While "no blood was shed" during this friendly but combative meeting, O'Hagan's nose began to bleed profusely.
He let it bleed into his pocket-handkerchief privately til nature was relieved, and was more cautious of exciting himself afterwards" (Jane Carlyle qtd.
After Gladstone had passed his Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881, he chose O'Hagan as the first judicial head of the Irish Land Commission, making him for this purpose a judge of Her Majesty's High Court of Justice.
He was a friend of John Kells Ingram, an Irish economist, poet and patriot.
His poems, "Dear Land", "Ourselves Alone", etc., were among the most effective features of The Nation in its brilliant youth.