A Wreath - John Mitchel : Born 3rd November 1815

I think this guy quite liked John Mitchel!

Frontier Sentinel 6/11/1915

It is by no means a worthy tribute but as it is the only one from Newry, I lay it with some feeling of personal satisfaction on the tomb of John Mitchel, who first saw the light at Dungiven in Derry, one hundred years ago last Wednesday. No grander life was ever consecrated to the service of Ireland; No more heroic figure ever rose from out of the darkness of slavery to strike the irons from the limbs of his motherland, no memory is more inspiring than his.

I think of him as a boy roaming the beautiful hills that surround the Frontier Town, and moulding his character in accordance with the sublime lessons of untrammelled Nature as a trenchant writer in the columns of the “Nation” and the “United Irishman,” as a defiant and scornful “felon” in the dock at Green Street Courthouse, where Robert Emmet was sentenced forty-two years before; as a convict beyond the seas, and as a man breathing forth his soul at Dromalane with the fire of Nationality still burning within him.

John Mitchel is not dead in the true sense: he lives after death as only a great patriot can live. I am one of those who wish to keep his companionship and follow his leadership all the days of my life, not apologising for anything he did, but breathing a perpetual “Amen” to the great evangel he preached.

My hastily woven wreath may have it’s poor merit somewhat enhanced if I add to it a few flowers culled from the garden of Francis Thompson:-

They that mis-said,

This man yet living, praise him dead,

And I-too praise, yet not the baser things

Wherewith the market and the tavern rings.

Not that high things for gold.

He held, were bought and sold.

That statecraft’s means approved are by the end;

Not for all which commands

The loud world’s clapping hands.

To which cheap press and cheaper patriots bend,

But for all the dreams,

For those impossible gleams

He half made possible; for that he was Visioner of vision in a most sordid day.

This draws

Back to me song long alien and astray.

“SLIABH GULLION”