At the same time, I have known men of the highest attainments who have made excellent agents, such a man as John Renwick Seager, who has for many years been connected with the London Liberal organisation.  Just such another we have in our own ranks in Daniel Crilly who, before he became a journalist or entered Parliament, was a very successful agent in the Liverpool Courts.

One of the most efficient and conscientious of registration and electioneering agents I ever met was John Mogan, of Liverpool.  Besides the annual registration work he was engaged on our side in nearly every election of importance in Liverpool for over 30 years.  He was so engrossed in his work that, during an election he would, if required, sit up several nights in succession to have his work properly done; indeed, I was often tempted to think that John never considered any election complete without at least one “all night sitting.”

We believed in fighting the enemy with his own weapons.  On election days in Liverpool there were shipowners who made it a practice of getting their vessels coaled in the river.  As, unlike the Liffey at Dublin or the Thames at London, the Mersey at Liverpool is over a mile wide, and as most of the coal heavers were Irishmen, this move of the shipowners was to keep our men from voting.  We were successful, to some extent, in counteracting this, for owing to the patriotism of a sterling Irishman, John Prendiville, the steam tugs which he owned were often used, on the day of an election, to take our men ashore.

Sometimes the Revision Courts gave us the opportunity of teaching a little Irish history.  In South Wales most of our people hail from Munster.  In one of the Courts there was the case of Owen O’Donovan being objected to, on the ground that he had left the qualifying property, and that Eugene O’Donovan was now the occupier.  I explained to the Barrister that in the South of Ireland the names of Owen and Eugene were often applied to the same man, Eugene being the Latinized form of Owen.  I gave as an illustration our national hero, Owen Roe O’Neill, who, in letters written to him in Latin, was styled Eugenius Rufus.  A Welsh official in Court suggested that O’Donovan was anxious to become a Welshman by calling himself Owen.  I replied that the name Owen was just as Irish as it was Welsh, coming no doubt from the same Celtic stock, and that, as a matter of fact, our man preferred being on the Register as Owen.  The Barrister, being satisfied that both names applied to the same man, allowed the vote, and our voter would appear on the Register as Owen O’Donovan.