Reclaim The Enlightenment: The Trial of John Mitchel

This is one of the festival's Pay What You Can events.

A play in which the ghosts of the past are aware of what has been happening in the living world, and come to court to review the evidence

The Court of History convenes to try John Mitchel (1815-1875), Irish Republican, American Confederate and slavery supporter. Performed by The Newpoint Players, Anthony Russell's funny, fantastic play is a classic example from his canon of such trials, in which the ghosts of the past are aware of what has been happening in the living world, and come to court to review the evidence. Padraic Pearse, a great admirer of Mitchel, is barrister for the defence. Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, Premier of Victoria, prosecutes the case. Mitchel and Duffy had been close friends in their Young Ireland days, but due to Mitchel’s racist opinions and support for political violence, they became bitter lifelong enemies. Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, is the witness for the prosecution. Jenny Verner, Mitchel’s wife, who shared his life and opinions, is called to her husband’s defence. The verdict is not predetermined. It is up to the audience, having heard the facts, viewpoints, and arguments from his peers, to determine whether Mitchel should be remembered as a hero or a villain.

The son of a Presbyterian minister, Mitchel was a powerful witness to the Great Hunger in Ireland. “I could see, in front of the cottages, little children leaning against a fence when the sun shone out for they could not stand, their limbs fleshless, their bodies half-naked, their faces bloated yet wrinkled, and of a pale, greenish hue…I saw Trevelyan's claw in the vitals of those children: his red tape would draw them to death: in his Government laboratory he had prepared for them the typhus poison.”

In May 1848, fearful of Mitchel’s power, London’s Punch magazine emphasized Mitchel’s international standing by portraying him as an Irish Monkey challenging the Great British Empire. The Times thundered against him. When John Mitchel produced his own republican newspaper, the United Irishman, it sold out. To silence Mitchel, the British Government passed the 1848 Treason Felony Act, which sought to treat treason as a common crime. Mitchel was arrested, tried and transported.

When Mitchel escaped from Van Diemen’s Land, vast crowds welcomed him to San Francisco. Likewise in 1854, torch-lit processions welcomed him to New York with state honours. After the American Civil War, the Fenians offered him the leadership of that movement and when he visited the Irish College in Paris it was to the applause and a standing ovation from both staff and students.

He died in 1875 as an unrepentant, physical force, republican abstentionist M.P. Every major newspaper in Ireland, Britain and the USA noted his passing. Catholic clergymen led his cortege to the Presbyterian graveyard. The Freemans Journal observed, ‘A remarkable man has been removed from the stage of Irish politics…The brave man struggling with the storms of fate lived long enough for consolation if not for success.’ The unionist Irish Times declared that John Mitchel ‘descended into the grave without bringing the shadow of a stain on the fair name of his ancestors.’ Some obituaries were critical, but all acknowledged his courage and devotion to Ireland.

Anthony Russell, historian, a Committee member of Reclaim The Enlightenment , is the author of numerous texts, including Merrion Press’s ‘Between Two Flags: John Mitchel and Jenny Verner’ and co-editor of IAP’s ‘John Mitchel Ulster and the Great Famine’. He was the prime mover in bringing the 2015 National Famine Commemoration to Newry and was Director of the associated International Famine Conference ‘John Mitchel: The Legacy of the Great Famine.’ He is the author of ‘The Trial of P. H. Pearse before the Court of History’ and ‘The Trial of James Craig before the Court of History’, which have played across Ireland and Canada and feature John Mitchel as a lawyer.

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Host or Publisher Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics