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Pastimes : Laughter is the Best Medicine - Tell us a joke
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To: David Miller who wrote (13776)3/14/2000 11:33:00 AM
From: Karen Lawrence  Read Replies (2) of 62551
 
David, this Nine Famous Irishmen story is not quite an urban legend - Your questioning prompted me to do a search. I found this:

"The Irish tell the world's most marvellous stories. Sometimes they even contain elements of the truth. An example. In an Irish pub called the Black Rose - a translation of Roisin Dubh which is one of the many allegorical names for Ireland - they have place-mats. One tells how in the Young Irish disorders of 1848, nine men were convicted of treason in Ireland and sentenced to death. This was later commuted by Queen Victoria to transportation for life to Australia.

In 1874, Queen Victoria found that one of the nine men had become Sir Charles Duffy and also Prime Minister of Australia. Of the other eight Morris Lyene had become Attorney-General of Australia and the rest were all prominent politicians or generals in the United States.

That is the story. Now the truth.

Sir Charles Duffy was indeed an Irish Nationalist and, true, was tried for sedition. There was a hung jury and he was released. He emigrated - was not deported - to Australia in 1855 and became Premier of Victoria, not Prime Minister of Australia, in 1871 and lasted at the job for 12 months.

In 1874 when Queen Victoria was, according to the placemat, allegedly investigating his position as Prime Minister of Australia, Sir Charles was, in fact, in England being offered a job in the British House of Commons.

But why should boring facts stand in the way of a great story?"
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