"Irish. Music and Poetry." A large audience filled the Boston Theater. He never appeared to better advantage than on this occasion.
On March 3, he set out on an extended tour to the West, accompanied by Dr. John F. Young, of Boston, one of his earliest and most intimate friends in America.
On the following evening, Emmet's birthday, he lectured in Syracuse, N. Y., on "Irish Music and Poetry," before an audience of three thousand, and was entertained after the lecture at a banquet by the Robert Emmet Society. He repeated his discourse at Chicago and St. Paul, and was again feasted by the principal men of the latter city. Here he had the happiness of meeting a man to whom he owed an undying gratitude. Rev. Patrick McCabe, the good priest who had enabled him to escape from the penal colony in Western Australia. They had met several years before, when Father McCabe first came to America, and the reunion was joyful for both. The venerable priest remained two days as O'Reilly's guest in St. Paul, and parted with the understanding that the latter should deliver a lecture for the benefit of his friend's parish in the succeeding autumn.
He lectured at Minneapolis, and on the 10th of March he left that place for Butte City, Mont. He was met by a delegation of the leading citizens about thirty miles before reaching his destination. On his arrival he was escorted in a carriage, by a procession of brass bands, etc., to the hotel. The Opera House was packed by an enthusiastic audience, and he was especially requested to repeat the lecture on his return. On the following morning, at the invitation of Superintendent Carroll, he donned a miner's suit and went down in the silver and copper mines owned by Marcus Daly. He dug out some silver ore, which he carried home as a souvenir of his visit. On March 14, he lectured before another large audience in Spokane Palls, and was again banqueted ("malediction on banquets," he had observed in an early part of his diary) by the leading business men of the city. Two days later he lectured in Seattle Armory.
