Volume 2 — APPENDIX.

NOTE F. THE “MOONLIGHTERS” AND “HOME RULE.” (Vol. ii. p. 38.)

On Monday, the 1st of February 1886, the Irish Times published the following story from Tralee, near the scene of the “boycotting,” temporal and spiritual, of the unfortunate daughters of Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, murdered in his own house by “moonlighters”:—

“TRALEE, Sunday.

“It was stated that the bishop had ordered Mass to be celebrated for them—the Curtins—but this did not take place. At the village of Firies a number of people had assembled. They stopped loitering about the place in the forenoon, waiting for a meeting of the National League, which was subsequently held. A threatening notice was discovered posted up on the door of a house formerly used as a forge. It ran as follows:—

“‘NOTICE.—If we are honoured by the presence of the bloodthirsty perjurers at Mass on any of the forthcoming Sundays, take good care you’ll stand up very politely and walk out. Don’t be under the impression that all the Moonlighters are dead, and that this notice is a child’s play, as Shawn Nelleen titled the last one. I’ll be sure to keep my word, as you will see before long, so have no welcome for the Curtins, and, above all, let no one work for them in any way. As you respect the Captain, and as you value your own life, abide by this notice.’—Signed,

‘A MOONLIGHTER.’

“The above notice was written on tea paper in large legible style, and evidently by an intelligent person. Groups were perusing it during the day. A force of police marched through the village and back, but did not observe this document, as it is still posted on the door of the house.”

The “bloodthirsty perjurers” here mentioned were the daughters who had dared to demand and to pro mote the punishment of the assassins of their father! For this crime these daughters were to be excommunicated by the people of Firies, and denied the consolations of religion in their deep sorrow, even in defiance of the order of the Catholic bishop.

As the advent of Mr. Gladstone to power in alliance with Mr. Parnell was then imminent, Mr. Sheehan, M.P., wrote a letter to the parish priest of Firies, the Rev. Mr. O’Connor, begging him in substance to put the brakes—for a time—upon the wheels of the local rack, lest the outcries of the young women subjected to this moral torture should interfere with the success of the new alliance. This, in plain English, is the only possible meaning of the letter which I here reprint from a leaflet issued by an Irish society:—

“The Rev. Father O’Connor, P.P., has received the following letter from Mr. Sheehau, M.P., in reference to this matter, under date

“‘House of Commons, January 26th.

“‘REV. DEAR SIR,—At this important juncture in our history, I am sorry to see reports of the Firies display. Nothing that has taken place yet in the South of Ireland has done so much harm to the National cause. If they persist they will ruin us. To-morrow evening will be most important in Parliamentary history. Our party expect the defeat of the Government and resumption of power by Mr. Gladstone. If we succeed in this, which we are confident of, the future of our country will be great, and, although an appeal to the constituencies must be made, the Irish party in those few days have made an impression in future that no Government can withstand. The Salisbury Government want to appeal to the country on the integrity of the empire, and, of course, for the last few days have tried all means to lead to this by raking up the Curtin case and all judicial cases, which must be avoided for a short time, as our stoppage to the Eviction Act will cover all this.—

Yours faithfully, J.D. SHEEHAN.’”

This letter was read, the leaflet informs us, by the Rev. Mr. O’Connor, at the National Schools and other places.

NOTE G. THE PONSONBY PROPERTY. (Vol. ii. pp. 59-66.)

The account which the Rev. Canon Keller gave me of “The Struggle for Life on the Ponsonby Estate,” in a tract bearing that title, and authorised by him to be published by the National League, is so circumstantial and elaborate that, after reading it carefully, I took unusual pains to obtain some reply to it from the representatives of the landlord implicated. These finally led to a visit from Mr. Ponsonby himself, who was so kind as to call upon me in London on the 15th of May, with papers and documents. I give in the following colloquy the results of this interview, putting together with the allegations of Canon Keller the answers of Mr. Ponsonby, and leave the matter in this form to the judgment of my readers.

Q. Canon Keller, I see, describes you, Mr. Ponsonby, as “a retired navy officer, and an absentee Irish landlord.” He says your estate is now “universally known as the famous Ponsonby Estate,” and that it is occupied “by from 300 to 400 tenants, holding farms varying in extent from an acre and a half to over two hundred acres.” Are these statements correct?

A. I am a retired navy officer certainly, and perhaps I may be called an “absentee Irish landlord.” I lived on my property for some time, and I have always attended to it. I succeeded to the estate in 1868, and almost my first act was to borrow £2000 of the Board of Works for drainage purposes—the tenants agreeing to pay half the interest. As a matter of fact some never paid at all, and I afterwards wiped out the claims against them. There are about 300 tenants on the property, and the average holdings are of about 36 acres, at an average rental of £30 a holding. There are, however, not a few large farms.

Q. Canon Keller says that “in the memory of living witnesses, and far beyond it, the Ponsonby tenants have been notoriously rack-rented and oppressed”; and that they have been committed to the “tender mercies of agents, seeing little or nothing of their landlord, and experiencing no practical sympathy from that quarter.” How is this?

A. I wish to believe Canon Keller truthful when he knows the truth. He certainly does not know the truth here. He is a newcomer at Youghal, having come there in November 1885, and hardly so much of an authority about “the memory of living witnesses and far beyond it” as the tenants on the estate, who, when I went there first with my wife, presented to me, May 25, 1868, an address of welcome, referring in very different terms to the history of the estate and of my family connection with it. Here is the original address, and a copy of it—the latter being quite at your service.

This original address is very handsomely engrossed, and is signed by fifty tenants. Among the names I observed those of Martin Loughlin, Peter McDonough, Michael Gould, William Forrest, and John Heaphey, all of whom are cited by Canon Keller in his tract as conspicuous victims of the oppression and rack-renting which he says have prevailed upon the Ponsonby estates time out of mind. It was rather surprising, therefore, to find them joining with more than forty other tenants to sign an address, of which I here print the text:—

To C.W. TALBOT PONSONBY, Esq.

Honoured Sir,—The Tenantry of your Estates near Youghal have heard with extreme pleasure of the arrival of yourself and lady in the neighbourhood, and have deputed us to address you on their behalf.

Through us they bid you and Mrs. Ponsonby welcome, and respectfully congratulate you on your accession to the Estates.

The name of Ponsonby is traditionally revered in this part of the country, being associated in the recollections and impressions of the people with all that is exalted, honourable, and generous. It has been matter of regret that the heads of the family have not (probably from uncontrollable causes) visited these Estates for many years, but the tenantry have never wavered in their sentiments of respect towards them.

We will not disguise from you the conviction generally entertained that the improvement of landed property, and the condition of its occupiers, is best promoted under the personal observation and supervision of the proprietor, and your tenantry on that account hail with satisfaction the promise your presence affords of future intercourse between you and them.

Again, on the part of your Tenants and all connected with your Estates, tendering you and your lady a most hearty welcome, and sincerely wishing you and her a long and happy career—We subscribe ourselves, Honoured Sir, Respectfully yours,

YOUGHAL, May 1868.

Q. Did Canon Keller ever see this address, may I ask, Mr. Ponsonby?

A. I believe not; and I may as well say at once that I suppose he has taken for gospel all the stories which any of the tenants under the terrorism which has been established on the place think it best to pour into his listening ear. As I have said, he is quite a new man at Youghal, and when he first came there he was a quiet and not at all revolutionary priest. You saw him, and saw how good his manners are, and that he is a well-educated man. But on Sunday, November 7, 1886, a great meeting was held at Youghal. It was a queer meeting for a Sunday, being openly a political meeting, with banners and bands, to hear speeches from Mr. Lane, M.P., Mr. Flynn, M.P., and others. The Rev. Mr. Keller presided, and a priest from America, Father Hayes of Georgetown, Iowa, in the United States, was present. It was ostensibly a Home Rule meeting, but the burden of the speeches was agrarian. Mr. Lane, M.P., made a bitter personal attack on another Nationalist member, Sir Joseph M‘Kenna of Killeagh, calling him a “heartless and inhuman landlord;” and my property was also attended to by Mr. Lane, who advised my tenants openly not to accept my offer of 20 per cent. reduction, but to demand 40 per cent. Father Hayes in his speech bade “every man stand to his guns,” and wound up by declaring that if England and the landlords behaved in America as they behaved in Ireland, the Americans “would pelt them not only with dynamite, but with the lightnings of Heaven and the fires of hell, till every British bull-dog, whelp, and cur would be pulverised and made top-dressing for the soil.” Canon Keller afterwards expressed disapproval of this speech of Hayes, and this coming to the knowledge of Hayes in America, Hayes denounced Keller for not daring to do this at the time in his presence. Since then Canon Keller has been much more violent in tone.

Q. I don’t want to carry you through a long examination, Mr. Ponsonby, but I see typical cases here, about which I should like to ask a question or two. Here, is Callaghan Flavin, for instance, described by Canon Keller as one of eight tenants who “had to retreat before the crowbar brigade,” and who “deserved a better fate.” Canon Keller says he is assured by a competent judge that Flavin’s improvements, “full value for £341, 10s.,” are now “the landlord’s property.” What are the facts about Mr. Flavin?

A. Mr. Flavin’s farm was held by his cousin, Ellen Flavin of Gilmore, who, on the 7th of February 1872, surrendered it to the landlord on receiving from me a sum of £172, 10s. 6d. I obtained a charging order under section 27 of the Land Act, entitling me to an annuity of £8, 12s. 6d. for thirty-five years from July 3, 1872. It was let to Callaghan Flavin in preference to other applicants, July 3, 1872; and in 1873, at his request, I obtained a loan from the Board of Works for the thorough draining of a portion of the farm. Thirteen acres were drained at a cost of £84, 6s. 3d., for which the tenant promised to pay 5 per cent. interest, which I eventually forgave him. There was no house on the farm. He took it without one, and I did not want one there. He built a house himself without consulting my agent, and then wanted me to make him an allowance for it. I told him he had thirty-one years to enjoy it in, and must be content with that. About the same time he took another farm of mine at a rent of £35. Since I came into my property in 1868 I have laid out upon it in drainage, buildings, and planting—here are the accounts, which you may look at—over £15,000, including about £8000 of loans from the Board of Works. In the drainage the tenants got work for which they were paid. I gave them slates for the buildings, with timber and stone from the estate, and they supplied the labour. There is no case in which the outlays for improvements came from the tenants—not a single one. I repeat it, Canon Keller’s tract is a tissue of fictions.

What nonsense it is to talk about the “traditional rack-renting” of a property held by the Ponsonbys for two hundred years, the tenants on which could welcome me when I came into it with the language of the address you have here seen!

I never evicted tenants for less than three years’ arrears, till what Canon Keller calls the “crowbar brigade,” by which he means the officers of the law, had to be put into action to meet the “Plan of Campaign” in May last. I did not proceed against the tenants because they could not pay. I selected the tenants who could pay, and who were led, or, I believe in most cases, “coerced,” into refusing to pay by agitators with Mr. Lane, M.P., to inspire them, and Canon Keller, P.P., to glorify them in a tract.

Q. What were your personal relations with the tenants when you were at Inchiquin?

A. Always most friendly; and even the other day when I was there, while none of them would speak to me when they were all together, those I met individually touched their hats, and were as civil as ever. I believe they would all be thankful to have things as they were, and I have never refused to meet and treat with them on fair individual terms.

In November 1885 my offer of an abatement of 15 per cent. being refused, a few tenants, I believe, clubbed their rents, and for the sake of peace I then offered 20 per cent., which they accepted and paid. In October 1886 I hoped to prevent trouble by making the same offer of 20 per cent. abatement on non-judicial and 10 per cent. on judicial rents. One man took the latter abatement and paid. Then another tenant demanded 40 per cent. My agent said he would give them time, and also take money on account, the effect of which would be to put me out of court, and prevent my getting an order of ejectment if I wanted to for the balance. I thought this fair, and approved it, but I refused to make a 40 per cent. all-round abatement, authorising my agent, however, to make what abatements he liked in special cases. My words were, “I don’t limit you on the amount of abatement you give, or as to the number of tenants you may choose so to treat.” If this was not a fair free hand, what would be? My agent afterwards told me he had no chance to make this known. The fact is they meant to force the Plan on the tenants and me, and to prevent any settlement but a “victory for the League!”

In my original notes of my conversation with Father Keller at Youghal, I found the name of one tenant whom he introduced to me, and who certainly told me that his holdings amounted to some £300 a year, and that they had been in his family for “two hundred years,” set down as Doyle—I so printed it with the statements made. But Father Keller, to whom I submitted my proofs, and who was so good as to revise them, struck out the name of Doyle, and inserted that of Loughlin, putting the rental down at £94 (vol. ii. p. 71). Of course I accept this correction. But on my mentioning the matter to Mr. Ponsonby by letter, he replies to me (July 27th) as follows:—

“Maurice Doyle is a son of Richard Doyle, who died in 1876, leaving his widow to carry on his farm of 74 acres 1 rood, in the townland of Ballykitty, which he held in 1858 at a rental of £50, 11s. In 1868 this was reduced to £48, 11s. In September 1871 he took in addition a farm of 159 acres 2 roods at £130, in Burgen and Ballykitty. He afterwards got a lease for thirty-one years of this larger farm, with a portion of his earlier holding, for £155. This left him to pay £21, 11s. for the residue of the earlier holding as in 1858. But at his request, in 1876, the year of his death, I reduced this to £17.

“In March 1879, by the death of Mr. Henry Hall, in whose family it had been for certainly a century, the Inchiquin farm of 213 acres, valued at £258, 10s., came on my hands. This farm was valued in 1873 by one valuer at £384, 10s., and by another at £390, 10s. In an old lease I find that this farm was let at £3 an acre. Mr. Henry Hall to the day of his death held it at £306, 7s. 6d., under a lease which I made a lease for life. For this farm Mrs. Richard Doyle applied, agreeing to take it on a 31 years’ lease, at £370 a year. I let it to her, and she became the lease-holder, putting in her son Maurice Doyle to take charge of it, though not as the tenant. He was an active Land Leaguer from the moment he got into the place, and in 1886 he was a leader in promoting the Plan of Campaign. Proceedings had to be taken against his mother in order to eject him, as she was the tenant, not he. I objected to this, for I always have had the greatest regard for her. Had she been let alone she would have paid her rent as she had always done. But Mr. Lane and his allies saw it would never do to let Maurice Doyle retain his place on his mother’s holding. All this will show you that Maurice Doyle did not inherit the Inchiquin farm. The only inherited holding of his mother is the farm of 74 acres 1 rood in the townland of Ballykitty, held by his father in 1858. I have no doubt you saw Doyle at Youghal, by the description you gave me, and you remembered his name at once. He was a thickset heavy-looking man, florid, with a military moustache, the last time I saw him. His mother is one of the ‘rack-rented’ tenants you hear of, having been able in ten years to increase her acreage from 74 acres to 376 acres, and her rental from £48, 11s. to £542!”

