Editing John Mitchel (section)

==''The Nation''==
{{main|The Nation (Irish newspaper)|l1=The Nation}}

===Succeeds Thomas Davis===
[[File:Thomas Davis Young Irelander.JPG|150px|left|thumb|[[Thomas Osborne Davis (Irish politician)|Thomas Davis]]]]

Mitchel began to write for the ''Nation'' in February 1843. He co-authored an editorial with Thomas Davis, "the Anti-Irish Catholics", in which he embraced Davis's promotion of the [[Irish language]] and of [[Gaelic Ireland|Gaelic tradition]] as a non-sectarian basis for a common Irish nationality. Mitchel, however, did not share Davis's anti-[[clericalism]], declining to support Davis as he sought to reverse O'Connell's opposition to the government's secular, or as O'Connell proposed "Godless", Colleges Bill.<ref name="McGovern">{{cite book |last1=McGovern |first1=Bryan P. |title=John Mitchel: Irish Nationalist, Southern Secessionist |date=2009 |publisher=University of Tennessee |location=Knoxville |isbn=9781572336544 |pages=12, 15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qtg9jS2M9vYC&q=McGovern,+John+Mitchel:+Irish+Nationalist,+southern+Secessionist |access-date=3 January 2021}}</ref>

Mitchel insisted that the government, aware that it would cause dissension, had introduced their bill for non-religious higher education to divide the national movement. But he also argued that religion is integral to education; that "all subjects of human knowledge and speculation (except abstract science)--and history most of all--are necessarily regarded from ''either'' a Catholic or a Protestant point of view, and cannot be understood or conceived at all if looked at from either, or from both".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mitchel |first1=John |title=An Apology for the British Government in Ireland |date=1905 |publisher=O'Donoghue |location=Dublin |page=65}}</ref> For Mitchel a cultural nationalism based on Ireland's Gaelic heritage was intended not to displace the two religious traditions but rather serve as common ground between them.<ref name="McGovern" />

When in September 1845, Davis unexpectedly died of scarlet fever, Duffy asked Mitchel to join the ''Nation'' as chief editorial writer. He left his legal practice in Newry, and brought his wife and children to live in Dublin, eventually settling in [[Rathmines]].<ref name="T.F. O'Sullivan"/> For the next two years Mitchel wrote both political and historical articles and reviews for ''The Nation''. He reviewed the ''Speeches'' of [[John Philpot Curran]], a pamphlet by [[Isaac Butt]] on ''The Protection of Home Industry'', ''The Age of [[William Pitt the Younger|Pitt]] and [[Charles James Fox|Fox]]'', and later on ''The Poets and Dramatists of Ireland'', edited by [[Denis Florence MacCarthy]] (4 April 1846); ''The Industrial History of Free Nations'', by [[William McCullagh Torrens|Torrens McCullagh]], and [[C. P. Meehan|Father Meehan]]'s ''[[Confederate Ireland|The Confederation of Kilkenny]]'' (8 August 1846).

===Responds to the Famine===

Mitchel blamed the British government for the famine. He wrote: "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine...and a million and a half men, women and children were carefully, prudently and peacefully slain by the English government".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kearney |first1=Hugh F. |title=Ireland: Contested Ideas of Nationalism and History |date=2007 |publisher=NYU Press |page=272}}</ref>

On 25 October 1845, in article "The People's Food", Mitchel pointed to the failure of the potato crop, and warned landlords that pursuing their tenants for rents would force them to sell their other crops and starve.<ref>''The Nation'' newspaper, 1845</ref> On 8 November, in "The Detectives", he wrote, "The people are beginning to fear that the Irish Government is merely a machinery for their destruction; ... that it is unable, or unwilling, to take a single step for the prevention of famine, for the encouragement of manufactures, or providing fields of industry, and is only active in promoting, by high premiums and bounties, the horrible manufacture of crimes!".<ref name="The Nation">''The Nation'' newspaper, 1844</ref>

On 14 February 1846 Mitchel wrote again of the consequences of the previous autumn's potato crop losses, condemning the Government's inadequate response, and questioning whether it recognised that millions of people in Ireland who would soon have nothing to eat.<ref name="T.F. O'Sullivan">Young Ireland, T.F. O'Sullivan, The Kerryman Ltd, 1945.</ref> On 28 February, he observed that the [[Coercion Act|Coercion Bill]], then going through the [[House of Lords]], was "the only kind of legislation for Ireland that is sure to meet with no obstruction in that House". However they may differ about feeding the Irish people, the one thing all English parties were agreed upon was "the policy of taxing, prosecuting and ruining them."<ref name="Nation">''The Nation'' newspaper, 1846</ref>

