m the counter of his
rival draper, the Scotchman.

Father Fahey opened the proceedings with a speech. He assured his
audience that he was not actuated by any spirit of religious bigotry
or intolerance. He wished well to his Protestant fellow-countrymen,
and hoped that in the bright future which lay before Ireland men of all
creeds would be united in working for the common good of their country.
These sentiments were not received with vociferous applause. The
audience was perfectly well aware that something much more to the point
was coming, and reserved their cheers. Father Fahey did not
disappoint them. He proceeded to show that the appointment of the new
station-master was a deliberate insult to the faith of the inhabitants
of Clogher.

'Are we,' he asked, 'to submit tamely to having the worst evils of the
old ascendancy revived in our midst?'

He was followed by the dispensary doctor, who also began by declaring
his freedom from bigotry. He confused the issue slightly by complaining
that the new station-master was entirely ignorant of the Irish language.
It was perfectly well known that in private life the doctor was in the
habit of expressing the greatest contempt for the Gaelic League, and
that he could not, if his life depended on it, have translated even Mr.
O'Reilly's advertisements; but his speech was greeted with tumultuous
cheers. He proceeded to harrow the feelings of his audience by
describing what he had heard at the railway-station one evening while
waiting for the train. As he paced the platform his attention was
attracted by the sound of a piano in the station-master's house. He
listened, and, to his amazement and disgust, heard the tune of a popular
song, 'a song'--he brought down his fist on the table as he uttered the
awful indictment--'imported from England.'

'I ask,' he went on--'I ask our venerated and beloved parish priest;
I ask you, fathers of innocent families; I ask every right-thinking
patriot in this room, are our ears to be insulted, our morals corrupted,
our intellects depraved, by sounds like these?'

He closed his speech by proposing a resolution requiring the railway
company to withdraw the obnoxious official from their midst.

The oratory of the grazier, who seconded the resolution, was not
inferior. It filled his heart with a sense of shame, so he said, to
think of his cattle, poor, innocent beasts of the field, being
handled by a Protestant. They had been bred, these bullock