The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1892-08-06


humble services that / make mention OF
il, but solely to solicit your interest and
to make myself at home for the moment
with you, if may. For two and half
years OF desperate war it was my priv
lege to serve as the adjutant general OF
that army corps, designated as second
ia the armies of the United States,
which comprised both Of two distinc-
lively and exclusively Irish brigades :
[applause] which were formed for the
maintenance of the unity Of the Ameri-
can nation-the brigade of theimpnlsive.
eloquent, picturesque Thomas Francis
Meagher, and that of the severe, indoml-
table Michael Corcoran.
During all that time I wore upon my
breast, as the official cognizance of my
corps, the shamrock Of Ireland. APP
plause.] In those two aid half years
what prodigies of valor we're Witnessed
on the part of those heroic regiments!
Even their very numbers were the best
known in the military history OF Ireland.
Had we not our own Sixty-ninth, our
own Eighty-eighth regiments, in which
every man was an Irishman, from the
colonel to the youngest drummer boy?
Never while memory holds her seat shall
] forget the ringing cheer with which,
on the field of fredericksburg, the bri-
gade OF Meagher, every man with sprig
of green in his cap, the green flag of Ire
land waving side by side with the stars
and stripes-[applausel swept over the
low crest which had sheltered it IN its
formation, and charged forward over q
plain swept from end to end by direct
and ent1lading fires, UP against the
sunken road and the stone fence held by
four ranks OF veteran rihemen, the flower
of the superb southern chivalry. Cen
tlemen, you doubtless know by heart
the story of Irish valor as illustrated In
India, on the Flemish frontier, in the
Crimea, and on hundred battlefelds.
But fear you know little Of what your
countrymen did to maintain the inte-
gritty Of the great nation of the west and
to rescue the cause of human liberty
from one Of the direst perils it has ever
encountered.
Glad am /, after carrying these men,
cries in my heart for nearly thirty years,
to tell this brief story for the first time
to an audience OF Irishmen in Ireland.
But, gentlemen, what Irishnen have
done for America in arms-splendid and
honorable as that has been-is yet little
in comparison with what Irishmen in
America have done for the upholding OF
great free states, magnificent in their
present wealth and strength, and with
possibilities OF greatness and glory for
tue future which transcends magma
tion. The boundless energy, the sp'en-
did enthusiasm, the daring enterprise OF
freshmen have largely contributed to
snable us to conqner the wilderness, to
raise mighty cities out of the doze OF in
land seas and to carry the banner Of
civilization forward agaist savage nature
and savage man. .
If the American people have pressed
their frontier 1000 miles in length, for
ward and westward, by so much as two
and even three degrees of longitude in a
single decade; in so brief a space occu-
plying for the first time a territory as
large as Sweden, with all its barren
mountains-as large, even, as the great
historic kingdom of Spain-it has, in no
small measure, been due to the courage,
the exuberant energy, the unfaltering
faith of American Irishmen seeking in
the New World opportunities and privi-
leges which had not been accorded them
in the old. know it is not unusual in
academic circles to disparage, if not to
despise, the triumphs of material power,
even in useful and beneticent avocations;
but You will, perhaps, excuse a profession
al economist and statistician for think
ing that there are few things in science
or art finer or grander than this building
up of great nation in the wilderness;
and in that gigantic achievement, gen.
tlemen Of the Dublin University, your
countrymen have borne an always con-
spicuous part.
How to Hear.