As to the general effect of all this business upon the tenants, and upon himself, Mr. Ponsonby spoke most feelingly. “The tenants are ruined where they might have been thriving. My means of being useful to them or to myself are taken away. My charges, though, all remain. I have to pay tithes for Protestant Church service, of which I can’t have the benefit, the churches being closed; and the other day I had a notice that any property I had in England would be held liable for quit-rents to the Crown on my property in Ireland, of which the Government denies me practically any control or use!”

NOTE G2. THE GLENBEHY EVICTION FUND. (Vol. ii. p. 12.)

In the London Times of September 15 appears the following letter from the Land Agent whom I saw at Glenbehy, setting forth the effect of this “Glenbehy Eviction Fund” upon the morals of the tenants and the peace of the place:—

To the Editor of the Times.

“Sir,—Although nearly eighteen months have elapsed since the evictions on the Glenbehy estate, after which the above- named fund was started and largely subscribed to by the sympathetic British public, I think it only fair to throw a little light on the manner in which this fund has been expended, and the effects which are still felt in consequence of the money not yet being exhausted.

“It was generally supposed that the tenants then evicted were in such poor circumstances as to be unable to settle, whereas, as a matter of fact, they were, and are, with a few exceptions, the most well-to-do on the estate, having, for the most part, from five to fifteen head of cattle, in addition to sheep, pigs, etc.

“Among the tenants evicted at that time many had not paid rents since 1879, and had been in illegal occupation since 1884, from which latter date the landlord was responsible for taxes, provided it is proved that sufficient distress cannot be made of the lands. These tenants were offered a clear receipt to May 1, 1886, if they paid half a year’s rent, which would scarcely have paid the cost of proceedings, and the landlord would therefore have been put to actual loss. These people, though well able to settle, are given to understand that as soon as they do so their participation in the eviction fund will cease, and thus it will be seen that a direct premium is being paid to dishonesty.

“In one case a widow woman was summoned for being on the farm from which she was at that time evicted. Finding out that one of her children was ill, I applied to the magistrate at the hearing of the case only to impose a nominal fine. In consequence she was fined one penny, but sooner than pay this she went to gaol, though she had several head of cattle and, prior to her eviction, a very nice farm. The case of this woman fairly illustrates the combination which has existed to avoid the fulfilment of obligations.

“The amount of fines paid for similar offences comes, in several instances, to nearly what I require to effect a settlement. Some of the tenants actually wrote to the late agent on this estate begging him to evict them in order that they might come in for a share of the money raised for the relief of distress, and this clearly shows beyond dispute that the well-meaning subscribers to the fund will be more or less responsible for any further evictions to which it may be necessary to resort. I may mention that the parish priest is one of the trustees for the money which is thus being used for the purpose of preventing settlements and keeping the place in a continual state of turmoil.

“Judge Currane, at the January sessions held at Killarney this year, ruled in about fifty ejectment cases on this estate that tenants owing one and a half to nine years’ rent should pay half a year’s rent and costs within a week, a quarter of a year’s rent by June 1, and a quarter of a year’s rent by October 1; arrears to be cancelled. Some of these, owing to non-compliance with the Judge’s ruling, may have to be evicted, and their eviction will be what is termed the unrooting of peasants’ houses and the ejectment of overburdened tenants for not paying impossible rents.

“I confess I am at a loss to understand how Mr. Parnell’s Arrears Act would have improved matters or have averted what one of your contemporaries calls a “painful scandal.”—I am, Sirs, yours, &c.,

“D. TODD-THORNTON, J.P., Land Agent.

“Glenbehy, Killarney.”

NOTE G3. HOME RULE AND PROTESTANTISM. (Vol. ii. p. 68.)

I fear that all the “Nationalist” clergy in Ireland are not as careful as Father Keller to avoid giving occasion for this impression that Irish autonomy would be followed by a persecution of the Protestants. But a little more than three years ago, for example, the following circular was issued by the Bishop of Ossory, and affixed to the door of the churches in his diocese. Who can wonder that it should have been regarded by Protestants in that diocese as a direct stirring up of bitter religious animosities against them? Or that, emanating directly as it did from a bishop of the Church, it should be represented as emanating indirectly from the Head of the Church himself at Rome?

“Kilkenny, April 16th, 1885.

“REV. DEAR SIR,—May I ask you to read the following circular for the people at each of the Masses on Sunday, 19th April?

“The course to be adopted for the future by the Priest of the Parish to whom notice of a Mixed Marriage is given by the Minister, or the Registrar, is as follows:—he makes the following entry on the book of Parochial announcements, and reads it three consecutive Sundays from the Altar:—

“‘The Priests of the Parish have received the following notice of a marriage to be celebrated between a Catholic and a Protestant. [Here read Registrar’s notice in full.] We have now to inform you that the law of the Catholic Church regarding such marriages is: that the Catholic party contracting marriage before a Registrar or other unauthorised person is, by the very fact of so doing, Excommunicated; and the witnesses to such marriage are also Excommunicated.’

“I should be very much obliged if, as occasion may require, you would explain the effects of this Excommunication from the Altar.

“You will please take notice that the Registrar or Minister is bound legally to send the notice of marriage referred to above, and also, that in reading it out in the form, and with the accompanying remarks above, you incur no legal penalty.

“I feel sure that with your accustomed zeal you will do everything in your power to prevent abuses in regard to the Sacrament of Matrimony, which is great in Christ and the Church, and to induce the faithful to prepare for receiving it by Prayer, by works of Charity, and by approaching the Sacrament of Penance to purify their souls.—Yours faithfully in Christ,

[Image: Cross] A. BROWNRIGG.”

“MY DEAR BRETHREN,—We have been very much pained to learn, within the past month, that marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics have increased very much in this city of Kilkenny. Many evil-disposed persons, utterly unmindful of the prohibitions of the Church, and regardless of the dreadful consequences they bring on themselves, have not hesitated to enter into those unholy matrimonial alliances called “Mixed Marriages,” which the Catholic Church has always hated and detested. Those misguided Catholics, who do not deserve the name, have not blushed to go, in some instances, before the Protestant Minister, in other instances, before the Public Registrar, to ask them to assist at their marriage with a Protestant. By contracting marriage in this way, they run a great risk of bringing on themselves and on their children, should they have any, the maledictions of Heaven instead of the blessings of religion. In order to put a stop to this growing abuse, and to prevent it from spreading like a contagion to other parts of the Diocese, we beg to remind the faithful of certain regulations which, for the future, shall have force in the Diocese of Ossory in reference to the Catholics, who so far forget themselves as to contract such marriages.

