With their countrymen at home they were united by
the warmest ties of sympathy and affection. In London, in Manchester, in
Birmingham, in Leeds, Confederate Clubs were established, and active
measures taken for co-operating with the Young Ireland leaders in
whatever course they might think proper to adopt. In Liverpool those
clubs were organized on the most extensive scale; thousands of Irishmen
attended their weekly meetings, and speeches rivalling those delivered
at the Rotundo and at the Music Hall in fervour and earnestness were
spoken from their platforms. Amongst the Irishmen who figured
prominently at these gatherings there was one to whom the Irish in
Liverpool looked up with peculiar confidence and pride. He was young, he
was accomplished, he was wealthy, he filled a highly respectable
position in society; his name was connected by everyone with probity and
honour; and, above all, he was a nationalist, unselfish, enthusiastic,
and ardent. The Irishmen of Liverpool will not need to be told that we
speak of Terence Bellew M'Manus.
The agitation of 1848 found M'Manus in good business as a shipping
agent, his income being estimated by his Liverpool friends at ten or
twelve hundred a year. His patriotism was of too genuine a nature to be
merged in his commercial success, and M'Manus readily abandoned his
prospects and his position when his country seemed to require the
sacrifice.
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