantes and the Origin of the 3-7-77,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Spring 2001, and Montana’s Righteous Hangmen: The Vigilantes in Action by Lew L. Callaway, University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.

  Meagher low on money, from a letter, TFM to the territorial auditor, July 15, 1867, on file at Montana Historical Society, Helena.

  His net worth on the last day, from the estate, probate court files, Madison County Courthouse, Virginia City, Montana.

  His disparagement of moneymaking Americans, from Lectures of Gov. Thomas Francis Meagher in Montana, Bruce & Wright Printers, 1867.

  TFM and wife never happier, from Doran, as cited in Lyons, Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher. His love of Libby, and her last days, from “Mrs. Thomas Francis Meagher’s Sad Departure from Fort Benton in Sept. 1867” by Ken Robson, Fort Benton River Press, August 3, 2005.

  Meagher’s vanishing “the greatest of Montana mysteries,” in view of the Missoulian, July 4, 2010.

  CHAPTER 1: UNDER THE BOOTHEEL

  Quote of Chancellor Bowes, from A History of Modern Ireland by Giovanni Costigan, Pegasus, 1969.

  Saint Patrick traveling with his own brewer, from Irish America, April/May 2014.

  Penal Laws, reprinted with modern interpretation, from the University of Minnesota Law School, http://library.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/intro.html.

  Outlawing the harp, from A History of Irish Music by William Grattan Flood, first published 1905. Dodo Press edition, 2008, used here. And The Irish Harp by Joan Rimmer, Clo Mercier Publisher, 1977.

  Importance of the harp to Irish culture, from The Melodic Tradition of Ireland by James R. Cowdery, Kent State University Press, 1990.

  Elizabeth and the Irish, from Elizabeth I by Anne Somerset, Anchor Books, 2003.

  Meagher family history, from “Genealogy, Geography and Social Mobility: The Family Background of Thomas Francis Meagher” by John Mannion, in Thomas Francis Meagher: The Making of an Irish American, Irish Academic Press, 2005.

  Papal letter, “Laudabiliter,” from “Pope Adrian’s Bull Laudabiliter” by Eleanor Hull, in A History of Ireland, Volume 1, Appendix 1, National Library of Ireland, http://www.libraryireland.com/HullHistory/Appendix1a.php.

  English pope, from Adrian IV, the English Pope by Brenda Bolton and Anne Duggan, Ashgate Press, 2003, with additional information from Costigan, A History of Modern Ireland.

  Statutes of Kilkenny, from National Library of Ireland, http://www.library ireland.com/HullHistory/StatuteKilkenny2.php.

  Henry VIII and Anglican Church, from Making Ireland British by Nicholas P. Canny, Oxford University Press, 2001.

  The Pale, from Ireland and Her People by Thomas W. H. Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald Book Co., 1911.

  Trinity, from Costigan, A History of Modern Ireland, and the Trinity College website, https://www.tcd.ie/.

  Plantation of Ireland, from Costigan, A History of Modern Ireland.

  Plantation and starvation, from Rutgers University Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, http://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/cghr.

  Plantation of Ulster, from The Plantation of Ulster by P. Robinson, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2000.

  Men thrown overboard, and ordinance, as quoted in Ireland by Gustave de Beaumont, originally published in 1839, Harvard University Press edition, 2006.

  Cromwell, from Rutgers Center, cited above.

  Cromwell officer quote on the Burren, from author visit to Burren National Park.

  Cromwell and Drogheda, from “Cromwell and the Drogheda Massacre,” www.bbc.co.uk/education.

  40,000 deported as slaves, from Rutgers Center, cited above.

  Beaumont quote, from his book Ireland.

  Penal Laws, in their entirety, a project of the University of Minnesota Law School, www.law.umn.edu/irishlaw/subjectlist.html.

  Potato, from The Great Hunger: Ireland, 1845–1849 by Cecil Woodham-Smith, Hamish Hamilton, 1962.

  Debunking Sir Walter Raleigh potato origin, from “The Introduction of the Potato into Ireland” by William McNeill, Journal of Modern History, September 1949.

  Half the families lived in windowless huts, from Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger.

  Newfoundland history, from Newfoundland in the North Atlantic World by Peter Neary, McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1997.

  Earliest hurling game in North America, from Irish America, February/March 2014.

  Meagher’s childhood and descriptions of Waterford, from author visit to TFM’s home in Waterford, with special thanks to guides at Reginald’s Tower and the keepers of Meagher family possessions at Bishop’s Palace Museum.

  Hanging victim from the Waterford Bridge, from author visit.

  Clongowes, including tuition, from Decies: The Journal of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society 59 (2003).

  Clongowes, Meagher’s complaint about nothing of Irish history, from Memoirs of General Thomas Francis Meagher by Michael Cavanagh, Messenger Press, 1892. Hereafter referred to as Memoirs.

  Young Meagher’s essay on “happy old age,” from “A Curious Relic of Thomas Francis Meagher,” Irish Monthly 14 (1886).

  CHAPTER 2: THE BECOMING

  Date of TFM’s arrival at Stonyhurst, and length of the journey in the mid-nineteenth century, from the Stonyhurst website, http://www.stonyhurst.ac.uk/.

  Stonyhurst descriptions, from Centenary Record: Stonyhurst College, Its Life Beyond the Seas by Reverend John Gerard, S.J., Marcus Ward and Co., 1894.

  More on Stonyhurst, from “Thomas Francis Meagher: His Stonyhurst Years” by David Knight, Decies 59, (2003).

  Catholic relief in Great Britain, from Encyclopaedia Britannica, www.britan nica.com.

  TFM expelled from Clongowes, from “Pen and Sword: Thomas Francis Meagher and Clongowes College” by James Durney, in County Kildare history journal, www.kildare.ie/library/ehistory/2012/06.

  Learning to drink at Clongowes, from Meagher of the Sword: His Narrative of Events in Ireland in July 1848, Personal Reminiscences of Waterford, Galway and His Schooldays, edited by Arthur Griffith, M. H. Gill & Son, 1916.

  Clarinet and Waterl
oo story, from an interview TFM gave to the Hobart Times (Tasmania), December 7, 1852.

  Scope of the British Empire, from Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson, Basic Books, 2004.

  Britain’s peak, from Columbia History of World, Harper and Row, 1972.

  King Lear episode, from Memoirs.

  Daniel O’Connell, from Costigan, A History of Modern Ireland.

  TFM’s return home, from his “narrative” in Griffith, Meagher of the Sword.

  Quotes upon arrival in Waterford, ibid.

  Waterford population and eligible voters, from Memoirs.

  “Flaunting and fashionable,” ibid.

  O’Connell’s arrest, feud with Peel, from “Thomas Francis Meagher: Reluctant Revolutionary,” in Thomas Francis Meagher: The Making of an Irish Revolutionary.

  Larger garrison in Ireland than in India, from Woodham-Smith, The Great Hunger.

  CHAPTER 3: POETRY IN ACTION

  Davis, from Thomas Davis of Ireland: A Biographical Study by Helen F. Mulvey, Catholic University of America, 2003.