parish of Fanlobbus, near Dunmanway, in the western part of the County
of Cork. His parents were undistinguished amongst the industrious and
oppressed peasantry, who at the time of his birth suffered under the
operation of the penal laws. The family from which he descended was
early distinguished in Irish history; but if his immediate ancestors
ever enjoyed a higher rank in the social scale than that which is
derived from successful industry, their circumstances had changed long
before his birth, as a name which excited the respect of his countrymen,
and a mind worthy the possessor of such a name, were the only
inheritance of which he could boast.
In the year 1747, after having acquired such share of classical
literature as the times he lived in would permit, O'Leary went to
France, with the intention of devoting himself to the service of the
Catholic Church.
A convent of Capuchin Friars at St. Malo in Brittany, was the school
where O'Leary imbibed the principles of the learning, virtue, and
philanthropy, which during a long life formed the prominent traits in
his character. After having received holy orders, he continued to live
in the monastery for some time.
In the year 1771 he returned to Ireland, and became resident in the city
of Cork. Shortly after his arrival there, he contributed to the erection
of a small chapel, in which he afterwards officiated, and which was
generally known in Cork as "Father O'Leary's Chapel." Here he preached
on the Sundays and principal festivals of the year to persons of
different religious persuasions who crowded it to excess when it was
known that he was to appear in the pulpit. His sermons were chiefly
remarkable for a happy train of strong moral reasoning, bold figure, and
scriptural allusion.
HIS CONTROVERSY WITH AN INFIDEL.
Some time in the year 1775, a book was published, the title of which
was--"Thoughts on Nature and Religion," which contained much gross
blasphemy. Its author, a Scottish physician of the name of Blair,
residing in Cork, undertook to be the champion of free-thinking in
religion; and, under the plausible pretext of vindicating the conduct of
Servetus in his controversy with Calvin, this writer boldly attacked
some of the most universally received articles of the Christian Creed.
The work attracted some share of public attention. A poetical effusion
in verse was addressed to Blair in reply by a minister of the Protestant
Church; and an Anabaptist minister also entered the lists with a
pamphlet nearly as sceptical as the one he professed to answer.
Father O'Leary's friends thought his style of controversy better suited
to silence the Doctor than that of either of the tried opponents, and
persuaded him to enter the lists. They were not disappointed. His reply
crushed Blair; while his wit and logic and grand toleration raised him
to the esteem and gratitude of his fellow-men. His first letter opens
with this beautiful introduction:
"Sir--Your long expected performance has at length made its appearance.
If the work tended to promote the happiness of society, to animate our
hopes, to subdue our passions, to instruct man in the happy science of
purifying the polluted recesses of a vitiated heart, to confirm him in
his exalted notion of the dignity of his nature, and thereby to inspire
him with sentiments averse to whatever may debase the excellence of his
origin, the public would be indebted to you; your name would be recorded
amongst the assertors of morality and religion; and I myself, though
brought up in a different persuasion from yours, would be the first to
offer my incense at the shrine of merit. But the tendency of your
performance is to deny the divinity of Christ and the immortality of the
soul. In denying the first, you sap the foundations of religion; you cut
off at one blow the merit of our faith, the comfort of our hope, and the
motives of our charity. In denying the immortality of the soul, you
degrade human nature, and confound man with the vile and perishable
insect. In denying both, you overturn the whole system of religion,
whether natural or revealed; and in denying religion, you deprive the
poor of the only comfort which supports them under their distresses and
afflictions; you wrest from the hands of the powerful and rich the only
bridle to their injustices and passions, and pluck from the hearts of
the guilty the greatest check to their crimes--I mean this remorse of
conscience which can never be the result of a handful of organized
matter; this interior monitor, which makes us blush in the morning at
the disorders of the foregoing night; which erects in the breast of the
tyrant a tribunal superior to his power; and whose importunate voice
upbraids a Cain in the wilderness with the murder of his brother, and a
Nero in his palace with that of his mother."
