of the maltreatment of priests by the rioters are mentioned by Mr. O'Leary.

"Was not a Father Burke (he says) obliged to quit his parish the same day that Archdeacon Tisdal quitted his? Were not balls fired at one Father Sheehy? Were not two clergymen, one a secular and the other a regular, robbed the same night of their wearing apparel? Another parish priest, a venerable old man, who was never charged with any extortions, and who, in my own presence, challenged his congregation to bring forward any charge against him, was robbed of what little he had to support him in his old age, even of his very bed. Another, on suspicion of having brought the army to his congregation to prevent the deluded people from swearing, was on the point of being torn limb from limb at his altar, had not a gentleman stepped forward and said, that he himself was the gentleman who had applied to the magistrate for that purpose. The gentleman himself narrowly escaped with his life, through the interposition of the Vicar-general, who had the presence of mind to step, with the crucifix in his hand, between the gentleman and the enraged multitude, crying out to them with a loud voice, I conjure you, in the name of that God whose image I hold, not to pollute his altar with murder

The hostility thus shown towards the priests by the Whiteboys was partly earned by their collection of dues, and partly by the activity which, from the be

that their anger is not against the Protestant clergy only, but the Romish clergy also have fallen under their displeasure." Ib. p. 430. "He (the Secretary of State) observed that those disturbances did not proceed from religious prejudices, and that the Roman Catholic clergy had been equally ill-treated by those insurgents." Ib. p. 445.

* O'Leary's Defence, p, 43. Newenham (View of Ireland, p. 261) gives an incorrect statement of the contents of the pamphlet published in 1787 by Dr. Butler, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Cashel, in answer to Bishop Woodward. It contains no " account of the indignities and atrocities which the insurgents practised on the clergy of his communion," but consists only of theological remarks, in a few pages.

ginning, they showed as a body in opposing the Whiteboy combinations.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Cloyne issued a circular letter to his clergy, dated March, 1762, earnestly requiring them to use all their influence as pastors, and to proceed with spiritual censures against the disturbers. An extract from this document will show the danger to which the priests exposed themselves in performing this thankless service in behalf of a hostile government.

"As to my order (the bishop says) concerning the general exhortation relative to those disturbances, I have sufficient testimony of its having been executed according to directions. But for the censures, the said frontier parish priests sent me a remonstrance, desiring they may be excused and dispensed from issuing any menaces of spiritual penalties, until such time as the clergy of the neighbouring dioceses should have proceeded to act in like manner, alleging for their excuse, that as they had been assured, and as it really appeared from all circumstances, the different bands of those nocturnal rioters were all entirely composed of the loose and desperate sort of people, of different professions and communions, who showed as little regard to religion as to morals; they apprehended immediate danger with regard to the safety of their persons, if they made themselves singular in proceeding to censures against a multitude of dissolute night-walkers, who had already given so many terrifying proofs of their rash dispositions, as well as of their disregard to all laws, and contempt of all characters *."

Dr. Troy, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossory, likewise caused an excommunication of the Whiteboys to be read in all the chapels of his diocese in 1779; and five years later he circulated a pastoral letter

* O'Conor's History of the Irish Catholics, part i. app. no. ix. p. xxvi-ix.

against the Whiteboys, for which he received the formal thanks of the Lord Lieutenant, conveyed to him in a letter from the secretary *. It is stated in the Annual Register that, near the beginning of November, 1775, the Whiteboys, in a visit they paid to Johnstown, in the county of Kildare, "besides breaking the windows of the inhabitants, and other similar outrages, buried a priest to the neck, first inclosing him naked in brambles and thorns, and threatened the like usage to every priest they could lay hands on, on account of their endeavours to dissuade them from these wicked practicest."

In' a petition intended to have been presented on behalf of the Irish Catholics, in 1787, when the clause for demolishing their chapels was to be debated, it is alleged," That in the suppression of the disturbances. which happened of late in the South of Ireland, the Catholic nobility and gentry, their prelates and inferior clergy, have been most active. That during these disturbances their chapels have been nailed up, their pastors abused and forced from their parishes, and no distinction made in the paroxysm of popular frenzy §."

