The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-25 00:00:00

IRELAND

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESF.ONDRN T.
DUBLIN, WF.DNESDA Y.
THE PRESS AND MR. O'CONNELL.

Last night the long projected dinner to Mr. O'Connell by
his constituents took place in the Circus, Abbey-street. The
attendance was large, and the enthusiasm very great. Near
the close of his speech, in returning thanks for his own health,
Mr. O'Connell made an attack upon the Dublin Press, couched
in the strongest language that anger could suggest. The
reason of this is supposed to have been the fact of their not
having taken sufficient pains to increase the attendance at
the dinner. Mr. Staunton, the highly respectable proprietor
of the Morning Register, during an immediately subsequent
part of Mr. O'Connell's speech, where he observed that the
proceedings of that night would go to England, said " not
without the Press," on which immense hissing commenced in
the meeting, which was answered by cheers from all:the Repor-
ters and others connected with the Press present. Mr.
O'Connell then dared the suppression of the proceedings by
the paltry Press of Dublin. On Mr. O'Connoll concluding
his speech, all the Reporters of the Liberal Press rose and
left the room amid hissings and hootings, while some violent
fellows even attempted an assault on them. They immediately
held a meeting, and passed a resolution declaring that the in-
dependence of the Press was the groundwork of liberty, and
that a mean submission in this matter would be a surrender of
the principles for which Mr. O'Connell contended, adding
that, under these circumstances, they felt justified in suppress.
ing the proceedings. Accordingly the Liberal Morning
Papers came out this morning without a line of the dinner,
and with long Editorial comments condemning Mr. O'Con-
nell's conduct in the matter. The proceedings of the Pre.
cursor Society this day were chiefly allusory to this affair.
Mr. O'Connell declared that he meant no insult to the Re-
porters ; but that he had reason to complain of the proprietors,
and would bring the subject before the meeting on next
Friday. He also seemed to threaten the establishment of a
new Journal. The Pilot of this evening, which has been
called Mr. O'Connell's own Paper, protested strongly against
his conduct in the matter.

DINNER TO MR. O'CONNELL.
(Abridged from the Dublin Evening hail of Wednesday )
The metropolitan dinner given to Mr. O'Connell took place yester.
day evening at the Circus, Lower Abbey street. At one end of the
room, on a raised platform, there was a table prepared for the Chairman,
Mr. O'Connell, and the selected guests ; on the opposite end of the
building there was a gallery set apart for musicians, and on either side
there were galleries filled with the female friends of the guests. The
chair was taken about half-past six o'clock by Ignatius Callaghan, Esq.
Between two and three hundred persons were present.
As soon as dinner was ended, the usual toasts were proposed by the
Chairman, namely, " The Queen," " The People," " The Duchess
of Kent."

The CHAIRMAN then said, that the family of George the Third had
never produced any member who was so useful to the people as the
the Duke of Sussex, who, fur his fidelity to the cause of popular liberty,
was excluded for a long period from the favour of the Court. He
begged to propose " The rest of the Royal Family not resident in Eng-
land."—(Loud laughter, which lasted for several minutes.)
The CHAIRMAN—An Irishman has leave to speak twice.—(Laughter.)
I used the word " not" incorrectly, and mean to give the health of the
rest of the Royal Family resident in England.
The toast was then drunk amid loud cheers,
The CHAIRMAN then rose to propose the health of the Marquis of
Normanby, and said that so susceptible were Irish hearts, that the ever.
to-be.remembered name of Mulgrave could never be effaced by that of
Normanby. Indeed so firmly was he attached to the former, that he
wished it was made a Christian name in Ireland—(Hear, laughter, and
cheers).—that he could induce his fair countrywomen to christen their
children by that name.—(Loud cheers.) The mothers of the coming
generation each of them ought to have a son called Mulgrave.— (Loud
laughter.) The Chairman now called their attention to him on whom
all their hopes depended—(Loud cheers)—to him who, after a long ca.
reer in the service of his country—to whatever period of his career they
looked, even when he was maligned by foes, was O'Connell still.—
(Loud cheers.) The Chairman concluded by proposing the health of
Mr. O'Connell, and prayed that he might enjoy increase of rears and
continuance of vigour for his family and country's sake—and that when
his career was run, and his eternal happiness completed, should his de-
parted merit be permitted to find justice done him by his opponents and
posterity, they might know that the names of O'Connell and Ireland
were so interwoven, that they could not be separated.—(Vociferous

