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The Life Story of an Old Rebel by John Denvir
I owe both the title of this book and the existence of the book itself to the suggestion of friends. I suppose a man of 76 may be called "old," although I have by no means given up the idea that I can still be of use to my country.
And a Rebel? Yes! Anything of the nature of injustice or oppression has always stirred me to resentment, and-is it to be wondered at?-most of all when the victims of that injustice and oppression have been my own people. And why not? If there were no rebels against wrong-doing, wrong-doing would prosper. To an Irishman, who is a fighter by temperament, and a fighter by choice against those in high places, life is sure to provide plenty of excitement; and that, no doubt, is why my friends have thought my recollections worth printing. The curious thing is that my share in the struggle for Irish self-government has been almost entirely what I might call outpost work, for I have lived all my life in England.
Indeed, it seemed but a stroke of good luck that I was born in Ireland at all. My father (John, son of James Denvir, of Ballywalter, Lecale) came to England in the early part of the last century, and settled in Liverpool, where my eldest brother was born. It was during a brief period, when our family returned to Ireland, that I and a younger brother were born there. My father was engaged for about three years as clerk of the works for the erection of a castle for Sir Francis Macnaghten, near Bushmills, County Antrim. This must be one of the least Catholic parts of Ireland, for there was no resident priest, and I had to be taken a long distance to be christened. There was a decent Catholic workman at the castle, James MacGowan, who was my god-father, and my Aunt Kitty had to come all the way from "our own place" in the County Down to be my god-mother.
Brought to England, my earliest remembrances are of Liverpool, which has a more compact and politically important Irish population than any other town in Great Britain.
Anyone who has mixed much among our fellow-countrymen in England, Scotland and Wales knows that, generally, the children and grandchildren of Irish-born parents consider themselves just as much Irish as those born on "the old sod" itself. No part of our race has shown more determination and enthusiasm in the cause of Irish nationality. As a rule the Irish of Great Britain have been well organised, and, during the last sixty years and more, have been brought into constant contact with a host of distinguished Irishmen-including the leaders of the constitutional political organisations-from Daniel O'Connell to John Redmond.
I have taken an active part in the various Irish movements of my time, and it so happens that, while I know so little personally of Ireland itself, there are few, if any, living Irishmen who have had such experience, from actual personal contact with them, as I have had of our people in every part of Great Britain. As will be seen, too, in the course of these recollections, circumstances have brought me into intimate connection with most of the Irish political leaders.
My father came to England in one of the sloops in which our people used to "come over" in the old days. They sometimes took a week in crossing. The steamers which superseded them, though an immense improvement as regards speed, had often less accommodation for the deck passengers than for the cattle they brought over.
Most of the Irish immigration to Liverpool came through the Clarence Dock, where the steamers used to land our people from all parts. Since the Railway Company diverted a good deal of the Irish traffic through the Holyhead route, there are not so many of these steamers coming to Liverpool as formerly.
The first object that used to meet the eyes of those who had just "come over," as they looked across the Clarence Dock wall, was an effigy of St. Patrick, with a shamrock in his hand, as if welcoming them from "the old sod." This was placed high upon the wall of a public house kept by a retired Irish pugilist, Jack Langan. In the thirties and forties of the last century, up to 1846, when he died, leaving over £20,000 to his children, Langan's house was a very popular resort of Irishmen, more particularly as, besides being a decent, warm-hearted, open-handed man, he was a strong supporter of creed and country.
I am old enough to remember hearing Mass in what was an interesting relic in Liverpool of the Penal days. This was the old building known to our people as "Lumber Street Chapel." Of course, the present Protestant Church of St. Nicholas (known as "the old church") is a Catholic foundation. Lumber Street chapel was not, however, the first of our places of worship built during the Penal days, for the Jesuits had a small chapel not far off, erected early in the eighteenth century, but destroyed by a No-Popery mob in 1746. St. Mary's, Lumber Street, too, was originally a Jesuit mission, but, in 1783, it was handed over to the Benedictines, who have had charge of it ever since. Father John Price, S.J., built a chapel in Sir Thomas's Buildings in 1788. I can recollect this building since my earliest days, but Mass was never said in it during my time.
Lancashire is the only part of England where there are any great number of the native population who have always kept the faith. I once spent a few weeks in one of these Catholic districts. My employer had an alteration to make in the house of a gentleman at Lydiate, near Ormskirk. I used to come home to Liverpool for the Sundays, but for the rest of the week I had lodgings in the house of a Catholic family at Lydiate.
There was an old ruin, which they called Lydiate Abbey, but I found it was the chapel of St. Catherine, erected in the fifteenth century. The priest of the mission had charge of the chapel which, though unroofed, was the most perfect ecclesiastical ruin in Catholic hands in South Lancashire. During the time I was at Lydiate there came a Holiday of Obligation, when I heard Mass in the house of a Catholic farmer named Rimmer. This was a fine old half-timbered building of Elizabethan days, and here, all through the Penal times, Mass had been kept up, a priest to say it being always in hiding somewhere in the district.
