There are parishes in Connaught in which a Protestant was never
settled nor even seen. In that province in Munster, and in parts of
Leinster, the entire peasantry for sixty miles are Catholics; in
these tracts the churches are frequently shut for want of a
congregation, or opened to an assemblage of from six to twenty
persons. Of what Protestants there are in Ireland, the greatest
part are gathered together in Ulster, or they live in towns. In the
country of the other three provinces the Catholics see no other
religion but their own, and are at the least as fifteen to one
Protestant. In the diocese of Tuam they are sixty to one; in the
parish of St. Mulins, diocese of Leghlin, there are four thousand
Catholics and one Protestant; in the town of Grasgenamana, in the
county of Kilkenny, there are between four and five hundred Catholic
houses, and three Protestant houses. In the parish of Allen, county
Kildare, there is no Protestant, though it is very populous. In the
parish of Arlesin, Queen's County, the proportion is one hundred to
one. In the whole county of Kilkenny, by actual enumeration, it is
seventeen to one; in the diocese of Kilmacduagh, province of
Connaught, fifty-two to one, by ditto. These I give you as a few
specimens of the present state of Ireland; and yet there are men
impudent and ignorant enough to contend that such evils require no
remedy, and that mild family man who dwelleth in Hampstead can find
none but the cautery and the knife.


- "Omne per ignem
Excoquitur vitium."


I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at hearing Mr.