Arkansas State Gazette

IRELAND.

Reception of O'Connell at Ennis!—700,000 persons assembled! Tremendous excitement and enthusiasm!—Mr. O'Connell had a demonstration at Ennis, for the county of Clare, on Thursday, the 15th ult., and the meeting is described as more numerous than any that preceded it. The numbers are stated at 700,000! including about 6,000 horsemen; the cavalcade of cars extended from Ennis to Newmarket six miles. The preparations for his reception were most elaborate. At the entrance to the town "whole trees were planted," with triumphal arches across the road, mottoes, and devices.

The description of one device is worth transcribing. There was a chain extending across, the centre of which was joined by a cord, and on a green banner over it was inscribed:

"The Liberator of Ireland
Will cut asunder
The chain of slavery
We labor under."

Here a man had taken up his position with a sword, with which, as the Liberator approached, he cut the cord in the centre, and the chain was shivered on both sides, amid the shouts and acclamations of thousands, that rent the air for some minutes.

The meeting was held on the race-ground, and Mr. O'Connell ascended the platform, accompanied by Mr. Tom Steele, Mr. Charles O'Connell, "Counsellor" O'Leary, and three French gentlemen. On the motion of Mr. H. Bridgman, M. P., and justice of the peace, the chair was taken by Mr. Cornelius O'Brien, M. P., and justice of the peace.

Mr. O'Connell, in his speech, said, the moment he had 3,000,000 repealers, he would begin another career. They would have a Parliament. Ireland should once more belong to Irishmen.

At the dinner, he said the British ministry were divided on the Irish question—they would not use coercive measures. He was certain of the fact, &c.

A meeting was held at Athlone, on Sunday—from 350,000 to 400,000, many of them women—and one writer says that 100 priests were on the ground. The gathering took place at Summerhill. Before it, mass was said in the open air, for the benefit of those who had left their distant homes too soon to attend morning service. There were two platforms—one for men, another for women. The chairman was Lord Ffrench.

At the weekly repeal meeting of the Repeal Association, on Monday, Mr. O'Connell announced that the repeal rent for the week amounted to £3,103 7s. 5d. The largest sum received, in one week, by the Catholic Association, was £2,700, and that was during the height of the agitation for the Clare election; in general, the average of the receipts did not exceed £250.

In deference to the advice of Lord Farnham, several of his friends and tenants have resolved to discountenance the usual Protestant and Orange anniversary of July.

One of O'Connell's repeal demonstrations took place at Skibbereen, on Thursday, the 22d June, which was of the usual character, both at the meeting and at the dinner. The Cork Examiner says that it is impossible to give anything like a correct estimate of the numbers present, but afterwards calculates them to be between five and six hundred thousand. Much was said of Sir James Graham's speech on the arms bill, which was construed to proclaim the Irish a nation of perjurers: it was alluded to both at the meeting and at the dinner, with a plentiful use of the words, "he lies." At the meeting, Mr. Shea Lally said: "I say to him, and before you, he lies." [Vehement cheering] "He lies damnably; he lies insolently and I wish to God I was in the House of Commons to tell him to his teeth, you lie." [Prolonged cheering] "I am not like O'Connor Don—I am not like the gentleman who is satisfied that he should be called a perjurer, provided it be done in a gentlemanly way [hear, hear]. I say, then, before this enormous mass—I say, before Protestants as well as Catholics, for there are many Protestants here that I have the honor of knowing, and they will bear me out in what I have to say—I say, then, before you all, Sir James Graham, you lie." [Vehement cheering.]

Galway was next taken possession of by the repealers, on Sunday, with the usual style of proceedings. Dr. Browne, the Bishop of Galway, taking an active part. Lord Ffrench was the chairman. At the dinner, about six hundred gentlemen sat down to the table, in a pavilion specially erected for the purpose. Mr. O'Connell put the peaceable form of his views more decidedly than he has yet done—

"It is but a fortnight ago, when attending a meetings at Mallow, that there came upon me the maddening information that the country of my birth was threatened to be deluged with the blood of her children. Watching, during that short period, with an eye of eagerness the evolutions of our enemies, I now proclaim to you a perpetual peace, and a struggle—merely in political strife—bloodless, stainless; crimeless, upon our part—leave to our enemy the paltry resources only of a mean and unavailing resistance."

The repeal rent for the week announced at the Monday meeting of the association at the Corn Exchange, was £1,258.

Four more writs to supersede Irish justices of the peace are announced—Sir Valentine Blake being one of the dismissed.