501 On Pricsls in general, anil [KpV. 



the majority, almost the whole number, of the Irish priesthood are men 

 raised from the plough, or the counters of the lowest description of 

 country shops, wliose juvenile associiitions were amongst the mean and 

 the uninstructed, it will not appeal- surprising that they should exhibit 

 that constant strife between innate vulgarity and spiritual intolerance ; 

 that, in the exercise of their strange and unaccustomed authority, they 

 should involuntarily relapse into their familiar servility ; and that, in 

 struggling to ape the elegancies in the midst of which it is sometimes their 

 lot to be placed, they should only render their natural qualities the 

 more apparent and revolting. The transition from the slavery of want 

 and oppression to the power conferred by plenty and the means of 

 oppressing others — from the stiipid reverence for the oracles of the 

 priest, to the actual delivery of the oracles themselves — from squalid 

 dependency to well-fed independence — from the kitchen of the farm- 

 house to the table of the farmer and the 'squire — is calculated to inspire 

 the suddenly-elevated Robin Roughhead of the church with the wildest 

 and most extravagant theories of control. An Irish priest is, therefore, 

 a man worth analj^sing ; because, without possessing a single qualification 

 of the intellectual kind, he is placed in circumstances wliich more than 

 any other demand the exercise of discretion and knowledge, and the 

 influence of personal character. 



The Irish priest is a political agent as well as a spiritual director. 

 His business is equally divided between fends and frauds. He has an 

 interest in popular as well as religious delusion. You would rob him 

 of half his revenues if you could succeed in really conciliating the 

 people. The altar in a chapel is quite as much a forum for violent 

 declamation, as it is a place for saci'ed rites. The late public meet- 

 ings were all held in the chapels : indeed, whenever agitation is going 

 forward, the chapels are thrown open for the free use of the agitators. 

 The true spring of the evil lies in the nature of the relation between the 

 priest and the people. The priest is entirely dependant upon the bounty 

 of his flock ; his means arise from their voluntarj'^ contributions. If any 

 external influence interfered to arrest the sympatliy that fills his coffers, 

 his power would be at an end, and his purse would be emptied. It is, 

 therefore, obviously the priest's interest to alienate the Catholic popula- 

 tion as much as possible from the government and the Protestants, in 

 order to fix their sole attention upon himself, and preserve his monopoly 

 in their attachment. Hence, he is a daring politician — a constant 

 exciter — an officious brawlei* — and to be foimd at the head and foot of all 

 riots and conspiracies. The same motive that urges him to keep alive 

 the disastrous irritations which separate the people, and obliterate the 

 sentiment of allegiance, also urges him to oppose the spread of educa- 

 tion and the growth of knowledge. If the peasantry were instructed, 

 the bondage of superstition would be burst ; they would perceivethe nume- 

 rous absurdities to which ignorance, and the furious passions engen- 

 dered by political exasperation, have hitherto blinded them ; the domi- 

 nion of the ghostly confessor and his train of Delphic mummeries would 

 cease ; and a new regime would strip the corinthian edifice of its gorgeous 

 and pagan ornaments. As it is a matter of vital importance to the priest 

 to avert such a calamity as the increase of information, it is in the same 

 ratio his constant labour to perpetuate ignorance. The Jesuitism of the 

 Catholic bishops, in defeating the late Commission of Inquiry into the 

 fctate of Education in Ireland, affords a remarkable instan.ce of this war- 



