THE SLIGO CONVENTION.

SELECTION OF NATIONALIST CANDIDATES.

LETTER FROM THE BISHOP OF ELPHIN.

SPEECHES BY MR. WILLIAM MURPHY, M.P.; ALDERMAN COLLERY, M.P.; AND MR. COX, M.P.

(FROM OUR REPORTER.)

Sligo, Tuesday.

To-day the National Convention for the county of Sligo was held in the Town Hall. The Convention was large, representative, and enthusiastic, and almost all the districts of the county were represented. Mr Wm Murphy, M P, who presided, travelled down from Dublin on Monday night, and was met at the station by a large crowd of people who cheered lustily as the hon member stepped out of the train. Mr Murphy drove to the Imperial Hotel, and was followed by the cheering crowd, headed by the Robert Emmet brass band. The private convention commenced shortly after one o'clock to-day, and was characterised by a spirit of the utmost concord and harmony. The sitting member for North Sligo, Alderman Collery, M P, was selected for his division. Mr Thomas Curran, Sydney, New South Wales, was unanimously chosen as the candidate for the Southern division.

The following clergymen attended—

Rev P M'Laughlin, Adm, V G, Sligo; Rev D Mulleady, do; Rev M Hart, do; Rev J M'Dermott, do; Rev P Hughes, do; Rev A Monaghan, P P, Drumcliffe; Rev Fr Shanagher, C C, Magheroe; Rev Fr Neary, C C, Castletown; Rev Fr Curley, C C, Grange; Rev Fr Filan, P P, Geevagh; Rev Fr Brennan, C C, Riverstown; Rev Fr Monaghan, C C, Sooey; Rev Fr Quinn, P P, Riverstown; Very Rev Canon O'Donoghue, P P, Gurteen; Very Rev Canon Stenson, P P, Bunnadden; Rev P Lowry, P P, Achonry; Rev P Mulligan, P P, Curry; Rev J Gunning, Adm, Kilmactigue; Rev M Keveney, Adm, Ballaghaderin; Rev P Conlan, C C, Ballymote; Rev P M'Dermott, C C, Bunnadden; Rev P Filan, C C, Ballymote; Rev P Scully, P P, Keash; Rev D O'Grady, C C, Coolaney; Rev D O'Grady, C C, Achonry; Rev J Malone, C C, Beneda; Rev W Henry, C C, Gurteen; Rev Father Flynn, C C, Kilmactigue; Rev Fr Doyle, Monasteredan; Rev A Doyle, C C, Ballaghaderin; Rev J O'Connor, do; Rev W Flynn, C C, Aclare.

The following delegates attended:—

TRADES OF SLIGO.

THE CONVENTION.

Mr Wm Murphy, M P, presided.

Rev Dominick O'Grady and Mr P A M'Hugh were appointed secretaries to the meeting.

A resolution was adopted binding the delegates to abide by the decision of the majority in case of a division.

Mr John O'Dowd, Bunnadden, proposed and Rev Patrick Conlan, C C, Ballymote, seconded Mr Thomas Curran, of Sydney, New South Wales, as the National candidate for South Sligo.

Carried unanimously.

Mr P A M'Hugh proposed and Alderman E J Tighe seconded the adoption of Alderman Collery as the National candidate for North Sligo.

Carried unanimously.

The Parliamentary pledge was signed by Alderman Collery and by Mr T B Curran, on behalf of his father.

The doors of the assembly room were then thrown open and the public meeting began.

The Secretary (Mr M'Hugh) read the following letter:—

TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, SLIGO.

