CHAPTER IV.

O'CONNELL IN LIVERPOOL--TERENCE BELLEW MACMANUS AND THE REPEAL HALL--THE
GREAT IRISH FAMINE.


O'Connell, when passing through Liverpool on his way to Parliament,
always made the Adelphi Hotel his headquarters, and used to hear Mass
not far off at the Church of St. Nicholas, or, as it was more generally
called, "Copperas Hill Chapel," where I used to serve as an altar boy. I
must have been a very small boy at the time when I first remember the
Liberator coming to Mass at our Church, for, on one occasion, on
stretching up to the altar to remove the Missal it was so difficult for
me to reach that I let it fall over my head.

Without being by any means what is termed a "votheen," O'Connell was a
faithful and devout son of the Catholic Church. During the many years
when he was passing through Liverpool, going to and returning from
Parliament, and on other occasions when he came to Irish gatherings in
the town, he attended Mass daily whenever possible, and frequently
approached Holy Communion.

O'Connell spoke several times from the balcony of the Adelphi Hotel.
From my earliest days I was an earnest politician, and one of my most
cherished remembrances is of having been brought by my father to one of
these gatherings. The Liberator addressed a great multitude, who filled