Mr. Tener pointed out to me, at another place on the road, near Ballinagar, the deserted burying-ground in which, after much trouble, a grave was found for the brave old soldier who had escaped the Russian cannon-balls to be so foully done to death by felons of his own race.  There the last rites were performed by Father Callaghy, a priest who was himself “boycotted” for resigning the presidency of the League in his parish, and for the still graver offence of paying his rent.  For weeks it was necessary to guard the grave![18]

From that day to this no one has been brought to justice for this crime, committed in broad daylight, and within sight of the highway.  Mr. Place, whom I saw at Portumna, told me that he believed the police had no moral doubt as to the murderer of Finlay, but that it was useless to think of getting legal evidence to convict him.

Mr. Tener tells me that when Mr. Wilfrid Blunt came to Woodford he went with Father Egan, and accompanied by the police, to see the widow of this murdered man, heard from her own lips the sickening story, and took notes of it.  But when Mr. Rowlands, M.P., an English “friend of Home Rule,” was examined the other day during the trial of Mr. Blunt, he was obliged to confess that though he had visited Woodford more than once, and conversed freely with Mr. Blunt about it, he had “never heard of the murder of Finlay.”

Such an incident is apparently of little interest to politicians at Westminster.  Fortunately for Ireland, it is of a nature to command more attention at the Vatican.

Nature has sketched the scenery of this part of Ireland with a free, bold hand.  It is not so grand or so wild as the scenery of Western Donegal, but it has both a wildness and a grandeur of its own.  Sir Henry Burke’s seat of Marble Hill, as seen in the distance from the road, stands superbly, high up on a lofty range of wooded hills, from which it commands the country for miles.  And no town I have seen in Ireland is more picturesquely placed than Loughrea.  It has an almost Italian aspect as you approach it from Woodford.  But no lake in Lombardy or Piedmont is so peculiarly and exquisitely tinted as the lough on which it stands.  The delicate grey-green of the sparkling waters reminded me of the singular and well-defined belts and stretches of chrysoprase upon which you sometimes come in sailing through the dark azure of the Southern Seas.  I have never before seen precisely such a hue in any body of fresh water.  The lake is incorrectly described, Mr. Tener tells me, in the guide-books, as being one of the many curious developments of the Lower Shannon.  It is fed by springs, but if, like the river-lakes, it was formed by a solution of the limestone, this fact may have some chemical relation with its very peculiar colour.  It contains three picturesque islands.  No stream flows into it, but two streams issue from it.  The town of Loughrea is an ancient holding of the De Burghs, and the estate-office of