question. That astute strategist saw that the time was come to bring the cause to a decision.

In the June of 1828 a vacancy occurred in the representation of the County of Clare, and O'Connell, although, as a Roman Catholic, ineligible to sit in Parliament, was returned by a large majority over Mr. Fitzgerald. The demonstration was a significant, and, as it proved, a successful one. The excitement of the Irish population rose to a dangerous pitch, and it became clear that this claim must be conceded, or civil war would be the alternative.

At this conjuncture Bishop Doyle again threw himself into the fray. Seldom, probably, has any plea been penned more calculated by the combined effect of cogent constitutional argument, moderation of tone flavoured with such assurance of success as comes of conscious force, to determine the mind of a statesman, than Dr. Doyle's letter to the Premier, the Duke of Wellington, in June, 1828. His cause must have been very obviously in the ascendant, however, before he could venture to remind the Premier that ' Fear is the beginning of wisdom, and though the Irish were not to be feared, the state of England and of her foreign relations may produce a salutary dread even in your mind; and out of that fear may spring those wise and healing measures which it is our most anxious desire you should adopt.' He addresses the Duke as a man who is supposed by many to have entered fully into the views of those who have doomed the Catholics to perpetual exclusion.' But, he continues, in a strain of courteous yet scarcely veiled sarcasm :—

'There are others who think that your Grace, like all the statesmen who have gone before you, would be regulated in your policy more by necessity than by preconceived opinions; and that, whilst in compliance perhaps with your own sense of duty, or if not, with the wishes of those on whose support you depend, you would willingly postpone the Catholic question to an indefinite period; yet that you are disposed to watch the course of events, and even to enter into an alliance with your Catholic countrymen, should your foreign allies cease to be your friends' (vol. ii. p. 69).

One great argument against putting the Roman Catholics on the same footing as other Irishmen was the apprehension that the Pope would come to exercise an undue influence in Ireland. Bishop Doyle lived before the days of Ultramontanism, and the considerable recrudescence of Papal influence to which that movement, so carefully fostered by Pius IX., has ministered. He did not desire any considerable extension of the Pope's activity in matters of local concern. 'Let us

leave Rome undisturbed,' he wrote in 1823. 'Let us not send there the dissensions of our own family; let us have charity and wisdom enough to settle them ourselves.' But neither did he believe in such undue influence being possible; the wish perhaps being father to the thought in his mind.

Whether it were the result of Dr. Doyle's letter, or whether the result of the Clare election, which, as we have already noticed, was in June, 1828, it appears that the mind of the Duke of Wellington was reluctantly made up to concede the Emancipation as a means of avoiding still greater evil, as he unquestionably regarded it. And it was time. The Bishop himself, in a letter written at this period, speaks sadly as to the danger of a civil war, in which every being in the country should take a part, and which might not be quelled in two years, nor until the whole kingdom would be a desert.' In December, 1828, the Duke wrote to the (Roman) Archbishop Curtis of Armagh, assuring him that he was 'sincerely anxious to witness the settlement of the Catholic question;' and in 1829 the Emancipation Act was carried through the legislature by large majorities. This healing measure, though its beneficial effects became apparent as time went on, was not sufficient at once to calm the mind of the peasantry, and to remove immediately the evils which a long continuance of disquiet had caused. Secret associations and agrarian outrages remained to some extent still prevalent; and we find in Dr. Doyle's comments at that time remarkable instances of these apparently chronic evils in the state of society in Ireland, He observes in a pastoral address to the Deanery of Maryborough, in November, 1829:

'A secret association existed, drawn together for purposes scarcely known to those who composed it, and having no specific object that he could ascertain, unless to prevent the reduction of wages and the ejection of tenants from their holdings. It consisted of considerable numbers, and included, besides the ignorant and undesigning, every person heretofore noted in his neighbourhood for corrupt, immoral, and general depravity of character. Catholics and Protestants were united in it. "They assemble at night in unfrequented places to deliberate and issue and receive orders." The plunder of arms was a favourite object; and in carrying it into effect they guarded against detection by deputing individuals unknown to those whose houses or property were destined for attack' (ii. p. 168).

And the excellent advice and appeal with which the letter concludes are worth perusal, particularly at this time :

'The bishop begged of his hearers not to infer that the owners of land were not justified in the ejection of a tenant who had run into

arrears, or who neglected to cultivate his land. If landlords were not entitled, in justice to themselves and their families, to eject such tenants and let the land to others more industrious and deserving, all rights of property would have ceased; goods would become common to all people, and theft and injustice would cease to be forbidden by the laws of God and man So I say to you, brethren, bear the burdens of one another, be generous to your employers that your employers may be generous to you. Be patient whilst they are suf fering, and when they are eased or affluent you will be sharers with them in whatever they possess. Protect their property as if it were your own. Be their safeguard and defence, and not the disturbers of their peace and the terrors of their nightly repose. Bear their present burdens with them, that hereafter they may lighten yours' (ii. p. 170).

