el
with the salmon-fisheries under your very nose, and the four hours
river-steamer to Kilrush, with more Cathedrals, statues, antiquities,
curiosities, novelties, quaintnesses than could be described in a
three-volume novel--do all those things, and, while on your back in the
smoke room, after a hard day's pleasure, you will probably be heard to
murmur that in the general Fall some of us dropped easily enough, and
that, all things considered, Adam's unhappy collapse was decidedly
excusable.

The Limerick folks are said to be the most Catholic people in Ireland.
They are more loyal than the Corkers. Why is this? The more Catholic,
the more disloyal, is the general experience. Nobody whose opinion is
worth anything will deny this, and however much you may wish to
dissociate religion from politics, you cannot blink this fact. In
dealing with important matters, it is useless to march a
hair's-breadth beside the truth. Better go for it baldheaded, calling
things by their right names, taking your gruel, and standing by to
receive the lash. You are bound to win in the long run. I say the
Catholic priests are disloyal to the Queen. Men of the old school, the
few who remain, are loyal, ardently loyal. The old-timers were
gentlemen. They were sent to Douai or some other Continental
theological school, where they rubbed against gentlemen of broad
culture, of extensive view, of perfect civilisation. They returned to
Ireland with a personal weight, a cultivation, a refinement, which
made them the salt of Irish earth. These men are still loyal. The
Maynooth men, sons of small farmers, back-street shopkeepers,
pawnbrokers, and gombeen men, aided by British gold, these half-bred,
half-educated absorbers of eleemosynary ecclesiasticism, are deadly
enemies to the Empire. This is Mr. Bull's guerdon for the Maynooth
grant. My authority is undeniable. The statement is made on the
assurance of eminent Catholics. Two Catholic J.P.'s yesterday
concurred in this, and no intelligent Irish Catholic will think
otherwise. Surely this consideration should be a factor in arguments
against Home Rule.

Then why are the Limerick Catholics loyal? Because the Limerick Bishop
is loyal. Bishop O'Dwyer is opposed to Home Rule. Said Mr. James
Frost, J.P., of George's Street: "When the Bishop first came here he
invited some four hundred Catholics to a banquet at the palace. After
dinner he proposed the health of the Queen, and all the company save
two or