up to him and said, 'Did you see that one of your horses was shot in the
night?' 'How would I see that?' says he, 'and I not rose up or dressed?'
So when he went out they showed him the horse, and he bade the men to
bury it, and it wasn't two hours after before two of them came to him.
'We can tell you who it was shot the horse,' they said. 'It was such a
one and such a one in the village, that were often heard to speak bad of
you. And besides that,' they said, 'we saw them shooting it ourselves.'
So the two that gave that false witness were the last two Denis Browne
ever hung. He rose out of it after, and washed his hands of it all. And
his big house is turned into a convent, and the tree is growing there
yet. It is in the time of '98 that happened, a hundred years ago."

THE UNION

"As to the Union, it was bought with titles. Look at the Binghams and
the rest, they went to bed nothing, and rose up lords in the morning.
The day it was passed Lady Castlereagh was in the House of Parliament,
and she turned three colours, and she said to her husband, 'You have
passed your treaty, but you have sold your country.' He went and cut his
throat after that. And it is what I heard from the old people, there was
no priest in Ireland but voted for it, the way they would get better
rights, for it was only among poor persons they were going at that time.
And it was but at the time of the Parliament leaving College Green they
began to wear the Soutane that they wear now. Up to that it was a
bodycoat they wore and knee-breeches. It was their vote sent the
Parliament to England, and when there is a row between them or that the
people are vexed with the priest, you will hear them saying in the house
in Irish 'Bad luck on them, it was they brought misfortune to Ireland.'
They wore the Soutane ever since that time."

ROBERT EMMET

"The Government had people bribed to swear against Robert Emmet, and the
same men said after, they never saw him till he was in the dock. He
might have got away but for his attention to that woman. She went away
after with a sea captain. There are some say she gave information.
Curran's daughter she was. But I don't know. He made one request, his
letters that she wrote to him in the gaol not to be meddled with, but
the Government opened them and took the presents she sent in them, and
whatever was best of them they kept for themselves. He made the greatest
speech from the dock ever was made, and Lord Norb