From Wexford MP to premier of Victoria: The Irishman who made a mark on two continents

To have an impact on national politics in one country is an achievement, but to have an impact in two in one lifetime is a rarity. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy was one such individual.

Charles Gavan Duffy was born in Monaghan town on April 12th, 1816, the sixth and youngest child of John Duffy, a shopkeeper and former United Irishman, and his wife, Anne (née Gavan). His parents died young and Charles Gavan Duffy was raised by a priest.

Duffy was educated at a local “poor school” run by a teacher called Neil Quin, before becoming the only Catholic pupil at a classical academy in Monaghan run by a Presbyterian minister.

He eventually became Monaghan correspondent for the Belfast-based Northern Herald, owned by Charles Hamilton Teeling, and in April 1836 went to Dublin to work as a trainee journalist on the Dublin Morning Register.

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In Victorian politics, Duffy had a secure base of support among the Irish

In May 1839, Duffy became founding editor of the Belfast Vindicator, which campaigned for Catholic rights. A few months later he bought the paper.

Duffy helped to organise Daniel O’Connell’s visit to Belfast in disguise in January 1841 and succeeded in getting him out of the city unharmed. He launched a new nationalist newspaper in 1842 – and the Nation proved an instant success.

Agitation and campaigning were risky, and in October 1843 Duffy was one of a group arrested on the charge of seditious conspiracy, which had a jail sentence of nine months.

On July 9th, 1848, Duffy was arrested for sedition again as a result of publishing a manifesto, The Creed of ‘The Nation’: A Profession of Confederate Principles, in which he advocated an independent Ireland joined to Britain only by the crown. He suggested that if this was not conceded peacefully, it might be gained by force.

Duffy was also wrongly charged with treason for writing an inflammatory article in the Nation, but he was acquitted after the poet Sperenza took the credit, announcing to the court, “I am the culprit if crime it be.”

Duffy’s next move was to campaign for agricultural tenants’ rights. He played a key role in a conference in Dublin that founded the Irish Tenant League. Later, following the 1852 general election, Duffy became MP for New Ross, in Co Wexford; however, his speeches made little impact on parliament and he was absent for long periods through ill health.

Faced with health problems, Duffy decided to resign his seat, sell the Nation and emigrate to Australia. The Nation of August 18th, 1855, published Duffy’s final message to his New Ross constituents, stating that until circumstances changed there was no more hope for the Irish cause than for a corpse on the dissecting table.

Duffy had enough of politics in Ireland, but it wasn’t long before he was approached by the Liberal Party in Victoria. In 1857 he was elected to Victoria’s first parliament, on the introduction of representative government.

His experience was valued in Australia, and he was quickly given positions of responsibility in the 1858 to 1859 and 1861 to 1863 governments of John O’Shanassy.

Duffy’s ministerial service qualified him for a pension of £1,000 a year, which gave him financial security for the remainder of his life.

He was appointed a trustee of the Melbourne Museum and Art Gallery, and acquired artworks for it during his later residence in Europe.

Duffy’s 1862 Land Act encouraged small farmers (“selectors”) to acquire landholdings, but its impact was limited by poor drafting, which allowed “squatters” (large landowners) to acquire land by putting up “men of straw” as selectors, and by Duffy’s failure to realise the difference between the land hunger of the Irish peasantry and the speculative outlook of many Australian settlers.

From 1871 to 1872 Duffy was premier of Victoria, and he served as speaker of the parliament of Victoria from 1877 to 1880.

He received a knighthood (Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George) in 1873, and a KCMG in 1877.

In Victorian politics, Duffy had a secure base of support among the Irish. His sons by his first two marriages made their careers in Australia: John Gavan Duffy (1844 to 1917) became a minister in the Victorian cabinet in 1880 and again in the 1890s, and Sir Frank Gavan Duffy (1852 to 1936) was Australian chief justice.

In 1880 Duffy left Australia for Europe. He lived mainly on the French Riviera, making periodic excursions to Ireland and Britain.

In spite of his withdrawal from active politics Duffy used his status as an elder statesman and his knowledge of Australian self-government to promote the Home Rule cause through Lord Carnarvon, whom he had known as colonial secretary.

During Carnarvon’s lord lieutenancy Duffy helped to arrange clandestine negotiations between him and Charles Stewart Parnell on the subject.

Duffy spent much of his retirement as a writer, mostly on Irish history, which he discusses at length in My life in two hemispheres (2 vols, 1898).

His third marriage on November 16th, 1881, to Louise Hall, niece of his second wife, produced three sons (including George Govan Duffy signatory of the Anglo-Irish treaty and president of the high court) and one daughter, the educationist Louise Gavan Duffy.

He died on February 9th, 1903 and was buried at Glasnevin cemetery beside his Young Ireland friends within the circle of the Daniel O’Connell.

This Extraordinary Emigrants article was written by Dr J Patrick Greene, museum director of EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, in Dublin’s Docklands, an interactive museum that tells the story of how the Irish shaped and influenced the world