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exclaimed, our friends were all slaughtered on the Curragh to-day!' This heartrending intelligence was afterwards conveyed to his unhappy daughter. With all the energy of despair, Mrs. Downey insisted on having one of the common farm cars prepared. In this she proceeded to the scene of this diabolical massacre. She afterwards stated, that on the blood-stained plain, she turned over at least two hundred dead bodies before she recognized that of her husband. This latter she deposited in the car, covering the corpse with straw and a quilt. Thus placing it beside her, the forlorn widow escaped without molestation to the house of a relative of her husband, living near the old burial place, named Dunmurry, near the Red Hills of Kildare. Preparations were made for the interment. That very night, however, a rumour went abroad, that the military were searching every house throughout the district. Wherever a rebel corpse was found, it was reported that the house containing it would be consigned to the flames. Hastily acting on such information, a grave was dug in an adjoining family burial place of Dunmurry, whilst the body of Denis Downey was wrapped in a shroud and covered with sheets, for time would not allow of a coffin being made. In this manner the remains were consigned to their last resting place, and covered with earth. The poor woman soon returned to find her former comfortable home a perfect wreck. For nights in succession, with a servant maid, she was obliged to rise from bed and allow the ruffian soldiery to despoil her of almost every remnant of property. Desponding and broken-hearted in her unprotected situation, and happily wishing a retirement from the scenes of former happiness, the farm was afterwards sold to a purchaser, and the desolate widow, with her small infant charge, removed to the neighbouring town of Monasterevan. Rarely could she be induced, in after years, to recur to this earlier period

of her life, without tears moistening her eyes and stealing down her cheeks; nor could she ever regard a soldier without feelings of deep aversion. The foregoing narrative furnishes a dark illustration of baneful events, connected with the Irish Rebellion of 1798. It is no isolated episode", adds Mr. O'Hanlon; " for many other family afflictions, equally deplorable and tragic in results, must have chequered the lot in life of thousands who became victims during this sad period of civil commotion and disorder".

T.

PROJECTED REBELLION IN CORK-SECRET SERVICES OF FATHER BARRY.

The appendix to the new edition of the first volume of The Lives and Times of the United Irishmen displays, under the head "secret service money revelations from original accounts and receipts for pensions", a curious selection from these documents, to each of which, with some few exceptions, Dr. Madden supplies interesting details regarding the circumstances under which the pension was earned. At page 395 appears a receipt from the late Rev. Thomas Barry, P.P. of Mallow, who enjoyed a secret stipend of £100 a year; and as no explanatory statement is volunteered, it perhaps becomes our duty to supply the omission, while furnishing at the same time a note to the remarks of our own which appear at page 146 of The Sham Squire.

The following letter, addressed to the Very Rev. Dr. Russell, Roman Catholic Dean of Cloyne, by the Rev. T. Murphy, of Mallow, containing the result of some inquiries instituted at our suggestion among the oldest inhabitants of Mallow, will be read with interest:

"Mallow, October 2nd, 1865.

"VERY REV. AND DEAR SIR,-After many inquiries about the subject matter of your kind letter of Sept. 9th, I thought it well to await the return of an old inhabitant who was absent from Mallow until yesterday.

"The following is the substance of his account of the eméute, which I believe to be the most authentic. Shortly after the Insurrection of '98, the Royal Meath Militia were stationed in Mallow. They had conspired with the disaffected to blow up the Protestant Church, when the yeomanry troops were at service on a certain Sunday. Abundant materials were at hand, as Mallow contained several parks of artillery at the time in a field near the Protestant Church, and hence called Cannon Field to this day.

"On the Saturday preceding, two of the wives of the militia, who lodged at one Canty's, at Ballydaheen, were noticed by Canty's wife stitching or sewing the extremities of their petticoats together, and Mrs. Canty (wife of Canty, a cooper) expressed her astonishment. The soldiers' wives were equally surprised, and asked her did she not hear of the rising about to occur next day. An expression of more unbounded surprise was the response. The poor Meath women expected they could fill more than their pockets. Canty (whose son still lives in Ballydaheen) communicated the news to his gossip, Lover (a convert). Lover went to confession on that Saturday, and Father Barry refused to absolve him except he disclosed the case extra tribunal. His wishes were complied with, and both Lover and Father Barry went forthwith to General Erskine (sic)? who lived on Spa Walk. As soon as the plot was revealed, Sergeant Beatty with nineteen men on guard for that night (all implicated), aware of the treachery, immediately decamped. The yeomen pursued them in their flight to the Galtees, and when one of Beatty's men

could no longer continue the retreat, his wish of dying at the hands of Beatty was complied with. Beatty turned round and shot him! The body of this poor fellow was brought back to Mallow next day, and lies interred near the Protestant Church, and Sergeant Beatty himself, (God be merciful to him), was taken finally in Dublin, and hanged. Loyer had four sons. They all emigrated after arriving at manhood. I am sorry to say one of them became a priest and died a short time since in Boston.

"The father received a pension of £50 a year for life, and Father Barry was in receipt of £100 a year until 1813, some years before his death,* when a dispute arose between him and the Protestant minister of Mallow, about the interment of some Protestant who became a convert on his death bed. Father Barry insisted on reading the service in the Protestant churchyard, was reported to government for not persevering in proofs of loyalty, deprived of his pension, and died and is buried in our Catholic cemetery adjoining the church. The only prayer I ever heard offered for him was God forgive him !”

"Yours very sincerely,

"To the Very Rev. Dean Russell".

"T. MURPHY.

Dean Russell, in enclosing his correspondent's letter to us for publication, corrects an error into which the Rev. Mr. Murphy fell, in stating that Lover received £50 a year in recognition of his timely information. A previous letter from the Dean observes:

"Protestant gratitude, unfortunately for Mr. Barry's

* The pension was finally restored to him, as his receipts prove. In the Secret Service Money Book, now held by Charles Haliday, Esq, and from which Dr. Madden has quoted the salient points, we find Father Barry's name frequently figuring as a recipient of various gratuities exclusive of his pension.W. J. F.

character, obtained for him a £100 a-year, but poor Lover never received a farthing. Having been reduced to great poverty, a petition was sent to government, signed by twenty-five gentlemen, stating his services. The answer was, they knew nothing of him; but the rebellion was then smothered in the blood of the people".

The Dean adds, that this and other information recently reached him from clergymen who were born in Mallow or its vicinity. He adds:

"I do not think that Mr. Murphy's informant knew much of the fate of Sergeant-Major Beatty and his men after they left Mallow. I recollect, when a boy, and I am now nearly seventy-two, to hear a highly respectable and intelligent clergyman speak in raptures of the singularly gallant retreat of that poor Sergeant and his men. A few worn out by fatigue were unable to persevere. They of course were captured by the cowardly yeomanry, who satisfied their loyalty by looking at the Sergeant, but dare not approach near him".

It would be difficult to find a pastor who presented a more venerable and paternal aspect than the late Father Thomas Barry of Mallow. His flowing white hair and thorough benevolence of expression impressed most favourably all who came in contact with him, and commanded their entire confidence. The late eminent and lamented Daniel O'Connell, on being shown one of Father Barry's receipts for "blood money", as it was then somewhat erroneously presumed to have been, started, and, to quote the words of our informant, who still holds his receipts, "became as white as a sheet !" For thirty years O'Connell had been on terms of close intimacy with Father Barry, and reposed unbounded confidence in his counsel. In the Dublin Evening Post of the day an obituary notice appears of Father Barry, who died January 18th, 1828. The singular fact is mentioned, that the priest's pall was borne by six Protestants. Having directed the attention of Dean Russell