The new Roman Catholic Cathedral is said to be the finest in Ireland. It was over thirty years in building, and although the stone of the main fabric cost nothing, the structure cost more than a hundred thousand pounds. The interior is more gorgeous than beautiful, and the money seems to have been expended with execrable taste. The marble mosaic of the chancel floor is beautifully done, the work having been entrusted to Italian workmen, who were engaged on it for several years. The numerous statues of Carrara marble are well executed, and other items are also of the best. But the effect of the whole is inharmonious, and the great lines are obscured by over-ornamentation. You are reminded of an over-dressed woman. The pulpit, surmounted by a lofty conical canopy richly gilt, is supported on four lofty pillars of coffee-coloured marble highly polished. The baldacchino is a glittering affair, forty or fifty feet high, and big enough for a mission church. This also rests on marble columns. The sacristy, chapter-house and other offices are splendidly furnished, and the furniture of the doors, brass branches spreading all over them, massive as mediæval work, were remindful of Birmingham. The oak drawers of the robing room contain sacerdotal raiment to the tune of two thousand pounds, and the banners, many in number, and of richest work, must also represent a small fortune. Beautiful oil paintings from Italy hang around, and the bishop's throne is a marvel of gold lace and luxury. A queer-looking utensil, like a low seat, but with round brass bosses at each corner, proved to be merely a sort of crinoline whereon the bishop might extend his robes, so as to look inflated and imposing. So does the noble turkey-cock extend himself when bent on conquest of his trustful mate, gobbling the while strange-sounding incantations. To describe in detail would require a book. The confessionals are snug, with rich external carving. Plenty of accommodation for penitents here. Amid such surroundings to be a miserable sinner must be indeed a pleasure. The spire is two hundred and fifty feet high. I mounted and saw the great bell, over three tons in weight. I also saw the bishop's robes of wondrous richness and penetrative virtue, the consecrated slippers which the acolytes wear, with their scarlet robes, remindful of Egyptian flamens and African flamingoes; the blessed candle-box and the seven-times blessed candles, which at once drop tallow on the holder's clothes and benison on his sin-struck soul. All this expense in poor Ireland, all these advantages for poor Ireland. And still the Irish are not happy. With Roman Catholic cathedrals on every hand, with monasteries, nunneries, seminaries, confraternities, colleges, convents, Carmelites, Christian brothers, and collections whichever way they turn, the Irish people should be content. What could they wish for more?
The principal shopkeepers of Monaghan have unpatriotic names. Crawford, Jenkins, Henry, Campbell, Kerr, McEntee, Macdonald, and their like must in some way be accountable for the smartness of the town and for the emptiness of the prison on the hill. And you soon see that the Cathedral was needed, for besides the Protestant church, the town is polluted by two Presbyterian churches, to say nothing of a schism-shop used by the Wesleyan Methodists. A Monaghan man said:—
"The respectable people are nearly all Protestants, and all the Protestants, and most of the respectable Catholics, if not all, are Unionists. In point of numbers the Catholics have the pull, and in the event of a Home Rule Parliament, which, God forbid, our position as Protestants would be no longer tenable. We should have to knock under, and to become persons of no consideration. The small farmers among the Protestant population would have an especially hard time of it. They mostly held aloof from the Land League and such-like associations; and when the other party get the upper hand they will have to smart for it. What Mr. Dillon said about remembering in the day of their power who had been their enemies, is always present to the minds of the lower classes of the Irish people. It is that they may have the power of punishing all sympathisers with England that some of them say they want Home Rule. No doubt they have other temptations, but certainly that is one great incentive. So keenly are they bent on getting power that they in some cases quite disregard any possible disadvantages accruing from the success of the movement. 'Let us get the power,' they say, 'never mind the money.' I have heard the remark made more than once, and it represents the dominant feeling in the minds of many. Rubbish about struggling for equal rights. Where are the disabilities of Irish Catholics?
"Ascendency is their game. Would they be tolerant? Why ask such a question? When was Roman Catholicism tolerant, and where? Is not the whole system of Popery based on intolerance, on infallibility, on strict exclusiveness? Let me give you a few local facts to show their 'tolerance.'
"In the old times the Monaghan Town Commissioners were a mixed body. Catholics and Protestants met together in friendly converse, and the voting went anyhow, both religions on both sides, according to each man's opinion of the business. Nowadays, wherever in Ireland the two sects are represented the thing is worked differently, and you may know the voting beforehand by reference to the members' religion. We are not troubled with this in Monaghan, and for the very best of reasons—all the members but one are Roman Catholics, and the solitary Protestant is a lawyer who has always been identified with them, and has always managed their legal business. He is practically one of themselves, having always acted with them.
