Note 544 — Chapter XV · FATHER ARTHUR O'LEARY

State papers of the present century are a sealed book; but special leave was given to search for such papers as threw light on Shelley's visit to Dublin in 1812. During this inquiry a sight was obtained of a correspondence between Dublin Castle and the Home Office, numbering many hundred sheets, and dealing entirely with the information furnished by a tipsy clerk of Mary's Lane Chapel to the effect that a general massacre of all the Protestants in Ireland had been projected! Myths of this sort have periodically scared the executive. Passing on to 1830, we find, in the Sirr Papers, informations dated December 24 and 27, and disclosing another Popish plot. Among the men alleged to be deep in the conspiracy were the late saintly Bishop Blake, Brother Syrenus, a monk, Thomas Reynolds, afterwards city marshal, W. J. Battersby, and a number of other Catholic laymen. Twenty-three officers—i.e. young priests from Carlow and Maynooth—are alleged to be sent by different coaches to various parts of Ireland, and all charged with secret missions of a most formidable character!