The priest in charge of Lydiate at the time I was there told me he was collecting for a regular church or chapel, and hoped soon to make a commencement of the building. Some years later he was able to do so. Our church choir at Copperas Hill, Liverpool, was then considered one of the best in the diocese. The choirmaster and organist, John Richardson, was a distinguished composer of Catholic church music, and held in such high esteem that, for any important celebration, he could always secure the services of the chief members of the musical profession in and about Liverpool. In this way, on one occasion Miss Santley came to help us. She was accompanied by her brother, then a boy, who has since risen to the highest position in the musical world-the eminent baritone, Sir Charles Santley.
St. Nicholas' was, as it is yet, the pro-Cathedral of the diocese, and whenever a new church had to be opened, or there was any important ceremonial anywhere in Lancashire, our choir was generally invited. In this way I was delighted to go to the opening of the new church at Lydiate, so that I was taking part in the third stage of the Catholic history of the diocese-having said a prayer in the old ruin, and attended Mass in Rimmer's, and now assisting at the solemn High Mass at the opening of the Church of our Lady, not far from the old chapel of St. Catherine.
At the time I went to Mass in Lumber Street Chapel, Liverpool, which is nearly 70 years since, there were but four other chapels, as they were generally called then, in the town-Copperas Hill (St. Nicholas'), Seel Street (St. Peter's), St. Anthony's and St. Patrick's. It must have been a custom acquired in the Penal days to call the older Catholic places of worship rather after the names of the streets in which they were situated than of the saint to whom they were dedicated. During the Famine years the bishops and clergy must have found it extremely difficult to provide for the tremendous influx of our people. I have seen them crowded out into the chapel yards and into the open streets; satisfied if they could get even a glimpse of the inside of the sacred building through an open window. I see by the Catholic Directory there are at the time I now write thirty-nine churches and chapels in Liverpool. The schools have increased in a like proportion.
The progress in numbers, wealth and influence of the Irish people may be pretty well marked by the gradual increase in the number of churches and schools, which have been built for the most part by the Irish and their descendants. All honour to the noble-hearted, hard-handed toilers who have contributed to such work, and greater glory still to the humble men who, after a hard week's work in a ship's hold at the docks, or perhaps in the "jigger loft" of a warehouse eight stories high, turn out every Sunday morning to act as "collectors," and go in pairs from door to door, one with the book and the other with the bag in hand, to raise the means of erecting the noble churches and schools that everywhere meet our view in Liverpool to-day.
With regard to the social position our people occupy in Liverpool, there have been many Irishmen who have come well to the front in the race of life, some of whom have occupied the foremost positions in connection with the public life of the town. On the other hand; a large number of our fellow-countrymen in Liverpool are by no means in that enviable condition. Many of them have set out from Ireland, intending to go to America, but, their little means failing them, have been obliged to remain in Liverpool. Here they considered themselves fortunate if they met someone from the same part of the country as themselves to give them a helping hand, for it is a fine trait in the Irish character-and "over here in England" the trait has not been lost-that, however poor, they are always ready to befriend what seems to them a still poorer neighbour. Those who have lived here some time are glad to see someone from their "own place," and, amid the squalor of an English city, the imaginative Celt-as he listens to the gossip about the changes, the marriages, and the deaths that have taken place since he left "home "-for a brief moment lives once more upon "the old sod," and sees visions of the little cabin by the wood side where dwelt those he loved, of the mountain chapel where he worshipped, of a bright-eyed Irish girl beloved in the golden days of youth. These and a host of other associations of the past come floating back upon his memory, as he hears the tidings brought by Terence, or Michael, or Maurya, who has just "come over." It often so happens that, from the very goodness of the Irish heart, the newcomers are frequently drawn into the same miserable mode of life as the friends who have come to England before them may have fallen into.
Irish intellect and Irish courage have in thousands of cases brought our people to their proper place in the social scale, but it is only too often the case that adverse circumstances compel the great bulk of them to have recourse to the hardest, the most precarious, and the worst paid employments to be found in the British labour market.
In the large towns, in the poorer streets in which our people live, a stranger would be struck by the swarms of children, and of an evening, at the number of grown-up people sitting on the doorsteps of their wretched habitations. John Barry once told me that a friend of his asked one of these how they could live in such places? "Because," was the reply, "we live so much out of them." The answer showed, at any rate, that their lot was borne cheerfully.
Nevertheless, there are Irishmen too-men who know how to keep what they have earned-who, by degrees, get into the higher circles of the commercial world, so that I have seen among the merchant princes "on 'Change" in Liverpool men who, themselves, or whose fathers before them, commenced life in the humblest avocations.
