d nothing of him
for nearly a quarter of a century, when a person who knew him well,
coming from Ireland, and staying at my humble house, told me a great deal
about him. He reached Ireland in safety, soon reconciled himself with
his Church, and was ordained a priest; in the priestly office he
acquitted himself in a way very satisfactory, upon the whole, to his
superiors, having, as he frequently said, learned wisdom abroad. The
Popish Church never fails to turn to account any particular gift which
its servants may possess; and discovering soon that Murtagh was endowed
with considerable manual dexterity--proof of which he frequently gave at
cards, and at a singular game which he occasionally played at thimbles--it
selected him as a very fit person to play the part of exorcist; and
accordingly he travelled through a great part of Ireland, casting out
devils from people possessed, which he afterwards exhibited, sometimes in
the shape of rabbits, and occasionally birds and fishes. There is a holy
island in a lake in Ireland, to which the people resort at a particular
season of the year. Here Murtagh frequently attended, and it was here
that he performed a cure which will cause his name long to be remembered
in Ireland, delivering a possessed woman of two demons, which he
brandished aloft in his hands, in the shape of two large eels, and
subsequently hurled into the lake, amidst the shouts of an enthusiastic
multitude. Besides playing the part of an exorcist, he acted that of a
politician with considerable success; he attached himself to the party of
the sire of agitation--"the man of paunch," and preached and hallooed for
repeal with the loudest and best, as long as repeal was the cry; as soon,
however, as the Whigs attained the helm of Government, and the greater
part of the loaves and fishes--more politely termed the patronage of
Ireland--was placed at the disposition of the priesthood, the tone of
Murtagh, like that of the rest of his brother saggarts, was considerably
softened; he even went so far as to declare that politics were not
altogether consistent with sacerdotal duty; and resuming his exorcisms,
which he had for some time abandoned, he went to the Isle of Holiness,
and delivered a possessed woman of six demons in the shape of white mice.
He, however, again resumed the political mantle in the year 1848, during
the short period of the rebellion of the so-called Young Irelanders. The
priests, though they appar