Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I always welcome Senator David Norris' contributions. Brigadier General Thomas Meagher was sent to Van Diemen's Land from where he escaped and arrived in America in the 1850s where he led the Irish Brigade in some of the biggest battles of the American Civil War, notably the battle of Fredericksburg, to which John F. Kennedy referred in his address to the Oireachtas. The highest compliment that could have been paid to him and his brigade came from Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate forces, who that evening wrote of the Irish Brigade in his journal, "Never were men so noble. They ennobled their race by their splendid gallantry on that desperate occasion." They had lost 850 of 1,200 men. Brigadier General Thomas Meagher became the first Governor of the state of Montana and befitting a man who had had an extraordinary life, he had an extraordinary death. One evening he was seen on a paddle boat on the Missouri river and the following day he was gone, never to be seen again. I thank the Leader for his assistance in proposing the motion and welcome Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher's great-great grandson to the House.