“1. In the first place, any one who contracts a “Mixed Marriage” without a dispensation from the Holy See and before a Protestant Minister or a Registrar is, by the very fact, guilty of a most grievous mortal sin by violating a solemn law of the Church in a most grave matter.

“2. The Catholic who assists as witness at such marriage also commits a most grievous sin by co-operating in an unlawful act.

“3. Both the Catholic party contracting the marriage and the Catholic witnesses to it cannot be absolved by any priest in the Diocese of Ossory, unless by the Bishop or by those to whom he grants special faculties.

“4. In order more effectually to deter people from entering into those detestable marriages, the penalty of Excommunication is hereby attached to that sin both for the Catholic contracting party as also for the Catholic witnesses to such marriage.

“5. The notice which the Protestant Rector or the Registrar is legally bound in such cases to send to the Parish Priest of the Catholic party, will be read from the Altar for three consecutive Sundays, and thus the crime of the offending party brought out into open light before his or her fellow-parishioners.

“6. For the rest, we hope the sense of decency and religion of the Catholic people and their Pastors shall be no more hurt by any Catholic entering into those marriages, so full of, misery and evil of every kind for themselves, their children, and society at large.—Yours faithfully in Christ,

[Image: Cross] ABRAHAM, Bishop of Ossory.

NOTE H. TULLY AND THE WOODFORD EVICTIONS. (Vol. ii. p. 149.)

Since the first edition of this book was published certain “evictions” mentioned in it as impending on the Clanricarde estates have been carried out. I have no reason to suppose that there was more or less reason for carrying out these evictions than there usually is, not in Ireland only, but all over the civilised world, for a resort by the legal owners of property to legal means of recovering the possession of it from persons who fail to comply with the terms on which it was put into their keeping. Whether this failure results from dishonesty or from misfortune is a consideration not often allowed, I think, to affect the right of the legal owner of the property concerned to his legal remedy in any other country but Ireland, nor even in Ireland in the case of any property other than property in land. But as what I learned on the spot touching the general condition of the Clanricarde tenants, and touching the conduct and character of Lord Clanricarde’s agent, Mr. Tener, led me to take a special interest in these evictions, I asked him to send me some account of them. In reply he gave me a number of interesting details.

The only serious attempt at resisting the execution of the law was made by “Dr.” Tully, one of the leading local “agitators,” to the tendency of whose harangues judicial reference was made during the investigation into the case of Mr. Wilfrid Blunt. Tully had a holding of seventeen acres at a rent of £2, 10s., the Government valuation being £4. He earned a good livelihood as a boat-builder, and he had put up a slated house on his holding. But in November 1884 he chose to stop paying the very low rent at which he held his place, and he has paid no rent since that time. As is stated in a footnote on page 153, vol. ii. of this book, a decree was granted against Tully by Judge Henn for three years’ rent due in May 1887, and his equity of redemption having expired July 9, 1888, this recourse was had to the law against him.

As the leading spirit of the agitation, Tully had put a garrison into his house of twelve men and two women. He had dug a ditch around it, taken out the window-sashes, filled up the casements and the doorways with stones and trunks of trees. Portholes had been pierced under the roof, through which the defenders might thrust red-hot pikes, pitchforks, and other weapons, and empty pails of boiling water upon the assailants. A brief parley took place. Tully refused to make any offer of a settlement unless the agent would agree to reinstate all the evicted tenants, to which Mr. Tener replied that he would recognise no “combination,” but was ready to deal with every tenant fairly and individually. Finally the Sheriff ordered his men to take the place. Ladders were planted, and while some of the constables, under the protection of a shield covered with zinc, a sort of Roman testudo, worked at removing the earthern ramparts, others nimbly climbed to the roof and began to break in from above. In their excitement the garrison helped this forward by breaking holes through the roof themselves to get at the attacking party, and in about twenty minutes the fortress was captured, and the inmates were prisoners. Two constables were burned by the red-hot pikes, the gun of another was broken to pieces by a huge stone, and a fourth was slightly wounded by a fork. One of the defenders got a sword-cut; and Tully was brought forth as one too severely wounded to walk. Upon investigation, however, the surgeon refused to certify that he was unable to undergo the ordinary imprisonment in such cases made and provided.

The collapse of the resistance at this central point was followed by a general surrender.

After the capture of Tully’s house, Mr. Tener writes to me, “I found it being gutted by his family, who would have carried it away piecemeal. They had already taken away the flooring of one of the rooms.” Thereupon Mr. Tener had the house pulled down, with the result of seeing a statement made in a leading Nationalist paper that he was “evicting the tenants and pulling down their houses.”

“Yesterday,” Mr. Tener writes to me on the 9th of September, “I walked twenty-five miles, visiting thirty farms about Portumna. Except in two or three cases, the tenants have ample means, and part of the live stock alone on the farms, exclusive of the crops, would suffice to pay all the rents I had demanded. On the farms recently ‘evicted,’ I found treble the amount of the rent due in live stock alone.”

As to one case of these recent evictions, I found it stated in an Irish journal that a young man, who had been ill of consumption for two years, the son of a tenant, was removed from the house, the local physician refusing to certify that he was unfit for removal, and that he died a few days afterwards. The implication was obvious, and I asked Mr. Tener for the facts.

He replied, “This young man, John Fahey, was in consumption, but did not appear to be in any danger. Dr. Carte, an Army surgeon, examined him, and said there was no immediate danger. The day was fine and he walked about wrapped in a comfortable coat, and talked with me and others. His father, a respectable man, made no attempt to defend his house; and at his request, after the crowd had gone away, my man in charge permitted the invalid and the family to reoccupy the house temporarily because of his illness. There was no inquest, and no need of any, after his death. His father, Patrick Fahey, had means to pay, but told me he ‘could not,’ which meant he ‘dared not.’ I went to him personally twice, and sent him many messages. But the terror of the League was upon the poor man.

“An interesting case is that of Michael Fahey, of Dooras. In 1883 his rent was judicially reduced about 5 per cent., from £33 to £31, 5s. His house and all about it is substantial and comfortable. His father, about thirty years ago, fought for a whole night and bravely beat off a party of ‘Terry-Alts,’ the ‘Moonlighters’ of that day. For his courage the Government presented him with a gun, of which the son is very proud. Pity he did not inherit the pluck with the gun of his parent!

“I had been privately told that this tenant would pay; but that he would first produce a doctor’s certificate that his old mother could not be moved. He did give the Sheriff a carefully worded document to show this, but it was so vague that I objected to its being received by the Sheriff. Upon this (not before! mark the craft of even a well-disposed Irish tenant in those evil days), I was asked to go into the house. I went in and entered the parlour. There the tenant told me he would pay the year’s rent and the costs, amounting to £50. He had risen from his seat to fetch the money, when, lo! Father Egan (the priest upon whose head the widow of the murdered Finlay called down the curse of God in the open street of Woodford) appeared in the doorway. He had come in on a pretence of seeing the old mother of the tenant, who had (for that occasion) taken to her bed. The bedroom lay beyond the parlour, and was entered from it. The tenant actually shook with fear as Father Egan passed through, and I thought all hope of a settlement gone, when suddenly the officer of the police came in, passed into the bedroom, and told Father Egan he must withdraw. This Father Egan refused to do, whereupon the officer said very quietly, ‘I shall remove you forthwith if you do not go out quietly.’ Upon this Father Egan hastily left. The tenant then went into the bedroom and soon reappeared with the £50 in bank-notes, which he paid me. All this was dramatic enough. But the comedy was next performed in front of the house, where all could see it, of handing to the Sheriff the alleged doctor’s certificate, and of my saying aloud that ‘in the circumstances’ I had no objection to his receiving it! After this all the forces proceeded to take their luncheon on the green bank sloping down to the Shannon in front of the farm-house. There is a fine orchard on the place, and it recalled to me some of the farms I saw in Virginia.