GENTLEMEN—I regret that unavoidable absence from Sligo deprives me of the pleasure of assisting at your County Convention, as I had the pleasure of doing with my brother bishop in past years. Although hoping that a contest will not be forced upon our people in either division of our county, I beg earnestly to advise you to make all your arrangements as if a double contest were certain. The surest means to prevent the fight is to show yourselves ready and prepared for it. Let committees be formed and zealous agents appointed in every polling district, and let meetings be held in every parish for those purposes. I need not assure you that the bishops and priests in both electoral divisions are perfectly unanimous, and that the lay electors may calculate on their earnest, active co-operation in returning triumphantly the candidates whom you will have chosen at your convention to represent our county in Parliament. Should there be a minority of electors opposed to you and your candidates, you will, I am sure, whilst endeavouring to win them by reason and influence, leave them perfectly free to follow their own course. You will not allow any violence or provocation whatever to be offered to them, but should those misguided men attempt violence or intimidation towards the majority of the electors, as their party have done on so many other occasions, you and your friends will know how to defend freedom of election, and, in doing so, let us hope that you shall have the sympathy and support of those who are charged with the maintenance of public order.

I enclose a cheque for £20 towards your Parliamentary Election Fund, which, I presume, will be inaugurated at your present meeting. A further contribution, if needed, shall not be wanting.—I am, gentlemen, your devoted servant,

L. GILLOOLY,
Bishop of Elphin.

Letters of apology were also read from Rev Patrick M'Nulty, P P, Skreen; Rev William Cosgrave, P P, Enniscrone; Rev Jas O'Hagan, P P, Glenade; Rev M M'Govern, C C, Ballintrillick. Father M'Nulty enclosed a cheque for £2 towards the expenses of the North Sligo election.

The Chairman, who was received with loud applause, said—Rev Fathers and gentlemen, it now becomes my duty to announce to this public meeting the result which the convention has arrived at. The convention has, I am glad to say, unanimously and cordially, and without any division whatever, selected candidates to represent the Northern and Southern Divisions of Sligo (applause). I need hardly tell the men of Sligo who was selected for the northern division of the county. Your worthy representative, Alderman Collery, has been unanimously and enthusiastically re-selected (applause). For the southern division of Sligo the convention unanimously adopted the candidature of Mr Thomas Curran, Sydney, New South Wales. Mr Curran is a native of the adjoining county of Leitrim, who, many years ago, found his way, as many of his race have found their way, to foreign climes, and who, under the southern star, has realised, I am glad to say, a large and independent fortune. But I am still better pleased to say, from all the evidence that has come to my own knowledge, that Mr Curran, in far distant Australia, has never ceased to be a warm and enthusiastic Irishman (applause), that he has never ceased to hold the cause of Ireland close to his heart, and that whenever delegates from this country have visited Australia, the first and one of the most enthusiastic, if not the very foremost supporter they have had in the length and breadth of that island continent was Thomas Curran, of Sydney, New South Wales.

MR. CURRAN IS COMING BACK TO SPEND IN HIS OWN COUNTRY

the wealth he has acquired elsewhere, and I have no doubt whatever that, with his colonial experience, he will be a very great addition to the Irish Parliamentary Party (applause). Before this meeting terminates you will have the benefit of hearing of Mr Curran from Mr Cox, M P, here present (hear, hear). Mr Cox, as you are aware, has been on a mission over the Australian continent collecting funds for the Irish cause, and he will tell you the assistance which he received from Mr Curran. He will tell you first hand something of the services he has performed for the cause of Ireland, and I will therefore not detain you at any further length than to say that Mr Curran is a cordial supporter of the Irish Parliamentary Party (applause). Of Alderman Collery it would be superfluous for me to say anything. He is not held in more warm esteem in this town than amongst his colleagues of the Irish Party, and we one and all are glad again to feel that his return to represent North Sligo is assured by your adoption of him at this convention to-day. I cannot on this occasion get up to address you without calling to mind the memorable fact that more than twelve months ago, when the cause of patriotism and factionism were more or less in the balance, that it was Kilkenny, Sligo, and Carlow that wheeled this country into line, and secured beyond the possibility of a doubt the triumph of the constitutional Irish Parliamentary Party. Sligo taught a lesson to the Irish people at home and abroad on that occasion, and I am very much inclined to think that the lesson taught then will prevent anybody else from coming forward at this election under the guise of so-called Nationalists to oppose Alderman Collery (applause). I do not think he will have anybody to face except

