YOUNG IRELAND: A Fragment of Irish History. 1840-1850. BY SIR CHARLES GAVAN DUFFY, K.C.M.G. University of CASSELL, PETTER, GALPIN & CO. LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK. 1880. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] PREFACE. I HAVE written this book in the intervals of a busy life, because I believed it was the best and last service I could render to Ireland. It contains a memoir of the public affairs of that country during a period of abnormal political activity; a period to which may be traced, as to their fountain-head, many of the opinions now universally current among the Irish people. My first aim was to make a new generation familiar with the truthfulness, simplicity, and real moderation of the men with whom, it was said, "a new soul came into Ireland." The Young Ireland party, as their enemies in the first instance named them, and as they came in the end to name themselves, after having been long misrepresented, have in latter times been vindicated and applauded more than enough, but they have never I think been understood. What they aimed to do, and what they accomplished; their actual motives and their means of action, as disclosed in their private correspondence, and interpreted by one who shared their counsels, are set down in this book for the first time; and will be found I think worthy of study by statesmen and publicists accustomed to meditate on the affairs of Ireland. Another aim, if I may venture to say so, was to appeal to the conscience of the best class of Englishmen. If they should think proper to study, with reasonable pains, the brief period embraced in this narrative, they will have no difficulty, I am persuaded, in understanding a problem which has sometimes perplexed them -why Irishmen not deficient in public spirit or probity were |