Deploring the folly of him who thinks "his soul is no more than a
subtile vapor, which in death is to be breathed out in the air," he
holds that such a person should "conceal his horrid belief with more
secrecy than the Druids concealed their mysteries. * * In doing
otherwise, the infidel only brings disgrace on himself; for the notion
of religion is so deeply impressed on our minds, that the bold champions
who would fain destroy it, are considered by the generality of mankind
as public pests, spreading disorder and mortality wherever they appear;
and in our feelings we discover the delusions of cheating philosophy,
which can never introduce a religion more pure than that of the
Christian, nor confer a more glorious privilege on man than that of an
immortal soul."
HIS INTERVIEW WITH DR. MANN.
Before he entered into a controversy with Doctor Blair, he deemed it
prudent, owing to the state of sufferance in which Catholic priests then
lived in Ireland, to obtain the sanction of the Protestant bishop of the
diocese. To this end he waited on Doctor Mann at the episcopal palace.
The interview is said to have been humorous in the extreme. O'Leary's
figure, joined to an originality of manner, sterling wit, and an
imagination which gave a color to every object on which it played, made
him a visitor of no common kind; and as the bishop was not cast in the
mould of "handsome orthodoxy," the meeting was long remembered by both
parties. After some explanation, Doctor Mann gave his consent to the
undertaking; in consequence of which the public were soon gratified by
the appearance of his letters to Blair, whose discomfiture was so
complete that he never wrote a public letter afterwards.
CONTROVERSY WITH JOHN WESLEY.
Wesley published in January, 1786, what he called, "A Letter containing
the Civil Principles of Roman Catholics;" also, "a Defence of the
Protestant Association." In these letters he maintained that Papists
"ought not to be tolerated by any government--Protestant, Mohometan, or
Pagan." In support of this doctrine, he says--
"Again, those who acknowledge the spiritual power of the Pope, can give
no security of their allegiance to any government; but all Roman
Catholics acknowledge this: therefore they can give no security for
their allegiance."
In support of this line of argument, he treated his readers to this bit
of lively information:--
"But it might be objected, 'nothing dangerous to English liberty is to
be apprehended from them.' I am not so certain of that. Some time since
a Romish priest came to one I know, and after talking with her largely,
broke out, 'You are no heretic; you have the experience of a real
Christian.' 'And would you,' she asked, 'burn me alive?' He said, 'God
forbid! unless it were for the good of the Church.'"
In noticing which Father O'Leary humorously replies--
"A priest then said to a woman, whom Mr. Wesley _knows_, 'I see you are
no heretic; you have the experience of a real Christian.' 'And would you
burn me?' says she. 'God forbid!' replied the priest, 'except for the
good of the Church!' Now, this priest must be descended from some of
those who attempted to blow up a river with gunpowder, in order to drown
a city. Or he must have taken her for a witch, whereas, by his own
confession, she 'was no heretic.' A gentleman whom _I know_ declared to
me, upon his honor, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a sermon
preached by him in the city of Cork, the following words: 'A little bird
cried out in Hebrew, O Eternity! Eternity! who can tell the length of
Eternity?' I am, then, of opinion that a _little Hebrew bird_ gave Mr.
Wesley the important information about the priest and the woman. One
story is as interesting as the other, and both are equally alarming to
the Protestant interest."
Alluding to the statute of Henry VI, which bound every Englishman of
the Pale to shave his upper lip, or clip his whiskers, to distinguish
himself from an Irishman, he says: "It had tended more to their mutual
interest, and the glory of that monarch's reign, not to go to the nicety
of _splitting a hair_, but encourage the growth of their _fleeces_, and
inspire them with such mutual love for each other as to induce them to
kiss one another's beards, as brothers salute each other at
Constantinople, after a few days' absence. I am likewise of opinion that
Mr. Wesley, who prefaces his letter with 'the interest of the Protestant
religion,' would reflect more honor on his ministry in promoting the
happiness of the people, by preaching love and union, than in widening
the breach, and increasing their calamities by division. The English and
Irish were, at that time, of the same religion, but, divided in their
affections, were miserable. Though divided in speculative opinions, if
united in sentiment, we would be happy. The English settlers breathed
the vital air in England before they inhaled the soft breezes of our
temperate climate. The present generation can say, 'Our fathers and
grandfathers have been born, bred, and buried here. We are Irishmen, as
the descendants of the Normans who have been born in England are
Englishmen.'
