, 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The steamers which superseded them, though an immense improvement as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 L20,000 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 w