THE HEREDITARY ENEMIES, THE TORIES,

and I am perfectly sure that where there are Parnellite Nationalists in this northern division, when it comes to a choice between a Tory and Alderman Collery, they will not have much difficulty in making that choice (hear, hear). As to South Sligo I do not think it is likely to be contested by Mr Leamy (hisses). I hear he is going to put himself forward for some other quarter of Ireland. Mr Leamy is not a worthy representative of South Sligo, and I think this convention of Sligo men here to-day are but patriotic in rejecting him and relegating him to some other county if he likes to go. Mr Leamy is a man who acted the part of a cuckoo, and he is now sitting in the nest of Wm O'Brien. I think it is what might be expected as a result of this gentleman's management that that paper, which was once so great a power in the land has, we are informed, got almost to its last legs, and that it will not continue to exist more than a few weeks longer.

YOU HAVE HEARD LATELY A GREAT DEAL UPON PROPOSALS FOR PEACE

and a united cause between the two sections of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Well, I was one of those who from the first never believed in the possibility of any result being arrived at except the result we are arriving at now, and that is the complete defeat of the pretensions of the Pledge-breakers. I came to that conclusion at two different portions of the history of the crisis through which we have passed for the last 18 months. No man like me who has gone through the scenes of Committee Room 15, and has seen the will of Mr Parnell developed on that occasion, but must have thought that at no period of Mr Parnell's lifetime had he any intention of bending his will or of giving away the supremacy he acquired. He was prepared to fight to the last for supremacy, and therefore I say that during Mr Parnell's lifetime I became satisfied that nothing but his defeat would settle the question (applause). Unfortunately, Mr Parnell in his wild attempt to gain supremacy lost his life, and then there appeared to be hope that his followers would take

THE OPPORTUNITY TO COME TO THEIR SENSES,

but they appeared to have been deceived by the sympathy which the death of a man who was certainly a great man evoked in the minds of the Irish people. The people forgot the latter time of his life and remembered only the great works he had done before (hear, hear), and the followers of Mr Parnell mistook this gratitude of the Irish people for the past services of Mr Parnell, they mistook it for a reaction in their own favour, and blindly and foolishly they penned a manifesto which made it utterly impossible for any arrangement to be come to with them and showed that the only way to restore unity was by the utter defeat and rout of their party. The gentlemen who were calling for peace where there was no peace were, I believe, actuated by the highest possible motives. These men had not the opportunity which we had of seeing Mr Parnell in Committee Room 15, and seeing and judging for the first six months how much the country would tolerate (hear, hear). One thing the country would not tolerate was the existence of the Parnellites as a separate party in Parliament (applause). Therefore, I say that the proposal to treat them in any way except by defeat was a proposal which could not commend itself to my judgment, and I have ever been opposed to it because I never believed in the possibility of it (applause). These proposals and negotiations have been attended at various times, and recently to a small extent, by certain dangers. There were friends and supporters of ours in the country who came to think that these negotiations were going on in some occult way that they could not see, and that some day they would find that behind their backs, and over their heads, terms were made with the representatives with which the constituencies would have nothing to do. I am happy to say here to-day that there is practically an end to everything of that kind. The most sanguine members of our party look upon it as impracticable, and I assure the delegates of this and every other convention that when they select a candidate

