We ran through a beautiful country for the greater part of the way.  At Bray, which is a favourite Irish watering-place, the sea broke upon us bright and full of life; and the station itself was more like a considerable English station than any I have seen.  Thence we passed into a richly-wooded region, with neat, well-kept hedges, as far as Rathdrum and the “Sweet Vale of Avoca.”  The hills about Shillelagh are particularly well forested, though, as the name suggests, they must have been cut for cudgels pretty extensively for now a great many years.  We came again on the sea at the fishing port of Arklow, where the stone walls about the station were populous with small ragamuffins, and at the station of Inch I found a car waiting for me with Mr. Holmes, a young English Catholic officer, who had most obligingly offered to show me the place and the people.  We had hardly got into the roadway when we overtook a most intelligent-looking, energetic young priest, walking briskly on in the direction of our course.  This was Dr. Dillon, the curate of Arklow.  We pulled up at once, and Mr. Holmes, introducing me to him, we begged him to take a seat with us.  He excused himself as having to join another priest with whom he was going to a function at Inch; but he was good enough to walk a little way with us, and gave me an appointment for 2 P.M. at his own town of Arklow, where I could catch the train back to Dublin.  We drove on rapidly and called on Father O’Neill, the parish priest.  We found him in full canonicals, as he was to officiate at the function this morning, and with him were Father Dunphy, the parish priest of Arklow, and two or three more robed priests.

Father O’Neill, whose face and manner are those of the higher order of the continental clergy, briefly set forth to me his view of the transactions at Coolgreany.  He said that before the Plan of Campaign was adopted by the tenants, Mr. William O’Brien, M.P., had written to him explaining what the effect of the Plan would be, and urging him to take whatever steps he could to obviate the necessity of adopting it, as it might eventually result to the disadvantage of the tenants.  “To that end,” said Father O’Neill, “I called upon Captain Hamilton, the agent, with Dr. Dillon of Arklow, but he positively refused to listen to us, and in fact ordered us, not very civilly, to leave his office.”

It was after this he said that he felt bound to let the tenants take their own way.  Eighty of them joined in the “Plan of Campaign” and paid the amount of the rent due, less a reduction of 30 per cent., which they demanded of the agent, into the hands of Sir Thomas Esmonde, M.P., Sir Thomas being a resident in the country, and Mr. Mayne, M.P.  Writs of ejectment were obtained against them afterwards, and in July last sixty-seven of them were evicted, who are now living in “Laud League huts,” put up on the holdings of three small tenants who were exempted from the Plan of Campaign, and allowed to pay their rents subject to a smaller reduction made by the agent, in order that they might retain their land as a refuge for the rest.