AN IRISH PARISH PRIEST.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2286, 5 March 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN IRISH PARISH PRIEST.

In Murray's Magazine there is an article entitled "An Irish Parish Priest," which gives a very good idea of Irish character. The author had an exceptionally advantageous opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of his Subject. He had been travelling with a party of excursionists, but thi-ough an injury sustained by the upsetting of a car lie had to be left behind, and was hospitably cared for by a parish priest. After speaking of the reverend leather's educational and literary attainments, which, however, were not of the highest, the author says, "If my friend was not without education of a sort, still less could lie bo charged with a lacic of natural courtesy and good breeding. His attention 'to niy comfort was assiduous without being fussy. He jiave me the best, entertainment his means afforded, including his own bedroom- for having only one, he slept in the parlour himself —and made no apologies for not being a Crcesus. His life, ot course, was simplicity itself. The thatched cottage in which he lived had no second storey, and contained only four small apartments, a parlour with the Father's bedroom leading out of it on one side of the door, and the. kitchen with a servant's room beyond it , on the . other. The furniture was of the plainest, articles, of the toilette being especially scanty ; and, but for one or two sacred prints of the most distres>ing description, there was no attempt at ornament. Yet I do not think my host could have been called poor. His parish was extensive, and its population, if soatt-eved, was large, so that though each household might pay him but a few shillings a year, total must have mounted up to a decent figure. I expect he was better off, iu point of money, than many a poor English, parson in these times of depression : and as the standard of comfort in his everyday-life is undoit btcdly lower than that of the most modest English parsonage, there was more to spare for extraordinary expenses. He could afford a oar, whenever ke had a mind, to the nearest country town, which was a good ten miles off; and when I was with him, he was engaged in negotiations for the purchase of a tolerably expensive pony. But then he wasted nothing on the pleasures of the table. His fare, if plentiful, was of the roughest, and he .hardly seemed to give it a thought. There was indeed only one little piece of selfindulgence that I could detect in him he dearly loved toddy ('punch,' he called it) in the evening, and often congratulated himself that I was not a teetotaller. Yet, even here he never passed beyond the boundsof of the strictest moderation. And, in other directions, too, he gave me the impression of having complete control of his bodily appetite®. From the respect in which he was evidently held by his parishioners, from his manner to women, from his high tone on all questions of personal morals, I should say that he was a man of the most well-regu-lated life. But to return to his opinions. I never in my life met with such a fantastic combination of cleverness and incoherence 7 , of shrewd-headedness and fanaticism. As a psychological study the unravelling of his mind came to have a great fascination for me. Il.is attitude towards us English is as good an instance as any of the disjointedncss of his ideas. As for individual Englishmen, he had nothing to say against them. He had not known many, it was tru°, but those whom be had come across—like myself, he was polite enough to observe—were as fair-minded and open to argument as any opponent could desire. Yet not the most fiery of Nationalist orators could have surpassed him in his denunciations of the English as a nation for their present attitude towards Ireland. ■ Perhaps enough has been said to show that Father was as thoroughly steeped in auti-land- • lord arid anti-English -prejudice as any member of the Parnelhte party. There is nothing surprising in that; the wonder was, that side by side with the fanaticism, which at one moment wholly possessed him, he showed the next moment so much clear-sightedneßs and- common sense. That landlordism and England were the bane of his country, and that it only needed ■ their removal to make her flourish like a green bay-tree, were articles 'of faith with him, which, if directly- challenged, 1 he would have made any sacrifice of his reason to defend. Yet, when his patriotic passions were not uppermost, he saw aR plainly as could be, that even if all landowners were extirpated and all rent abolishod, his parishioners, at any rate, could not thrive on their present land in their present numbers. ' I know quite well,'- ho said to me in more than ono uncoutroversial moment, ' that there is no euro for the povorty of a place like this but to take half the people out it-.' In his character of economist he would even defend the agent of the principal in his district;—whom in his character of agitator he was hound to detest, anddid detest—bona use that, gentleman set his face against the accumulation of arrears and the subdivision of holdings. 1 He is quite right there,' ho argued ; ' the holdings are already subdivided below starvation point, and nothing is more demoralising than to lot men get behind hanJ with their rent.' For the same reason he looked imuch askance, even in the worst of times, at simple charity or at useless relief works. I like to make them work for their money, and work at something useful too, and work hard. To play at work as a cloak for getting alms is the u orst thing possible. It takes all the manhood out of a man.' "