It was late when I reached Parsonstown, known of old in Irish story as Birr, from St. Brendan’s Abbey of Biorra, and now a clean prosperous place, carefully looked after by the chief landlord of the region, the Earl of Rosse, who, while he inherits the astronomical tastes and the mathematical ability of his father, is not so absorbed in star-gazing as to be indifferent to his terrestrial duties and obligations.  I have heard nothing but good of him, and of his management of his estates, from men of the most diverse political views.  But I think it more important to get a look at the Clanricarde property, about which I have heard little but evil from anybody.  The strongest point I have heard made in favour of the owner is, that he is habitually described by that dumb organ of a down-trodden people, United Ireland, as “the most vile Clanricarde.”

I found a good car at the railway station, and set off at once for Portumna.  Parsonstown was called by Sir William Petty, in his Survey of Ireland, the umbilicus Hiberniae.  It is the centre of Ireland, as a point near Newnham Paddox is of England, and the famous or infamous “Bog of Allan” stretches hence to Athlone.  Our way fortunately took us westward.  A light railway was laid down some years ago from Parsonstown to Portumna, but it did not pay, and it has now been abandoned.

“What has become of the road?” I asked my jarvey.

“Oh! they just take up the rails when they like, the people do.”

“And what do they do with them?”

“Is it what they do with them?  Oh; they make fences of them for the beasts.”

He was a dry, shrewd old fellow, not very amiably disposed, I was sorry to find, towards my own country.

“Ah! it’s America, sorr, that’s been the ruin of us entirely.”

“Pray, how is that?”

“It’s the storms they send; and then the grain; and now they tell me it’s the American beasts that’s spoiling the market altogether for Ireland.”

“Is that what your member tells you?”

“The member, sorr? which member?”

“The member of Parliament for your district, I mean.  What is his name?”

“His name?  Well, I’m not sure; and I don’t know that I know the man at all.  But I believe his name is Mulloy.”

“Does he live in Portumna?”

“Oh no, not at all.  I don’t know at all where he lives, but I believe it’s in Tullamore.  But what would he know about America?  Sure, any one can see it’s the storms and the grain that is the death of us in Ireland.”

“But I thought it was the landlords and the rents?”

“Oh, that’s in Woodford and Loughrea; not here at all.  There’ll be no good till we get a war.”

“Get a war? with whom?  What do you want a war for?”

“Ah! it was the good time when we had the Crimean war—­with the wheat all about Portumna.  I’ll show you the great store there was built.  It’s no use now.  But we’ll have a war.  My son, he’s a soldier now.  He went out to America.  But he didn’t like it.”