as "vile slanders" which they wish to "hurl back in my
teeth" (if any). The meeting took place in the Town Hall on Sunday,
which day is usually selected by the Tuamites to protest against the
brutal Saxon, and to hold meetings of the National League, a
colourable successor to the Land League. All these meetings are
convened by priests, addressed by priests, governed by priests. The
Tuamites are among the most priest-ridden people in Ireland, and,
after having seen Galway and Limerick, this is saying a good deal. The
meeting was from beginning to end a screaming farce, wherein language
was used fit only for an Irish House of Commons. The vocabulary of
Irish Town Commissioners and Irish Poor Law Guardians was laid under
heavy contribution. The speakers hurled at the _Gazette_ the pet terms
they usually and properly reserve for each other. The too flattering
terms which in a moment of weakness I applied to Tuam and its people
are described as "lying, hellish, mendacious misrepresentations."
Misther MacCormack said the English people would know there was "not
a wurrud of thruth in these miserable lies." The report of the _Tuam
Herald_ reads like a faction fight in a whiskey-shop. You can hear the
trailing of coats, the crack of shillelaghs on thick Irish skulls, the
yells of hurroosh, whirroo, and O'Donnell aboo! Towards the end your
high-wrought imagination can almost smell the sticking plaister, so
vivid is the picture. "The bare-faced slanders of this hireling scribe
from the slums of Birmingham" were hotly denounced, but nobody said
what they were. The clergy and their serfs were equally silent on this
point. I steadfastly adhere to every syllable of my Tuam letter. I
challenge the clergy and laity combined to put their fingers on a
single assertion which is untrue, or even overstated. Let them point
out a single inaccuracy, if they can. To make sweeping statements, to
say that this "gutter-snipe," this "hireling calumniator," this
"blackguard Birmingham man" has made a series of "reckless calumnies,"
"devoid of one particle of truth," is not sufficiently precise. I
stand by every word I have uttered; I am prepared to hold my ground on
every single point. Most of my information was obtained from Catholics
who are heart-weary of priestly tyranny and priestly intimidation; who
are sufficiently enlightened to see that priestly power is based on
the ignorance of priestly dupes, that priestly influence is the real
slavery of