And yet these thousands honoured and revered the memory of the men
condemned in England as assassins, and ignominiously buried in
felons' graves.

This mighty demonstration--at once so unique, so solemn, so impressive,
so portentous--was an event which the rulers of Ireland felt to be of
critical importance. Following upon the Requiem Masses and the other
processions, it amounted to a great public verdict which changed beyond
all resistance the moral character of the Manchester trial and
execution. If the procession could only have been called a "Fenian"
demonstration, then indeed the government might hope to detract from its
significance and importance. The sympathy of "co-conspirators" with
fallen companions could not well be claimed as an index of general
_public opinion_. But here was a demonstration notoriously apart from
Fenianism, and it showed that a moral, a peaceable, a virtuous, a
religious people, moved by the most virtuous and religious instincts,
felt themselves coerced to execrate as a cowardly and revolting crime
the act of state policy consummated on the Manchester gibbet. In fine,
the country was up in moral revolt against a deed which the perpetrators
themselves already felt to be of evil character, and one which they
fain would blot for ever from public recollection.

What was to be done? For the next ensuing Sunday similar demonstrations
were announced in Killarney, Kilkenny, Drogheda, Ennis, Clonmel,
Queenstown, Youghal, and Fermoy--the preparations in the first named
town being under the direction of, and the procession about to be led
by, a member of parliament, one of the most distinguished and
influential of the Irish popular representatives--The O'Donoghue. What
was to be done? Obviously, as the men had been hanged, there could be no
halting halfway now. Having gone so far, the government seemed to feel
that it must need go the whole way, and choke off, at all hazards, these
inconvenient, these damnatory public protests. No man must be allowed to
speak the Unutterable Words, which, like the handwriting on the wall in
the banquetting hall of Belshazzar, seemed ever to be appearing before
the affrighted consciences of Ireland's rulers. Be it right or be it
wrong, be it justice or be it murder, the act must now be upheld--in
fact, must not be alluded to. There must be _silence_ by law, on what
had been done beneath the Manchester gallows-tree.

But here there presented itself a dif