BOOK 1711 Later yet, and falling into a lower circle, the Houghers became identified with the Whiteboys, and spread over the four provinces. Unable to shake off their enemies by open force, they could at least make the land, which the Protestants had usurped, a barren possession to its new owners.1 1 The following proclamation is a specimen of the literary capabilities of the later Houghers, men of inferior station to the O'Loghlins of Clare, but showing traces of the classical education given in the hedge schools: 'Hougherstown, Co. Wexford, July, 1779. 'Isaac Cullimore, 'We, the undernamed persons, doth insert these lines here to give you notice that we are still in very good health, thanks be to God! and doth intend to see justice and equality rectified in our barony, though much oppressed by domineering Quakers. So we dance with joy, and reason we have to see your brother John the Atheist inhumed, and likewise doth determine to pay the doleful Reedstown a triumphing visit once more—and, that before this day sennight, and please God, to hough, maim, and slain the oxen which are in your possession on said lands under the protection of M. M., and will erect an altar on said lands, and offer them as victims to the Infernal Gods, who will conduce him with security into Charons custody, who, in his magnificent boat, will transport him over the river Styx into Plutos region, and Devil speed him and all the precedents of his infernal generation. 'So we suppose that you thought we to have been dead, and to have entirely omitted our antient customs -we have been obscure this time past and on that account you have sent down cattle and afterwards a herd to produce benefit out of said lands. But as long as the Almighty God will leave us breath to draw, you shall never reap the value of one farthing out of the above-mentioned farm. So, Isaac, we take the more easy way to conduce you to the state of obtaining God's grace, and to come in unity with your friends and neighbours. So, when we will transact this precedent matter, if you do not become more tranquill and mild, you shall quickly be despatched, and shall be dismissed to a D. T. S., who will punish and smash you according to your cruelty to your clients in the parish of Tacumshaw. 'And likewise, if you do not desist from taking lands, and give up them farms which you have in the said parish, Isaac nor his family shall be no more, and Neemstown in like manner shall become a Reedstown. 'So your inimical antagonists remain in good health, 'John Hougher, Peter Burnstack, Phil Slasher, Patrick Fearnot, Columm Kill, Sylvester Quaker-rouser, Edmund Smart, Edward Stout, and several others too laborious to insert. SECTION II. THE immunity from ordinary crime, which so honourably distinguishes modern Ireland, was no characteristic of its condition in the last century. To settle differences by fighting had been ingrained, by many centuries of unbroken habit, into the temper of the people. When private wars and foreys were no longer possible, duelling took their place, and was so frequent and deadly, that it was proposed, at one time, to make the survivor responsible for the maintenance of his victim's family. Duelling, and the strange forms which it assumed, will be treated of in a future chapter. At present, the reader's attention is to be called to acts of violence of another and yet more remarkable kind, which, like duelling, were sanctioned by public opinion; and, notwithstanding repeated efforts of the Irish Parliament, were practically shielded from punishment. The Houghers revenged the wrongs of their country by mere destruction. Another set of young gentlemen of the Catholic persuasion were in the habit of recovering equivalents for the lands of which they considered themselves to have been robbed, and of recovering souls at the same time to Holy Church, by carrying off young Protestant girls of fortune to the mountains, ravishing them with the most exquisite brutality, and then compelling them to go through a form of marriage, which a priest was always in attendance ready to celebrate. The High Church party in the English and Irish Governments could not bring themselves to treat a sacrament as CHAP. I. BOOK invalid however irregularly performed, and the unfortunate victims were thus driven, in the majority of instances, to make the best of their situation, and accept the fate from which there was no legal escape. In vain Parliament passed bill upon bill making abduction felony, and threatening penalties of the harshest kind against the officiating ecclesiastics. So long as the marriages themselves were regarded as binding, the families injured preferred to cover their disgrace, and refused to prosecute. The heroes of these performances were often highly connected. Political influence was brought to bear for them, and when convicted, which was extremely seldom, the Crown pardoned them. The priests, secure in the protection of the people, laughed at penalties which existed only on paper, and encouraged practices which brought converts to the Faith, and put money in their own pockets. High sheriffs, magistrates, and grand juries took their cue from the Castle, and hesitated to embroil themselves with their Catholic neighbours when they knew that they would not be supported. If occasionally, in indignation at some 1 Arthur Young says that there was but one instance on record, where a person guilty of forcible abduction had been executed. This was probably James Cotter, whose case will be presently mentioned. 