The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-01-27
AN IRISH PATRIOTS WIDOW.
R. P. o'Brien Writes Beautifully of
the Late Mrs. John Mitchell.
anaconda Standard. Jan. 20

(AnacOnda standard, Jan. y.
The news has just reached Irishmer
in Anaconda that Jane Werner Mitchell
widow of John Mitchell, the famous
Irish patriot, having survived her hero.
ic and gifted husband twenty-five
years, had. on Sunday last, in her S0tt
year, gone to rejoin him in the land OF
shadows.
John Mitchell was born in Dungiven
/ County Derry, Ireland, Nov. 8, 1915
He was educated in Trinity College
Dublin, where ne was highly dlstin-
guished for his classical learning, and
where he graduated with high honors
in 1886
OF all that gifted band of scholarly
patriots who strove by fiery prose- i'm
FASHIONED eROquence and ecStatic song,
to rouse the minds of their downtrod-
den countrymen to the supreme duty
of resisting the DISCRIMINATING policy
of England in the dark and cruel days
Immediately preceding 1S4S, John
Mitchell was the most uncompromisIng
and, because of his brilliant literary
attachments, the most formidable
OF all Irish prose writers, John
Mitchell was, Swift only excepted, the
strongest and most virile, There are
passages in his Jail Journal which,
in picturesqueness of imagery and
varied beauty of diction, have never
been surpassed and but rarely equaled
in the whole range of English litera-
ture.
His attacks in the United Irishman,
of which he was the editor, upon Eng
lish disagreement of Ireland were so
scathing and damaging in their effect
that the Cabinet was forced to resort
to unconstitutional measures to sweep
so dangerous an enemy from its path
and Mitchell was arrested and tried I'M
der the treason felony act" convicted
by a packed jury ard sentenced to
fourteen years transpor cation. His
plant was seized and Confiscated and
his wife and family deprived of their
only support.
In his magnificent speech, "On the
Transportation of Mitchell Meagher
spoke of the sad event as follows:
There is a black ship upon the
southern sea this night. Far from his
own old land-far from the sea and
soil and sky which, standing here, he
used to claim for you with all the pride
of a true Irish prince-far from that
young wife, in whose heart the kind
hand Of heaven has kindled a gentle
herOism, sustained by which she looks
with serenity and pride upon her Wild
owed house, and in the children that
girdle her with beauty beholds but the
nherftors of a name which. to their
asst breath. will secure to them the
owe, the honor, the blessing of their !
country = far from these scenes and
oys, clothed and fettered as a felon, /
lie is borne to an island wherein the I
'ich and brilliant rapacious power of |
which he was the foe has doomed him |
o a dark existence.
Mrs. Mitchell was sister of John /
Martin, another famous patriot of the /
As period She joined her husband in !
lis exile in Tasmania, and when he /
Effected his escape came with him to !
he United States, stayed with him |
Turing his sojourn here and returned /
With him to Ireland when he was
elected Member of Parliament for the
ounty Of Tipperary.
A lady of wide and varied culture.
1rs. Mitchell was while she lived. the
olace and comfort of her prosecuted
and cold and callous must be
hat Irish heart that will not throb
With sorrow at the tidirgs that the
aithful and idolized wife of John
litchel is no more,
r. p. O'BRIEN.