“I had gone into the house again, and was standing near the fire in the kitchen, where some of my escort were taking their luncheon. It is a large kitchen, and perhaps a dozen people were in it, when in came Father Egan again and called to the tenant Fahey, ‘Put out those policemen, and do not suffer one of them to remain.’

“The sergeant instantly said, ‘We are here on duty, Father Egan, and if you dare to try to intimidate this tenant, I shall either put you out or arrest you.’

“‘Yes,’ I interposed, looking at the sergeant, ‘you are certainly here on duty, and in the name of the law, and it is sad to see a clergyman here in the interest of an illegal, criminal, and rebellious movement, and of the immoral Plan of Campaign.’

“‘Oh!’ exclaimed Father Egan, ‘the opinion of the agent of the Marquis of Clanricarde is valuable, truly!’

“‘I give you,’ I said, ‘not my opinion, but the opinion of Dr. Healy and Dr. O’Dwyer, bishops of your Church, and men worthy of all respect and reverence. And I am sorry to know that some ecclesiastics deserve no respect, but that at their doors lies the main responsibility for the misery and the crime which afflict our unhappy country. I feel sure a just God will punish them in due time.’

“Father Egan made no reply, but paused a moment, and then walked out of the house.

“At the next house, that of Dennis Fahey, we found a still better dwelling. Here we had another mock certificate, but we received the rent with the costs.”

NOTE H2. BOYCOTTING THE DEAD. (Vol. ii. p. 151.)

The following official account sent to me (July 24) of an affair in Donegal, the result of the gospel of “Boycotting” taught in that region, needs and will bear no comment.

Patrick Cavanagh came to reside at Clonmany, County Donegal, about two months ago, as caretaker on some evicted farms. He died on Wednesday evening, June 20th, having received the full rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The people had displayed no ill-will towards him during his brief residence at Clonmany, and on the evening of his death his body was washed and laid out by some women. On Thursday two townsmen dug his grave, where pointed out by Father Doherty, P.P.

The first symptom of change of feeling was that on Thursday every carpenter applied to had some excuse for not making a coffin for the body of deceased. On Friday morning the grave was found to be filled with stones, and a deputation waited on Father Doherty to protest against Cavanagh’s burial in the chapel graveyard. He told them to go home and mind their business. About 10.30 A.M. on Friday the chapel bell was rung—not tolled or rung as for service, but faster. The local sergeant of police went to the cemetery; when he arrived there the tolling ceased. He then went to Father Doherty, who told those present that their conduct was such as to render them unfit for residence anywhere but in a savage country. He told them to go to their homes, and advised them to allow the corpse to be buried in the grave he had marked out. After Father Doherty had left, the people condemned his interference, and said they would not allow any stranger to be buried in the graveyard. When Constable Brady put it to those present that their real objection did not lie in the fact that Cavanagh had been a stranger, he was not contradicted.

The body was ultimately buried at Carndonagh on Saturday, several people remaining in the graveyard at Clonmany all through the night (Friday) till the body was taken to Carndonagh for burial.

At Carndonagh Petty Sessions, on the 18th July 1888, Con. Doherty and Owen Doherty, with five others, were prosecuted for unlawful assembly on the occasion above referred to. The first two named, who were the ringleaders, were convicted, and sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment each with hard labour; the charges against the remainder were dismissed.

NOTE I. POST-OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS. (Vol. i. p. 117; vol. ii. pp. 5, 12, 66, 95, 200, 248.)

As the Post-Office Savings Banks represent the smaller depositors, and command special confidence among them even in the disturbed districts, I print here an official statement showing the balances due to depositors in the undermentioned offices, situated in certain of the most disturbed regions I visited, on the 31st December of the years 1880 and 1887 respectively:—

OFFICE 1880 1887

£ s. d. £ s. d.

Bunbeg 1,270 6 7 1,206 18 2

Falcarragh 62 15 10 494 10 8

Gorey 3,690 14 4 5,099 5 7

Inch [A] 8 11 0 209 7 5

Killorglin 282 15 9 1,299 2 6

Loughrea 5,500 19 9 6,311 4 11

Mitchelstown 1,387 13 2 2,846 9 3

Portumna 2,539 10 11 3,376 5 4

Sixmilebridge 382 17 10 934 13 4

Stradbally 1,812 14 8 2,178 18 2

Woodford 259 14 6 1,350 17 11

Youghal 3,031 0 7 7,038 7 2

[A] This Office was not opened for Savings Bank business until the year 1881, the amount shown being balance due on the 31st December 1882.

It appears from this table that the deposits in these Savings Banks increased in the aggregate from £20,329, 15s. 11d. in 1880 to £32,347, 9s. 7d. in 1887, or almost 60 per cent, in seven years. They fell off in only one case, at Bunbeg, and there only to a nominal amount. At Youghal they much more than doubled, increasing about 133 per cent. Yet in all these places the Plan of Campaign has been invoked “because the people were penniless and could not pay their debts!”

NOTE K. THE COOLGREANY EVICTIONS. (Vol. ii. p. 216.)

Captain Hamilton sends me the following graphic account of this affair at Coolgreany:—

In the Freeman’s Journal of the 16th December 1886, it is reported that a meeting of the Brooke tenantry, the Rev. P. O’Neill in the chair, was held at Coolgreany on the Sunday previous to the 15th December 1886, the date on which the “Plan of Campaign” was adopted on the estate, at which it was resolved that if I refused the terms offered they would join the “Plan.”

I had no conference at Freeman’s house or anywhere else at any time with two parish priests. On the 15th December 1886, when seated in Freeman’s house waiting to receive the rents, four priests, a reporter of the Freeman’s Journal, some local reporters, and four of the tenants rushed into the room; and the priests in the rudest possible manner (the Rev. P. Farrelly, one of them, calling me “Francy Hyne’s hangman,” and other terms of abuse) informed me that unless I re-instated a former Roman Catholic tenant in a farm which he had previously held, and which was then let to a Protestant, and gave an abatement of 30 per cent., no rent would be paid me that day. Dr. Dillon, C.C., was not present on this occasion, or, if so, I do not remember seeing him.

On my asking if I had no alternative but to concede to their demand, the Rev. Mr. Dunphy, parish priest, replied, “None other; do not think, sir, we have come here to-day to do honour to you.”

The Rev. P. O’Neill spoke as he always does, in a more gentlemanly and conciliatory manner, and I therefore, as the confusion in the room was great, offered to discuss the matter with him, the Rev. O’Donel, C.C., and the tenants, if the other priests, who were strangers to me, and the reporters would leave the room. This the Rev. Mr. Dunphy declared they would not do, and I accordingly refused further to discuss the matter.

