example, I am sorry to say, than the Catholic
priest, Father Coen, who made himself so conspicuous here on the
occasion of the much bewritten Woodford evictions. The case of Father
Coen is most instructive, and most unpleasant. He occupies an excellent
house on a holding of twenty-three acres of good laud, with a garden--in
short, a handsome country residence, which was provided by the late Lord
Clanricarde, expressly for the accommodation of whoever might be the
Catholic priest in that part of his estate. For all this the rent is
fixed at the absurd and nominal sum of two guineas a year! Yet Father
Coen, who now enjoys the mansion, and has a substantial income from the
parish, is actually two years and a half in arrears with this rent! This
fact Mr. Tener mentioned to the Bishop, whose countenance naturally
darkened. "What am I to do in such a case, my lord?" asked Mr. Tener.
"Do?" said the Bishop, "do your plain duty, and proceed against him
according to law." But suppose he were proceeded against and evicted, as
in America he certainly would be, who can doubt that he would instantly
be paraded, before the world, on both sides of the Atlantic as a
"martyr," suffering for the holy cause of an oppressed and down-trodden
people, at the hands of a "most vile" Marquis, and of a remorse-less and
blood-thirsty agent?[11] Mr. Crawford, a tall, fine-looking man, talked
very fully and freely about the situation here. He came to Portumna
about eight years ago; one of his reasons for accepting the position
here offered him being that he wished to take over a piece of property
near Woodford from his brother-in-law, who found he could not manage it.
As a practical farmer, and a straightforward capable man of business, he
has gradually acquired the general confidence of the tenants here. That
they are, as a rule, quite able to pay the rents which they have been
"coerced" into refusing to pay, he fully believes. He told me of cases
in which Catholic tenants of Lord Clanricarde came to him when the
agitation began about the Plan of Campaign, and begged him privately to
take the money for their rents, and hold it for them till the time
should come for a settlement.

The reason for this was that they did not wish to be obliged to give
over the money into the "Trust" created by the Campaigners, and wanted
it to be safely put beyond the reach of these obliging "friends." One
very shrewd tenant came to him and begged him to buy some beasts,