"Thus, born in an island in which the ancients might have placed their
Hesperian gardens and golden apples, the temperature of the climate, and
the quality of the soil inimical to poisonous insects, have cleansed our
veins from the sour and acid blood of the Scythians and Saxons. We begin
to open our eyes, and to learn wisdom from the experience of ages. We
are tender-hearted; we are good-natured; we have feelings. We shed tears
on the urns of the dead; deplore the loss of hecatombs of victims
slaughtered on gloomy altars of religious bigotry; cry on seeing the
ruins of cities over which fanaticism has displayed the funeral torch;
and sincerely pity the blind zeal of our Scotch and English neighbors,
whose constant character is to pity none, for erecting the banners of
persecution at a time when the Inquisition is abolished in Spain and
Milan, and the Protestant gentry are caressed at Rome, and live
unmolested in the luxuriant plains of France and Italy.
"The statute of Henry VI is now grown obsolete. The razor of calamity
has shaved our lower and upper lips, and given us smooth faces. Our land
is uncultivated; our country a desert; our natives are forced into the
service of foreign kings, storming towns, and in the very heat of
slaughter tempering Irish courage with Irish mercy. All our misfortunes
flow from long-reigning intolerance and the storms which, gathering
first in the Scotch and English atmosphere, never failed to burst over
our heads.
"We are too wise to quarrel about religion. The Roman Catholics sing
their psalms in Latin, with a few inflections of the voice. Our
Protestant neighbors sing the same psalms in English, on a larger scale
of musical notes. We never quarrel with our honest and worthy neighbors,
the Quakers, for not singing at all; nor shall we ever quarrel with Mr.
Wesley for raising his voice to heaven, and warbling forth his canticles
on whatever tune he pleases, whether it be the tune of 'Guardian Angels'
or 'Langolee.' We love social harmony, and in civil music hate
discordance. Thus, when we go to the shambles, we never inquire into the
butcher's religion, but into the quality of his meat. We care not
whether the ox was fed in the Pope's territories, or on the mountains of
Scotland, provided the joint be good; for though there be many heresies
in old books, we discover neither heresy nor superstition in beef or
claret. We divide them cheerfully with one another; and though of
different religions, we sit over the bowl with as much cordiality as if
we were at a love-feast."
He concludes with the following remarkable paragraph, in which humor,
eloquence, and philanthropy, are happily blended--a paragraph worthy the
Honorary Chaplain of the Irish Brigade;--
"We have obtained of late the privilege of planting tobacco in Ireland,
and tobacconists want paper. Let Mr. Wesley then come with me, as the
curate and barber went to shave and bless the library of Don Quixote.
All the old books, old canons, sermons, and so forth, tending to kindle
feuds, or promote rancor, let us fling out at the windows. Society will
lose nothing: the tobacconists will benefit by the spoils of antiquity.
And if, upon mature deliberation we decree that Mr. Wesley's 'Journal,'
and his apology for the Association's 'Appeal,' should share the same
fate with the old buckrams, we will procure them a gentle fall. After
having rocked ourselves in the large and hospitable cradle of the _Free
Press_, where the peer and the commoner, the priest and the alderman,
the friar and the swaddler,[2] can stretch themselves at full length,
provided they be not too churlish, let us laugh at those who breed
useless quarrels, and set to the world the bright example of toleration
and benevolence. A peaceable life and happy death to all Adam's
children! May the ministers of religion of every denomination, whether
they pray at the head of their congregations in embroidered vestments or
black gowns, short coats, grey locks, powdered wigs, or black curls,
instead of inflaming the rabble, and inspiring their hearers with hatred
and animosity to their fellow-creatures, recommend love, peace, and
harmony."