HE WILL BE FOUGHT FOR,

and there is no possibility of his being replaced by any arrangement with the Factionist party. I have thought it a danger; no matter how well meant those proposals were a danger, inasmuch as they would dishearten to some extent our followers. I am intimately acquainted with the arrangements for the conventions and for the coming general elections, because I have been sitting on a small committee in Dublin for the last fortnight, and the information which comes to us from every quarter about the forthcoming elections is that outside the city of Dublin and the city of Waterford, as far as we can gather, there is only one constituency where a Parnellite might be returned (applause). Take the city of Dublin, which I myself represent. I can speak there at least what I believe to be the views of my own constituency, and although in the early days of the Parnellite division, no doubt, Dublin was extremely hostile in every quarter, and perhaps particularly that quarter which I represent, yet I have been for some time in touch with this Parliamentary division of St Patrick's, and from all the evidence which comes to us I believe there has been a complete revolution in the minds of the people (applause), not only in the middle and upper class electors, but even in the working classes of the division, who first went enthusiastically for Mr Parnell. I am able to count now on the great mass of these people as my supporters, and I feel as confident as Alderman Collery is of North Sligo that I shall be returned for the St Patrick's Division (loud applause). Therefore, according to my view, the way to gain peace and unity amongst the Irish people is to defeat at the polls the last remnant of factionism that remains. We shall have to wipe out in the Parnellite party some men of ability, but men who have been false to their pledges, and we shall have shown to the electors that these men's cause was hopeless, and thereby we shall again be able to gain the united support of those who are now the supporters of Parnellite candidates when they see the impossibility of returning candidates not in line with the great majority of the Irish party. The electors and the Nationalists of the country will come to see and have demonstrated to them the folly of the proceedings going on for the last twelve months, and we will have the whole country united behind us before the next general election. Mr Harrington made the modest proposal that we should allow his party thirty seats, the full number now held by his followers. That is certainly the most modest proposal since Swift's, when he said that governors of Ireland should fatten the children, and they would make very good things for the table (laughter). Now my prophecy is to defeat the Parnellite party. I do not prophesy that with any feeling of triumph over the supporters of the Parnellites in the country. I do think it would be a good thing to wipe out the pledge breakers and the factionists, and then all the honest and true men now supporting the Parnellites shall be with us before long. The leaders of the pledge breakers have brought into this quarrel a bitterness which shows the evil mind. Nothing could be more striking than the way they attacked the priests of the country. They have got up a cry, not so much for Ireland, of clerical dictation (shame).

THE PRIESTS OF IRELAND HAVE STOOD SHOULDER TO SHOULDER WITH THE PEOPLE,

fighting for the National cause and for the people (applause). Whenever it is exercised on their side the priest becomes a great patriot. It is not for consumption in this country but to injure the cause of Ireland in England that this cry was raised. I am happy to say it has fallen flat in England, because the Nonconformists, who held the balance of power as far as the Liberals are concerned, are greatly influenced by their own clergy, who take a very prominent part in politics, and they do not think and will not think it a very unnatural thing that the priests should do what they themselves are in the habit of doing in England (applause). When we consider that it is not uncommon for Irish members to get the use of Nonconformist chapels in England to address public meetings I think we may feel satisfied that this cry of clerical dictation has not influenced the Nonconformist body. One of the things which influenced my mind most largely in coming to a decision in regard to Mr Parnell was the action of this Nonconformist body, and the action of some of its leaders, such men as the Rev Mr Rogers and the Rev Mr Parker, and other strong friends of the Irish cause. When they decided, after the revelations of the Divorce Court, that they would no longer support Mr Parnell they were accused of hypocrisy and mean intention.

I BELIEVE THE NONCONFORMIST PEOPLE IN ENGLAND ARE A RELIGIOUS PEOPLE,

and they were sincere in thinking that the cause championed by a man convicted of the immorality of Mr Parnell was not a cause that could get their support (applause). Therefore, I was greatly influenced by the opinion of those men on that occasion, and I do believe they understood perfectly well the action of the Catholic clergy in Ireland upon this question. One matter I would like to speak to you upon before I sit down. I do not think it is intended that it should be the subject of a resolution. The money formerly at the disposal of the Irish Party known as the Paris Fund has been locked up by the action of the Factionists, and we are prevented from applying that fund to the relief of the evicted tenants in Ireland. It ought to be constantly rung through the country at this general election that

