A DISTINGUISHED IRISHMAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 182, 22 September 1876, Page 15

A DISTINGUISHED IRISHMAN.

[From a letter to the Albany 'Evening 1 Times.'] Having read the honorable mention in the ' Times ' of Tuesday, of P. J. Smyth, member for Meath, as an "orator of the highest order," I wish, as a personal acquaintance — I might say friend — to state a few particulars about that distinguished gentleman, which may be of interest at least to your numerous Irish readers. Mr. Smyth is the only son of the late James Smyth, a wealthy brewer of Kilmainham, near Dublin. He took an active part in all the movements of the Young Ireland party in 1848, and was one of the associate editors of the ' Nation,' in connection with Mitchell, Duffy and Dillon, the most ably conducted paper in the United Kingdom. During the state trials of that year, Mr. Smyth was not indicted, hut was not the less active. After the conviction of his compatriots, he organised a project of a desperate and daring character for their rescue, but the sentence of death being commuted to that of transportation, they were sent to Van Diemen's Land. Mr. Smyth sailed for Australia simultaneously with his chained friends, whom his noble heart yearned to rescue, and he arrived there a few days before the patriotic convicts. Then he matured a plan for rescuing them, which eventually succeeded, and in a short time after, both he and they received that great ovation on these shores.

Leaving his friends in America, and being under no legal restriction by the British government, as an irresponsible writer in the 'Nation/ he returned to Ireland, which was now famine stricken, and devoid of all patriotic action, in fact, dead as a corpse on the dissecting table. In this darkest hour of Ireland's history the truest of patriotic sons was active — even hopelessly — to stir up some national spirit among the people — an effort which proved utterly fruitless. "n He became editor of the 'Waterf ord Citizen/ a bi-weekly paper inVthe national interest, to which I was an humble though welcome ttßitributor. <• A project for establishing a weekly paper in Cork was ardently entertained by several influential persons on that occasion. I had the pleasure of meeting him about home when he visited in company with the late patriotic Edward O'Sullivan, of Cork. This project, however, did not succeed, and he subsequently purchased the * Dublin Irishman/ a large weekly, of which the son of Chief Baron Pigot was editor.

During Mr. Smyth's connection with the Waterf ord ' Citizen ' several of Lord Derby's tenants in the adjacent county (Tipperary) were served with notices of ejectment which were to be carried out on the 25th of March, (Lady day, the day so much dreaded by tenants in Ireland), with, at the time a challenge to Lord Derby defying him to make the attempt, even intimating in unflinching terms that he would be there " with the pikenxen of the Galtees," to frustrate his wicked inhumanity. We shall meet at Philippi . " On, Stanley, on !" Mr. Smyth would have been hanged then, sure as daylight, but the latter appealed to the chivalry of Stanley, and not in vain. At the time of his father's death Mr. Smyth wrote me an affecting letter, intimating his parental loss, stating, among other thing, that he sent him a flag when all concerned occupied the rugged encampment on Slievenamon, void of arms, ammunition or provisions, with a message in which the father said, " You return victorious with this flag or dead upon it." Worthy son of a patriotic father, who left him a large and well merited fortune which he freely shares in all good works. Such is P. J. Smyth, one of the most patriotic and disinterested men of Ireland, and now one of the most brilliant orators in the British parliament.