Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry | Page 3

Ireland were to be permanently
segregated from childhood to manhood in different schools, different
universities, where early friendships, the most intimate and familiar of

any, could never be made, and ideas never interchanged except through
public controversy, the barrier between the two Irish races would be
infinitely difficult to break down, and no scheme of Irish government
could be conceived which would not seem like a triumph to one of
them and bondage to the other. The views of the Young Irelanders did
not prevail, and Ireland as a nation has paid the penalty for two
generations, and will probably pay it for many a day to come. It may,
of course, be argued that religious interests are paramount, and that
these are incompatible with a scheme of mixed education. This is not
the place to debate such a question, nor can anyone quarrel with a
decision arrived at on such grounds. But let it be arrived at with a clear
understanding of the certain consequences, and let it be admitted that
when Davis saw the wreck of the scheme for united education he felt
truly that a long and perhaps, for many generations, irretrievable step
was being taken away from the road to nationhood.
But after this despondent reflection, let us cheer ourselves by setting
the proud and moving words with which Duffy concludes his account
of the transactions in the _Life of Davis_:--
"I have not tacked to any transaction in this narrative the moral which it
suggests; the thoughtful reader prefers to draw his own conclusions.
But for once I ask those to whom this book is dedicated to note the
conduct of Catholic young men in a mortal contest. The hereditary
leader of the people, sure to be backed by the whole force of the
unreflecting masses, and supported on this occasion by the bulk of the
national clergy--a man of genius, an historic man wielding an authority
made august by a life's services, a solemn moral authority with which it
is ridiculous to compare the purely political influence of anyone who
has succeeded him as a tribune of the people--was against Thomas
Davis, and able, no one doubted, to overwhelm him and his
sympathisers in political ruin. A public career might be closed for all of
us; our journal might be extinguished; we were already denounced as
intriguers and infidels; it was quite certain that, by-and-by, we would
be described as hirelings of the Castle. But Davis was right; and of all
his associates, not one man flinched from his side--not one man. A
crisis bringing character to a sharper test has never arisen in our history,

nor can ever arise; and the conduct of these men, it seems to me, is
some guarantee how their successors would act in any similar
emergency."
The year 1845 was loaded with disaster for Ireland. It saw the defeat of
the Education scheme; it saw the advancing shadow of the awful
calamity in which the Repeal movement, the Young Irelanders, and
everything of hope and promise that lived and moved in Ireland were to
perish--and it saw the death of Thomas Davis.
He had had an attack of scarlet fever, from which he seemed to be
recovering, but a relapse took place--owing, perhaps, to incautious
exposure before his strength had returned--and, in the early dawn of
September 15th, he passed away in his mother's house. The years of his
life were thirty-one; his public life had lasted but for three. His funeral
was marked by an extraordinary outburst of grief and affection, which
was shared by men of all creeds, all classes, all political camps in
Ireland.
No mourning, indeed, could be too deep for the withdrawal at such a
moment of such a leader from the task to which he had consecrated his
life. That task was far more than the winning of political independence
for his country. Davis united in himself, in a degree which has never
been known before or since, the spirit of two great originators in Irish
history--the spirit of Swift and the spirit of Berkeley--of Swift, the
champion of his country against foreign oppression; of Berkeley, who
bade her turn her thoughts inward, who summoned her to cultivate the
faculties and use the liberties she already possessed for the
development of her resources and the strengthening of her national
character. Davis's best and most original work was educative rather
than aggressive. He often wrote, as Duffy says, "in a tone of strict and
haughty discipline designed to make the people fit to use and fit to
enjoy liberty." No one recognised more fully than he the regenerative
value of political forms, but his ideal was never that of a millennium to
be won by Act of Parliament--he was ever on the watch for some