THE FACTIONIST PARTY REFUSED TO JOIN WITH MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY IN RELEASING THE FUND IN PARIS

for the relief of the evicted tenants in Ireland. If we are short of funds now to fight this election it is because the sum of £20,000 has been spent in relief of the evicted tenants of Ireland. Not only did these people not join us in releasing the Paris Fund for the benefit of the evicted tenants, but they hampered the collection of a fund for the benefit of those tenants in every part of Ireland. Nevertheless, we have kept up the evicted tenants (applause), and I do hope we will be able to tide them over the general election. In order to meet the expenses of the general election it will be necessary for the people to come forward and make a little sacrifice to help their members (applause). In South Sligo there might be no demand made upon you, but it is only fair that if Alderman Collery should be called upon to make sacrifices, if there should be a contest in this part of the country he should not be allowed to suffer. I have great satisfaction in hearing that

A DEPUTATION FROM THE WORKING MEN OF SLIGO ATTENDED THE CONVENTION.

I do hope that the working men, whom I very largely represent, will in the future have their voices more clearly heard and their wants better attended to than in the past (applause). I do think that the Parliament which will open in a short time will be one in which the working men will be heard more frequently than in the past (renewed applause). The Irish Parliamentary Party have been willing and are endeavouring for some time past to obtain seats for bona fide workingmen. They have provided that wherever those men are selected they will set them on the same basis as other members of the Parliamentary party who are not in a position to sustain themselves, and I do hope that we shall have in the next Parliament coming from Ireland three or four bona fide workingmen representing their class in Parliament (loud applause). I express my gratitude at the harmonious character of the proceedings to-day, and for the support you have given me in the chair, and the reception which I got from you last night.

Alderman Collery, M P, who was warmly received, said he thanked the delegates of the county of Sligo for having chosen him again to contest, on their behalf, the northern division of their county. When in April, 1891, after an almost unparalleled struggle, they elected him, he promised that if he did not bring to their services great abilities, he would at least bring an honest desire to discharge the duties imposed on him, and that whenever he felt himself unable to discharge those duties to their satisfaction he would at once retire and hand back the trust which they confided to his care (applause). Now that they had again chosen him to contest the division, he had only to reiterate the statement he made when they last elected him (cheers). The contest which was forced on them last year was, as he said, an unparalleled one. In it passions were aroused which, he trusted, had now subsided, and that the people of this county would unite in opposing the common enemy which now confronts them (cheers). Already the contest is forced on them, for Sligo has the distinction of being one of the first, if not the very first county in Ireland, in which the Tory candidates have been announced. The Sligo Tories have never been behindhand in showing their aggressiveness, and he believed their present hasty attitude savoured more of braggadocio than of enthusiasm in their dying cause (cheers). For his part, he was delighted to be pitted against the hereditary enemies of their people (applause). Of Mr Wynne personally he would say nothing. Their war is against the hated principles of which he is at present the standard-bearer. For centuries they kept their heels on the necks of our people. By degrees they have been driven from one position to another, until they now find themselves in their last ditch, and they are now about to make a final stand for the purpose of maintaining their class privileges, which enabled them so long to divide the loaves and fishes by filling every position of emolument with their nominees as well as wringing from the industrious and toiling masses the fruits of their honest toil in exorbitant rent (a voice—"We'll not have them," cheers). As he had said, the present election was their last stand and their last ditch (cheers). If beaten now, as beaten they will be, they must take their stand among the people, and enter on the race for life without their class privileges, upon which they fattened and battened for so many centuries (cheers). Of the struggle which the country had passed through for the last eighteen months he had little to say. They, there in North Sligo, were called on twelve months ago to take their part in it, and when tried they were not found wanting. No matter who made peace or who made war, the constituencies of Ireland are the tribunals to decide who was right, and he for one would strictly abide by those tribunals, and by no other peacemaker. What the decisions of those tribunals will be is evident on every side. The practical work that was being done by the committee now sitting in Dublin was evident in the manner in which the country is being organised, and much praise was due to those gentlemen for the unceasing labour which they are undergoing night and day in order to perfect the arrangements in every county in Ireland. The coming election would be memorable in the history of this country. For the first time one of the great parties in the State has undertaken to do justice to this country. It would be for us to show that party and the world that we are capable of doing justice to ourselves, and that can best be done by closing up our ranks and striking a final blow for the restoration of our native Parliament (cheers). There was one subject on which he would like to say a few words, and in which he had always taken a deep interest—that is the condition of the toiling masses of our people (hear, hear). Up to the passing of the Representation of the People Act, which gave to these countries a household suffrage, the people had no voice in the making of the laws under which they lived, toiled, and laboured. Now, thanks to Mr Gladstone, every man who owns a cabin exercises his right to vote as well as the man who owns a castle. Therefore, he said, the toiling masses are now a power in the State, and he believed they would be false to themselves if they did not use that power to their own advantage, and for the improvement of their own position. It was, therefore, their duty to see that the candidates they support at the coming election are sound on all the questions which affect the social well-being. For his own part if elected again to represent their division either at Westminster or College Green, he should be always found on the side of such friends of the workingman as Michael Davitt and others who have made the social condition of the poor their lifelong study. The importance of the coming struggle was apparent to all. The desperate efforts made by the Orange and Tory party to blacken the character of their people, to take advantage of every word and act of theirs, their unscrupulous Press ever ready to blacken and malign them, was evidence of the desperate straits to which they were driven. Their Orange conventions, their bluster about lining the ditches, and resistance to a Home Rule Government was but an election squib that would fizz off the moment Home Rule was passed (cheers). In conclusion, he would say to the tenant-farmers of this county to see that the landlord classes do not again obtain the ascendancy, as the fifteen years for which most of their rents were fixed will not be long slipping by, for according as the Tory landlord classes are in power so will their nominees be in power in the Land Courts. He had again to thank them for selecting him as their candidate, and he had only to repeat to them that he would always remain faithful to the pledges he had given them, faithful to the Irish National Party, and, above all, obedient to the elected chairman and committee of that party (loud cheers).

