IRELAND ITS SOCIAL STATE. 141 



whilst the people of the other parish said he was 

 three years old. So, as neither faction would admit 

 it was wrong, they fought, and battered, and killed 

 each other at fairs and markets, and Sundays and 

 holidays after mass, according to the approved system 

 of faction -fights of fifty years ago. The Two Year 

 Olds and Three Year Olds spread wider and wider 

 over a considerable district of Tipperary and Limerick. 

 They were again and again cursed by archbishops, and 

 bishops, and priests. After seeming to die out they 

 revived several times, and subsided only after many 

 years. 



No Irishman ever breaks the law without having 

 one eye watching over his shoulder, to be sure his 

 way of escape is open. I remember when I first 

 went over, a characteristic story was current. A 

 man was under sentence of death for some bad crime. 

 A gentleman, near whom he had lived, chanced to 

 know that the man had meant to shoot him. He 

 went to the jail the day before the man was to be 

 hanged, and said to him, " You might as well tell me, 

 Pat, since it can now make no difference to you, why 

 you did not shoot me; for I know you meant to 

 do it." The gentleman was a capital shot, always 

 carried arms, and was known to be very resolute. 

 The answer was, " Well, your honour, it's true it will 

 make no odds .to me now; so I'll tell ye. I had 

 ye covered twice from behind a ditch, and as I was 

 going to pull the trigger the thought went through 