MEETING OF O'LEARY AND WESLEY.
"In a short time after this controversy had concluded, the parties met
at the house of a mutual friend. Their different publications were
mentioned; but kindness and sincere good feeling towards each other
softened down the asperities of sectarian repulsiveness; and after an
evening spent in a manner highly entertaining and agreeable, they
parted, each expressing his esteem for the other, and both giving the
example, that public difference on a religious or political subject is
quite consistent with the exercise of the duties of personal kindness
and esteem. Wesley is said, in this instance, to have relaxed into a
most agreeable companion; and O'Leary, by his wit, archness, and
information, was an inexhaustible source of delight, entertainment, and
instruction."
DR. O'LEARY AND FATHER CALLANAN.
Dr. O'Leary, though with great talents for a controversialist, always
sedulously avoided the angry theme of religious disputation. Once,
however, notwithstanding his declared aversion to polemics, he was led
into a controversy. While he was at Cork, he received a letter through
the Post Office, the writer of which, in terms expressive of the utmost
anxiety, stated that he was a clergyman of the established church, on
whose mind impressions favorable to the Catholic Creed had been made by
some of O'Leary's sermons. The writer then professing his enmity to
angry controversy, wished to seek further information on some articles
of the Catholic creed. His name he forbore to reveal. O'Leary, anxious
to propagate the doctrine of his Church, replied in a manner perfectly
satisfactory to his anonymous correspondent. Other doubts were
expressed, and dissipated, until the correspondence had extended to
eight or ten long letters.
O'Leary, in joy at his supposed triumph, whispered the important secret
to a few ecclesiastical confidants; among whom was his bosom friend, the
Rev. Lawrence Callanan, a Francisan friar, of Cork. Their
congratulations and approbation were not wanting, to urge forward the
champion of orthodoxy. His arguments bore all before them; even the
obstacles arising from family and legal notions, were disregarded by the
enthusiastic convert, and he besought O'Leary to name a time and place,
at which he might lift the mysterious vizor by which he had hitherto
been concealed; and above all, have an opportunity of expressing his
gratitude to his friend and teacher.
The appointed hour arrived. O'Leary arranged his orthodox wig, put on
his Sunday suit of sable, and sallied forth with all collected gravity
of a man fully conscious of the novelty and responsibility of the
affair in which he was engaged. He arrived at the appointed place of
meeting some minutes after the fixed time, and was told that a
respectable clergyman awaited his arrival in an adjoining parlor.
O'Leary enters the room, where he finds, sitting at the table, with the
whole correspondence before him, his brother friar, Lawrence Callanan,
who, either from an eccentric freak, or from a wish to call O'Leary's
controversial powers into action, had thus drawn him into a lengthened
correspondence. The joke, in O'Leary's opinion, however, was carried too
far, and it required the sacrifice of the correspondence and the
interference of mutual friends; to effect a reconciliation.
O'LEARY AND THE QUAKERS.
In his "Plea for Liberty of Conscience," Father O'Leary pays the
following high tribute to that sect:--
"The Quakers," said he, "to their eternal credit, and to the honor of
humanity, are the only persons who have exhibited a meekness and
forbearance, worthy the imitation of those who have entered into a
covenant of mercy by their baptism. William Penn, the great Legislator
of that people, had the success of a conqueror in establishing and
defending his colony amongst savage tribes, without ever drawing the
sword; the goodness of the most benevolent rulers in treating his
subjects as his own children; and the tenderness of a universal father,
who opened his arms to all mankind without distinction of sect or party.
In his republic, it was not the religious creed but personal merit, that
entitled every member of society to the protection and emoluments of the
State. Rise from your grave, great man! and teach those sovereigns who
make their subjects miserable on account of their catechisms, the method
of making them happy. They! whose dominions resemble enormous prisons,
where one part of the creation are distressed captives, and the other
their unpitying keepers."
