The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-30 00:00:00

grtlanb.

His EXCELLENCY THE LORD LIEUTENANT held a
chapter of the Order of St. Patrick at the Castle, on
Thursday, and invested the Marquis of Londonderry
and the Earl of Granard with the honour of knight..
hood.

THE 18TH ROYAL IRTSH were presented with new
colours on Monday, by his Excellency the Lord
Lieutenant. The ceremony took place at 3.30 p.m.
in Fhcenix park, in the presence o' a vast concourse
of people, and altogether went off with great Fitt.
General Lo:d Seaton, G.C.8., Commander of the
Forces, arrived on the ground a few minutes before
the Lord Lieutenant, who was accompanied by a
brilliant escort. Having inspected the regiment, his
Excellency addressed them at some length, recalling
their former services :

In the earliest annals of this regiment, under the imme-
diate eye and guidance of a hero king, it planted its
colours on the breach of Namur; and accordingly those
colours to this day bear the name of Namur, and quarter
with the Lions of NEssau the Harr and Crowu of your

own native Ireland. From that date they followed a yet
more consummate general—the great Duke of Marl-
borough—through all his campaigns and all his victories ;
at the sieves of Venloo, Liege, Menin, Lisle, and Tourney
—over the battle-fields of Blenheim, Rowdies, Oudenarde,
and Malplaquet. Perhaps I may record with less
pleasure that your regiment crossed swords with our
American kinsmen at Bunker's-hill ; but there. as else-
where, they nobly did their duty. I have alluded to their
services under Marlborough; we have had in our own day
a chieftain more illustrious than even Marlborough,
but the duties of distant service prevented the Royal Irish
Regiment from actually fighting under Wellington. I
speak, however, almost within the shadow of the monu-
ment raised by his countrymen on his own native soil to
that great warrior; 1 speak—more touching association
still—in the presence of those whose hoary hairs still
recel the bright careen of glory which they pursued—may
say learned—under that great commander ; and I call
upon that mute grey pillar—l call upon their timeworn
and honoured forms as my witnesses that the Great Duke
himself would have approved and sanctioned the cere•
molly of to•day. ( Applause.) But I have not even yet
exhausted the trophies of the Royal Irish. 1 find them
serving, for the most part under Irish commanders, at
Alexandria under Cradock, still in Egypt un ler Hutchin-
son, iu China under Gough, that revered Irish veteran,
now happily here to witness your array in peace as he
swayed your energies in war. The sphynx on your flag
speaks for Egypt ; the dragon for China ; further, your
impetuous onset carried the formidable Pagoda of Martiban
in the last Burmese war ; and, latest of all, the memorable
day of the 18th June saw you actually housed within
Sebastopol ; and the name of that great Russian strong-
hold, now just added to your victorious colours, closes, up
to this day at least, the long list of your glories. (Loud
cheers.)

His Excellency then reminded the men that now,
as they were to exhibit the virtues of citizens, they
should recollect that brotherly union was one, and
that they should not think hardly of one another,
though they worshipped the Common Father in
different houses of prayer. Colonel Edwards, in his
reply, said :
The ptesence of your Excellency, and of the distinguished
noblemen, gentry, gentlemen, generals, and officers who
are now standing by us, shows the royal regiment of Ire-
land that we have been welcomed to the country by our
rulers--( cheers I—and though for a moment the dark
cloud may appear, when we think that after an absence of
twenty years, on returning to the capital of that country of
which we bear the title and have borne the title for three
centuries, we have not received any public mark of appro.
hation —still it is our duty to forget these things, and to
recollect that, as Ireland's sons by birth, by connection,
and by association, it is our duty to wake these colours
show the genercus public of Great Britain that Ireland's
sons will still do their duty, and will ever wish to place
Irish soldiers where I may say with pride they have ever
been and ever shall be. (Applause.)
The colours were then presented and accepted with
the usual honours, and the ceremony terminated.
THE first part of tht, Agricultural Statistics rela-
ting to the flax crops ha; beea published. The in
crease over last year in acreage, under flax, is 9,785
acres, principally in Ulster and Leinster.
Mx. J. E. CAIRNES, A.M., has been elected to the
Whately Professorship of Political Economy, Tri-
nity College.
THE HARVEST is calculated at a good average
throughout the country ; labour is scarce.