RICHARD SHEIL

ICHARD LALOR SHEIL was born in 1791 at Drumdowney, Tipperary.

RICHARD

He was taught French and Latin by a French refugee priest, and was afterward sent to Kensington House School, London, which was presided over by the Prince de Broglie. In 1804 he was removed to the Jesuit College at Stonyhurst, Lancashire, and three years later entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his B. A. degree in 1811. In the same year he entered Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Irish bar in 1814. While awaiting clients he supported himself by writing plays. One of his pieces, "Adelaide, or the Emigrants, was produced at Dublin, in 1814, with complete success, and two years later was performed in London at Covent Garden. “The Apostate,” brought out at the latter theatre in 1817, established Sheil's reputation, and encouraged him to pursue the vocation of a dramatist until his legal and political duties absorbed his time. His principal other plays were “Bellamira,” "Evadne," "Huguenot," and "Montini." Along with O'Connell he was the principal leader of the agitation persistently carried on until Catholic emancipation was granted in 1829. In the same year he was returned to the House of Commons, and thereafter took a conspicuous part in all the debates relating to Ireland. His brilliant eloquence captivated the admiration of the House. In August, 1839, he became Vice-President of the Board of Trade in Lord Melbourne's administration, and, after the accession of Lord John Russell to power, in 1846, he was made Master of the Mint. In 1850 he was appointed Minister at the Court of Tuscany. He died at Florence in the following year.

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IN DEFENCE OF IRISH CATHOLICS

FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN 1828

ALUMNIATORS of Catholicism, have you read the history of your country? Of the charges against the religion of Ireland, the annals of England afford the confutation. The body of your common law was given by the Catholic Alfred. He gave you your judges, your magistrates, your high sheriffs, your courts (428)

of justice, your elective system, and, the great bulwark of your liberties, the trial by jury. Who conferred upon the people the right of self-taxation, and fixed, if he did not create, their representation? The Catholic Edward I.; while, in the reign of Edward III., perfection was given to the representative system, parliaments were annually 'called, and the statute against constructive treason was enacted. It is false-foully, infamously false-that the Catholic religion, the religion of your forefathers, the religion of seven millions of your fellow-subjects, has been the auxiliary of debasement, and that to its influence the suppression of British freedom can, in a single instance, be referred. I am loth to say that which can give you cause to take offence; but, when the faith of my country is made the object of imputation, I cannot belp, I cannot refrain, from breaking into a retaliatory interrogation, and from asking whether the overthrow of the old religion of England was not effected by a tyrant, with a hand of iron and a heart of stone-whether Henry did not trample upon freedom, while upon Catholicism he set his foot; and whether Elizabeth herself, the virgin of the Reformation, did not inherit her despotism with her creed; whether in her reign the most barbarous atrocities were not committed -whether torture, in violation of the Catholic common law of England, was not politically inflicted, and with the shrieks of agony the Towers of Julius, in the dead of night, did not reëcho.

You may suggest to me that in the larger portion of Catholic Europe freedom does not exist; but you should bear in mind that, at a period when the Catholic religion was in its most palmy state, freedom flourished in the countries in which it is now extinct. False I repeat it,

with all the vehemence of indignant asseveration-utterly false is the charge habitually preferred against the religion which Englishmen have laden with penalties and have marked with degradation. I can bear with any other charge but this to any other charge I can listen with endurance. Tell me that I prostrate myself before a sculptured marble; tell me that to a canvas glowing with the imagery of heaven I bend my knee; tell me that my faith is my perdition-and, as you traverse the churchyards in which your forefathers are buried, pronounce upon those who have lain there for many hundred years a fearful and appalling sentence-yes, call what I regard as the truth, not only an error, but a sin, to which mercy shall not be extended—all this I will bear to all this I will submitnay, at all this I will but smile-but do not tell me that I am in heart and creed a slave!-That, my countrymen cannot brook! In their own bosoms they carry the high consciousness that never was imputation more foully false, or more detestably calumnious!