Author: Jane Stanford

O’Connor Power admired Lincoln and praises him in The Making of an Orator.

President Lincoln’s short speech on the field of Gettysburg is an oratorical gem of the purest quality, a masterpiece of rhetorical art, and a striking example of condensation.  It was delivered on November 19, 1863, during the war between North and South.

O’Connor Power quotes the speech in full and adds a comment of Mr Edward Everett, who delivered the formal oration of the day:

I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes

In June 2011, Adams auctioned the Kelly Collection.  The catalogue recorded a letter dated 1 October, 1879.  The letter is, in fact, dated 1 October, 1876.

O’Connor Power was in Washington DC to present President Grant with an illuminated address to mark the centennial of American Independence.

The letter was signed by O’Connor Power, and Parnell, who accompanied him, added his signature.

I talked to the auctioneer’s agent and  wrote a note to Mr. Kelly.  I put in a small bid but was not successful.

I visited the National Library today to read ‘The Irish Literary Revival’ by W.P. Ryan (1894).  He tells the story of the Southwark Irish Literary Club, founded by Irish ‘apostles  of study and culture’.

Early in 1891, at a meeting in Clapham Reform Club, the name was changed to the Irish Literary Society.  On February 13, members met to form a committee.

Ryan writes that Michael MacDonagh was associated with the ‘inner history of the society’.  MacDonagh, a gifted author and journalist, inherited O’Connor Power’s private papers and used them as a basis for his account of the Home Rule movement.

In the nineteenth century almost 60% of the British Empire’s armed forces was Irish-born or of Irish descent. However, in Ireland, the ‘fighting Irish’ were not permitted to carry arms.  The special legislation was rigorously enforced.

I spotted That Irishman in Connolly Books, Dublin’s oldest radical bookshop. Browse along the shelves  and then enter the New Theatre, one of the city’s favourite spaces.  This week it’s Cabaret Revolution with Rose Lawless.

[a face like O’Connor Power’s] whom I have always regarded as having one of the most powerful faces I have ever seen. There is the same strong jaw, the same tight, resolute mouth, the same heavy brows, and above all the same steady, unyielding gaze.

Freeman’s Journal, 14 March 1892, ‘In the House’.

 In appearance he is a man of about 55 years of age, tall and well built. He is deeply pitted by smallpox.  He is a very agreeable conversationalist, has a merry twinkle in his eye, and just the slightest touch of the brogue in his speech.

Quebec Daily Telegraph,  14 May 1888.   O’Connor Power was 42 years of age.

The fighting type of Irishman is well represented by Mr O’Connor Power, whose closely cropped head and firmly set face denote much intensity and oratorical purpose.  When sitting his face is usually in a merry condition, as if he were ‘thinking of nothing at all’ or of something very pleasant. Directly he begins to speak, his countenance becomes rigid.

Morning Star and Catholic Messenger, 30 September, 1877.

Mr O’Connor Power, a short dark personage, with great power of vigorous words, considerable command of his temper, a dogged tenacity of purpose, and a steady determination on no account to be shouted down.

Edmund Yates, 1880.

He is about five feet eight inches and would probably turn the scale at ten stone. He is of dark complexion, dark hair, and a bright piercing grey eye .. his gestures are few and graceful.

Morning Star and Catholic Messenger, December 26, 1875.