HIS RECEPTION AT THE ROTUNDO BY THE VOLUNTEERS.
"It was impossible that the high and distinguished claims to respect and
esteem which O'Leary possessed, should escape unnoticed by the Volunteer
association. Never was a more glorious era in the history of Ireland,
than whilst the wealth, valor, and genius of her inhabitants became
combined for the welfare of their country--whilst every citizen was a
soldier, and every paltry political or sectarian difference and
distinction was lost in the full glow and fervor of the great
constitutional object, which roused the energies and fixed the attention
of the people. It was a spectacle worthy the proudest days of Greece or
Rome; but it passed away like the sudden gleam of a summer sun. O'Leary
was exceeded by none of his contemporaries as a patriot: but, though the
coarse and misshapen habit of a poor friar of the order of St. Francis
forebade his intrusion into the more busy scene of national politics,
his pen was not inactive in enlightening and directing his countrymen in
their constitutional pursuits. A highly respectable body of the
Volunteers, the _Irish Brigade_, conferred on him the honorary dignity
of Chaplain; and many of the measures discussed at the National
Convention held in Dublin, had been previously submitted to his
consideration and judgment. On the 11th of November, 1783, the same day
on which the message said to be from Lord Kenmare was read at the
National Convention, then, holding its meetings in the Rotundo, Father
O'Leary visited that celebrated assemblage. At his arrival at the outer
door, the entire guard of the Volunteers received him under a full
salute, and rested arms: he was ushered into the meeting amidst the
cheers of the assembled delegates; and in the course of the debate which
followed, his name was mentioned in the most flattering and
complimenting manner, by most of the speakers. On his journey from Cork
to the Capital on that occasion, his arrival had been anticipated in
Kilkenny, where he remained to dine; and in consequence, the street in
which the hotel at which he stopped was situate, was filled from an
early hour with persons of every class, who sought to pay a testimony of
respect to an individual, whose writings had so powerfully tended to
promote the welfare and happiness of his countrymen."
O'LEARY AND JOHN O'KEEFE.
In the _Recollections of John O'Keefe_, the following anecdote is
related:--
"In 1775 I was in company with Father O'Leary, at the house of Flynn,
the printer in Cork. O'Leary had a fine smooth brogue; his learning was
extensive, and his wit brilliant. He was tall and thin, with, a long,
pale, and pleasant visage, smiling and expressive. His dress was an
entire suit of brown, of the old shape; a narrow stock, tight about his
neck; his wig amply powdered, with a high poking foretop. In the year,
1791, my son Tottenham and I met him in St. James's Park, (London,) at
the narrow entrance near Spring Gardens. A few minutes after, we were
joined accidentally by Jemmy Wilder, well known in Dublin--once the
famous Macheath, in Smock Alley--a worthy and respectable character, of
a fine, bold, athletic figure, but violent and extravagant in his mode
of acting. He had quitted the stage, and commenced picture-dealer; and
when we met him in the Park, was running after a man, who, he said, had
bought a picture of Rubens for three shillings and sixpence at a
broker's stall in Drury-lane, and which was to make his (Wilder's)
fortune. Our loud laughing at O'Leary's jokes, and his Irish brogue, and
our stopping up the pathway, which is here very narrow, brought a crowd
about us. O'Leary was very fond of the drama, and delighted in the
company of the 'Glorious Boys,' as he called the actors--particularly
that of Johnny Johnstone, for his fine singing in a room."
O'LEARY AND THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.
On the 26th February, 1782, the following interesting debate took place,
the subject under consideration being a clause in the Catholic Bill
directed against the friars:--
"Sir Lucius O'Brien said, he did not approve of the regulars, though his
candor must acknowledge that many men amongst them have displayed great
abilities. Ganganelli (Clement XIV) and the Reverend Doctor Arthur
O'Leary are distinguished among the Franciscans; and many great men have
been produced in the Benedictine order. He saw no temptation that
regulars had for coming here, if it was not to abandon certain
competence where they were, for certain poverty in this kingdom.