iety which
was at first called the "Land League" but which has since been known
by various other names. Amongst his allies were J. Devoy, O'Donovan
Rossa, and Patrick Ford. Devoy and Rossa took an active part in
establishing the Skirmishing Fund, which was subscribed for the
purpose of levying war on England with dynamite. Rossa afterwards
publicly boasted that he had placed an infernal machine onboard H.M.S.
"Dottrell," and had sent it and all its crew to the bottom of the
ocean. As a reward for his patriotic conduct he was some years later
granted a pension by the County Council of Cork, payable out of the
rates. Ford was the ablest and most powerful of the number, for by
means of his paper--the _Irish World_--he collected vast sums for the
Parliamentary party. In this paper he strongly advocated the use of
dynamite as a blessed agent which should be availed of by the Irish
people in their holy war; and elaborated a scheme for setting fire to
London in fifty places on a windy night. After D. Curley and J. Brady
had been hanged for the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr.
Burke, he collected money for a testimonial to them as heroes, and
prayed that God would send Ireland more men with hearts like that of
J. Brady. Mr. Redmond has recently described him as "the grand old
veteran, who through his newspaper has done more for the last thirty
or forty years for Ireland than almost any man alive"; Mr. T.P.
O'Connor has congratulated him on the great work he is doing for
Ireland; and Mr. Devlin has eulogized him for "the brilliancy in the
exposition of the principles inculcated in our programme."

By 1880 the union between the Dynamite party in America (which bore
many names, such as the Fenian Society, the Irish Revolutionary
Brotherhood, the Invincibles, the Clan-na-gael, and the Physical
Force party, but was essentially the same movement throughout), the
constitutional agitators for Home Rule in Parliament, and the Land
Leaguers in Ireland, was complete. It was but natural that it should
be so, for their objects were the same, though their methods differed
according to circumstances. The American party (according to their own
statements) desired the achievement of a National Parliament so as
to give them a footing on Irish soil--to give them the agencies and
instrumentalities for a Government _de facto_ at the very commencement
of the Irish struggle--to give them the plant of an armed revolution.
Hence they gladly