cheering.)
Mr. O'Coreeret then rose, and was prevented for some time from
proceeding by the continued cheering. He said, you suppose that I
have risen to make speech ; if you do, you are entirely mistaken. I
rise merely to ask you a question. Are we agreed ?—(Loud cries of
"We are ") I want to know whether we are agreed for action.—
(Hear.) Not the tumultuary violence or sanguinary action which the
traitors to public liberty and the false suggest—but that determined
action which has already brought you out of one struggle. This is no
ordinary occasion that we are met upon ; we are making Irish history
to-night.—(Cheers.) It was said by their malicious enemies that there
was something of a compromise—some sacrifice of the 40s. freeholders
—some abandonment of their political rights in achieving emancipation.
It was false. The sixty-three delegates—some of whom he saw around
him—called on the Briesh Parliament not to emancipate them at the
expense of the franchise from one single Irishman.—(Loud cheers.)
TheOentered into the temple of the Constitution erect and fearless,
with unstained banners and untarnished reputation.—(Cheers.) Yes,
England would never have got reform, if Ireland had not got
emancipation without a single crime— without a particle of
offence without the destruction of a particle of property.—
(Cheers.) They deserved well of the friends of civil and religious li-
berty. They might, perhaps, think that his blood, after 63 winters,
ought to flow coldly—perhaps his tongue might falter, but his heart
beat as lively, his blood throbbed as warmly and with as violent indig.
nation as in his earliest youth—(Cheers)—and not having much time
to spend, he wished to work every moment of it.—(Cheers,) He called
on them to remember that when they did triumph for civil liberty, the
base ungrateful Whigs bestowed a stinted and limited reform on them.
He charged the young blood of Ireland, by their allegiance to their
country, to remember that the first thing England did—the first thing
the Reformed Parliament did, was to fling the insulting chains of a Co-
ercion Bill on Ireland. Yes, let them note it down in their tablets
with a pen of adamant that on their souls was branded the name of
slave. The first requital that England made to Ireland for fighting the
battle of Reform was the horror of a Coercion Bill. Let them not talk
to him, then, of trying the Union—he hated the Union. He was work-
ing now an experiment, and he frankly told them the only thing that
consoled him was, that its effects would be to give him a
stronger argument for Repeal hereafter.—(Loud cheers.) From
this moment he devoted his life to repeal.—(Loud cheers.) Repealer
was his name. It should be his name while he lived, and, after ho died,
if he did not first address a Parliament in College.grecn, Repealer should
be on his tombstone.—(Cheering.) They might tell him that repeal
was an impossibility, but every difficulty was so to the timid, the cau-
tious, and exceedingly sensitive. There were no impossibilities for men
who were for the right, and who loved their country. Mr. O'Connell
then repeated his statement as to the defective franchise in Ireland, and
said, that if justice were not granted them, let it be in the filthy cellar
or hideous scaffold, he was still for repeal.—(Vociferous cheers.) He
stated that, in the next Parliament, Bills would be brought forward to
regulate the franchise and the registry. He would endeavour that
they should have a fixity of tenure and a certainty of holding, and
not be driven by Lortons and Oxmantowns to starvation, or
to the insane justice of revenge—it was, he would tell them,
his leading idea as to how this mischief would be remedied. They
had spoken of the Queen's representative, the Lord Lieutenant,
the Marquis of Normanby. He challenged him from that place. Oh,
he maintained that the late dastardly letter which appeared in the
Evening Mail was never the production of the Marquis of Normanby.
—(Cheers.) It was sent from the English Whigs as a memorial of
their weakness.—(Hear.) He would not submit to it —(Cheers.) If he
stood alone in the House of Commons, he would next Session move an
address for the removal of Lord Oxmantown.—(Loud cheers.) His
words would be few—he would say that Lord Oxmantown traduced the
honestest, most faithful, bravest people that ever yet were, and he
would appeal to English history for every word he said. When his
Lordship stood up to discover the murderer, it was only a pretence, it
was not a reality. If he wanted the murderer, there was not one man in
the King's County who was not ready to assist him.—( Hear.) Sure the
wretched being himself, during the three days that Lord Norbury sur.
s ived, he never asktel him if he saw the man. The Scotchman did
not see him; his back was turned; he met the people returning from
