criminals been Catholic peasants, they would have been put upon their
trial for their lives, and, at the very least, sent into penal
servitude. What confidence could the Catholics of Ulster have in the
administration of the law, knowing, as they did, that even where they
were more than able to hold their own against the Orangemen, they were
sure to be sufferers in the long run, seeing that their opponents would
be backed up by the forces that should go to preserve law and order.

It is thirty-five years since I last re-visited the County Down. I took
my son with me. He was nearly of the same age as I was myself when I
lived in Ballymagenaghy, but I could only show him the site of Oiney
Bannon's house. It was not the too common case of an eviction, for the
Annesleys had the reputation of being tolerably good landlords. The
land, as I have said, was very poor, in fact, if the people got it for
nothing it would hardly repay cultivation. But it was picturesque, and
therefore Lord Annesley took some of it into his domain, and these
barren hills and rocks, when planted with trees, added to the beauty of
the scenery. The dispossessed tenants got land from him in Clarkhill,
not far off.

Since that time, judging from the Irish newspapers, there seems to have
been progress in the right direction, for the little town of
Castlewellan, where for a short time I went to school, from being a
place where, in the Penal days, a Catholic was scarcely allowed to live,
seems to have become a strong Nationalist centre for South Down. This
was my mother's part of the country. I have seen similar paragraphs
which proved to me that, in the barony of Lecale, County Down, my
father's part, the people, though not so demonstrative as the "mountainy
men," can still, as ever, be relied upon to stand as firm as Slieve
Donard itself for creed and country.