ttle altar
in the open air simple votive offerings were displayed, and Mrs.
Stacpoole tells me pilgrims come here from Galway and Connemara to climb
the hill upon their knees, and drink of the water. Last year for the
first time within the memory of man the well went dry. Such was the
distress caused in Ennis by this news, that on the eve of St. John
certain pious persons came out from the town, drew water from the lake,
and poured it into the well!

As we walked away one of the party pointed to a rabbit fleeing swiftly
into a hole in one of the graves. "I was on this hill," he said, "one
day not very long ago when a funeral train came out from Ennis. As it
entered the precincts a rabbit ran rapidly across the grounds. Instantly
the procession broke up; the coffin was literally dropped to the
ground, and the bearers, the mourners, and the whole company united in a
hot and general chase of bunny. Of course, I need not say," he added,
"that there was no priest with them. The fixed charge of the priest for
a burial is twenty shillings, but there is usually no service at the
grave whatever."

This may possibly be a trace of the practices which grew up under the
Penal Laws against Catholics. When Rinuccini came to Ireland in the time
of the Civil War, he found the observances of the Church all fallen into
degradation through these laws. The Holy Sacrifice was celebrated in the
cabins, and not unfrequently on tables which had been covered
half-an-hour before with the remains of the last night's supper, and
would be cleared half-an-hour afterwards for the midday meal, and
perhaps for a game of cards.

Several guests joined us at dinner. One gentleman, a magistrate familiar
with Gweedore, told me he believed the statements of Sergeant Mahony as
to the income of Father M'Fadden to fall within the truth. While he
believes that many people in that region live, as he put it, "constantly
within a hair's-breadth of famine," he thinks that the great body of
the peasants there are in a position, "with industry and thrift, not
only to make both ends meet, but to make them overlap."

Mr. Stacpoole told us some of his own experiences nearer home. Not long
ago he was informed that the National League had ordered some decent
people, who hold the demesne lands of his neighbour, Mr. Macdonald
(already alluded to) at a very low rental, to make a demand for a
reduction, which would have left Mr. Macdonald without a penny of
income. To coun