each.... She was clever at business.... A
plain and vulgar woman in her manners, but had very valuable qualities.
1740 was a year of great scarcity, and farmers were ploughing their
wheat in May to sow summer barley. In March Mrs. Conolly's sister, Mrs.
Jones, wrote to another sister, Mrs. Bound, that Mrs. Conolly was
building an obelisk opposite a vista at the back of Castletown House,
and that it would cost L300 or L400 at least, and she wondered how she
could afford it. The nephew of the Speaker, also the Rt. Hon. Wm.
Conolly, lived at Leixlip Castle till he succeeded to Castletown in
1752. He married Lady Anne Wentworth, daughter of an Earl of Strafford.
His son was the Right Hon. Thos. Conolly, who married Lady Louisa
Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond. From her Castletown passed to
the father of the present Mr. Conolly, after the death of Lady Louisa."

Mrs. Jones must have made a very erroneous guess at the expense of
building the obelisk, even at that time; now, instead of three or four
hundred pounds, double as many thousands would scarcely build it.
Although erected by Mrs. Conolly, it stands on the Duke of Leinster's
property. The site is the finest in the neighbourhood, and she obtained
it from the Earl of Kildare, by giving him a portion of the Castletown
estate instead. Lately those two pieces of ground have been
re-exchanged, and when they came to be measured, they were found to be
of exactly the same extent.

[24] The coming of the thaw was indicated by some accidents on the ice.
Under date 10th Feb. it was reported from Derry that the ice gave way
there, and several persons were drowned. In Dublin, at the same date, a
man was also drowned who attempted to cross the river on the ice near
the Old Bridge. But a boy was more fortunate. He, too, was on the ice on
the Liffey, and the part on which he stood becoming detached was driven
by the current through Ormond and Essex Bridges; he kept his position,
however, on the floating ice till he was taken off in a boat.

[25] The following story is told in _Pue's Occurrences_, in May,
1740:--A broguemaker had been committed to Dungannon jail for some
offence, but managed to make his escape. He was pursued and searched for
in vain. The jailer gave him up as lost when, one day, after being at
large during five weeks, he presented himself at the jail to the
astonishment of the jailer, who questioned him as to the cause of his
return. He replied, that he had t