out the station were populous with small ragamuffins, and at the
station of Inch I found a car waiting for me with Mr. Holmes, a young
English Catholic officer, who had most obligingly offered to show me the
place and the people. We had hardly got into the roadway when we
overtook a most intelligent-looking, energetic young priest, walking
briskly on in the direction of our course. This was Dr. Dillon, the
curate of Arklow. We pulled up at once, and Mr. Holmes, introducing me
to him, we begged him to take a seat with us. He excused himself as
having to join another priest with whom he was going to a function at
Inch; but he was good enough to walk a little way with us, and gave me
an appointment for 2 P.M. at his own town of Arklow, where I could catch
the train back to Dublin. We drove on rapidly and called on Father
O'Neill, the parish priest. We found him in full canonicals, as he was
to officiate at the function this morning, and with him were Father
Dunphy, the parish priest of Arklow, and two or three more robed
priests.

Father O'Neill, whose face and manner are those of the higher order of
the continental clergy, briefly set forth to me his view of the
transactions at Coolgreany. He said that before the Plan of Campaign was
adopted by the tenants, Mr. William O'Brien, M.P., had written to him
explaining what the effect of the Plan would be, and urging him to take
whatever steps he could to obviate the necessity of adopting it, as it
might eventually result to the disadvantage of the tenants. "To that
end," said Father O'Neill, "I called upon Captain Hamilton, the agent,
with Dr. Dillon of Arklow, but he positively refused to listen to us,
and in fact ordered us, not very civilly, to leave his office."

It was after this he said that he felt bound to let the tenants take
their own way. Eighty of them joined in the "Plan of Campaign" and paid
the amount of the rent due, less a reduction of 30 per cent., which they
demanded of the agent, into the hands of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M.P., Sir
Thomas being a resident in the country, and Mr. Mayne, M.P. Writs of
ejectment were obtained against them afterwards, and in July last
sixty-seven of them were evicted, who are now living in "Laud League
huts," put up on the holdings of three small tenants who were exempted
from the Plan of Campaign, and allowed to pay their rents subject to a
smaller reduction made by the agent, in order that they might retain
their land as a refuge