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in the association that are not sincerely belonging to it ?—Yes; many are there by force.

"What proportion should you say were forced to join against their will?—I think more than one-half are forced against their will; but when I say they are forced to join the Whitefeet, I think the greater number consider them, in some degree, a protection to themselves, that people, from dread, may be unwilling to take their holdings, or put them out of them.

"So that many look to the association for protection?Yes; they think they have no other protection."-H. C., Nos. 2350-4.

Rev. Michael Keogh :

"Have you known of any persons having small portions of land being engaged in these conspiracies ?—Yes, I have.

"Have they held land to a large amount?-No; a good many have been forced into it by intimidation.

"Did they take the first opportunity of retiring from the association ?—Yes, in private; but they were afraid to do so in public.

"You think it is a system of intimidation that compels those who are now Whitefeet to continue so?—Yes; I think it is so with many of them.

"Then it is your opinion that if the government were to take measures to afford sufficient protection, that many of those who are now ostensibly Whitefeet would be glad of an opportunity of returning to peaceable habits?—I am sure they would; I know them to be anxious to do so.

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Do you not think there is a good deal of policy in it, and that many of them join the association in order to deter landlords from turning people out of their farms?—Yes, I think So, in many cases.

"So that they have a personal object in allowing it to go on?—Yes; that was the opinion I formed.

"There is nothing political in these associations?—I do not think there is."-H. C., Nos. 4689-96.

Robert Cassidy, Esq. :

"Have not many been compelled to join by constraint and intimidation?—I think great numbers are obliged to join from a dread of personal injury or personal loss. The manner of compelling those persons to attend is by anonymous notices; in some instances where anonymous notices are disregarded, they are not followed up by any injury to the persons who disregard them; but in other instances those anonymous notices are followed by the destruction of the property or injury to the person of the individual who disregards them."-H. C., No. 6417.

Mr. John Bray :

"Have they any particular means of increasing the numbers of the association; do they intimidate people to join them? I have heard so, but I think that those persons who plead intimidation are half inclined to join; I think that the honest men could abstain from joining them by staying in and not frequenting fairs."-H. C., No. 3463.

In a trial on the Leitrim Special Commission in 1806, Mr. Irwin, a magistrate, gives an account of going out at night and apprehending some of a party of Thrashers.

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They all said they took the Thrashers' oath; but each man justified himself by saying he was forced. 1 asked them why they went out with white shirts? They said they were forced to go out.

"Did they say who were of the party?—They said they did not know any of the party who brought them out that night; that they were all strangers*."

There can be no doubt of the general sympathy of the people with the cause of the Whiteboys, inasmuch as they consider their own interests bound up with its success; but it is equally certain that the majority of the witnesses are right in supposing that the unwilling

* Trials of the Thrashers, p. 259.

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ness of the peasantry to take a personal part in the outrages is quite sincere; as (to say nothing of the indisposition to commit atrocious crime where there is no individual wrong) they expose themselves in so doing to considerable risk. The risk of refusing to join is, however, still greater, as their only property, their cabin, can be burnt over their heads at any moment.

"In what way (Mr. Bennett is asked) can you explain the facility with which that system of terror has been introduced? -The people in Ireland (he answers) live very much in thatched houses; and it has very frequently occurred that a person who was well-disposed, and I believe well-affected, has, through terror, been obliged to join in the conspiracy in the country, lest his house should be burnt, and himself and his family murdered, from their unprotected state."-H. C., 1824, p. 82.

"One of the greatest and most frequent outrages we have (says Mr. Blacker) is burning houses of persons who are not their friends; and a person can very quickly run out of a house with a half-burnt turf in a kettle, run across two or three fields, put it into the thatch, and run back again."-H. C., 1824, p. 52.

Mr. R. Griffith is examined as follows in reference to the northern part of the county of Cork, when in a disturbed state.

"You stated that the middle gentry of the country are in a state of apprehension, and have their houses barricadoed?— At one time all the houses of the gentry were, to a certain degree, barricadoed.

"Do the farmers suffer any degree of apprehension ?—No farmer who resides in a thatched cottage dare oppose anything he is directed to do, and consequently they are quite under the control of the disturbers of the peace.

"Do you mean anything he is directed to do by the disturbers of the peace?-He is obliged to do it; I have known

instances where farmers have received farm-servants who have been sent to them, and they have been obliged to employ them.

"According to your observation, persons resident in thatched houses suffer more apprehension than those who live in slated houses?-They are certainly entirely under the power of the disturbers of the peace, because their houses may so easily be set on fire."-H. C., 1824, p. 233.

The only persons who can hope to prevent the spread of the Whiteboy contagion are the priests, as they can advise the people with authority, and without being suspected of sinister motives. Moreover they are likely to obtain the earliest information of such proceedings. The following examples of the exercise of this influence serve likewise to corroborate what was said in the last chapter as to the disconnexion of the Catholic clergy with Whiteboyism. In some few cases, the resistance has been successful, or has at least served to postpone the evil.

Rev. John Keily, P.P., of Mitchelstown :

"To what do you attribute the quiet of your parish ?—I attribute it, in a great measure, to the good feeling of the people; and as it regards myself, I reluctantly speak on the subject; but as the question has been put to me, I certainly think I have exerted myself to a great degree. I was very early in the field; I live on the borders of the county of Limerick; the county of Tipperary comes very near my parish; I was appointed to the parish of Mitchelstown about the time that Mr. Baker, of Lismacue, was murdered, and I found, at that time, there were a few in my parish tainted with the spirit of Caravatism that prevailed in the county of Tipperary; and I reasoned with the people; and one morning, a number, I believe ten or eleven, of young lusty fellows came to my house, and declared to me that they were initiated in the system, and declared their sorrow for it, and that they would detach themselves from it. As soon as I heard of any

disturbances in the county of Limerick, immediately after Mr. Hoskins' business, I was on my guard; and I appointed, in the different villages in my parish, two or three individuals, unknown to one another, to apprise me of any encroachment upon the good feeling of the people; and through the exertions of those people, and through the good disposition of the parishioners generally, tranquillity was preserved. I ascribe a great deal of the merit of it to the people; they resisted any tampering with them. There were four or five sworn at a place called Milltown, on their way to Listowel; and on their return they applied to me, and I told them that by the Whiteboy laws they were obliged, within a certain time, to go to a magistrate, and give him information of it: they did so, and took the oath of allegiance. I recollect, on another occasion, a person came to me and said, that two or three strangers from the neighbourhood of Doneraile came to tamper with them; and I blamed the man for not having them taken up, or applied to the people, for I was sure they would have assisted in apprehending those persons, and he said it was better not; he said they proposed coming by night in a body, and swearing the people; and the man told me that the answer he made to them was, Let them come there in any number they pleased, they would be corpses. He spoke in Irish; in fact, it is an Hibernicism, that they would return corpses."-H. C., 1825, p. 401.

Rev. Nicholas O'Connor :

"The [Queen's] county was usually quiet up to a late period? It was perhaps the most peaceable county in Ireland*.

*This statement is doubtless true of a recent period; but it appears that the Queen's County was disturbed soon after the first Whiteboy risings. Twelve Whiteboys were capitally convicted at Maryborough, at the Lent assizes, 1776.-Annual Register for 1776, p. 146. See above, p. 19. The northern part of the county of Kilkenny, bordering on the Queen's County, appears likewise to have been disturbed from an early period. An attack of the Whiteboys on Ballyragget, in 1775, was mentioned above, p. 32. A skirmish between the people and the king's troops,

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