After they left the house, one of the tenants, Mick Darcy, stepped forward and said, “Settle with us, Captain.” I replied, “Certainly, if you come back with me into the house.” The Rev. Mr. Dunphy took him by the collar of his coat and threw him against the wall of the house, then turning to me with his hand raised said, “You shall not do so; we, who claim the temporal as well as spiritual power over you as well as these poor creatures, will settle this matter with you.”

The tenants were then taken down to the League rooms, where two M.P.s, Sir Thomas Esmonde and Mr. Mayne, were waiting to receive the rents, which, one by one, they were ordered in to pay into the war-chest of the “Plan of Campaign.”

I have I fear written too much of this commencement of the war on the estate which has since led to over seventy of the tenants and their families being ejected, and has brought ruin on nearly all who joined it. I have considerable experience as a land agent, but I know of no estate where the tenants were more respectable, better housed, or, as a body, in better circumstances than on the Brooke estate. They had a kind, indulgent landlord, and they knew it; and nothing but the belief that, led by their clergy, they were foremost in a battle fighting for their country and religion, would have induced them to put up with the great hardships and loss they have undoubtedly had to suffer.

NOTE L. A DUCAL SUPPER IN IRELAND IN 1711. (Vol. ii. p. 283.)

The following entry I take from the Expense-Book of the Duke of Ormond, under date of August 23, 1711:—

His Grace came to Kilkenny, half an hour after 10 at night. HIS GRACE’S TABLE. Pottage. Sautee Veal. 5 Pullets, Bacon and Collyflowers. Pottage Meagre. Pikes with White Sauce. A Turbot with Lobster Sauce. Umbles. A Hare Hasht. Buttered Chickens, G. Hasht Veal and New Laid Eggs. Removes. A Shoulder and Neck of Mutton. Haunch of Venison. Second Course. Lobsters. Tarts, an Oval Dish. Crabbs Buttered. 4 Pheasants, 4 Partridges, 4 Turkeys. Ragoo Mushrooms. Kidney Beans. Ragoo Oysters. Fritters. Two Sallets.

NOTE M. LETTER FROM MR. O’LEARY. (Vol. ii. p. 291.)

In the first edition of this book I credited Mr. O’Leary with making this pungent remark about figs and grapes, because I found it jotted down in my original memoranda as coming from him. In a private note he assures me that he does not think it was made by him, and though this does not agree with my own recollection, I defer, of course, to his impression. And this I do the more readily that it affords me an opportunity for printing the following very characteristic and interesting letter sent to me by him for publication should I think fit to use it.

As the most important support given by the Irish in America to the Nationalists is solicited by their agents on the express ground that they are really labouring to establish an Irish Republic, this outspoken declaration of Mr. O’Leary, that he does not believe they “expect or desire” the establishment of an Irish Republic, will be of interest on my side of the water:—

“DUBLIN, Sept. 9, ’88.

“My Dear Sir,—I am giving more bother about what you make me say in your book than the thing is probably worth, especially seeing that what you say about me and my present attitude towards men and things here is almost entirely correct.

“It is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and my main reason for believing I did not say the thing about figs and grapes is that I never could remember the whole of any proverb in conversation; but I am absolutely certain I never said that ‘some of them (the National Leaguers) expect to found an Irish republic on robbery, and to administer it by falsehood. We don’t.’ Most certainly I do not expect to found anything on robbery, or administer anything by falsehood, but I do not in the least believe that the National League either expects or desires to found an Irish republic at all! Neither do I believe that the Leaguers will long retain the administration of such small measure of Home Rule, as I now (since the late utterances of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Gladstone) believe we are going to get. My fault with the present people is not that they are looking, or mean to look, for too much, but that they may be induced, by pressure from their English Radical allies, to be content with too little. It is only a large and liberal measure of Home Rule which will ever satisfy the Irish people, and I fear that, if the smaller fry of Radical M.P.’s are allowed to have a strong voice in a matter of which they know next to nothing, the settlement of the Irish question will be indefinitely postponed.—I remain, faithfully yours,

“JOHN O’LEARY.”

NOTE N. BOYCOTTING PRIVATE OPINION. (Vol. ii. p. 293.)

This case of Mr. Taylor is worth preserving in extenso as an illustration of that spirit in the Irish journalism of the day, against which Mr. Rolleston and his friends protest as fatal to independence, manliness, and truth. I simply cite the original attack made upon Mr. Taylor, the replies made by himself and his friends, and the comments made upon those replies by the journal which assailed him. They all tell their own story.

(UNITED IRELAND, JUNE 16.)

Mr. John F. Taylor owes everything he has or is to the Irish National Party; nor is he slow to confess it where the acknowledgment will serve his personal interests. His sneers are all anonymous, and, like Mr. Fagg, the grateful and deferential valet in The Rivals, “it hurts his conscience to be found out.” There is no honesty or sincerity in the man. His covert gibes are the spiteful emanation of personal disappointment; his lofty morality is a cloak for unscrupulous self-seeking. He has always shown himself ready to say anything or do anything that may serve his own interests. In the general election of 1885 he made frantic efforts to get into Parliament as a member of the Irish Party. He ghosted every member of the party whose influence he thought might help him—notably the two men, Mr. Dillon and Mr. O’Brien, at whom he now sneers, as he fondly believes, in the safe seclusion of an anonymous letter of an English newspaper. During the period of probation his hand was incessant on Mr. Dillon’s door-knocker. The most earnest supplications were not spared. All in vain. Either his character or his ability failed to satisfy the Irish leader, and his claim was summarily rejected. Since then his wounded vanity has found vent in spiteful calumny of almost every member of the Irish Party—whenever he found malice a luxury that could be safely indulged in.

“His next step was a startling one. We have absolute reason to know, when the last Coercion Act was in full swing, this pure-souled and disinterested patriot begged for, received, and accepted a very petty Crown Prosecutorship under a Coercion Government. As was wittily said at the time, he sold his principles, not for a mess of pottage, but for the stick that stirred the mess. Strong pressure was brought to bear on him, and he was induced for his own sake, after many protests and with much reluctance, to publicly refuse the office he had already privately accepted. Mr. Taylor professes to model himself on Robert Emmet and Thomas Davis; it is hard to realise Thomas Davis or Robert Emmet as a Coercion Crown Prosecutor in the pay of Dublin Castle. Since then there has been no more persistent caviller at the Irish policy and the Irish Party in company where he believed such cavilling paid. When Home Rule was proposed by Mr. Gladstone, he had a thousand foolish sneers for the measure and its author. When the Bill was defeated, he elected Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Goschen, and Mr. T.W. Russell as the gods of his idolatry. Such a nature needs a patron, and Mr. Webb, Q.C., the Tory County Court Judge who doubled the sentence on Father M‘Fadden, was the patron to be selected. It is shrewdly suspected that he supplied most of the misguiding information for Dr. Webb’s coercion pamphlet, and it is probable that Dr. Webb gives him a lift with his weekly letter to the Manchester Guardian.

(UNITED IRELAND, JUNE 23.)

MR. JOHN F. TAYLOR.

To the Editor of “United Ireland.”