Dr. Doyle was no doubt following the traditional policy of discouragement to secret societies on the part of the Roman bishops in Ireland, from which, as the letter of Archbishop Croke has lately shown, they seldom depart very far. But he is entitled to the high praise of having stood up for it at some danger of unpopularity with his flock, and enforced it with a singular and winning persuasiveness. He had himself sprung from the peasantry. He was at one with them in sentiment and feeling. You all know that I am one having the same interests and the same feelings as yourselves,' he says; and they trusted him consequently with an unbounded and touching confidence. There are probably few acts of any public man at that troubled time of which it can be said that while, on the one hand, he received the cordial and unanimous thanks of the English press, on the other, the rapid and salutary effect of it was such, that 'the disturbances ceased, and the illegal associations were dissolved.' '

1

The Repeal agitation was revived by O'Connell, much to Dr. Doyle's regret. While as yet a crisis was averted, the Government tried what a policy of conciliation would do towards peace, and made use of the Bishop's good offices for that purpose. A patent of precedency at the Bar was presented to O'Connell by the hands of Dr. Doyle, who was his friend, in order to show their willingness to come to terms; and we learn from his own statement, which there seems no

2

1 There were, however, limits, as it was natural there should be, to the bishop's capability of acting as a pacificator among the peasantry. 'I am tired, my lord,' he writes in one place to Lord Darnley, of appealing to the religious feelings of men who either have no employment, or labour during six days for five shillings.' Truly a Sisyphean task!

2 Surely this must be what is meant by Dr. Fitzgerald. But he writes 'Presidency' (ii. p. 334).

reason to doubt, that the Attorney-Generalship was offered to him. But the offer came too late. The arch-agitator became, after a short period of moderation, more violent than ever against foes and friends alike. The agitation against tithes, upon which the Bishop and the Liberator' were agreed, broke out also with renewed fury. These two sources of agitation combined raised the disorder to such a height that restraint, at any cost, became imperatively necessary. The tithe became almost valueless, because it could not be collected, owing to the determined resistance of the people. The clergy of the Church of Ireland were reduced to such distress that a grant of 1,000,000l. was voted by the Legislature for their relief. It was stated in the House of Lords by Lord Grey that between January I and December 31, 1832, not less than 9,000 crimes had been committed in Ireland. Of murders alone there were 196! Assassinations occurred daily; and although rewards, amounting to 12,000l., were offered during several months by the Government for the discovery of the murderers, only two such rewards were claimed. Witnesses were intimidated from giving evidence, and jurors from bringing in verdicts of guilty.

Amidst this deplorable scene of confusion Dr. Doyle was not wanting to himself or to his country. On the one hand, he gave evidence strongly and bitterly against tithes before a Parliamentary committee in London; on the other, he proceeded to traverse the disturbed districts, for hours harangued the misguided people,' until, won by the pathos and sublimity of his appeals, we are told, 'you might behold the big tears chasing each other round the rugged and blackened cheeks of the colliers . . . many of whom came to mock, but remained to pray.' The effects of these appeals were, it is said, 'instantaneous and incredible. Cartloads of arms, guns, pistols and rusty swords, were surrendered at the times and places appointed, whilst many of these misguided men, whose consciences were charred and battered as their faces, returned to habits of order, sobriety and the observance of their religious duties. It is to be feared, however, that in many instances the reformation was but momentary, and that the elements of disorder were dispersed at one place, only speedily to recombine at another. We are told that even the Bishop sometimes thought the state of the people hopeless. After one of these scenes he would have fits of despondency, which would last for hours and even days. On one occasion he said to one of his clergy: 'Well, James, these people are unfit for liberty! Yes, I adopt the sentiment and language of Wellington. I

am not surprised that he has disowned this country and people, they are savages unworthy of the blessings of liberty!' (vol. ii. P. 410).

In 1833 a Coercion Bill was passed; and so obvious was the necessity, that we find him writing :—

'If we are to be subjected to a despotism, let it be the despotism of gentlemen, though but twenty-one years of age, not of the brutal canaille composing the Trades Unions and Blackfeet Confederacies. The honest and industrious people of this country will suffer less and prosper more under the iron rule of the constituted authorities—let these be who they may-than under the yoke of the impious and seditious, who now torment them and drive them into all manner of folly and excess' (vol. ii. p. 459).

Very remarkable words were all these, considering that they were uttered by the foremost patriot among Irishmen ; and it is a striking instance of the way in which history repeats itself, that if we read Land League' for 'Trades Unions' the whole passage is exactly applicable to the state of Ireland during the last eighteen months. Such an expression of opinion from such a man, uttered not in the heat of youth nor in a moment of passion or excitement, but at the close of a life spent in the service of the very people whom he thus characterized, and when his unwearied service was drawing to an end, is most significant, and should point our statesmen to some truths which they have, it may be, as yet insufficiently apprehended.

For it was now becoming plain that the strenuous worker, the keen controversialist, the eloquent preacher, the faithful chief pastor, had well nigh reached the term of his earthly labours. Entire abstinence from every kind of exertion, mental or bodily, was enjoined upon him by the doctors. This was difficult for him to adopt while in Ireland, even had he been willing to obey. But he seems to have been a strong-willed patient at all times, declining to be bound by a medical fiat any further than it commended itself to his own judgment.

As long as it was possible he continued his pastoral duties. 'Even when his body was worn out by a lingering disease,' he would sit in the sanctuary of the chapel at Carlow, hearing at the rails the confessions of the beggars in particular, where he was exposed to cold and inconvenience in many ways.

'He had a loud voice, which sometimes became specially sharp during the excruciating pain of his tedious illness. The study hall and chapel, during the progress of some alterations at the college, communicated and seemed the one apartment. He was talking loudly in the study hall when suddenly he asked: "Is the Holy of