To visit Ireland and not go through the Gap of Dunloe and take a nip of poteen and goat’s milk at Kate Kearney’s cottage on the way to the Lakes of Killarney, and then to be safely rowed through them by four sturdy oarsmen, with a stop at Dinas Island (for nautical purposes only), would be a loss even as great as not to visit Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. Ever since that eventful day when I hung over the parapet and essayed to take osculatory liberties with that hammer face member of the stone family, there seems to be an elasticity to my tongue and oleaginous flavor to my words that are possessed only by the lovers of art and nature, who believe in the Stone Age and in Memnon’s harp that plays a melody, far away from the habitat of man, to give greeting each morn to the rising sun. A scene of lasting remembrance to me was the one I witnessed in Queenstown the night before our good ship, “Majestic,” sailed for this port. On every hilltop and from every vantage point one could discern, like a silhouette athwart the blackened night, bonfires brightly burning, each one being the harbinger of friendly greeting to the other and all betokening the emblems of Ireland’s motto, “Hospitality, virtue and courage.” That scene symbolized in no uncertain meaning the genuine love and sincerity of a loyal people, who made those beacon lights shine forth in luminous colors to give encouragement to the faithful hearts of the blushing maids and the fearless lads, who were about to leave the land of their birth and sever forever the ties of friendship by coming to America to find here a haven of safety from the thralldom and oppression of their home land. I will conclude by quoting a few lines from Emerson: Teach me your mood, O patient stars; Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving no space, no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die. If Emerson had dedicated this sentiment to Ireland and her patriotic sons, he could not more fittingly have described her relations to the implacable foe whose mood, after centuries of oppression and warfare, has not been able to dim the lustre of that patient Star of Hope which will shine on continuously to illumine space, without shading, but with the scars of memory to make more radiant the valor and virtue of her people who carry on their brow no trace of age, and in their hearts no fear to die in the cause of human freedom. I thank you. PRESIDENT-GENERAL QUINLAN: This concludes the Twelfth Annual Banquet of the American-Irish Historical Society. I thank you all in the name of the administration for your presence and your hearty coöperation in this feast of reason and flow of soul. Historical Papers. THE IRISH SHARE IN THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION. BY JOSEPH I. C. CLARKE, ESQ., VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY FOR NEW YORK.