markable for his ardour and application. In 1823-24, and '25 he received tonsure and minor orders, and was invited by the bishop of Meaux to accept a benefice in his diocese, which offer he gratefully declined. In 1825 he left Paris, was ordained priest by Bishop M'Laughlin, and appointed to the curacy of Moville. Enthusiastic by nature and temperament, fearless in danger, no respecter of persons, "official or officious," an impassioned patriot, an ardent lover of the peasantry, fond of oral controversy, of simple and accessible habits, well used in the traditions of the soil, partial to the ballads and innocent amusements of his flock, he was well qualified for the mission he had begun, and soon became the darling of his people. He continued in Moville till 1829; took part in the "Derry Discussion ;" and in the struggles for Catholic Emancipation was O'Connell's great ally in the North. On the death of his uncle, the parish priest of the united parishes of Fahan and Desertegney, he was promoted to the pastorship of those parishes, and zealously exerted himself on the political questions of the day. Of local matters, on which he employed his powerful pen, were the appointment of an exclusively Protestant magistracy in Inishowen in preference to members of the old Catholic families, who were qualified for, and entitled to, the office, and against the violence exercised in 1833 and 1834 in the collection of tithes. In his communications he assumed, without apology, the tone and position of a protector of his people. He was the inveterate enemy of secret agrarian societies and oath-bound associations, and took the greatest pains to root them out. He was the promoter of education, and adopted the national system as the best practical measure for the instruction of the great mass of the people. In his own parish he established five of these schools. In 1843, when Repeal became the leading question in Ireland, Mr. Maginn was most energetic for the promotion of that measure, which was to give his country again a place among the nations of the earth. In 1845, in consequence of Dr. M'Laughlin's inability to discharge the duties of bishop, Rev. Mr. Maginn was elected to that office, and on the 18th of January, 1846, was consecrated Bishop of Orthosia, and Roman Catholic Administrator of Derry. This event gave the greatest satisfaction to his many admirers; and the people of Derry, Moville, Fahan, Buncrana, Maghera, Cloughcorr, Carndonagh, Malin, Clonmany, Coleraine, Faughanvale, Omagh, Strabane, and Cappagh, contributed £200 to present him with a testimonial

of their regard. His administration of the affairs of the diocese was beyond all praise. When the extraordinary calamity of 1846 and 1847 made extraordinary measures necessary, he kept a vigilant eye over the finance committee of the Inishowen Union. Nor were his attentions limited to the locality in which he lived; he felt for all Ireland, as shown by a letter which he addressed to Paulett Scrope, Esq., M.P., in which he frankly avows his indignation against the Government for allowing the people to die of want, in the following remarkable words :

"I don't hesitate to say to you that there is no means under heaven that I would not cheerfully resort to to redeem my people from their present misery; and sooner than allow it to continue, like the Archbishop of Milan, I would grasp the cross and the green flag of Ireland, and rescue my country or perish with its people." His famous letters to Lord Stanley on the Confessional are well known, and of themselves sufficient to immortalise his name.

He regarded the Young Irelanders as a band of misguided patriots, and pitied as much as he condemned them. He and his clergy were opposed to that party; and when a compromise was effected between the more moderate of the young and old Irelanders, under the name of the Irish League, they still held aloof; a policy which he afterwards regretted, and which, no doubt, was unwise. In giving expression to his sentiments on this topic, and speaking for himself and his clergy, he said :— "Their only regret now is that they did not join it at an earlier date, as their example might have been followed by others and by the reunion of old and young, and the concentration of public opinion on it, the enthusiasm of the rash but devoted patriots of the country would have been constrained and directed into proper channels, and made conducive to the object all have in view the restoration of our Irish Parliament."

;

On the 15th of January, 1849, on his way to Derry, he was seized with typhus, which terminated in mortification, and on the 17th he died, aged 53, having completed the 3rd year of his pontificate. His remains are interred at Cockhill. It seems most unaccountable that a suitable monument has not yet been raised to the memory of this illustrious prelate, or that nought save a slight temporary wooden shed surrounds the spot where his honoured remains are deposited. There is surely an oversight in this :

:

Shall greatness thus forgotten be,
And genius and nobility?

Shall no memento raised on high,
Or storied column testify,

To future times and men unborn,
What virtues did his life adorn?
Forbid it, Heaven, Maginn should be
Forgotten by his country;

Forbid it, you, his people dear,

He pitied, taught, and loved to cheer;
Forbid it all, who nobly do,

Honour to whom there's honour due.

Leaving Lower Fahan, we proceed in a north-westerly direction along the Swilly, and enter the parish of Desertegney, which is thirteen miles from Derry, and bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the west by Lough Swilly. It contains 7,577 acres. Population, 1,524. The land is tolerably fertile, and yields barley, oats, flax, and potatoes. Iron ore is abundant, and there are also indications of copper and lead. The living is a rectory, in the patronage of the Marquis of Donegall, and the tithes amount to £147. The Glebe House stands on a glebe of 166 acres, and the church is a small neat edifice, on the shore of the lough.

