The Cork Commission was then formally closed, and next day the judges set off to resume in Dublin the work of trying Irish conspirators against the rule of England over their native land.

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CHARLES JOSEPH KICKHAM.

In the year 1825, in the village of Mullinahone, County.  Tipperary, Charles J. Kickham first saw the light.  His father, John Kickham, was proprietor of the chief drapery establishment in that place, and was held in high esteem by the whole country round about for his integrity, intelligence, and patriotic spirit.  During the boyhood of young Kickham the Repeal agitation was at its height, and he soon became thoroughly versed in its arguments, and inspired by its principles, which he often heard discussed in his father’s shop and by his hearth, and amongst all his friends and acquaintances.  Like all the young people of the time, and a great many of the old ones, his sympathies went with the Young Ireland party at the time of their withdrawal from the Repeal ranks.  In 1848 he was the leading spirit of the Confederation Club at Mullinahone, which he was mainly instrumental in founding; and after the fiasco at Ballingarry he was obliged to conceal himself for some time, in consequence of the part he had taken in rousing the people of his native village to action.  When the excitement of that period had subsided, he again appeared in his father’s house, resumed his accustomed sports of fishing and fowling, and devoted much of his time to literary pursuits, for which he had great natural capacity, and towards which he was all the more inclined because of the blight put upon his social powers by an unfortunate accident which occurred to him when about the age of thirteen years.  He had brought a flask of powder near the fire, and was engaged either in the operation of drying it or casting some grains into the coals for amusement, when the whole quantity exploded.  The shock and the injuries he sustained nearly proved fatal to him; when he recovered, it was with his hearing nearly quite destroyed, and his sight permanently impaired.  But Kickham had the poet’s soul within him, and it was his compensation for the losses he had sustained.  He could still hold communion with nature and with his own mind, and could give to the national cause the service of a bold heart and a finely-cultivated intellect.  Subsequent to the decadence of the ’48 movement he wrote a good deal in prose and verse, and contributed gratuitously to various national publications.  His intimate acquaintance with the character and habits of the peasantry gave a great charm to his stories and sketches of rural life; and his poems were always marked by grace, simplicity, and tenderness.  Many of them have attained a large degree of popularity amongst his countrymen in Ireland and elsewhere, and taken a permanent place in the poetic literature of the Irish race.  Amongst these, his ballads entitled “Patrick Sheehan,” “Rory of the Hill,” and “The Irish Peasant Girl” are deserving of special mention.  To these remarks it remains to be added that as regards personal character, Charles J. Kickham was one of the most amiable of men.  He was generous and kindly by nature, and was a pious member of the Catholic Church, to which his family had given priests and nuns.