"When the modern political agitation became rife, the Romans of Monaghan, under the orders of their priests, at once ousted all Protestants, except the one I have mentioned, who does not count, and monopolised the Town Council ever since. They forgot something—Lord Rossmore has a claim on the market-tolls and other similar payments which amount to about three hundred pounds a year, but so long as the Town Council was worked by a mixed body of Catholics and Protestants he consented to forego this claim, and made the town a present of the money, which was expended in various improvements. Three hundred a year is a large sum in a small country town where labour is cheap, and in fifty years this sum, carefully laid out in ornamental and sanitary arrangements, quite changed the aspect of the place. When, however, the priests came on the scene and determined to have things exclusively in their own hands, Lord Rossmore did not quite see why he should any longer give the money to the town. And let it be understood that his agent had always been a prominent figure on the Monaghan Town Council, which was very right, having regard to the three hundred pounds given by Lord Rossmore, and to the agent's superior knowledge and business experience. He had been kicked out with the rest, and so it was made known that in future my lord would keep the money in his own pocket. They were astonished and suddenly cast down. 'Fear came upon them, and sorrow even as upon a woman,' &c.—you know the text. They said the money belonged to them, and really they had had it so long that they might be excused for believing this. Lord Rossmore was firm. They fought the thing out; but where was the good? They were beaten at every point. They had no case. So the town is three hundred pounds a year worse off, and Lord Rossmore three hundred pounds better. And still they will not allow a Protestant on the Council, although nearly all the best business men are of that persuasion. How's that for tolerance? And if such a thing be done in the green tree what will be done in the dry? If they flog us now with whips, won't they flog us then with scorpions?"
Another thraitor to his counthry's cause, said:—"A great idea with the priests is this—to get hold of the education of the country. They do not like the present system of National education. They do not approve of their youthful adherents growing up side by side with Protestant children. At first the Catholic bishops welcomed the scheme of National education, but now they are averse to it. They have seen how it works. It goes against them. It has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. The Catholic children grew up in amity with their neighbours, and got dangerously liberal ideas on the subject of religion. They were getting to believe that it mattered little whether Catholic or Protestant so long as a man's life was right. I went to school with Catholics, grew up with them, was always friendly with them, and we keep up the friendship to this day. The Catholic bishops disapprove of this. They want the line of cleavage sharp and distinct. Fifty years ago mixed marriages were common enough. Such a thing never happens now-a-days. It is most stringently forbidden by the Catholic Church. A priest told me that emigrants to America, such as had been educated in Irish National schools, along with Protestant children, were very apt to drop their Romanism when once separated from their native parish, and to become Protestants. I suppose he meant to say that long familiarity with the unclean thing had undermined the wholesome dislike of heresy which every Catholic should feel, and that therefore such familiarity should be, if possible, avoided. Years ago the priest would be friendly with his Protestant neighbours. We all lived together pretty comfortably. Of late a great change has taken place. The clergy as far as possible leave us, and cause us to be left, out in the cold. The question of Home Rule is entirely a religious question. Parnell was actuated by what might fairly be called patriotism; that is, comparatively speaking. The clergy saw in his fall a grand opportunity to use the movement he had created for the furtherance of their own ends. Home Rule is a purely Roman Catholic movement, and has had the most regrettable results on the amity of neighbours everywhere. Formerly the question of religion never arose. Now nothing else is considered. The Papists are almost unbearable, while they as yet have only the hope of power. What they would become if once they grasped the reality God only knows. I am not prepared to stand it, whatever it be. My arrangements to leave the country have long been made. At my age it will be a great grief, but I have always lived in a free country, and I will die in a free country. I was born in the town, and hoped to end my days at my birthplace. But I shall go, if it almost broke my heart, rather than see myself and the worthy men who have made the place domineered over and patronised by Maynooth priests. Ubi bene, ibi patria. Where I'm most happy, that will be my country."
The road to Kilmore is through a beautiful park-like country heavily timbered with oak, ash, beech, chestnut, and fir. Tall hedgerows twenty feet high line most of the way, which in many parts is completely overhung with trees in green arches impervious to rain. The country is undulating, with sharp descents and long clumps of beeches and imposing pine woods, bosky entrances to country seats and grassy hills, covered with thriving kine. From the church itself an extensive landscape is seen on every side. A deep valley intervenes between the church and a pretty farmhouse. I find a narrow lane with high hedges, covered with honeysuckles, which seems to lead thitherward. A man is toiling in a field hard by, digging for dear life, bare-armed and swarthy. I mount the gate and make for him. He remains unconscious, and goes on digging like mad. His brow is wet with honest sweat, and he seems bent on earning whate'er he can. Perhaps he wishes to look the whole world in the face, having an ambition to owe no rent to any man. I woke him and asked why the flags were flying on Kilmore steeple.
"To the pious, glorious, and immortal memory of William of Orange, who gave us an open Bible, and delivered us from Popery brass money, and wooden shoes. We put them up on the first of July and fly them till the twelfth, when we walk in procession through Monaghan."
"An Orangeman, and a black Protestant, I fear?"