Read Online Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution by Peter Fitzsimons - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Fitzsimons
Ads: Link
strikes the first blow for Ireland? Who draws first blood for Ireland? Who wins a wreath that will be green for ever?’
In the face of this passion made public – a very dangerous pursuit when being hanged for treason was a real possibility – Patrick Lalor’s relationship with his son became so strained that it was close to rupture. The father feared the consequence of his son’s revolutionary zeal.
Less than a week after publishing that last diatribe, brave Fintan Lalor was arrested and thrown into prison. His work, however, would go on. All over Ireland, others too had been rising.
In Tipperary, Irishmen of the Young Ireland movement had launched a nationalist revolt against English rule, standing their ground against British forces in nothing less than a cabbage patch, intent on declaring an independent Irish republic. True, the revolt had been crushed by the British forces and many of the local lads arrested, convicted and transported to Australia for sedition, but it was a start!
While the revolutionaries needed the Irish peasants to rise and join them in the revolt, the most urgent concern of the peasantry at this point was to simply feed themselves as the potato famine bit deeper and deeper, taking the lives of no fewer than one million Irish. For many, the only way out appeared to be to actually get out, sell their belongings for whatever they could and secure passage for themselves and their families on ships bound elsewhere – with the United States of America and Australia being favourites.
As to Fintan Lalor, though subsequently released from prison because he was so ill, he died not long afterwards and was buried an Irish hero. The famed Irish patriot Charles Gavan Duffy would describe him as ‘the most original and intense of all the men who have preached revolutionary politics in Ireland’.
Though the youngest Lalor had deeply admired his eldest brother’s political passion, 21-year-old Peter was a far quieter type of man. Educated at Dublin’s prestigious Trinity College (despite his Catholicism) where he studied hard to be a civil engineer – he really preferred building things to tearing them down – he had not the time, interest or disposition to become involved in the nuts and bolts, the cloak and dagger, the fire and brimstone needed to stoke a revolution. The last thing the Lalor family needed at this point was more trouble, and the quietly spoken Peter steered clear of it – well clear of it.
Like so many of his compatriots, Peter began to contemplate joining the millions of Irish who were leaving. In those new lands, there were apparently thousands of acres to spare, enough to build a whole new life upon, a place where a people could prosper.
———
In Italy, meanwhile, a close equivalent to the Young Ireland movement was La Giovine Italia – Young Italy – devoted to liberating the lands around Milan and Venice from the grip of the oppressive Austrian Empire so that a unified Italian republic could be formed.
In the latter part of the 1840s, the most legendary of the military leaders in this struggle was Giuseppe Garibaldi, who encouraged the people to rise and join him, before subsequently supporting, by force of arms, the Roman Republic.
One of his citizens-turned-soldier was a highly educated 32-year-old former seminarian by the name of Raffaello Carboni, hailing from the northern Italian town of Urbino. Physically, he was a small man, but some clues to his rather flamboyant passion for the cause at hand were provided by his flowing red hair and beard, the flashing quixotic look he had in his eyes and the fact that he generated such energy that he had a great deal of trouble keeping still. In times of peace, this energy led him to learn five languages and as many instruments, travel all over Europe, become an author, journalist and composer. In times of war, an activist on many political fronts, it led him to the battlefront under Garibaldi.
Where there was
In the face of this passion made public – a very dangerous pursuit when being hanged for treason was a real possibility – Patrick Lalor’s relationship with his son became so strained that it was close to rupture. The father feared the consequence of his son’s revolutionary zeal.
Less than a week after publishing that last diatribe, brave Fintan Lalor was arrested and thrown into prison. His work, however, would go on. All over Ireland, others too had been rising.
In Tipperary, Irishmen of the Young Ireland movement had launched a nationalist revolt against English rule, standing their ground against British forces in nothing less than a cabbage patch, intent on declaring an independent Irish republic. True, the revolt had been crushed by the British forces and many of the local lads arrested, convicted and transported to Australia for sedition, but it was a start!
While the revolutionaries needed the Irish peasants to rise and join them in the revolt, the most urgent concern of the peasantry at this point was to simply feed themselves as the potato famine bit deeper and deeper, taking the lives of no fewer than one million Irish. For many, the only way out appeared to be to actually get out, sell their belongings for whatever they could and secure passage for themselves and their families on ships bound elsewhere – with the United States of America and Australia being favourites.
As to Fintan Lalor, though subsequently released from prison because he was so ill, he died not long afterwards and was buried an Irish hero. The famed Irish patriot Charles Gavan Duffy would describe him as ‘the most original and intense of all the men who have preached revolutionary politics in Ireland’.
Though the youngest Lalor had deeply admired his eldest brother’s political passion, 21-year-old Peter was a far quieter type of man. Educated at Dublin’s prestigious Trinity College (despite his Catholicism) where he studied hard to be a civil engineer – he really preferred building things to tearing them down – he had not the time, interest or disposition to become involved in the nuts and bolts, the cloak and dagger, the fire and brimstone needed to stoke a revolution. The last thing the Lalor family needed at this point was more trouble, and the quietly spoken Peter steered clear of it – well clear of it.
Like so many of his compatriots, Peter began to contemplate joining the millions of Irish who were leaving. In those new lands, there were apparently thousands of acres to spare, enough to build a whole new life upon, a place where a people could prosper.
———
In Italy, meanwhile, a close equivalent to the Young Ireland movement was La Giovine Italia – Young Italy – devoted to liberating the lands around Milan and Venice from the grip of the oppressive Austrian Empire so that a unified Italian republic could be formed.
In the latter part of the 1840s, the most legendary of the military leaders in this struggle was Giuseppe Garibaldi, who encouraged the people to rise and join him, before subsequently supporting, by force of arms, the Roman Republic.
One of his citizens-turned-soldier was a highly educated 32-year-old former seminarian by the name of Raffaello Carboni, hailing from the northern Italian town of Urbino. Physically, he was a small man, but some clues to his rather flamboyant passion for the cause at hand were provided by his flowing red hair and beard, the flashing quixotic look he had in his eyes and the fact that he generated such energy that he had a great deal of trouble keeping still. In times of peace, this energy led him to learn five languages and as many instruments, travel all over Europe, become an author, journalist and composer. In times of war, an activist on many political fronts, it led him to the battlefront under Garibaldi.
Where there was
Similar Books