Mr J R Cox, M P, who was enthusiastically received, said he desired to say something of the gentleman whom the convention had honoured by selecting him as candidate for North Sligo. It had been mentioned that Mr Curran was a man of considerable means, and it might be said by their opponents that he was adopted because of the weight of his money bags. He could give that the flattest contradiction, and, furthermore, he could state that it was through his influence and constant solicitations to Mr Curran that at last he gave consent to place himself at the disposal of the Irish Parliamentary Party (applause). It was only within the last fortnight that his final consent arrived. He (Mr Cox) asked him in his own house in Australia if he would give his services to Ireland, and if a constituency asked him to stand whether he would go into Parliament. He refused then, until, at last, he said if an Irish constituency selected him he would place himself at the disposal of the Irish party. He did not ask for the seat, but it was the earnest solicitations of some of the Irish members that induced him to consent. Like many another Irish youth who had gone abroad, Mr Curran, by his zeal, energy, and straightforwardness, had added glory to the Irish name (applause). He went to Australia twenty years ago with very little money in his pocket. He worked himself on from one stage to another until he acquired in the city of Sydney a position in the commercial world second to none in the capital of New South Wales (applause). A few years ago, when the representatives of the colonies were invited by her Majesty and entertained both in England and Ireland, Mr Curran was selected as one of the Royal Commissioners to represent New South Wales. People might ask what had he done as an Irishman to merit the honour and confidence which they had placed in him that day. Since ever he was in a position to work or struggle for the Irish cause he did all in his power to help it. When John Walsh, the pioneer of recent missions to Australia, went to the Colonies at a time when the Irish cause was not very popular, Mr T Curran was the first man to take him up and give him every assistance in his power (applause). When the Messrs Redmond arrived in Australia after that dark day for Ireland the murders in the Phoenix Park and when the Orangemen rose up to denounce them in Sydney, Thomas Curran was the very first man to meet them, and when they could not get an hotel in that city he took them into his own house. When the halls and public places were refused to them he secured a theatre, and guaranteed that if the Orangemen burned it down, as they threatened to do, he would be responsible for it himself, and would build a new one. He also held himself personally responsible for the wages of every man who might be thrown out of work in connection with that theatre. When John Dillon (applause), John Deasy, Sir Thomas Esmonde, and himself (Mr Cox) arrived in Australia three or four years ago, when the Irish cause was popular, one of the first men who gave 100 guineas towards it was Mr Curran. Over a year ago, when here in Ireland men were sad and overcast by the unfortunate division, and when prominent Irishmen in Australia opposed to faction said "We cannot support any Irish delegation until you have union," Mr Curran got up at a meeting, at which he (Mr Cox) was present, and said "Is it because of a split in the Irish ranks at home that the evicted tenants are to be allowed to starve" (applause). He stuck to him (Mr Cox) through thick and thin, and notwithstanding his splendid subscription a short time before, he again put down 50 guineas on that occasion. The message which that convention sent to Australia would be received with the same cordial spirit of gratitude with which it was sent. The exiles of the Irish race had done their part for the Irish cause during the last ten years (applause). Where would the evicted tenants be to-day if it were not for the splendid response given to them in Australia, when the people of that country subscribed the magnificent sum of £40,000? The Irish people could not return that compliment in kind, but they could return it in kindness and generosity, as the people of Sligo had done, from that convention (applause). There was a bond of sympathy between Irishmen all the world over, and if landlord oppression or Dublin Castle would ever again raise its head to trample upon Ireland here at home Irishmen in America and Australia would not permit it (applause). They should help as far as they could to put an end to faction in Ireland. What he would impress upon them was as far as possible to bring round their honest but misguided neighbours, and bring them into close unity and harmony with each other. They would not see through all Ireland Factionist candidates opposing Tories, nor Tories opposing Factionists. O'Connell once said that if ever the Times praised him he would immediately examine his conscience. The Times was always praising the Factionists, and it was about time that they would examine their consciences. In conclusion, he said if every man did his part in the coming struggle they would have the privilege of telling their children that in the hour of Ireland's trial, when she needed sterling hands to make her a free, emancipated, and prosperous country, they helped to win those blessings for her (loud applause).

