Meagher was not quite twenty-three years of age when his voice was first heard in Conciliation Hall.  He was born in Waterford of an old Catholic family, which through good and ill had adhered to the national faith and the national cause; his school-boy days were passed partly at Clongowes-wood College, and partly under the superintendence of the Jesuit Fathers at Stoneyhurst in Lancashire.  His early years gave few indications of the splendid wealth of genius that slumbered within his breast.  He took little interest in his classical or mathematical studies; but he was an ardent student of English literature, and his compositions in poetry and prose invariably carried away the prize.  He found his father filling the Civic Chair in Waterford, when he returned from Stoneyhurst to his native city.  O’Connell was in the plenitude of his power; and from end to end of the land, the people were shaken by mighty thoughts and grand aspirations; with buoyant and unfaltering tread the nation seemed advancing towards the goal of Freedom, and the manhood of Ireland seemed kindling at the flame which glowed before the altar of Liberty.  Into the national movement young Meagher threw himself with the warmth and enthusiasm of his nature.  At the early age of twenty we find him presiding over a meeting of Repealers in his native city, called to express sympathy with the State Prisoners of ’43, and he thence-forward became a diligent student of contemporary politics.  He became known as an occasional speaker at local gatherings; but it was not until the event we have described that Meagher was fairly launched in the troubled tide of politics, and that his lot was cast for good or evil, with the leaders of the national party.

Up to the date of secession Meagher was a frequent speaker at the meetings of the Repeal Association.  Day by day his reputation as a speaker extended, until at length he grew to be recognised as the orator of the party, and the knowledge that he was expected to speak was sufficient to crowd Conciliation Hall to overflowing.  When the influence of the Nation party began to be felt, and signs of disunion appeared on the horizon, O’Connell made a vigorous effort to detach Meagher from the side of Mitchel, Duffy, and O’Brien.  “These young Irelanders,” he said, “will lead you into danger.”  “They may lead me into danger,” replied Meagher, “but certainly not into dishonour.”

Against the trafficking with the Whigs, which subsequently laid the Repeal Association in the dust, and shipwrecked a movement which might have ended in the disinthralment of Ireland, Meagher protested in words of prophetic warning.  “The suspicion is abroad,” he said, “that the national cause will be sacrificed to Whig supremacy, and that the people, who are now striding on to freedom, will be purchased back into factious vassalage.  The Whigs calculate upon your apostacy, the Conservatives predict it.”  The place beggars, who looked to the Whigs for position