"A nation of abortive men
Who shoot the tongue and wield the pen,"

seemed to have grown a reality. Young Ireland evoked the fighting
tradition of the nation once again. Without 1848 the spirit that freed
the Irish Catholic from being tributary to another Church and regained
the land for the farmers would have slept for a century--perhaps for
ever.

Driven from his country, Doheny with the companion of his fugitive
wanderings, James Stephens, and the chivalrous O'Mahony, founded the
Fenian brotherhood in the United States. Once more before his sudden
death in April, 1862, he saw Ireland--on the occasion of the MacManus
Funeral.

Let me, said a wise man, always be surrounded by men of sanguine
temperament. Defeat and exile could not dim the faith of Doheny in his
country. The fugitive who had wrecked his fortunes in Ireland's cause
and witnessed a failure which English statesmen believed ended for ever
the dream of Irish independent nationhood, set his foot in exile only to
begin anew to plan Ireland Independent. So long as the sanguine heart
that carried Michael Doheny undaunted along the Felon's Track beats in
the breast of his country the Irish Nation will be indestructible.

ARTHUR GRIFFITH.




_This Edition is reprinted from the Original Edition published in New