The Chairman then introduced Mr T B Curran, son of Mr Thomas Curran, of Sydney.

Mr Curran, who was very warmly received, said he desired to thank them from the bottom of his heart for the very great honour they had conferred upon his father, who was at present 14,000 miles away, in adopting him as candidate for Sligo. There was not an Irishman in Australia at the present time in favour of the Parnellite faction (applause).

Very Rev Canon M'Loughlin, V G, came forward and expressed his delight at seeing the unanimity with which the proceedings had been conducted. He was sure that unanimity would continue throughout the whole contest until they had returned their candidate triumphantly at the head of the poll. There had been some bickering amongst their leaders lately, but the people did not approve of that, and he hoped they would hear no more of it. He was sure that the gentleman selected would prove worthy of the trust which had been reposed in him.

Rev Father Conlan said that, speaking on behalf of the Gaels of the county Sligo, he would undertake to say that they would give a hearty support to both the National candidates. He could also speak for the general body of the Nationalists of the county. When Mr Curran came to South Sligo to open the electoral campaign he would receive a right hearty reception (cheers). As regarded young Mr Curran, if the father was anything like the son as a speaker he (Father Conlan) was not sorry he had induced his friend, John O'Dowd, to withdraw; the men who were most ardent in his support would give their best assistance to Mr Curran. He (Father Conlan) did not anticipate any very serious opposition to Mr Curran from the Tories. South Sligo had given the first knock-down blow to the Factionists, and the Tories would get another knock-down at the coming election which would settle their pretensions in Sligo for ever (cheers).

On the motion of the Mayor (Alderman Higgins), seconded by Mr P A M'Hugh, T C, a vote of thanks was passed to the chairman for presiding.

Mr Murphy replied, and said his thanks were due to the convention for making his duty so light. Nothing could give him greater pleasure than to see the unanimity with which the whole proceedings were carried out. He felt no doubt that Sligo would give as good an account of itself as it ever did before.

The proceedings then terminated. The band of the Sligo branch of the National Federation escorted the members and their friends to their hotel. The party were followed by a large and enthusiastic crowd cheering heartily the members of the Irish Party.