Sir,—You would not, I am sure, allow intentional misstatements to appear in your columns, and I ask you to allow me space to correct three erroneous observations made about myself in your current issue—

1. The first statement is to the effect that I owe everything I have, or that I am, to the Irish National Party. I owe absolutely nothing to the Irish Party, except an attempt to boycott me on my circuit, which, fortunately for me, has failed.

2. The second is to the effect that I made “frantic efforts” (these are the words, I think) to enter Parliament, and besieged Mr. Dillon’s house during the time when candidates were being chosen. I saw Mr. Dillon exactly twice, both occasions at Mr. Davitt’s request. Mr. Davitt urged me to allow my name to go forward as a candidate, and it was at his wish and solicitation that I saw Mr. Dillon.

3. It is further said that I begged a Crown Prosecutorship. Fortunately, Mr. Walker and The M‘Dermot are living men, and they know this to be absolutely untrue. I was offered such an appointment, and, contrary to my own judgment, I allowed myself to be guided by Mr. Davitt, who thought the matter would be misunderstood in the state of things then existing. I believe I am the only person that ever declined such an offer.

As to general statements, these are of no importance, and I shall not trouble you about them.—Yours very truly,

JOHN F. TAYLOR.

P.S.—The introduction of Dr. Webb’s name was a gratuitous outrage, Dr. Webb and I never assisted each other in anything except in the defence of P.N. Fitzgerald. J.F.T.

To the Editor of “United Ireland.”

Dear Sir,—As my name has been introduced into the controversy between yourself and Mr. Taylor, I feel called upon to substantiate the two statements wherein my name occurs in Mr. Taylor’s letter of last week. It was at my request that he called upon Mr. John Dillon, M.P. I think I accompanied him on the occasion, and unless my memory is very much at fault, Mr. Dillon was not unfriendly to Mr. Taylor’s proposed candidature. This visit occurred some three months after Mr. Taylor had, on my advice, declined the Crown Prosecutorship for King’s County, a post afterwards applied for by and granted to a near relative of one of the most prominent members of the Irish Party. With Mr. Taylor’s general views on the present situation, or opinions upon parties or men, I have no concern. But, in so far as the circumstances related above are dealt with in your issue of last week, I think an unjust imputation has been made against him, and in the interests of truth and fair play I feel called upon to adduce the testimony of facts as they occurred.—Yours truly,

MICHAEL DAVITT.

Ballybrack, Co. Dublin, June 19, 1888.

To the Editor of “United Ireland.”

Sir,—As this is, I believe, the first time I have sought to intrude upon your columns, I hope you will allow me some slight space in the interests of fair-play and freedom of speech. Those interests seem to me to have been quite set at naught in the attack, or rather series of attacks, upon Mr. Taylor in your last issue. Mr. Taylor’s views upon many matters are not mine. He is far more democratic in his opinions than I see any sufficient reason for being, and he is very much more of what is called a land reformer than I am; but on an acquaintance of some years I have ever found him an honourable and high-minded gentleman, and as good a Nationalist, from my point of view, as most of the members of the Irish Parliamentary Party whom I either know or know of. Of some of the charges made against Mr. Taylor, such as the seeking for Crown Prosecutorships and the like, I am in no position to speak, save from my knowledge of his character, but I understand Mr. Davitt knows all about these things, and I suppose he will tell what he knows. But of the main matter, and I think the chief cause of your ire, I am quite in a position to speak. I have read at least a score of Mr. Taylor’s letters to the Manchester Guardian, and I have always found them very intelligently written, and invariably characterised by a spirit of fairness and moderation; indeed, the chief fault I found with them was that they took too favourable a view of the motives, if not the acts, of many of our public men, but notably of Messrs. Dillon and O’Brien. You may, of course, fairly say that I am not the best judge of either the acts or the motives of these gentlemen, and I freely grant you that I may not, for my way of looking upon the Irish question is quite other than theirs; but what I must be excused for holding is that both I and Mr. Taylor have quite as good a right to our opinions as either of these gentlemen, or as any other member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. But this is the very last right that people are inclined to grant to each other in Ireland just now. Personally I care very little for this, but for Ireland’s sake I care much. Some twenty years ago or so I was sent into penal servitude with the almost entire approval, expressed or implied, of the Irish Press. Some short time after the same Press found out that I and my friends had not sinned so grievously in striving to free Ireland. But men and times and things may change again, and, though I am growing old, I hope still to live long enough to be forgiven for my imperfect appreciation of the blessings of Boycotting, and the Plan of Campaign, and many similar blessings. It matters little indeed how or when I die, so that Ireland lives, but her life can only be a living death if Irishmen are not free to say what they believe, and to act as they deem right.—Your obedient servant,

JOHN O’LEARY.

June 18, 1888.

To the Editor of “United Ireland.”

Dear Sir,—I observe that in your last issue, amongst other things, you state that Mr. Taylor accepted a Crown Prosecutorship in 1885. I happen to know the precise facts. Mr. Taylor was offered the Crown Prosecutorship of the King’s County, and some of us strongly advised him to accept it. There were no political prosecutions impending at the time, and it seemed to me that a Nationalist who would do his work honestly in prosecuting offenders against the ordinary law might strike a blow against tyranny by refusing to accept a brief, if offered, against men accused of political offences or prosecuted under a Coercion Act. I know that a similar view was entertained by the late Very Rev. Dr. Kavanagh of Kildare, and many others. However, we failed to influence Mr. Taylor further than to make him say that he would do nothing in the matter until Mr. Davitt was consulted. I, for one, called on Mr. Davitt, and pressed my views upon him; but he was decided that no Nationalist could identify himself in the smallest way with Castle rule in Ireland. This settled the question, and Mr. Taylor declined the post, which was subsequently applied for by Mr. Luke Dillon, who now holds it.—Faithfully yours,

JAMES A. POOLE.

29 Harcourt Street.

EDITORIAL NOTE. “United Ireland,” June 23.

We devote a large portion of our space to-day to the apparently organised defence of Mr. J.F. Taylor and his friends, and we are quite content to rest upon their letters the justification for our comments. When a gentleman who avows himself a disappointed aspirant for Parliamentary honours, and who owns his regret that he did not become a petty Castle placeman, is discovered writing in an important English Liberal paper, venomous little innuendos at the expense of sorely attacked Irish leaders which excite the enthusiasm of the Liarish Times, it was high time to intimate to the Manchester Guardian the source from which its Irish information is derived. The case against Mr. Taylor as a criticaster is clinched by the fact that his cause is espoused by Mr. John O’Leary. The Irish public are a little weary of Mr. O’Leary’s querulous complaints as an homme incompris. So far as we are aware, the only ground he himself has for complaining of want of toleration is that he possibly considers the good-humoured toleration for years invariably extended to his opinions on men and things savours of neglect. His idea of toleration with respect to others seems to be toleration for everybody except the unhappy wretches who may happen to be for the moment doing any practicable service in the Irish cause.

NOTE O. BOYCOTTING BY “CROWNER’S QUEST LAW.” (Vol. ii. p. 312.)

The following circumstantial account of this deplorable case of Ellen Gaffney preserved here, as I find it printed in the Irish Times of February 27, 1888.

“In the Court of Queen’s Bench, on Saturday, the Lord Chief-Justice (Sir Michael Morris, Bart.), Mr. Justice O’Brien, Mr. Justice Murphy, and Mr. Justice Gibson presiding, judgment was delivered in the case of Ellen Gaffney. The original motion was to quash the verdict of a coroner’s jury held at Philipstown on August 27th and September 1st last, on the body of a child named Mary Anne Gaffney.

