The county being, after its fashion, grateful, the fellow townsmen of John Banim resolved to manifest their belief in the fact that Kilkenny, the College, Windgap, and some other places existed, and that John Banim had done a little to make them stand before the world as something more than names in an atlas. Accordingly in the Kilkenny, and other Irish papers of December, 1852, the following announcement appeared : "BANIM TESTIMONIAL. At a Public Meeting of the friends and admirers of the genius of the late JOHN BANIM, held in the Tholsel, Kilkenny, on Wednesday, 15th December, 1852, the Mayor of Kilkenny in the Chair, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted : Proposed by the Rev. Dr. Browne, Kilkenny College, and seconded by J. M. Tidmarsh, Esq., T.C.— 1. 'That it is the opinion of this Meeting, that a suitable Testimonial to the memory of the late JOHN BANIM, be erected in this, his native City.' Proposed by Robert Cane, Esq., M.D., and seconded by the Rev. James Graves 2. That the best mode of evincing our respect for the name of JOHN BANIM, would be, to erect (if the funds admit thereof), a Public Testimonial, which would be, at the same time, ornamental to the City, and prove of use and convenience to the Public at large.' COMMITTEE. The Most Noble the Marquis Right Hon. W. F. Tighe, John Potter, Mayor of Kil- | Daniel Cullen, Ex-Mayor of Rev. Dr. Browne, Kilkenny Rev. James Graves, Kilkenny. City, Inch-House, Kilkenny. William Shee, Sergeant-at- Z. Johnson, M.D., &c., Kil kenny. John Kearns, M.R.C.S., Kilkenny. James Tidmarsh, T.C., Kilkenny. C. O'Callaghan, Kilkenny. John Lawson, Solicitor, Kil- Michael Shortall, Solicitor, J. Poe, Solicitor, Kilkenny. J. M'Creery, Št. John's Place, James O'Neill, John-st., Kil- John Čampion, Patrick-st., Thomas Hewetson,T.C., Rose- Treasurer:-Daniel Cullen, Ex-Mayor of Kilkenny. Secretaries: John Thomas Campion, John's-bridge. John G. A. Prim, Editor of Kilkenny Moderator. John Reville, Editor of Kilkenny Journal. Subscriptions will be received by the Treasurer, Secretaries, or by any of the gentlemen of the Committee." The Testimonial selected was a bust in marble, executed by Hogan, the resemblance being caught, for the most part, from Mulvany's picture, and in the year 1854 it was placed in the Tholsel of Kilkenny. This, reader, is the conclusion of the Biography of John Banim. Is there no moral to this life history? Is there nothing to follow the "Here Lies ?" Aye, lessons of labor, of patience, of love, of hope, of charity, of faith in God when hope was all but dead, of honor, of patriotism, and of firm, but smiling, endurance. But there is another lesson-a dead man of genius may have a bust erected to grace his memory in his native town, but he may not have a tombstone to cover his bones and to mark his grave, even though it can be procured for ten pounds. Before closing this paper we beg to direct the reader's attention to the subjoined appendix. We have printed it as we desire to show that Michael Banim is worthy some mark of the nation's appreciation of his genius, and of his very considerable share in the authorship of the Tales By The O'Hara Family. Michael is no longer a young, active man: he is now very different from that Barnes O'Hara for whom Cauth Flannigan and Peggy Nowlan selected the shirt which "was not a shirt entirely"; he is a hard worked man, subsisting upon the small profits of his general shop, aided by the per centages of a cess collector; he has to rear a young family on such means as these, and considered it a triumph of financial ability when he was enabled, last summer, to send his eldest daughter, a young girl of astonishing ability and literary taste, to school to a convent in France. We ask for no present aid from the nation to Michael Banim, but we do ask that, at the death of John Banim's widow, now in weak health, the pension which she receives, shall be transferred to Michael Banim, should he then be living, or to his eldest surviving daughter if he be dead. This is not demanding much, but we have no doubt it will be granted, if the citizens of Kilkenny petition for it, through an old and an sincere friend and patron of John Banim's-His Excellency the Earl of Carlisle. * See IRISH QUarterly Review, Vol. V., No. 17., p. 38, note. The gentleman who has favored us with the letter printed at p. 67, has supplied us with many valuable notes of Banim's every day life, which shall be inserted in the June number of this REVIEW. These notes are of the very greatest interest, and cannot fail to prove acceptable to every admirer of John Banim's genius. APPENDIX TO THE BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN BANIM. MICHAEL BANIM'S CLAIMS TO A PARTICIPATION IN THE NOVELS DISPUTED. INTERESTING CORRESPONDENCE: [Mr. William John Fitzpatrick-a gentleman who has obtained a respectable literary status by his Life, Times and Cotemporaries of Lord Cloncurry, and other productions of lesser pretensionhaving been attacked by an anonymous writer in the Brighton Guardian for mentioning in Notes and Queries, on the authority of this Review, that Michael Banim had written the novels Crohoore and The Croppy, replied with such force and spirit to his masked assailant, that we feel inclined to throw all the documents which appeared on the subject into the form of an Appendix, believing that those who felt interested in our Banim memoir, will not view with indifference a correspondence which grew out of it.-Ed. I. Q. R.] [From the Brighton Guardian of Wednesday, Nov. 14th, 1855.] TALES BY THE O'HARA FAMILY. SIR.-Permit me through the medium of your very widely cir culated Journal to correct a misrepresentation made in the last number of Notes and Queries by a person signing himself "William John Fitzpatrick." This gentleman writes from South-hill Avenue, Booterstown, Dublin, and says "The interesting Tales of the O'Hara Family, which some thirty years ago excited a marked sensation in literary circles, were until quite recently believed to owe their popularity entirely to John Banim. A memoir of Mr. Banim at present appearing in the IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW informs the public that his brother Michael, ex-Mayor of Kilkenny, wrote Crohoore of the Bill-hook, the Croppy,—in fact, some of the For a review of Fitzpatrick's "Life, Times and Cotemporaries of Lord Cloncurry," see IRISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, Vol. V., No. XVIII, p. 330.-Ed. |