62 A LIFERS WORK IN IRELAND. 



Fenianism and all Fenian sympathies on the one side 

 and the politicians who have capital to make out of 

 agitation on the other. 



The stronghold of Fenianism was in the large 

 towns. It had no strength at all anywhere else, 

 except in one or two of the very worst districts of 

 the country. The town of Limerick and much of 

 the county (the Kilmallock fight will not have been 

 forgotten), with Dublin and Cork towns, were the 

 most infected places. 



No one can have watched the late Limerick 

 election without seeing that sympathy with Fenian- 

 ism, and 'nothing else, was its true characteristic. 

 The Attorney -General had prosecuted the Fenians, 

 Mr. Butt had defended them : the release of the 

 Fenian soldiers still undergoing their sentences was 

 a constant and main topic. Mr. Smyth, the Home 

 Rule M.P. for Westmeath, had just played the same 

 card in the Phoenix Park. The Limerick Eoman 

 Catholic priests were not allowed to take any part in 

 the election. Many of Mr. Butt's chief committee 

 men declared they would not act if any Eoman 

 Catholic priests were on the committee. This has 

 from the first been a leading principle of Fenianism, 

 not to suffer the Roman Catholic clergy to interfere. 

 It is quite well known to be the true feeling of those 

 who call themselves the leaders. It is thoroughly 

 American, and is destined, directly or indirectly, to 

 have a larger result than anything else about 



