Prospectus of The Nation [written by Davis with the exception of one sentence].

Source: P. A. Sillard, Life of John Mitchel (Dublin: James Duffy & Co., Ltd 1908), p.3; quoted in Wikipedia [art. on The Nation], and echoed in www.halfvalue.com. [22.06.2007]

On the first Saturday in October will be published the first number of a; DUBLIN WEEKLY JOURNAL TO BE CALLED THE NATION for which the services of the most eminent political writers in the country have been secured. It will he edited by Charles Gavan Duffy, Editor of The Vindicator, aided by the, following distinguished contributors: JOHN O’CONNELL, ESQ., M.P.; Thomas Osborne Davis, Esq., Barrister-at-Law; W. J. O'Neill Daunt, Esq., Author of The Green Book, John B. Dillon, Esq., Barrister-at-Law; Clarence Mangan, Esq., Author of Anthologia Germanica and Litterae Orientales; The Late Editor of the London Magazine and Charivari, J. C. Fitzgerald, Editor of The True Sun, and others whose names we are not at liberty to publish.

The projectors of the NATION have been told that there is no room in Ireland for another Liberal Journal; but they think differently. They believe that since the success of the long and gallant struggle which our fathers maintained against sectarian ascendancy, a NEW MIND has grown up amongst us, which longs to redress other wrongs and achieve other victories; and that this mind has found no adequate expression in the press. The Liberal Journals of Ireland were perhaps never more ably conducted than at this moment; but their tone and spirit are not of the present but the past; their energies are shackled by old habits, old prejudices, and old divisions; and they do not and cannot keep in the van of the advancing people. The necessities of the country seem to demand a Journal able to aid and organise the new movements going on amongst us - to make their growth deeper, and their fruit “more racy of the soil” and, above all, to direct the popular mind and the sympathies of educated men of all parties to the great end of nationality. Such a Journal should be free from the quarrels, the interests, the wrongs, and even the gratitude of the past. It should be free to apply its strength where it deems best; free to praise, free to censure; unshackled by sect or party; able, Irish, and independent. Holding these views, the projectors of the Nation cannot think that a Journal, prepared to undertake this work, will be deemed superfluous; and as they labour, not for themselves but for their country, they are prepared, if they do not find a way open, to try if they cannot make one.

Nationality is their first object - a nationality which will not only raise our people from their poverty, by securing to them the blessings of a domestic legislature, but inflame and purify them with a lofty and heroic love of country; a nationality of the spirit as well as the letter; a nationality which may come to be stamped upon our manners, our literature, and our deeds; a nationality which may embrace Protestant, Catholic, and Dissenter, Milesian and Cromwellian, the Irishman of a hundred generations, and the stranger who is within our gates; not a nationality which would preclude civil war, but which would establish internal union and external independence; a nationality which would be recognised by the world, and sanctified by wisdom, virtue, and time.



[ close ] [ top ]