64'2 The Ghost of Kilsheelan. [JUNE, 



a passion, the devil a one of him would be ever after turnin* us out of 

 our little holdings, supposin' we were two, or three, or may be five gales 

 in arrear. 



Now you may be sure that all the boys were distracted one morning, 

 to hear that the Major was found with his throat cut from ear to ear, in 

 a most unhandsome manner. There wasn't a Papist in the parish but 

 knew that he hadn't a hand in it for the Major was as dead as a door 

 nail, or Queen Elizabeth. There wasn't a neighbour's child in the 

 entire barony that wasn't up at the Major's big house in no time, to hear 

 " how the poor master's throat was cut," and when they saw him it was 

 plain to be seen that the Major didn't do it himself for there was the 

 poor right hand cut in two nearly, and such a gash as he had in his 

 throat, they all said, couldn't be given by himself, because the Major, 

 it was well known, wasn't kithogued (left handed). Besides that, there 

 was the old gold watch gone, an' his bonds, an' what money he had in 

 the house, along with a 500 note. 



" To be sure the magistrates had an inquest, an' pretty work they 

 made about it an' may be the newspapers didn't make fine talk about 

 it they never stopped for three months sayin' ' all the Protestants in 

 Tipperary were murdered by the Papists/ and so on, till this peaceable 

 county was under the Insurrection Act, an' then to be sure they never 

 stopped transportin' us an' all this was by raison of a decent gentle- 

 man's throat beiii' cut by some blackguard or another. At all events 

 there was no makin' head nor tail o' the Major's murder till comin' on 

 the assizes, when two young innocents one Jack Carey, and one Bill 

 Dorney were taken up for it. My father knew the two .chaps well, and 

 except that they didn t care what they did to come round a girl, he often 

 tould me, that milder, nor inriocenter, nor modester, nor parti er behaved 

 boys he never seen. The people, in fact, were sure they would be 

 acquitted till they heard that Lord Norbury was comin' the circuit, an' 

 then they gave it up as a bad job. 



At last the day o' the trial came, an* to the surprise an' wonderment 

 of every body, who should get up on the table, an' take the book in his 

 hand, to swear away the lives of poor Jack Carey and Bill Dorney, but 

 one Kit Cooney ! Now, Kit, you must know, was the only creature 

 that lived with the Major for the Major was an ould batchelor and 

 Cooney fled the country after the Major was murdered, an', in troth, 

 every one thought that it was he who did the Major's business for he 

 wasn't the best o' charater at any time, an' every one was wonderin' 

 why the Major let him live with him, at all, at all. Up Kit got on the 

 table, as bould as a lion, an' he swore hard an' fast, as a trooper, that 

 Dorney and Carey murdered the Major in his bed, and that he him- 

 self, Kit Cooney, the vagabond, agreed to join them in doin' so ; but 

 that he ripinted of it, and wouldn't lay a hand on the ould man, but ran 

 away to Dublin, when it was all over, and tould the Polis there all 

 about it. He was, you see, Sir, a king's evidence, an informer, and, in 

 short, he hung the two men. The truth was, Cooney had the Dublin 

 Polis magistrates to back him out, an' the two poor boys wouldn't prove 

 an alibi at all but this indeed I often heard their friends say, that if 

 the two gassoons liked it they could have proved alibis for them in 

 twenty different places, all at the same time, and each o' them forty 

 miles away from the murder ; besides that the two boys themselves could 

 shew, as clear as day-light, where they really were the night the Major 