So great indeed was the alienation between the priests and their flocks, produced by the conduct of the former in opposing themselves to the rioters, that a Roman Catholic clergyman, who furnished Mr. Newenham with an interesting account of the state of his church in Ireland, considers that the influence of the priesthood over the people, which for some years had

* Plowden's Historical Review, vol. ii. part i. p. 107, and see above' p. 16, note.

Annual Register for 1775, p. 170.

See Plowden's Historical Review, vol. ii. part i. p. 162. § O'Leary's Defence, p. 172.

been waning, was finally extinguished by the Whiteboy disturbances in 1786*; the very moment when opposition to tithes was at its height. The first effective resistance to the Whiteboys of Kilkenny appears to have been made by the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Ballyragget, who formed an armed association, and drove away with considerable loss, a large body of Whiteboys who attacked a house in the town †.

Upon the whole it is evident, from the conduct both of the Catholic gentry and clergy, and of the Whiteboys themselves, that the Munster disturbances at the end of the last century were wholly devoid of any religious character, and that, although they were carried on by Catholics, they were not intended to serve the cause of Catholicism: in which respect (as will be shown hereafter) they agree with the Whiteboy disturbances of later times.

A few years after the first rising of the Catholic

* Extract of a letter from a Roman Catholic clergyman, of the diocese of Cork, to Mr. Newenham, dated 12th June, 1806 :—

"The influence which the clergy formerly possessed over their flocks, and which was for a long series of years proverbial, was considerably diminished by the relaxation of the popery laws; it thenceforward continued gradually to decline, and received the coup de grace by the Whiteboy disturbances in 1786. At that period, not only all former influence was lost, but even that confidence in their clergy, without which all their exertions must prove abortive, ceased in a great measure to exist among the people. Nor was it till the rebellion [of 1798] and its consequent irritations and antipathies opened their eyes, that this confidence began again to revive. The people then perceived that their priests were, in common with themselves, objects of persecution to one party, and of disregard and derision to the other; and that, though some of them had been unfortunately implicated, and some few deeply engaged, in the rebellion, all were accused or suspected, and all condemned, by party enthusiasm, to one general comprehensive indiscriminate execration." Newenham's View of Ireland, App. p. 41.

A. Young's Tour in Ireland, p. 77. Annual Register for 1775, p. 92. The attack was made on 21st January, 1775.

peasantry of the south, there occurred a disturbance among the Protestant peasants of the north, though wholly unconnected with it, and springing from local causes. It seems that the distribution of the labour which each housekeeper was bound to contribute to the repair of roads was abused by the landowners; that the rich had been exempted, and that the work done had been bestowed on roads more beneficial to individuals than to the public.

"At length (says Dr. Campbell), in the year 1764*, in the most populous, manufacturing, and consequently civilized, part of the province of Ulster, the inhabitants of one parish refused to make more of what they called job roads. They rose almost to a man, and from the oaken branches which they wore in their hats, were denominated Oakboys. The discontent being as general as the grievance, the contagion seized the neighbouring parishes. From parishes it flew to baronies, and from baronies to counties, till at length the greater part of the province was engaged†."

The first object of these insurgents was to produce a more equal distribution of the burden of maintaining the roads; the second, to deprive the clergy of a portion of their tithe; the third, to regulate the price of land, especially of peat-bogs.

"They appeared (says Hardy, in his Life of Lord Charlemont) in bodies of four or five hundred, headed, it is said, by farmers of respectable property. According to the ancient practice of

*

Hardy, in his Life of Lord Charlemont, p. 94 quarto ed., gives 1763 as the year of the rising of the Oakboys. The same date is given by Gordon, History of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 242.

+ Phil. Survey of Ireland, p. 309.

Ibid. p. 310. "The exactions of the

clergy in their collection of

tithes, and still more the heavy taxes on the country, and the making and repairing of roads, were, according to Lord Charlemont, the principal causes of these disturbances." Hardy, p. 74.

D