The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1892-05-14
A NOTED PATRIOT.
A Very Remarkable Man Who Has
Rendered Eminent Services to
His Native Country.
SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY.
Founder of the Dublin Nation and
Associate of Davis, Meagher,
Dillon and Others.

Associate of Davis, Meagher,
Dillon and Others.
Charles Gavan Duffy was the son of a
revenue officer and was born in the
County Monaghan in 1916, one year after
the birth of Thomas Davis. The posi-
ton of Catholics in Ulster at that time
was worse even than in the other pro-
vinces of Ireland. The Orange lodges
among the nom Catholic peasaatry added
the insolenoe of low black guardism to
the tyranny of the landlord class which
was universal throughout Ireland. As
the Catholic peasantry were carefully
deprived of arms of any kind, while their
non-C Catholic neighbors were freely per-
mitted their use, it WAS the regular prac-
tics for the Orange professions on the
l2th Of July to march armed through
the country and riddle the windows of
she chapsls or Of the houses of we'll
known Catholics with bullets as proof
of their denomination. Regular battles
OF the sane class were not uncommon
when any resistance was made by the
sufferers or even out of mere wanton
brutality. The County Monaghan, as
having large Catholic majority in it's
population, was particularly subject to
these outragss. By She dominant aris-
tocracy 1t was regarded as kind of Dor
der land between tho counties in which
the Presbyterian colonists, introduced
by famed l., had taken root in the coun-
ty as farmers, and the Southern pro-
vinces where the peasantry were still al
most entirely CathoAic. Hence, the Mon
aghan Catholics were used as an example
to show their oo-religionists in Leinster
and Munster how completely their lives
and liberties were subject to the will of
the Protestant asoendancy. Amid such
scenes Duty's boyhood was passed, and
it tells volumes for the spirit of federation
in Irish Catholics that in after life even
while most fercely fighting the battles
of Irish nationality, no word Of bitter
ness towards his conntrymen or creeds
different from his own ever came from
his lips or pen.
Young Dutfy's educational advantages
were not equal to those of Davis or Dill
Ion. He got d fair common school edu-
cation in one of the few schools which
the Ulster Catholics had managed to
found after the relaxation of the penal
laws, but the poverty Of his fathers fam
lily obliged him early to earn his own liv-
ing. When yet under twenty he got an
engagement as writer on a Dublin
paper and soon made a name for himself
among his confreres. The Irish newspa-
pers of 60 years ago WAS very widely
different matter from the modern Ameri-
can journal. The telegraph did not yet
exist, and news from different parts of
ireland travelled slowly to the capital
by mail coach. The high price which
the stamp duty on all newspapers made
necessary country papers to be an OK
pensive luxury, and single paper often
sufficed for the wants of a whole village.
AS compensation, however, the style of
the editorial writing was much more
carefully looked after than in these days,
when Sunday paper contains as much
matter as a magazine, and dispatch in
turning out copy is the most valuable
qualification Of most writer's. Duffy dis
tinguished himself so we'll in his Dublin
work, that after very few years he was
offered the editorship Of national paper
that was started i'll Belfast, in aid,of Re-
peal. From Belfast he returned after
some time to take position on the Dub
lin journal, The Mountain, which O'Con
nell had started as Repeal organ. The
Mountain like the Evening Post, another
organ of the Liberator, was not COM
plete success, and has long passed out of
existence.
Young Duffy felt that a departure
from the usual routine of Irish journal
ism was called for by the changes of the
times, and joined warmly in the plan of
Davis and Dillon for starting the s'Na-
tion" which was not merely new journal,
but a type of journalism that was new.
both in Ireland and elsewhere It COM
bined the functions Of gathering news
with those of awakening the Irish people
to their own intellectual strength, as
O'Connel had already shown them by
his meetings the power that resided in
their numbers. Davis awakened the
spirit Of the young men Of the day with
1his stirring songs and no less stirring
prose. essays, and = host fesponded TO his
call tor intel elleotnal help ID the struggle
5for self goyernn ont that was then going