“A good thing,” said I, “that there are no Old Waist-coats and Cravats at present, at least bloody factions bearing those names.”
“Your honour thinks so! Faith! I am clane of a contrary opinion. I wish the ould Shanavests and Caravauts were fighting still, and I among them. Faith! there was some life in Ireland in their days.”
“And plenty of death too,” said I. “How fortunate it is that the Irish have the English among them to prevent their cutting each other’s throats.”
“The English prevent the Irish from cutting each other’s throats! Well, if they do, it is only that they may have the pleasure of cutting them themselves. The bloody tyrants! too long has their foot been upon the neck of poor old Ireland.”
“How do the English tyrannise over Ireland?”
“How do they tyrannise over her? Don’t they prevent her from having the free exercise of her Catholic religion, and make her help to support their own Protestant one?”
“Well, and don’t the Roman Catholics prevent the Protestants from having the free exercise of their religion, whenever they happen to be the most numerous, and don’t they make them help to support the Roman Catholic religion?”
“Of course they do, and quite right! Had I my will, there shouldn’t be a place of Protestant worship left standing, or a Protestant churl allowed to go about with a head unbroken.”
“Then why do you blame the Protestants for keeping the Romans a little under?”
“Why do I blame them? A purty question! Why, an’t they wrong, and an’t we right?”