Liverpool has, on the whole, been a "stony-hearted stepmother" to its Irish colony, which largely built its granite sea-walls, and for many years humbly did the laborious work on which the huge commerce of the port rested. But, perhaps, in years to come Liverpool will realise the value of the wealth of human brains and human hearts which it held for so long unregarded or despised in its midst.
* * *
Desperate to handle her grandmother's towering medical bills, Gianna agreed to a contract marriage with Tristan, the enigmatic man she'd once shared a one-night stand with. She assumed they'd fulfill each other's needs and dissolve the arrangement once the terms expired. Unbeknownst to Gianna, this marriage was a dream Tristan had clung to for ten relentless years. Certain she was just filling someone else's role, Gianna prepared to leave when that other woman returned. But Tristan, his eyes burning with unspoken emotion, seized her trembling hand and declared, "You’re mine. Now and always."
Janet was adopted when she was a kid -- a dream come true for orphans. However, her life was anything but happy. Her adoptive mother taunted and bullied her all her life. Janet got the love and affection of a parent from the old maid who raised her. Unfortunately, the old woman fell ill, and Janet had to marry a worthless man in place of her parents' biological daughter to meet the maid's medical expenses. Could this be a Cinderella's tale? But the man was far from a prince, except for his handsome appearance. Ethan was the illegitimate son of a wealthy family who lived a reckless life and barely made ends meet. He got married to fulfill his mother's last wish. However, on his wedding night, he had an inkling that his wife was different from what he had heard about her. Fate had united the two people with deep secrets. Was Ethan truly the man we thought he was? Surprisingly, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the impenetrable wealthiest man in the city. Would he find out that Janet married him in place of her sister? Would their marriage be a romantic tale or an utter disaster? Read on to unravel Janet and Ethan's journey.
There was only one man in Raegan's heart, and it was Mitchel. In the second year of her marriage to him, she got pregnant. Raegan's joy knew no bounds. But before she could break the news to her husband, he served her divorce papers because he wanted to marry his first love. After an accident, Raegan lay in the pool of her own blood and called out to Mitchel for help. Unfortunately, he left with his first love in his arms. Raegan escaped death by the whiskers. Afterward, she decided to get her life back on track. Her name was everywhere years later. Mitchel became very uncomfortable. For some reason, he began to miss her. His heart ached when he saw her all smiles with another man. He crashed her wedding and fell to his knees while she was at the altar. With bloodshot eyes, he queried, "I thought you said your love for me is unbreakable? How come you are getting married to someone else? Come back to me!"
"Ahh!" She was in a moaning mess. She did not want to feel anything for this man. She hated him. His hands began to move all over her body. She gasped when he pulled down the back chain of her dress. The chain stopped at her lower waist, so when he zipped it off, her upper back and waist were exposed. "D-Don't touch m-ummm!" His fingers rolled around her bare back, and she pressed her head against the pillow. His touches were giving her goosebumps all over her body. With a deep angry voice, he whispered in her ear, "I am going to make you forget his touches, kisses, and everything. Every time you touch another man, you will only think of me." - - - Ava Adler was a nerdy omega. People bullied her because they thought she was ugly and unattractive. But Ava secretly loved the bad boy, Ian Dawson. He was the future Alpha of the Mystic Shadow Pack. However, he doesn't give a damn about rules and laws, as he only likes to play around with girls. Ava was unaware of Ian's arrogance until her fate intertwined with his. He neglected her and hurt her deeply. What would happen when Ava turned out to be a beautiful girl who could win over any boy, and Ian looked back and regretted his decisions? What if she had a secret identity that she had yet to discover? What if the tables turned and Ian begged her not to leave him?
Yelena discovered that she wasn't her parents' biological child. After seeing through their ploy to trade her as a pawn in a business deal, she was sent away to her barren birthplace. There, she stumbled upon her true origins—a lineage of historic opulence. Her real family showered her with love and adoration. In the face of her so-called sister's envy, Yelena conquered every adversity and took her revenge, all while showcasing her talents. She soon caught the attention of the city's most eligible bachelor. He cornered Yelena and pinned her against the wall. “It's time to reveal your true identity, darling.”
Eliana was framed by her best friend and her fiance into sleeping with a boy toy in the club and getting impregnated by him. Five years after she had given birth to twins, she returned home and worked under the Moran Group, where she met the CEO-- Maurice. Maurice was a brilliant businessman who did his job well. But in order to stay under the radar, he lived a double life. One as Maurice, and one as Preston. Fate brought the two together again, roping them in on an exciting love story. It all became more complicated when Eliana faced Preston, the man she had slept with before, once again. Now that she was being pursued by two men, how could she ever choose? When would Eliana uncover the secret of Maurice's identity? When was Maurice going to know that he already had two children of his own? How would Eliana face this man when the truth came to light one day? Come and find out.