way to the exulting consciousness of his revenge.
As he heard the narration of his own delinquencies,
so far from exhibiting contrition or remorse,
a savage joy flashed over his face; his
eyes were lighted up with a fire as lurid as that
he had kindled in the habitation of his enemies;
his hand, which had previously quivered and
manifested, in the peculiar movement of his
fingers, the workings of deep anxiety, became
for a moment clenched; and when the groans
of his victims were described, his white teeth,
which were unusually prominent, were bared to
the gums; and though he had drained the cup
of vengeance to the dregs, still he seemed to
smack his lips and to lick the blood with which
his injuries had been redressed."

Immediately after the conviction and execution
of this monster, a large meeting of Roman
Catholics was held at Clonmel to express horror
at his crime, and to consider some means of
removing the causes of such outrages. Mr.
Sheil's speech to the peasantry produced an
enormous sensation. " How deep a stain," he
said, eloquently, " have these misdeeds left upon
the character of your country! and what effort
should not be made by every man of ordinary
humanity to arrest the progress of villainy which
is rolling in a torrent of blood, and bearing
down all the restraints of law and morality.
Look, for example, at the murder of the Sheas,
and tell me if there be anything in the records
of horror by which that accursed deed has
been excelled, and say, you who know it best,
you who are of the same sex as Catherine Mullaby,
what must have been the throes with which
she brought forth her unfortunate offspring, and
felt her infant consumed by the fire with which
she was surrounded. We can but lift up our
hands to the God of justice and ask Him why He
has invested us with the same forms as the
demons who perpetrated that unexampled
murder! And why did they commit it? By
virtue of a horrible league by which they were
associated together, not only against their enemy,
but against human nature and the God who
made it; for they were bound together, they
were sworn in the name of their Creator, and
they invoked Heaven to sanctify a deed which
they confederated to perpetrate by a
sacrament of hell."

At these same assizes, which seemed to epitomise
almost all the crimes and miseries of poor
Ireland, there were two other cases which still
after so many years are often referred to in
Tipperary. The first of these trials was that of a
band of men who entered the house of a farmer
named Barry, and killed him in his wife's arms.
Barry had refused to surrender some land from
which he had evicted one of the conspirators,
and the league had agreed to take his life.
The assassins broke into his house on the
Sunday evening. The frantic wife, grasping one
of the murderers, desired him to think " of
God, and of the blessed night, and to spare
the father of her eight children." The man himself
offered to give up the disputed ground, tilled
or untilled. They answered, with yells of
ferocious irony, that " he should soon have ground
enough," and plunged their bayonets simultaneously
into his heart. Among the prisoners at the
dock was a young stripling with the down still
on his cheek, and a wild, haggard old man with a
head covered with hoary and dishevelled hair.

The second trial was that of Matthew Hogan
and three of his kinsmen, for the murder of one or
two of the Hickeys, members of a rival clan. The
Tipperary people at that time were too fond of
taking the law into their own hands. If a man
received a blow, he instantly lodged a
complaint with his clan, who at once, over their
egg-shells of whisky, entered into a solemn
compact the next fair-day to avenge the insult.
The other side spent the time in industriously
forming a reactionary confederacy. The next fair-
day, before the booths were well up, a Hogan
would suddenly strike a Hickey, or a pot-valiant
Hickey go trailing his coat defiantly and
insultingly among the Hogans. Then up would
go the blackthorns, and in two minutes the
whole fair would be a whirl of battering sticks,
and the air be dark with "two-year-olds," as
clinkers and small square paving-stones are
affectionately denominated in Ireland; the
screaming women come also from under the low
tents, with stones in stockings, ready to give a
coup de grace to any man of the opposite side
who fell, or to step behind a redoutable
champion, perhaps at bay with his back against a
wall, and fell him with a sudden side stroke.

In the particular case we cite there were five
hundred men engaged, and several of the
Hickey party were left dead on the field.
Matthew Hogan, whose fate excited strong
sympathy, is described as a tall athletic man,
with a finely formed face totally free from any
ferocity of expression. His landlord, who had
a great regard for him, deposed to his being
an honest, industrious farmer, of a mild and
kindly nature. He had never taken part in
any deeds of nocturnal crime, and was known
as a gentle and humane person, and liked by
every one with whom he came in contact.

He and his three kinsmen were all sentenced
to transportation. When the sentence was
passed, the colour fled from Hogan's cheeks,
his lips became dry and ashy, his hands shook;
but no tears rose into his eyes. His grief was
too great for tears. As one of his own clan said:

"Hogan will feel it the more because he is
so tinder."

He was a prosperous farmer, with a young
wife and beautiful children. It was even proved
that he had generously stayed his hand to save
the life of an antagonist in the very hottest
fury of the combat. But there was no respite
for him. He was transported in spite of every
effort of his friends.

Unhappy lawlessness of an unhappy age!