IRELAND AS IT WAS AND AS IT IS. 29 



last March with 1798. One policeman in Kerry 

 dangerously wounded ; one in Cork killed. I forget 

 if there was a third. Then outrages on private per- 

 sons. One bank manager at Kilmallock, of inquisi- 

 tive disposition, standing outside his door to see the 

 fun while the police barrack was besieged, got a bullet 

 in his jaw ; and that was all with armed bands going 

 about for days. 



It may give some idea of the physical state of the 

 country if I give some facts about the district I know 

 best — i.e. the large district extending seventy or 

 eighty miles to the west of Cork. Seventy years ago 

 the post went into it once a fortnight, but then only 

 as far as Bandon — twenty miles. There was no post 

 any farther, and the district fifty or sixty miles off 

 did without. The roads, little better than rocky 

 paths, went up and down hills as steep as it was pos- 

 sible for a horse to travel. A gentleman living thirty- 

 five miles from Cork told me it used to take him in 

 summer from early in the morning till dark to get 

 home, with four horses. If he did nx)t start till 

 breakfast time, it was a good journey to be home by 

 midnight. He usually walked liimseK, beating his 

 carriage by hours. His next neighbour, twelve miles 

 farther, had to make two days of it. When he got 

 near home there was a part of the road that it was 

 impossible for horses to drag a carriage up — a sort of 

 stairs of rock — so word was sent before that the 

 master was coming, and tenants and labourers turned 



