Note 54 — THE LAST OF THE GERALDINES.

I recollect (at an interval of more than fifty years) Father Doran, of Culmaghbeg, an excellent man, full of humour, and well-informed, putting the soul in the most comprehensible state of personification possible: he said, the women could not understand what the soul was by the old explanations.

“I tell you all, my flock,” said Father Doran, “there’s not a man, woman, or child among you that has not his soul this present minute shut up in his body, waiting for the last judgment, according to his faith and actions. I tell you fairly, that if flesh could be seen through, like a glass window, you might see every one’s soul at the inside of his body peeping out through the ribs, like the prisoners at the jail of Maryborough through their iron bars: and the moment the breath is out of a man or woman, the soul escapes and makes off to be dealt with as it deserves, and that’s the truth;—so say your beads and remember your clergy!”