Pat They Both fled to Paris.
cratic days of the colony the Irish Catholics were fortunate in having a valiant defender on the judicial bench in the person of Sir Roger Therry, whose vigorous addresses and well-reasoned pamphlets did much to stem the tide of intolerance that at one time threatened to flood the country. For kindred services to the faith of his fathers in subsequent days, Sir Patrick Jennings, the Prime Minister of New South Wales last year, was highly honored by the late Sovereign Pontiff. Besides being in the front rank of the politicians of the parent Australian colony, Sir Patrick continues to sturdily champion the interests of Catholicity, when assailed from time to time for political or party purposes. At the present time (April, 1887) he is attending the Imperial Conference in London as the representative delegate of the senior colony of Australasia.
Queensland, though the youngest of" the colonies, is not without its roll of distinguished Irishmen. At the head of its list of honor stands the valued name of the Hon. Kevin Izod O'Doherty, M.D. The doctor's first exile to Australia, as most people know, was the reverse of voluntary, for he was sent out by the British Government in a convict ship, in company with honest John Martin, under a sentence of ten years' transportation for his connection with the events of '48. The year 1854 brought a conditional pardon to such of the Irish exiles as had not escaped to the " land of the free and the home of the brave." Liberty was given them to reside anywhere " out of the United Kingdom." Dr. O'Doherty then took up his residence in Paris, and very justifiably ignored the condition attached to the Queen's pardon, in snatching a stolen visit to his native city of Dublin, and returning to the continent with a faithful and gifted bride-" Eva," the poetess of the Nation-who had promised the young medical student
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when he was going into captivity, that she would wait for him, and who had devotedly kept her word. Two years later the pardon was made wholly unconditional, and Dr O'Doherty, after spending some time in Ireland, resolved to establish his home in the new colony of Queensland, which had just been called into existence. Brisbane, the capital of the infant state, presented him with a seat in the Legislative Assembly, where for years he showed in a marked manner the innate capacity of the Irishman to work with perfect harmony a complete system of local self-government in a mixed community. The doctor has himself given an interesting and humorous account of his first entry into colonial political life. " When I had been only a short time in the colony, and before I had connected myself in any way with public affairs, I was bodily laid hold of and forced into public life, simply because I was known as an Irish exile. I warned my friends who had invited me to take part in public affairs that I was no orator, and that all I could do was to give them an honest vote, but they replied that that was all they wanted, an honest vote being a great deal better than a glib tongue with no honesty in it. A stalwart Irish Orangeman went round and got signatures to the requisition inviting me to stand, and another Protestant, a wealthy native of the colony, insisted on proposing my election, not only on that, but on every subsequent occasion, during the six years that I represented the constituency of Brisbane. It must not, however, be imagined that all the Orangemen in the colony were like my friend. I had rather a comical experience to the contrary. On the day of the first election, before the result of the poll was declared, I had to attend a meeting at some distance from Brisbane, and on my way back that night, meeting on the road a car coming from the
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town, I shouted to one of the occupants, ' Pray tell me how the election has gone on ?' 'Oh,' said the person addressed, with a fine North of Ireland brogue, 'bad enough. That b--y Papist, O'Doherty, has got in.' This story, however, would not be complete if I did not add that this same man, black Northern as he was, voted for me at the next election, and, moreover, became a very good patient of mine." The doctor was subsequently invited by the Governor of Queensland and the Executive Council to take a seat in the Legislative Council, and he continued to be a member of that chamber up to the date of his departure from the colony. From the beginning of his Australian career Dr. O'Doherty has been an avowed Irish Nationalist, and the acknowledged leader of his countrymen in Queensland ; but, though he never concealed the strength of his convictions on the great question that lay nearest to his heart, he at the same time never forfeited the goodwill and esteem of his fellow-citizens of other nationalities. They, in fact, admired him all the more for his life-long consistency in being, to quote the phrase of one of themselves, "as ardent in the cause of his youth as though his head were still untouched by the snows of time." The crowning honour conferred by the Irish in Australia on this true and tried champion of the liberties of their race, was on the occasion, of the great Irish-Australian Convention held in Melbourne towards the close of 1883, when delegates from all parts of the southern continent and the adjacent islands assembled in force, and enthusiastically elected the aged " Young Irelander " to the presidential chair.
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