In the Roman Catholic divisions, this parish forms part of the union of Lower Fahan and Desertegney, and there is a small chapel at Greenhill. The children of this parish are educated at the national school, which is at Meenagh.

Apart from the wickedness and folly of enacting laws to compel people to worship the Almighty in forms contrary to the dictates of their minds and consciences, the penal laws were productive of another evil of equal, nay, if possible of greater enormity, namely the opportunities which they afforded to the dishonest for dark deeds of treachery, or for satisfying their avarice and cupidity. The civil and military authorities may, in those troubled times, now happily past, now and then have exceeded their duty in administering those cruel laws, and for such they were personally accountable; not so, however, when as officers under the law and doing as it directed and obliged them. In the latter case it is plain they were not the authors of crime, legal or otherwise, but rather the unhappy instruments by which severe laws came into operation. But where can a parallel be found for the wretched being who dogged the footsteps of his friend and kinsman, and who, having discovered the fugitive's lonely retreat, goes, for filthy lucre's sake, and

betrays him to the soldiery? Yes, there is one character sufficiently infamous to be his prototype; and so historically wellknown that further allusion to him is unnecessary.

The following story will illustrate what I have above referred to, and show how in those days the authorities had sometimes no option but to enforce the law. In the village of Ballynary, about two miles north-west of Buncrana, on the banks of the Swilly, is a sea cave which served as a hiding-place for an humble and zealous priest of the name of O'Hegarty. From this wild seclusion he was accustomed to steal, under the shadow of night, to carry the ministrations of his religion to the hearths of the faithful fishermen around the coast, and the hardy mountaineer farther inland. His retreat was unknown to all save his sister, who lived with her husband and family in the abovenamed village. None of her family ever questioned her on the object of her journey, when she departed from her cottage in the grey dawn each morning to carry him the provisions for the day. At last, her husband suspecting her mission, was led by curiosity to watch her unseen, and so became acquainted with the hiding-place of her fugitive brother. This, once known, he had not the fidelity to keep secret, for, tempted by the reward held out for such a discovery, he led a guard of soldiers from the garrison at Buncrana to apprehend the priest, his own brotherin-law, in that lonely dwelling. Often did the poor woman return that morning from the entrance of the rude domicile charging her brother to be wary, and endeavouring to cheer him with the hope that these ruthless times would pass away and be succeeded by others, when he could live in the habitations of men, and go abroad in daylight in the service of his divine Master. But the dawn was brightening, she might, if she remained longer, be discovered, and her object at least suspected. She received the usual parting benediction, and commenced her toilsome ascent, when, horror of horrors, there, full before her, were the soldiers descending by the same path to terminate that life which she had so long and so anxiously laboured to preserve. She called frantically to her brother that the guard was upon him. He rushed from the cave, above him were the soldiers, beneath the whole breadth of the deep flowing Swilly, but deeming it the friendlier of the two, and putting his trust in God, he plunged into its depths with the bold, almost reckless resolve of swimming to the opposite shore. The guard, seeing they were in danger of losing the object of their

pursuit, or fearing that if they fired and killed him in the water they should have no evidence of the fact, called to him to return and they would spare his life, but no sooner had he gained the top of the precipice than they seized him, cut off his head, and buried his body on the spot where they had committed the deed. His poor sister, the informer's wife, seeing all that had been done, became a raving maniac. Though fear of the soldiers' vengeance prevented the peasantry from marking his grave, yet was the memory of the place so engraven on their hearts, and carefully transmitted from father to son, that the villagers' children could at any time point out to the curious stranger that sad memento of the horrors of by-gone days, under the name of Hegarty's rock. Long afterwards, when civilization had made a proper impression on the governing classes, and when the disabilities imposed on the professors of the Catholic faith had been removed, two gentlemen, the Right Rev. Edward Maginn, D.D., and Hugh O'Donnell, Esq., M.D., visited the spot, and with the view of testing the accuracy of the account, dug up the clay, and brought a portion of it to the College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, where Mr. O'Donnell was then studying, for analysation. They afterwards raised a green mound on the spot, which now marks the place where the priest was interred.

The old chapel at Cockhill was built by the Rev. John Maginn, uncle of the bishop. Before its erection mass was celebrated on an old altar, of rude construction, near Cockhill. For the last 100 years,* the first priest of whom I could obtain any account in this parish was the Rev. Dr. M'Devitte, who acted for some time as parish priest. He was succeeded by Dean O'Donnell, who was the sole pastor of Upper and Lower Fahan, Desertegney, Donagh, and for a time of ClonHe was succeeded by the Rev. John Maginn, who built the little chapel. Mr. Maginn was succeeded by the Rev. Wm. O'Donnell, as administrator, in 1818. Mr. O'Donnell exchanged for Clonmany in 1829, and was succeeded by Dr. Maginn, who held it up to his elevation to the episcopacy, and

many.

*I will give, as I proceed, the names of the several parish priests of each parish for the last hundred years; though they have been obtained from tradition, for there was no registry kept, the account is, in the main, an accurate one. I will also note the little altars on which mass was celebrated during the penal times, and before the erection of the present chapels.