ndlord, and admitted tenant-right to
the fullest extent on the property, but after that election he never
showed the same friendly feelings towards the people. Soon after the
election Mr. Humphrey Evatt, the agent, died, and was succeeded in the
agency by Mr. Sandy Mitchell, who very soon set about surveying and
revaluing the estate, of course at the instance of his master, Evelyn
John Shirley, Esq. He performed the work of revaluation, &c., and
the result was that the rents were increased by one-third and in
some cases more. The bog, too, which up to this time was free to the
tenants, was taken from them and doled out to them in small patches of
from twenty-five to forty perches each, at from 4 l. to 8 l. per
acre. At the instance of the then parish priest, President Reilly, Mr.
Shirley gave 5 l. per year to a few schools on his property, without
interfering in any way with the religious principles of the Catholics
attending these schools; but the then agent insisted on having the
authorised version of the Bible, without note or comment, read in
those schools by the Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr.
Kernan, could not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism,
and insisted on the children being withdrawn from the schools. For
obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic parents were treated most
unsparingly. I have before me just now a most remarkable instance
of the length to which this gentleman carried his proselytising
propensities, which I will mention. In the vestry, or sacristy,
attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school taught by a man named Rush,
altogether independent of the schools aided by Mr. Shirley, and by
largely subsidising the teacher, the then agent actually introduced
his proselytism into that school too. The priests and people tried
legal means to get rid of the teacher, but without success, and in the
end the people came by night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in
the morning when the teacher came he had no house to shelter him.
The Catholics were then without a school, and in order to provide the
means of education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under
the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of
National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure
building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting"
Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of them
from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends ov