In an article on "English Rule" on 7 March 1846, Mitchel wrote: <blockquote>The Irish People are expecting famine day by day... and they ascribe it unanimously, not so much to the rule of heaven as to the greedy and cruel policy of England. ... They behold their own wretched food melting in rottenness off the face of the earth, and they see heavy-laden ships, freighted with the yellow corn their own hands have sown and reaped, spreading all sail for England; they see it and with every grain of that corn goes a heavy curse.<ref name="Nation" /></blockquote>

===Lalor and the break with O'Connell===
[[File:James Fintan Lalor 2.jpg|thumb|150px|right|[[James Fintan Lalor]]]]
In June 1846 the Whigs, with whom O'Connell had worked against the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] ministry of [[Robert Peel]], returned to office under [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]]. Invoking new [[laissez-faire]] doctrines "political economy", they immediately set about dismantling Peel's limited, but practical, efforts to provide Ireland with food relief.<ref>{{Cite book |title= The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 |last=Woodham-Smith |first=Cecil |publisher=Penguin |year=1962 |location=London |isbn=978-0-14-014515-1|pages=410–411}}</ref> O'Connell was left to plead for his country from the floor of the [[House of Commons]]: "She is in your hands—in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. One-fourth of her population will perish unless Parliament comes to their relief".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Geoghegan |first1=Patrick |title=Liberator Daniel O'Connell: The Life and Death of Daniel O'Connell, 1830-1847 |date=2010 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |location=Dublin |pages=332 |isbn=9780717151578 |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ptn4AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT332.w.0.0.0.0.1 |access-date=26 December 2020 |archive-date=22 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922231616/https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ptn4AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT332.w.0.0.0.0.1 |url-status=live }}</ref> A broken man, on the advice of his doctors O'Connell took himself to the continent where, on route to Rome, he died in May 1847.

In the months before O'Connell's death, Duffy circulated letters received from [[James Fintan Lalor]] in which he argued that independence could be pursued only in a popular struggle for the land. While Lalor proposed that this should begin with a campaign to withhold rent, he suggested more might be required.<ref>Finton Lalor to Duffy, January, 1847 (Gavan Duffy Papers).</ref> Parts of the country were already in a state of semi-insurrection. Tenants conspirators, in the tradition of the Whiteboys and [[Ribbonism|Ribbonmen]], were attacking process servers, intimidating land agents, and resisting evictions. Lalor advised only against a general uprising, as he believed the Irish people could not overthrow [[British rule in Ireland]] with military force.<ref>Finton Lalor to Duffy, February, 1847 (Gavan Duffy Papers).</ref>

Having abandoned the hopes he had entertained with Duffy that landlords might rally to Repeal, and notwithstanding that his own ideas of agrarian reform extended little further than [[Tenant-right|Tenant Right]], Mitchel embraced Lalor's vision of agrarian agitation as the cutting edge of a national struggle.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Anthony G. |title=Between Two Flags: John Mitchel & Jenny Verner |publisher=Merrion Press |year=2015 |isbn=9781785370007 |location=Sallin, Co. Kildare |pages=40–41}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Quinn |first=James Quinn |title=John Mitchel |publisher=University College Dublin Press |year=2008 |isbn=9781906359157 |location=Dublin |pages=17}}</ref> When the London journal the ''Standard'' observed that the new Irish railways could be used to transport government troops to quickly curb agrarian unrest, Mitchel responded that the tracks could be turned into pikes and trains ambushed. O’Connell publicly distanced himself from ''The Nation, ''appearing to some to set Duffy, as the editor, up for prosecution.<ref name="Irish Confederation formed">{{cite web |last1=McCullagh |first1=John |title=Irish Confederation formed |website=newryjournal.co.uk/ |date=8 November 2010 |publisher=Newry Journal |url=https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/history/1800-1900/irish-confederation-formed/ |access-date=27 August 2020 |archive-date=25 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200925090507/https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/history/1800-1900/irish-confederation-formed/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In the case that followed, Mitchel successfully defended Duffy in court.<ref name="Irish Confederation formed"/> O'Connell and his son John were determined to press the issue. On the threat of their own resignations, they carried a resolution in the Repeal Association declaring that under no circumstances was a nation justified in asserting its liberties by force of arms.<ref>O'Sullivan (1945). ''Young Ireland''. The Kerryman Ltd. pp. 195-6</ref>

The grouping around the ''Nation'' that O'Connell had taken to calling "[[Young Ireland]]", a reference to [[Giuseppe Mazzini]]'s anti-clerical and insurrectionist [[Young Italy]], withdrew from the Repeal Association. In January 1847, they formed themselves anew as the [[Irish Confederation]] with, in [[Michael Doheny]] words, the "independence of the Irish nation" the objective and "no means to attain that end abjured, save such as were inconsistent with honour, morality and reason".<ref name="doheny112-112">Michael Doheny’s The Felon’s Track, M.H. Gill & Son, LTD, 1951 Edition pg 111–112</ref> But unable to secure a pronouncement in favour of Lalor's policy of building a campaign of resistance around tenant grievances, Mitchel soon broke with his confederates.