People We Hear About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 07, Issue 45, 7 November 1907, Page 28

People We Hear About

~t f o^ S- cor ? c Noble Plunkett, who has been appointSi Dublin 01 . 1^ Mv^ cUm of Science «* *rt in Dublin, in the gift of Mr. T. W. Russell M P i<s 2SSSJJ? 1 * 1^? BB + ° ard ° f Ag^cultureand Technical Instruction, is highly trained in art and an enthusiastic Cnulll a n d Ki* Ude ?f- He had a teiUlant career in Trinity all tfp' »rf n - ?e? c IS - a great tr a^eller, an-dhas visited ' te a^ c .e ntr es in Europe. Ho is also a prolific SSL"^ W xt^ on art and other subjects P Count Plunkett is a Nationalist in politics, and in his younger NaS'oil&t'lSS o*40 * 4^ 1161 , 01 Mr - Isaac Butt, theTS tWng° n of a'poef 6 " He " * Cath ° liC > and SOme " hP f .n Tl fnn^ ar f ? *?r? r * nard ' tho Cath olic peer who has just been appointed Master of the Horse, in succession to the wh\i -g efton « remains at the age thirty-three, a bachelor. He succeeded his father in 1889, and became w,r hv S Guards kk 1J?1 J? went thr ough the South African TZ'J f hh T6T 6 f^ A V D<C S t 0 Earl as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Granard's Irish earldom, which 2 S f °?L? f *v - United Kin Sdom, an old one going back to 1684; but the family boasted a barony long before them. Sir Alexander de Forbes, who married a grand-daughter of the Scotch King, Robert 111., was created Lord Forbes by King James 11. of Scotland, in The 'death is reported of Viscount Gormanston, the fourteenth holder of the title, and premier Viscount of Ireland. The deceased nobleman, who was seventy years of age, served through the Indian Mutiny, and had been Governor of the Leeward Islands, British Guiana, and Tasmania. He was a J.P. for Comities Meath, Cavan and Dublin. He was twice married, his first wife (who died in 1875) having been a daughter of the first Lord Bellew By his second wife, Georgina, daughter of Peter Connellan, of Coolmore, County Kilkenny, he had three sons and a daughter of whom his eldest son, -Mr. Jemco Edward Joseph Preston, is his heir. The family seat is Gormanston Castle, Balbriggan, County Meath. The late Lord 'Gormanston was a very devout and earn?!q o + ?onn' , and Whi!e Govern <>r of Tasmania, from 1893 to 1900, he considered it a very special privilege to be permitted to serve Mass. Though it would perhaps be too much to say that King Edward is the best linguist among- European rulers tnere is certainly no more perfect master of German among the crowned heads than the King, whose .German is far more idiomatic, than that of the majority of educated Germans living abroad. It is true the King's father was of German birth, and German was as much talked as English at the British Court in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign ; but one imagines that few sons of German fathers,, living in England all their— life would < keep up ' their German as King Edward has «°ne. That tlie Xin S is . an almost equally good French linguist, goes almost without saying. Perhaps the next best linguist to the King, among those sitting upon European thrones, is the Kaiser, whose French is extraordinarily pure and idiomatic, and who also speaks excellent English, although he has never been able to rid himself of a strong German accent.

Healy is up ! ' When the magic words go round, there is a swift hurrying into the Chamber, (says the London ' Tribune ') for nobody can affor<d to miss the piquant Tim. Somebody will writhe before he finishes His vitriolic wit never slumbers, and he is restless outside a fight. A short stoutish man, black-bearded and, spectacled, with the tongue of a wasp and the wit of an Irishman, he commands an apprehensive and fascinated attention from all quarters of the House. Woe betide the interrupter. He is scathed with a retort which makes him unaffectedly sorry that he spoke, and irritable because of the proneness of the House of Commons to daughter. Mr. Healy is a happy outcast. Owing allegiance to nobody, bitingly critical to the failings of pol- . itical leaders, extremely well-informed as to the intrigues of parties in which he takes a detached interest, and believing that it is no good speaking unless you can make somefbody remetm|b«r that you spoke, his worjjs4ash like a whip, and his satire corrodes like a bitter acid. The only man, with whom he never crossed swords, was Chamberlain. They .had too much respect for each other's power of thrust.