then, so depressed and persecuted, must have naturally felt a strong
interest in having a prince who professed their own religion placed upon
the English throne. Strange as it may appear, however, and be the cause
of it what it may, the Catholics of Ireland, as a people and as a body,
took no part whatever in supporting him. Under Lord Chesterfield's
administration, one of the most shocking and unnatural Acts of
Parliament ever conceived passed into a law. This was the making void
and null all intermarriages between Catholic and Protestant that should
take place after the 1st of May, 1746. Such an Act was a renewal of the
Statute of Kilkenny, and it was a fortunate circumstance to Willy Reilly
and his dear Cooleen Bawn that he had the consolation of having been
transported for seven years. Had her father even given his consent at an
earlier period, the laws of the land would have rendered their marriage
impossible. This cruel law, however, was overlooked; for it need hardly
be said that it was met and spurned not only by human reason, but by
human passion. In truth, the strong and influential of both religions
treated it with contempt, and trampled on it without any dread of the
consequences. By the time of his return from transportation, it was
merely a dead letter, disregarded and scorned by both parties, and was
no obstruction to either the marriage or the happiness of himself and
his dear _Cooleen Bawn_.

I know not that there is any thing else I can add to this preface,
unless the fact that I have heard several other ballads upon the subject
of these celebrated lovers--all of the same tendency, and all in the
highest praise of the beauty and virtues of the fair _Cooleen Bawn_.
Their utter vulgarity, however, precludes them from a place in these
pages. And, by the way, talking of the law which passed under the
administration of Lord Chesterfield against intermarriages, it is not
improbable that the elopement of Reilly and the _Cooleen Bawn_, in