all things in the world was talk; and he talked admirably – not least because he chose to express himself in what he used to call “my broadest Doric” – whether he was strolling with a single companion through the rough moorland region behind Spiddal or was the life and soul of the company at a country house party or a London dinner. His humour was of a far higher quality than the fine-drawn subtleties of the professional wit. It was always rooted in a sturdy and fearless common sense. It may perhaps be said that in politics Lord Morris was a pessimist, like so many other brilliant humourists. He had not, at any rate, a very high opinion of either the intelligence or the straightforwardness of politicians. His reply to some one who asked him, somewhat inaptly, to explain “the Irish question” in a few words is well known. “It is the difficulty,” he said, “of a stupid and honest people trying to govern a quickwitted and dishonest one.” Yet he was by no means of opinion that the government of Ireland was impracticable, though he was full of scorn for the incurable optimism which professed to believe that Irish separatism would be weakened rather than strengthened by the extension of the franchise and, at a later date, the introduction of local government of the broadest democratic kind in Ireland. How the loyal minority could hope to win in an electoral fight he could not understand. “If it was to be fought out with fists,” he said, “I could understand it, but at the ballot-box, when the rebel party are ten to one, don’t ask me to believe that we can beat them.” When a distinguished Radical, begged to be informed how long the struggle against the law in Ireland would be maintained, after “resolute government” had been really instituted, Lord Morris’s answer was “one hour!” If the prediction has not been realized, it is because the condition precedent has never been fulfilled.
A whole chapter of legend has grown up about Lord Morris’s name and his reputation as a wit. Countless stories are told of his sharp sayings, some of them authentic and most of them characteristic. Perhaps none are more striking than some of the utterances attributed to him when he sat on the Bench in Ireland. During the earlier developments of Fenianism some Irish Judges expended a vast amount of rhetorical indignation on the puny traitors of that day. Morris dealt with them in a different fashion. He wasted no words upon them, but dismissed their futile folly with a moderate sentence and with cutting contempt. In a case where some young farmer’s sons were tried on a charge of illegal drilling and carrying arms by night, Morris said:- “There you go on with your marching and counter-marching, making fools of yourselves, when you ought to be out in the fields, turning dung.” On another occasion, when an eloquent advocate had extenuated some criminal act on the ground that “the people” were in sympathy with the offenders, the Chief Justice remarked, “I never knew a small town in Ireland that hadn’t a black-guard in it who called himself ‘the people.’” Of trial by jury in the sister island he had no very high opinion. “In the West,” he said, “the Court is generally packed with people whose names all begin with one letter, Michael Morris on the Bench, ten men of the name of Murphy and two men of the name of Moriarty in the jury-box, and two other Moriartys in the dock, and the two Moriartys on the jury going in fear of their lives of the ten Murphys if they don’t find against their own friends.”
As Chief Justice he had a high regard for the dignity and independence of his own Court, and especially resented any claim on the part of the Treasury to interfere. Once, it is said, a most distinguished official was sent over from Whitehall to Dublin, after a long correspondence on the side of the Department about the expenditure of fuel in the Courtrooms and Judge’s chamber, to obtain the answer that the vigilant guardians of the public purse had failed to extract in writing. He was received politely by the Chief Justice, who said that he would put him in communication with the proper person; and, ringing the bell, which was answered by the elderly female who acted as Court-keeper, he remarked, as he turned on his heel and left the room, “Mary, this is the man that’s come about the coals.” Shortly after the Land Act of 1881 became law a very important case was carried to the Court of Appeal, of which Morris, as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, was an ex officio member. Morris was not summoned, and, meeting the Lord Chancellor in the street, he expressed his surprise. The Chancellor, with some embarrassment, explained that he had not wished to put the Chief Justice to inconvenience, that he had summoned a sufficient number of Judges to constitute the tribunal, and that, in fact, there were not chairs enough on the bench of the Court of Appeal to accommodate any more. “Oh!” (said Morris, according to this story). “That need make no difference. I’ll bring my own chair out of my own Court, and I’ll form my own opinion and deliver my own judgment, Lord Chancellor!” In the early days of the Home Rule policy the Chief Justice, it is said, was a guest at a great official banquet in Dublin, where a lady of high position, full of enthusiasm for Mr Gladstone’s latest transmigration, asked him whether the great majority of those present were not ardent Home Rulers. “Indeed, Lady,” said Morris, “I suppose that, with the exception of his Excellency and yourself, and, perhaps, half a dozen of the servants, there aren’t three in the room!”
Lord Morris and Killanin married, in 1860, Anna, daughter of the Hon. G. H. Hughes, Baron of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland. By her he had four sons and six daughters. The eldest son, Martin Henry FitzPatrick, a graduate of the University of Dublin, a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, succeeds, on his father’s death, to the Barony of Killanin and to the baronetcy. The life peerage of Lord Morris of Spiddal ceases, of course, to exist.
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23 JULY 1902
DR THOMAS WILLIAM CROKE, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cashel and Emly – perhaps the most remarkable Irish ecclesiastic since the death of Cardinal Cullen, though there was little in common between the two men – was born close to the town of Mallow, county Cork, on May 19, 1824. His people were well-to-do farmers. Though his mother was a Protestant, he was destined from an early age by his uncle, who took charge of his education, for the priesthood. He was never in Maynooth, the great training college of the Irish priesthood, but spent ten years in colleges on the Continent established during the operation of the Penal Laws for the education of priests intended for the mission in Ireland and Great Britain. At the age of 14, he entered the Irish College in Paris, and spent six years there; another year was passed in a college in Menin, in Belgium, and after an additional three years in the Irish College in Rome he obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and was ordained priest in 1848. Then for brief periods he was Professor in the Diocesan College, Carlow, and in the Irish College, Paris, after which he returned to his native diocese of Cloyne, Cork, as a missionary priest. In 1858 he was appointed president of St Colman’s College, Fermoy; after seven years he returned to the mission as parish priest of Doneraile. In 1870, when he was 45 years of age, he was appointed by the Pope, on the nomination of Cardinal Cullen, to the bishopric of Auckland, New Zealand. In 1875 the bishopric of Cashel and Emly became vacant. The parish priests of the see met, as usual, to propose three names – dignissimus, dignior, dignus – from whom the Pope was to select the Archbishop. But on the recommendation of Cardinal Cullen the three names were set aside by the Holy See, and Dr Croke was recalled from New Zealand to take charge of the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. He was received with extreme coldness by the priests; but a patriotic oration he delivered at the O’Connell Centenary in August, 1875, made him extremely popular. He was thence known as “the patriot Archbishop.”
In the early fifties, while he was a curate in the diocese of Cloyne, Dr Croke took an active part in the land agitation for “the three F’s” – fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale – conducted by Gavan Duffy. The movement did not long survive. It was deserted by most of those who had created it. Gavan Duffy, describing Ireland as like “a corpse on the dissecting table,” resigned his seat in Parliament and emigrated to Victoria. Before his departure Dr Croke wrote him a letter, which thus concluded:- “For myself I have determined never to join any Irish agitation, never to sign any petition to Government, and never to trust to any one man or body of men, living in my time, for the recovery of Ireland’s independence. All hope with me in Irish affairs is dead and buried. I have ever esteemed you at once the honestest and most gifted of my country-men and your departure from Ireland leaves me no hope.” In 1879, clean on a quarter of a century after that despairing letter had been written, Mr Parnell went down to the