specific to be compatible with a historical work in which the names of actual places and of numbers of living persons were necessarily mentioned. Though Gallowglass may be called a novel, it is rather a study in sociology than a literary romance. The characters speak so freely for themselves that they require no introduction beyond a few words of explanation from the author. The lack of sympathy, rudeness, disunion, and volatility which flourish amongst them, as a whole, recall Jacob's reproof to his son Reuben: "Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." But if they excite our disapproval and arouse our mirth, they should also move us to pity their condition.

The social and religious customs of the Catholic Irish, whom I describe, may be repellent in many respects to the English and Scotch stranger, but it must not be forgotten that they are also distasteful to numbers of the Irish themselves, who leave their native country in hundreds of thousands to escape from them. Το compose from such materials a pleasant picture for the delectation of those who regard the reading of a book as something akin to the taking of an anesthetic, is a feat which may be only performed by calling in the aid of that Spirit who "abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.”

I have depicted Father O'Darrell, and all the other priests in the book, in a series of scrupulously accurate and advisedly moderate pictures, practising their profession; by the bedsides of the dying; at the funeral and the graveside; in the parlours of their parishioners over the social glass of grog; in the secret conference room under the presidency of their bishop; at the sacerdotal banqueting table, feasting extravagantly on the richest viands and the most expensive liquors; as the advisers of the young; as the dictators of marriage contracts; and as the unscrupulous enemies of all heretics. Those are the phases of the priest's life of which the public hear little or nothing that is authentic.

Hugh O'Dowla, an impressionable and talented youth, whose mind has been emasculated in an atmosphere of

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superstition, equivocation and subterfuge, is unfortunately as representative a type of Irish Catholic adolescence as it would be possible to portray.

Molly Carew is the offspring of one of those mixed marriages, as the priests call them, which ought to be blessings to the community, in so far as they tend to broaden the view of life and promote Christian charity amongst all sects, but which are designedly perverted into national scourges by the machinations of the priests. She is brought up, like most Catholic girls of her class, without any proper sense of Christian duty.

Despite all the self-glorification in which the priests indulge with regard to the chastity of Irish Catholic girls of the lower class, I myself have known a score of cases, more or less revolting, which happened within a very small area during the last fifteen years. The art employed by the priests in hushing up scandals is consummate; and the silence of the lay Catholics about those domestic tragedies, especially where the priests and their protégés are involved, is one of the marvels of Irish life. The case of Molly Carew also exemplifies the difficulties encountered by clergymen of the various Reformed Christian Churches in pursuing their mission in Ireland. The ministers are allowed to exist; in some cases the local priests may go so far as to nod to them in the street-even that is a rare concession-but the iron hand of sacerdotalism lies heavy upon them in every matter of importance affecting the work of Christ.

John O'Dowla, as I have sketched hin, is a fair specimen of the solvent Irishman who has been getting into Parliament under the régime instituted by Mr. Parnell in 1880, and which came into full force with the enactment of the Representation of the People Act of 1884. Neither an insolvent adventurer, like Mr. O'Loobera, nor yet a political expert, like Mr. O'Martyr, John O'Dowla is an honest, industrious man who, if he were an Englishman, a Scotchman, or a Welshman, would be an admirable type of citizen. But, brought up under the superstitions of the priests, the Chevalier

cannot help being what he is. His conduct is contemptible on several occasions; but the symptoms of sterling honesty and good nature, of which he occasionally gives proof, serve to show how hard it is for the innate good sense of a Catholic Irishman to struggle outward from the prison in which his mind is pent up by the dominant priests.

Thomas O'Brile represents a type of Irishman possessing even higher possibilities for good than John O'Dowla. He has advanced further on the road to mental freedom, and has therefore secured for himself and his family a larger share of the fruits of their labour. If he were an Englishman, he would probably amass a large fortune, and become what is called a captain of industry. Mrs. O'Brile represents a type of Catholic Irishwoman which is fast disappearing-a woman full of common-sense, fearing the priests little, but keeping on terms with them for social reasons; possessing none of the book-learning which Irish girls now receive in the convents, but well-mannered, full of true kindness and ample knowledge of the world. Her eldest daughter, Norah, is a type of young womanhood which is also rarely met with now in Catholic Ireland, where, owing to the predominance of convent-bred girls, mental strength is seldom found in conjunction with that physical beauty which is so plentiful, and where religiosity saps female character at every stage of existence.

Julia O'Dowla, on the contrary, represents a type to be found in thousands in the province of Munster. Stuffed with nonsensical ideas about life, full of religious scruples, a prey to all priestly superstitions, a victim to every sacerdotal quacksalver, she only discovers her real human nature by accident, and is thereby saved from a lifelong immurement which would have entailed paralysis alike of heart and brain. Mrs. O'Dowla is a species of woman very common in the south of Ireland. She believes in Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, so implicitly that they assume for her a more impressive reality than the world in which she lives. She literally

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believes that the local priests possess the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, no less than the magisterial power of release from Purgatory and commitment to Hell for all eternity. She is saving and industrious by instinct, but all the profits of her work would flow into the coffers of the priests, were it not for the check placed upon her by her husband.

Bugler is a young labourer representative of his class in the South of Ireland. If he had not come under the influence of Thomas O'Brile, he would have grown up a mauvais sujet, to swell the ranks of those malcontents who constitute the worst element of Irish society-ignorant people who are alternately petted and scolded, but always deceived, by the priests, always taught to ascribe their want of prosperity to external causes rather than to faults in their own character, the most besetting of which is their lack of industry.

The attitude of the priests towards Secret Societies is, I believe, accurately portrayed in this book. As officers of the most potent Secret Society in the world, they object to all Secret Societies which are independent of themselves, as detrimental to the monopoly of the ecclesiastical Secret Society, and likely to lessen the usefulness of the confessional by limiting the confidence reposed in the confessor by the penitent. Acting from such motives, it is not to be wondered at if, despite their hostility to Secret Societies in general, the priests were loth to endanger their popularity by openly condemning the Society of Irish Valiants.

I have also endeavoured to weave into the narrative an intelligible account of the illegal and parliamentary sides of the Land Agitation, through all the phases of which I lived, and in more than one of whose scenes I was an actor, depicting for my readers the manner of men who were responsible for all the disturbances at home and in Parliament. Bearing in mind the political changes which are now impending, an honest effort to explain the constitutional and unconstitutional elements of the last great Irish Agitation cannot be considered untimely.

But, despite those serious studies of the most difficult of Irish problems, the reader must not be surprised to find a substantial vein of humour and Irish levity running all through this book, which, indeed, would not be a true picture of Irish life if it were wanting in that respect. Roland Glenpower is typical of a class of Irishman which has not yet quite disappeared, though one seldom encounters nowadays that reckless love of sport and practical joking for which Ireland was at one time so famous.

In fine, it is to be hoped that the hundreds of Irishmen and Irishwomen who appear in these pages, however misguided they may be, will be found to be human beings as rational in all essentials, from their own standpoint, as the middle-class and lower-class people in The Mill on the Floss or Nicholas Nickleby. They represent the most numerous class of Irish folk-the class which does not speak or think in "the pure English" of Burke, Moore, and Goldsmith, but of which it is equally true to assert that its members do not speak or think in "the mere gibberish" so frequently put into the mouths of Irish characters in modern dramas and latter-day novels. With reference to the Irish words which occur so frequently in the text, let me say that they are all spelled phonetically, because the literal spelling would give the English reader no clue to their pronunciation.

MICHAEL J. F. McCARTHY.

October, 1904.