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A. M. SULLIVAN

ON THE ZULU WAR^[1]

(1879)

Born in 1830, died in 1884; became Editor and Proprietor of the Dublin Nation, 1846; opposed the Fenian Movement; ordered to be assassinated, but the order never executed; imprisoned, 1868; elected to Parliament as a Home Ruler, 1874; reelected, 1880, but owing to ill health resigned, 1881; buried in the "O'Connell Circle" in Glasnevin Cemetery.

We find ourselves once again sitting in Committee of the Whole House to vote a war subsidy. The present occupants of the Treasury Bench are determined that so long as they retain their places the Temple of Janus shall not be closed. In the reading-room of this House, a couple of

↑ From a speech in the House of Commons, February 27, 1879. By permission of Mr. T. D. Sullivan, brother of A. M. Sullivan. The circumstances in which this speech was delivered were described at the time as follows, by the Parliamentary correspondent of the Liverpool Journal: "But the debate was not to be wholly and uninterruptedly dreary, for near the end of it there came a speech from Mr. Sullivan, the member for Louth, which drove away all dulness for the time, and lighted up the debate as a lightning flash illuminates the sky on a murky night. The speech was short, but the effect must have been startling. These people had been droning for several hours about mere money matters. Meanwhile Mr. Sullivan sat in his place on the second bench from the floor below the gangway. At last, when Sir Stafford had in his dryest style delivered his winding-up speech, Sullivan's patience gave out, and up he sprang, and, kicking all precedent aside, and knocking old use and wont head over heels, he stormed into the debate like a tornado."

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[1] From a speech in the House of Commons, February 27, 1879. By permission of Mr. T. D. Sullivan, brother of A. M. Sullivan. The circumstances in which this speech was delivered were described at the time as follows, by the Parliamentary correspondent of the Liverpool Journal: "But the debate was not to be wholly and uninterruptedly dreary, for near the end of it there came a speech from Mr. Sullivan, the member for Louth, which drove away all dulness for the time, and lighted up the debate as a lightning flash illuminates the sky on a murky night. The speech was short, but the effect must have been startling. These people had been droning for several hours about mere money matters. Meanwhile Mr. Sullivan sat in his place on the second bench from the floor below the gangway. At last, when Sir Stafford had in his dryest style delivered his winding-up speech, Sullivan's patience gave out, and up he sprang, and, kicking all precedent aside, and knocking old use and wont head over heels, he stormed into the debate like a tornado."

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