“The Lord Chief-Justice said it appeared that Mary Anne Gaffney, the child on whose body the inquest was held, was born on the 23d July, and that she died on the 25th August, 1887. A Dr. Clarke, who had been very much referred to in the course of the proceedings, called upon the local sergeant of the police, and directed his attention to the body, but the sergeant having inspected the body, came to the conclusion that there was no need for an inquest. The doctor considered differently, and the sergeant communicated with the Coroner on the 26th August, and on the next day that gentleman arrived in Philipstown. He had a conference there with Dr. Clarke and with a reverend gentleman named Father Bergin, and subsequently proceeded to hold an inquest upon the child in a public-house—a most appropriate place apparently for the transactions which afterwards occurred there. The investigation, if it might be so called, was proceeded with upon that 27th of August. Very strong affidavits had been made on the part of Mrs. Gaffney—who applied to have the inquisition quashed—her husband, and some of the constabulary authorities as to the line of conduct pursued upon that occasion. Ellen Gaffney and her husband were taken into custody on the day the inquest opened by the verbal direction of the Coroner, who refused to complete the depositions given by the former on the ground that she was not sworn. That did not take him out of the difficulty, for if she was not sworn she had a right to be sworn, and the Coroner had no right to prevent her. The inquest was resumed on the 1st September in the court-house at Philipstown—the proper place—and a curious letter was read from the Coroner, the effect of which was that he did not consider that there was any ground for detaining the man Gaffney in custody, but the woman was brought before a justice of the peace and committed for trial. She was in prison from August 27th until the month of December, when the lucky accident of a winter assize occurred, else she might be there still. At the adjourned inquest the Coroner proceeded to read over the depositions taken on the former day, and it was sworn by four witnesses, whom he (the Lord Chief-Justice) entirely credited, that the Coroner read these depositions as if they were originals, whereas an unprecedented transaction had occurred. The Coroner had given the original depositions out of his own custody, and given them to a reverend gentleman who was rather careless of them, as was shown by the evidence of a witness named Greene, who deposed that he saw a car on the road upon which sat two clergymen, and he found on the road the original depositions which, presumably, one of the clergymen had dropped. The depositions were handed to a magistrate and afterwards returned to the police at Philipstown, who had possession of them on the resumption of the inquest. If the case stood alone there it was difficult to understand how a Coroner could come into court and appear by counsel to resist the quashing of an inquisition in regard to which at the very door such gross personal misconduct was demonstrated. No doubt, he said, he did not read them as originals but as copies, and it was strange, that being so, that he did not inform the jury of what had become of them, and he complained now of not being told by the police of their recovery—not told of his own misconduct. On the 1st September, Ellen Gaffney applied by a solicitor—Mr. Disdall, and as a set-off the Coroner permitted a gentleman named O’Kearney Whyte to appear—for whom? Was it for the constituted authorities or for the next-of-kin? No, but for the Rev. Father Bergin, who was described as president of the local branch of the National League, and the Coroner (Mr. Gowing) alleged as the reason why he allowed him to appear and cross-examine the witnesses and address the jury and give him the right of reply like Crown counsel was, that Ellen Gaffney stated that she had been so much annoyed by Father Bergin that she attributed the loss of her child to him—that it was he who had murdered the child. It was asserted that Father Bergin sat on the bench with the Coroner and interfered during the conduct of the inquest, and having to give some explanation of that Mr. Gowing’s version was certainly a most amusing one. He said it was the habit to invite to a seat on the bench people of a respectable position in life—which, of course, a clergyman should be in—and that he asked Father Bergin to sit beside him in that capacity. But see the dilemma the Coroner put himself in. According to his own statement he had previously allowed this reverend gentleman to interfere, and to be represented by a solicitor because he was incriminated, inculpated, or accused, and it certainly was not customary to invite any one so situated to occupy a seat on the bench. He (the Lord Chief Baron) did not believe that Father Bergin was incriminated in any way, but that was the Coroner’s allegation, and such was his peculiar action thereafter. The Coroner further stated that no matter whether he read the originals or the copies of the first day’s depositions, it was on the evidence of September 1st that the jury acted. If that was so he placed himself in a further dilemma, for there was no evidence before the jury at all on the second day upon which they could bring a verdict against Ellen Gaffney. In regard to the recording and announcing of the verdict it appeared that the jury were 19 in number, and after their deliberations the foreman declared that 13 were for finding a verdict one way and 6 for another; that Mr. Whyte dictated the verdict to the Coroner, and the Coroner asked the 13 men if that was what they agreed to. Mr. Whyte’s statement was that the jury, through the foreman, stated what their verdict was; that he wrote it down, and that the Coroner asked him for what he had written, and used it himself. But in addition to that, when the jury came in the Coroner and Mr. Whyte divided them—placed them apart while the verdict was being written—and then said to the 13 men, “Is that what you agree to?” Such apparent misconduct it was hardly possible to conceive in anybody occupying a judicial position as did the Coroner, and especially a Coroner who had an inquisition quashed before. What he had mentioned was sufficient to call forth the emphatic decision of the court quashing the proceedings, which, however, were also impeached on the grounds of its insufficiency and irregularity, and of the character of the finding itself. It was not until the Coroner had been threatened with the consequences of his contempt that he made a return to the visit of certiorari, and it was then found that out of ten so-called depositions only one contained any signature—that of Dr. Clarke’s, which was one of those lost by the clergyman, and not before the jury on the 1st September. He (the Lord Chief-Justice) had tried to read the documents, but in vain—they were of such a scrawling and scribbling character, but, as he had said, all were incomplete and utterly worthless except the one which was not properly before the jury. Then, what was the finding on this inquisition, which should have been substantially as perfect as an indictment? “That Mary Anne Gaffney came by her death, and that the mother of this child, Ellen Gaffney, is guilty of wilful neglect by not supplying the necessary food and care to sustain the life of this child.” Upon what charge could the woman have been implicated on that vague finding? He (his Lordship) could understand its being contended that that amounted argumentatively to a verdict of manslaughter; but the Coroner issued his warrant and sent this woman to prison as being guilty of murder, and she remained in custody, as he had already remarked, until discharged by the learned judge who went the Winter Assizes in December. Upon all of these grounds they were clearly of opinion that this inquisition should be quashed, and Mr. Coroner Gowing having had the self-possession to come there to show cause against the conditional order, under such circumstances, must bear the costs of that argument.

Mr. Fred. Moorhead, who, instructed by Mr. O’Kearney Whyte, appeared for the Coroner, asked whether the Court would require, as was usual when costs were awarded against a magistrate, an undertaking from the other side—

The Lord Chief-Justice.—That is not to bring an action against the Coroner, you mean?

Mr. Moorhead.—Yes, my Lord. I think it is a usual undertaking when costs are awarded in such a case. I think you ought—

The Lord Chief-Justice.—Well, I don’t know that we ought, but we most certainly will not. (Laughter.)

Mr. David Sherlock, who (instructed by Mr. Archibald W. Disdall) appeared for Ellen Gaffney.—Rest assured, we certainly will bring an action.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES: