The monster meetings were long a design of Thomas Davis, John Dillon and the present writer.  One great object with them was to train the country people to military movements and a martial tread.  This object it would be unsafe to announce, and it was to be effected through other agencies than drill.  The people should necessarily come to such rendezvous in baronial, parochial or town processions, and under the guidance of local leaders.  Order is a law of nature; and, without much trouble on the part of those leaders, it would establish itself.  The present writer left Dublin early in the spring of 1843 to carry this design into effect.  Sir Robert Peel, then Prime Minister of England, alluding to the fact in the House of Commons, said that the first Monster Meeting was purposely held on the anniversary of the very day, the 22nd of May, destined for the rising of ’98.  Sir Robert was wrong in his inference, though it was a natural and nearly justifiable one; for at that Cashel meeting were offered unmistakable evidences of the tendency of the agitation.  Upwards of L1,100 were handed to Mr. O’Connell.  Each parish came in procession, headed by a band and commanded by some local leader; and those who took part in the public procession marched in excellent order for upwards of eight miles.  A military and magisterial meeting had been previously held in the barracks of Cashel to consider whether the people should not be routed at the point of the bayonet.  But though the committee were fully aware of this consultation, they decided unanimously that the meeting should go on.  The meeting itself passed the strongest resolutions, and adopted a petition to the Legislature, consisting of a single line, something to this effect:  “You have robbed us of our Parliament by fraud and blood; pray restore it, or ——.”  And finally, Mr. O’Connell said at the dinner that evening, alluding to an armed strife; “Give me Tipperary for half a day.”  This simple wish, enunciated in accents familiar to that great ruler of men, elicited a cheer, a shout, a wild burst of enthusiasm, so long and loud as almost to suggest the idea that it would be seconded by naked steel and a deadly blow.  One would think it had a significant meaning, and yet there was no wrathful ban.  Not one pronounced that terrible anathema against shedding a single drop of blood, which afterwards became the canon of peaceful men.  Nay, if memory be not very treacherous, amidst that roar was loudly distinguishable the voice of him who on an after day, yet to be spoken of, cursed from God’s altar those who wished to realise his simulated aspirations and in the endeavour had forfeited their lives.  A doggerel ballad had been written for the occasion by Thomas Davis, to the air of the “Gallant Tipperary,” over which himself and his friends afterwards indulged in many a hearty laugh.  One verse runs as follows:—­