CHAPTER II
A TYRO IN JOURNALISM. DUBLIN
Dublin journalists in 1836—Introduction to libraries and theatres—Visits to historic places—First impression of O'Connell—Reporters' stories—A tithe funeral—A martyr for conscience sake—First money I earned—Work as sub-editor of the Morning Register—Clarence Mangan: the secret of his life—Thomas Moore—Father Tom Maguire—Sam Gray appointed sub-sheriff—Peremptory intervention of Thomas Drummond—Removal to Belfast—My health in 1838–9—Note.
The Dublin journalists, when I came to know them, were a marvel to me. They resembled nothing I had associated in day dreams with the profession I was about to embrace. Hazlitt and Cobbett and their compeers I knew by their work, and I thought of a publicist as a man somewhat combative and self-willed perhaps, but abundantly informed, and with settled convictions, for which he was willing to face all odds. The young editors of the Northern Herald were at least familiar with the whole cyclopaedia of Irish affairs, and had the enthusiasm of missionaries or soldiers. But the society into which I was now introduced swarmed with the gipsies of literature, men who lived careless, driftless lives, without thought of to-morrow. The staff of the journals which supported O'Connell had slight sympathy with his policy, and few settled opinions or purpose of any sort. The editors of the three peculiarly Catholic papers at that time were all Protestants, and the co-editors of a preeminently Protestant organ had been born and bred Catholics. To the reporters, for the most part, public life was a stage play, where a man gesticulated and perorated according as his rôle was cast by his stage manager. Most of them had lived through the first Repeal movement: and
