I Do Not Wish To Ever Come To That Time Of Life When I
Can Hear Of The Scenes That Wasted This Country Without Feeling A
Passion Of Sorrow And Regret.
I spoke of these things to a worthy gentleman resident in another part
of the country and he brushed
It aside as if it were a fly, saying, "Oh,
that is long past, thirty years and more." Memory is very strong among
people who seem to have little to look forward to - the past seems the
principal outlook. Every incident of the French landing here so far back
as '98 is told to me in the West here with a freshness of detail as if
it happened a few years ago; one can imagine, therefore, how the cruel
evictions of the famine time fit themselves into the memory of the
people, especially as the rush of fresh evictions are awaking all the
horrors of the past.
It seemed a gloomy satisfaction to this man to tell over what he
considered God's judgments which had fallen on exterminators. He pointed
out to me many who seemed doomed to be the last of their race.
At last we passed the long, dead wall which encloses the magnificent
demesne of the Marquis of Sligo and drew up at Westport once more. The
local papers which await me are full of Miss Gardner and her war with
her tenants - more evictions, emergency men from Dublin to hold
possession - and all the rest. I was introduced by a Protestant clergyman
to a gentleman connected with the executive of the law for a quarter of
a century.
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