Distinguished Irishmen in New Zealand

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 78, 10 December 1885, Page 3

Distinguished Irishmen in New Zealand

+~ A contributor to the Duhlin Freeman's Journal, in a recent issue of that paper, speaking* of the Irish in New Zealand, observes: — "Of the distinguished Irish blood now in the colony, there is the Governor ; Hon. Mr Ballance, Minister for Native Affairs; Hon. Mr Tole, Minister of Justice; Hon. P. Buckley, Colonial Secretary; Sir George Grey, Irish on his mother's side, formerly Governor and Premier, now a leading member of the Legislature ; the Hon. Edward FitzGerald, lately Auditor-General, the leading orator of the colony ; the Bight Bey Edirard Stewart, D.D., T.C.D., Protestant Bishop of Waipu ; Mr Connolly formerly Attorney-Gen-eral; Sir Maurice O'Borke, Speaker of the Lower House ; Hon. P. Dignan. M.L.C. ; Hon, H. B. Gresson, formerly judge of the Supreme Court; Archdeacon Maunsell, translator of the Bible into Maori ; Hon. Dr Grace, one of the first physicians in the colony, : brother of Mr Grace, Mayor of New York. There are twenty g* aluates of T.C.D., Clergymen of the Protestant Church. Ail the Roman Catholic Bishops but two are Irish ; and so are nearly all the priests, and now both continue to be largely recruited from Ireland as young New Zealand of both sexes, like young Australia, contribute not a few. to the religious orders. Of prominent Irish men who did good work in New Zealand, but are now away from it, may be mentioned the leading spirit of thesuccessf ul Canterbury settlement, Mr Godley. "With him in that important undertaking, solely composed of members of the Church? of Eugiand, were many from the North of Ireland, in compliment, it is supposed, to whom some of the principal streets in Christchurch aro called Armagh, Kilinore, Tuam, and Cashel streets, and in Cathedral Square stands the only statute the colony possesses, to the Irishman God'cy."