a funeral, with all its awful impressions of having left one of their
dead behind them—yet the Scotchinan did not ask help to find
out the murderer ; the track of the murderer was not the rough nailed
shoe of the peasant ; it was the neat and finished boot of some one who
never wore frieze stockings. Why did not Lord Oxmantown inquire
into these facts ? If his intention was to find out the murderer, he had
just done that which was most likely to prevent it. He had uttered one
of the most virulent audacious calumnies that had ever disgraced a
creature calling himself a man. He had the audacity to attack the
Catholic Clergy, and attribute to them the wholesale protection of mur.
derers.—(Shame, shame ) He ought to have remembered the whole-
sale murderers of his own family; and the Catholic Clergy were at that
minute making a most rigorous inquiry into the facts. He declared
that the speech of Lord Oxmantown, he being the Lord Lieutenant of
the county, was an offence committed by Lord Normanby, and by the
entire Cabinet, so long as they left Lord Oxmantown in his place. By
leaving him there they took part with him. They could have nothing
worse from the Tories than the calumny uttered by Lord Oxmantown.
It was an insult to Ireland, and he (Mr. O'Connell) for one, would not
bear it.—(Cheers) They might think him indiscreet and heated.—(No.)
Could any country ever deserve liberty that submitted to wilful insult?
—(Loud cheers.) What cared he for the phrases of Mr. Drummond?
Lord Oxmantown did not care for them. Mr. O'Connell then spoke on
the subject of corporate reform. Blessed be Heaven ! its fate was sealed.
There was no doubt of its death. Like a pig in killing, it might take a
great deal of dying.—(Laughter.) They were squeaking as a killing
pig did; but, at the end of their squeaking, they must meet with the
fate of the pig—die they must, and die they would.—(Vociferous laugh
ter.) The question was, what kind of an animal would they get in
place of the pig? Were they to get a real, proper, democratic corpo-
ration, in which all would, as they ought, participate ?—(Loud cheers.)
That was what he (Mr. O'Connell) was contending for; but the Re-
corder wanted an aristocratic corporation. He said he would have none
of the tradespeople in it.—(Hear, hear.) After some further remarks,
Mr. O'Connell continued to say that lie could not resume his seat with-
out again rejoicing in this assembly.—(Hear. hear.) He rejoiced, be.
cause a higher feeling congregated them together than mere kind-
ness to him. He felt it as a proof of their attacemeut to Ireland ;
for all the claim he had on them was only in his love to Ireland.—(Loud
cheers.) He said that they were making a part of Irish history. Such
an assembly was never assembled before; but he could not forget that
the Irish Press bad betrayed them.—(Loud clamour, cheers, and inter-
ruption.) On the present occasion they did not do their duty. Nothing
was owed to them. One and all neglected their duty, and it was found
now that they could be done without.—(Loud cheers and clamour.) All
his life he had been putting his hands in hornets' nests whenever he
thought it was necessary. He declared that he was not satisfied with the
Irish Press.—(Loud cheers.) It delighted him to sec that the spirit which
was abroad superseded the necessity of working any of the usual modes
of getting an assembly—there was no need of a preliminary boiling the
kettle.—(Loud cheers.) There was a spirit abroad, and he told them that
spirit would spread independently of them.—(Loud cheers.) They de-
served castigation, and he trusted that the castigation they got would
make them somewhat better to-morrow.
Mr. STAUNTON here rose, and attempted to make some observations,
which were inaudible. He was assailed with all sorts of cries—" Put
him out, the blackguard." " Who is he?" " How dare he get up ?"
Src, lie was at last obliged to resume his seat.
Mr. O'CoNenet, after silence was obtained, said, the next thing to
overthrowing an enemy is putting him in a passion ; it showed that he
was wrong; the present passion was a paltry passion. The Press were
the servants of the public; let them dare to omit to give this to the world
tomorrow; let them abuse him in all moods and tenses; let them bor-
row every sarcasm against him that the Orange Press had used, and
make of it as unsavoury an olio as they pleased.—(interruptions.) Mr.
O'Connell then touched on other topics, and concluded amid loud ap-
plause. It was not easy to hear his concluding observations from the
excitement which prevailed at the reporters' table. At the conclusion
of his speech the majority of the gentlemen connected with the Press
quitted the building amid the hootings and hisses of the company.
The health of the Chairman was drunk amidst loud expressions of
applause,