He was a genuinely patriotic Irishman, steadfast in his political creed, though unostentatious in his professions, being more a man of action than of words.  My mother, as I think I have already sufficiently indicated, was, on the other hand, more demonstrative.  I think she must have had a positive genius for conspiracy.  Whatever the movement was she must have a hand in it.  On one occasion—­I forget exactly what it was—­some compromising documents had to be got out of the way for the time being.  In those days sloops used to come over from Ireland with potatoes, and the cargoes used to be sold on the quay at the King’s Dock.  She often bought a load of potatoes here to supply a small general shop which she kept to help out my father’s earnings.  It was under such a load of potatoes that she had brought home that she concealed the dangerous documents.

It was in June, 1848, in the columns of the “Nation” that I first met with the name of Bernard MacAnulty.  In after years I worked in successive national movements with him, and ever found him a dear friend and most active and enthusiastic colleague.  As showing that he was a man of advanced proclivities, I may mention that he wrote to the “Nation” suggesting the formation of the “Felon Repeal Club” in Newcastle-on-Tyne.  From then up to the last day of his life he was the same generous whole-souled Irishman he had been from the beginning.  His stalwart frame and pleasant, genial face were well known during the whole of the Home Rule movement, in which I was thrown into frequent contact with him, when we were both members of the Executive of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain.

He was a North man, from the County Down, a successful merchant—­having started life as a packman—­in Newcastle-on-Tyne, and so won the respect of all classes that he was elected a member of the Town Council, in which he served with great credit.  The northern Catholic, who is so often a pure Celt, is sometimes credited with having acquired some of the qualities of his Presbyterian neighbours of Lowland Scots extraction.  But this is only on the surface, and Bernard MacAnulty was a typical example of this.  No braver or more generous Irishman ever breathed, and he had a fund of humour which would have done credit to the quickest-witted Connaughtman or Munsterman that ever lived.  Though the Ulster accent is generally regarded as a hard one, I never thought it was so with my friend.  Perhaps this is owing to my partiality as a County Down man, which, though born in Antrim, I always consider myself, Down being the native place of my people from time immemorial.  I have always thought that the people born and reared, as Bernard was, among the Mourne Mountains and their surroundings have anything but an unmusical accent.

In connection with the Fenian movement my dear old friend was a strong, active, and generous sympathiser.  His purse was always available for every good National object, whether “legal” or “illegal,” and I know as a fact that many a good fellow “on the run” found shelter under his roof, and never went away empty-handed.