and Mr. Hewson, the agent, ought to have made peace on the
terms which Father Stephens said he was willing to accept for the
tenants, these being a reduction of 3s. 4d. in the pound, if Mr. Olphert
would extend the reduction to the whole year. My Galwegian thought this
reasonable, because in this region the rent, it appears, is only
collected once a year. With this impartial temper, my Galwegian still
maintained that but for the two priests--the parish priest of Gweedore
and the curate of Falcarragh--there need have been no trouble at
Falcarragh. There had been no "evictions." When the tenants first went
to Mr. Olphert they asked a reduction of 4s. in the pound on the
non-judicial rents, and this Mr. Olphert at once agreed to give them.
The tenants had regularly paid their rents for ten years before. That
they are not going down in the world would appear from the fact that the
P.O. Savings Banks' deposits at Falcarragh, which stood at L62, 15s.
10d. in 1880, rose in 1887 to L494, 10s. 8d. A small number of them had
gone into Court and had judicial rents fixed; and it was on the
contention promoted by the two priests, through these judicial tenants,
he said, that all the difficulty hinged. Father M'Fadden of Glena, who
thought the quarrel unjustifiable and silly, had an interview with Mr.
Blane, M.P., and with Father Stephens, and tried to arrange it all. He
would have succeeded, my Galwegian thought, had not the agent, Mr.
Hewson, obstinately fought with the obstinate curate, Father Stephens,
over the suggestion made by the latter, that the terms granted on the
fine neighbouring estate of Mr. Stuart of Ards--a man of wealth, who
lives mainly at Brighton, though Ards is one of the loveliest places in
Ireland--should be extended by Mr. Olphert for a whole year to his own
people, who had never asked for anything of the kind!

Mr. Olphert said he knew Gweedore well. He owns a "townland"[16] there,
on which he has thirty-five tenants, none of them on a holding at more
more than L4 a year. Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, he said, finding that
the people on Mr. Olphert's townland were going back to the "Rundale"
practices, tried to induce Mr. Olphert to return all these subdivisions
as "tenancies." This he refused to do. As to the resources of the
peasantry, he thought them greater than they appeared to be. "This comes
to light," said Mr. Olphert, "whenever there is a tenant-right for sale.
There is never any lack of money to buy