ater, and then a crash which portended
that the farmer had fallen over the washstand, making a fearful clatter.

In rushed the drab of a servant maid, perfectly indifferent to my
presence, shrieking:--

'O missus, come up, come up, the maister is just miraculous among the
chaney!'

CHAPTER XII

PRIESTS

I have been asked, since my friends became aware that I am perpetrating
my reminiscences, whether I was going to write anything supplemental to
Mr. MacCarthy's _Priests and People_, and _Five Tears in Ireland_.

My reply was:--

'Certainly not.'

To begin with, I have many friends among Roman Catholics, and plenty of
cheery acquaintances among the priests. Secondly, the state of feud and
hostility on which Mr. MacCarthy dilates is more likely to be found in
Ulster and Leinster than in Kerry, where the Roman Catholics form more
than nine-tenths of the population.

On one occasion, when a distinguished Englishman was staying at
Killarney House, I told him that he should go to the north to see the
strangest sight in the world--two races hating one another for the love
of God.

It is not my business to estimate what would happen in Kerry if a few
thousand rabid Orangemen were plumped down among the present
inhabitants; but according to existing circumstances creeds are not torn
to tatters nor religion disfigured by strife and slander.

All the same, I am bound to say that the Roman Catholic priests, when I
was young, were much superior to those of to-day. They were drawn from a
better class, because, having to be educated at Rome, or, at least, as
far away as St. Omer, entailed some considerable outlay by their
relatives. Moreover, they brought back from their continental seminaries
broader ideas than can be acquired in purely Irish colleges. Their
interest had been stimulated at the most impressionable age in much of
which the farmers and labourers had no conception. Therefore the priest
could address his flock with authority, and was invariably looked up to
as well as obeyed.

The parish priest at Blarney erected a tower in commemoration of the
battle of Waterloo, and a public house in the vicinity bears the name to
this day.

What parish priest would raise a memorial to any English victory in the
twentieth century?

The greatest curse to the Irish nation has been Maynooth, because it has
fostered the ordination of peasants' sons. These are uneducated men who
have never been out of Ireland, whos