e. One of Moore's friends, Mr. Browne, afterwards Lord Oranmore,
wrote: "I now see we owe our lives to the priests, as they can excite
the whole people against us whenever they like. Whatever may be the
cause, Ireland needs reconquering."

That was a typical expression of the gentry's view. Plainly Ireland was
in rebellion when landlords could no longer carry their tenants to the
polls to vote as the landlord directed. Moore however differed from the
generality of Irish landlords in one important respect. He was not
divided by religion from the people over whom he ruled, and he can never
have had Mr. Browne's feeling of aloofness from Ireland as a country
which might need reconquering to re-establish the ascendancy of the
"English garrison"; nor was it natural to him to distrust the priests as
leaders of a separate and subject race.

In the autumn of 1846, when the threat of famine had become a
certainty, Moore came home to Mayo, where there was grim business to be
done. His tenants, on an estate running up into the wild Partry
mountains, numbered five thousand souls. For their benefit he utilised
far more of his winnings on "Coranna" than the tithe which he had
originally ear-marked; and not one of all these his dependants died of
want in that outlandish region, though in places far less remote death
was ravenous. He was chairman of the Relief Board for the whole county,
and slaved at his task--not harder than other landlords in other parts
of Ireland. But his methods were more drastic, his view of the situation
clearer. Folk must have rubbed their eyes and perhaps stopped to think
twice when the owner of "Wolfdog," of "Anonymous," and a score of other
famous horses, wrote, in answer to a request for his annual subscription
to the local races, that he thought the county of Mayo "as little fit to
be the scene of such festivities as he to contribute to their
celebration."

But Moore did not content himself with mere administration of relief. He
saw that the English Government was apathetic and incompetent to face so
terrible an affliction, and he took in hand to create within his own
class an organised force of Irish opinion to bind together the ruling
Irishmen for the good of Ireland. In company with his friend and
kinsman, Lord Sligo, he "travelled through twenty-seven counties and
personally conferred with most of the leading men in Ireland on the
urgent necessity of a united effort to save the sinking people." The