But, in spite of these difficulties, the paper appeared regularly each week, its fiery spirit not a whit abated, and its outspoken exposure of Mr.  “Buckshot” Forster and his methods in no way curtailed.  Confronted with this open failure, the government swallowed the last vestige of its regard for appearances, and made the bold attack on the liberty of the press involved in the seizure and attempted suppression of “United Ireland.”

It was not the first time (nor has it been the last) in Ireland that a national organ was thus attacked.  From the days of the United Irishmen, towards the close of the 18th century, to those of 1867, there had been a long series of suppressions, of which, perhaps, John Mitchel’s “United Irishman” (1847) and the Fenian “Irish People” are the best remembered instances.

In this case, however, the leaders of the popular movement determined that they would not be put down, but would use all “the resources of civilization”—­to quote Mr. Gladstone’s famous phrase—­to keep the flag flying.  I am very proud of the fact that they invited me to be their instrument.

What happened was that two members of the printing staff, Mr. Edward Donnelly, foreman, and Mr. William MacDonnell, assistant foreman, escaped to England, taking with them stereo plates of the “suppressed” issue.  From these plates, my own jobbing machines not being big enough to print a full-sized newspaper, I got a local firm to print sufficient copies to cover the Dublin supply, which, as I have explained, had been the only part of the issue which fell into the hands of the police.  A quantity of these papers, made up in innocent looking parcels, my son, then a schoolboy, took over with him in the steamer from Liverpool to Dublin, as personal luggage.  He was to take them to the address which had been given to him of a member of the staff who was then “on his keeping.”  I was alarmed the following morning, Christmas Eve, 1881, to read in the newspapers of the arrest of this gentleman, and feared that my son would also fall into the hands of the police.  But he had acted with wariness.  Leaving the luggage behind him in the steamer, until he found how the land lay, he saw the people of the house, heard of the arrest, and at once made his own arrangements for supplying the Dublin newsagents, in which task he received invaluable help from two gentlemen on the “Nation” staff, Daniel Crilly and Eugene O’Sullivan.

Thus the whole of the issue of the “suppressed” number actually reached its destination.  For future issues arrangements were made between my old friend Mr. Patrick Egan, Treasurer of the Land League, who was then in Paris, and myself.  Our letters were never addressed direct, but always through third persons, the intermediary in Paris being Mr. James Vincent Taaffe, and, in Liverpool, Miss Kate Swift.  Mr. Egan had been sent to Paris to keep the League Funds out of the hands of Dublin Castle, and to maintain intact the machinery of the League, for, it must be remembered, Parnell, Davitt, William O’Brien, and most of our prominent men were at the time in jail.