Page:The Irish in Australia.djvu/331

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NOTABLE IRISH-AUSTRALIANS.
317

cratic days of the colony the Irish Catholics were fortunate in having a valiant defender on the judicial bench in the person of Sir Roger Therry, whose vigorous addresses and well-reasoned pamphlets did much to stem the tide of intolerance that at one time threatened to flood the country. For kindred services to the faith of his fathers in subsequent days, Sir Patrick Jennings, the Prime Minister of New South Wales last year, was highly honoured by the late Sovereign Pontiff. Besides being in the front rank of the politicians of the parent Australian colony, Sir Patrick continues to sturdily champion the interests of Catholicity, when assailed from time to time for political or party purposes. At the present time (April, 1887) he is attending the Imperial Conference in London as the representative delegate of the senior colony of Australasia.

Queensland, though the youngest of the colonies, is not without its roll of distinguished Irishmen. At the head of its list of honour stands the valued name of the Hon. Kevin Izod O'Doherty, M.D. The doctor's first exile to Australia, as most people know, was the reverse of voluntary, for he was sent out by the British Government in a convict ship, in company with honest John Martin, under a sentence of ten years' transportation for his connection with the events of '48. The year 1854 brought a conditional pardon to such of the Irish exiles as had not escaped to the "land of the free and the home of the brave." Liberty was given them to reside anywhere "out of the United Kingdom." Dr. O'Doherty then took up his residence in Paris, and very justifiably ignored the condition attached to the Queen's pardon, in snatching a stolen visit to his native city of Dublin, and returning to the continent with a faithful and gifted bride—"Eva," the poetess of the Nation—who had promised the young medical student