2 The Commons allege,' I believe with truth, that the priests direct their people to marry Protestants, as experience shows that, in those cases, the whole family become Papists.The Duke of Devonshire to the Duke of Newcastle, December 25, 1743.' 'We have reason to believe the priests are, in a great measure, supported by gratuities on occasion of such marriages as are made void by this bill.'- Memorandum of the Irish Council on sending to England “the Heads of a Bill to make more effectual an Act to prevent the taking away and marrying children against the wishes of their parents and guardians."-MSS. Dublin Castle, 1745. In a statute passed on this subject degraded clergymen are said to have officiated on these occasions as well as priests. In the very many instances which I have examined, I have found only priests to have been concerned; but perhaps I have been unfor tunate. exceptionally furious outrage, they attempted to exert themselves, the faint assistance which they were allowed even from the army, when there were troops in the neighbourhood, taught them that in future their safest course was to remain passive. A remarkable instance occurred in Tipperary in 1754. A young lady had been carried off and violated with the usual brutalities. She escaped to her relations; the priest who married her was taken and identified; and the lady was bound over to prosecute at Limerick. Mr. Lovitt, the high sheriff, undertook to convey the prisoner thither from Clonmel. There were several companies of soldiers in the town, and he applied to the commanding officer for an escort. The officer said that his orders were in no case to grant more than a corporal's guard. He would give him twelve men and no more. The high sheriff in vain insisted that five times as many would not carry a priest through Tipperary as a prisoner, if his life was supposed to be in danger. The officer had his instructions from Dublin, and could not exceed them. Three thousand people gathered on the road. They stopped and searched every coach and chair that passed, to find the lady whom they meant to murder to silence her evidence. The sheriff's party was attacked, the under-sheriff was half-killed, the soldiers were beaten and dispersed, and the priest was rescued; while such was the general rage at the affront to the sacred person of this reverend gentleman, that Mr. Damer wrote to the Secretary that no Protestant in the country, who slept in a thatched house, dared speak or act in such matters.1 Violence and paralysis of authority will be called 1 MSS. Dublin Castle. 1754. СНАР. I. 1754 BOOK III. 1756 the consequence of unjust legislation. Had the Catholics been treated equitably, it may be said, they would have been orderly members of society. The answer is that crimes such as these were the normal growth of Ireland; they had descended from a time when Protestantism was an unknown word, and Popery and Irish ideas were supreme in the land. They were the native growth of the soil, which yielded only to higher culture where the English sword gave strength to English law. Abduction may mean anything, between the escape of romantic lovers from the tyranny of parents, and the most villanous of imaginable atrocities. A few stories taken almost at random from the huge mass of depositions suffice to show that, under any circumstances and under any conceivable form of civilized government, the performers in them, principals and accessories, secular and spiritual, could have been only fit for the gallows. These outrages were no deeds of stealthy revenge upon oppressors by men whom injustice had driven mad. They were acts of war done in open day, in the face of the whole people, and supported by their sympathy. A common and comparatively harmless specimen is to be found in the deposition of Mr. Armstrong, a Tipperary clergyman: Mr. Armstrong said that, in the midst of divine service in the forenoon of June 6, 1756, Henry Grady, with several ruffians, arrived with a blunderbuss, guns, pistols, and other arms, came into the church of the town of Tipperary, and, with their arms cocked and presented, called out that none should offer to stir, that if any offered to stir from their seats they would shoot. The said Grady advanced up the aisle with a cocked pistol presented in |