The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1893-09-09
GRATTAN'S GRAVE
Side by Side With the Enemies of
His Country Sleeps Henry
Grattan,
THE NOBLE IRISH PATRIOT.

Moyanna Churchyard His Choice,
Westminster Abbey His Rest
ing Place.
What strange chance of fate it is
that the three greatest actors in the
drama Of the union should be inferred
together in corner of Westminster Alb
bey! Grartan, who endowed Ireland in
1852 with legislative independence; Pitt,
who conceived the plot to deprive Ire
land Of this dowry; and Castlereagh, who
carried it out ''by perjury and fraud"
sleep, side by side, in the "statesman's 8
aisle,' says writer in the London Daily
Chronicle.
"A few feet of sulen earth divide each winding
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave
that bushes all!''
f'The statesman's aisle'-so called be-
cause the monuments here are, with very
few exceptions, erected to political lead
tsrs--is the north transept Of the abbey.
The door Immediately leading to it from
Palace square, close to St. Margaret's
church, is, though not the chief entrance
to the abbey, more popularly used as a
means for entrance to and exit from the
building. wonder how many of the
thousands who, in this holiday season,
dali, visit the abbey, know that, imme-
<!iately they get inside the swing doors,
they are treading on the graves of the
three men whose names are most inti-
mately associated with the union. Ger
tainly in she transept itself there is moth
ZIG TO DIRECT the attention of the visitors
0 the fact but line in an inscription on
one Of the monuments:
Ireland sill never forget the statesman of the
legislative union"
On tho pedestal which contains this
inscription is statue 'erected to the
namory of Robert second Marquis of
Londonderry and Visceu unit Castlereagh,
X Co. which forclbly reminds one of
Lord Byrcn's fierce lines on Carotid
artery cutting Castlereagh," opening
with the ap strophe: "Cold-blooded,
smooth-laced, placid miscreantr' There
ars no memorials to indicate that Pitt
and Grattan are also buried beneath
these aagstones. Pitt, it is true, has the
iaborate monument by Westmacott,
over the great western door of the abbey,
but the only memorial to Grattan is the
plain stone which marks his grave.
The first of the three to be laid to rest
in the statesman g aisle was William Pitt.
He died at Putney on Jan. %, 1906, but
was not inferred till Saturday, Feb. Is.
On the Wednesday night previous the
remains were removed privately from
Putney to Westminster Palace, and lay
in state il The painted chamber of the
House ct Lords during Thursday and
Friday. Tie walls of the lofty apartment
wers covered from ceiling to floor with
black cloth. In the centre of the room,
under canopy eighteen feet high, was
the catafalque, festooned with sombre
arayeries and lit by 100 wax lights in
silver -branched candelabra. Watch was
kept by six mutes. The public were ad-
mitted to the chamber on Thursday and
Friday from 10 to 8 o'clock, and it is es-
timated that over 10000 persons visited
it each day. The funeral on the Satur-
day was simple in it's character,
Fourteen years later, in 1920, Henry
Grattan was inferred within few feet
of Pitts grave. 1t does, indeed, cause a
shock to the home loving instincts of the
Irish race to think that England, and not
ireland, holds the ashes Of the patriot
who crowned Ireland, after six centuries
of bondage, with the laurels of indepen-
dence (thongh brief, alas! was the time
they Aourished), and the orator who had
proclaimed her rights and denounced
her wrongs with an impassioned elo-
quence the like of which has rarely
thrilled the world. Over and over again
toward the end of his life Grattan ex-
pressed desire to be buried on the es-
tate at Moyanna, Queens county, which
was presented to him in 1882, the year of
independence, by q grateful people. This
wish he repeated to his doctor before set
ting out, in May, 1920, from Ireland to
London-a journey which, with true
presentiment, he felt would be his last
to appeal to the imperial Parliament, as
the representative Of Dublin, with his
dying breath for Catholic emancipation,
and this wish he reiterated again and
again on his death-bed. Remember" !"
said he, to DR.. Derrick, in Ireland, II de-
sire 90 be buried in the churchyard at
Moyanna. !" On arrival in London, and
as he lay dying at Baker street, he again
said: 20 my person. I wish to be
laid IA Moyanna. q would rather be