The position of the Irish priest in regard to his flock is so anomalous, that some explanation of it seems necessary in order to understand the accusations made against Father Nicholas Sheehy, and the animosity with which he was hunted to death by his persecutors.  While the priest was driven from cave to mountain and from mountain to cave, he was the consoler of his equally persecuted people.  The deep reverence which Catholics feel for the office of the priesthood, can scarcely be understood by those who have abolished that office, as far as the law of the land could do so; but a man of ordinary intellectual attainments ought to be able to form some idea of the feelings of others, though he may not have experienced them personally; and a man of ordinary humanity should be able to respect those feelings, however unwise they may seem to him.  When education was forbidden to the Irish, the priest obtained education in continental colleges; and there is sufficient evidence to show that many Irish priests of that and of preceding centuries were men of more than ordinary abilities.  The Irish, always fond of learning, are ever ready to pay that deference to its possessors which is the best indication of a superior mind, however uncultivated.  Thus, the priesthood were respected both for their office and for their erudition.  The landlord, the Protestant clergyman, the nearest magistrate, and, perhaps, the tithe-proctor, were the only educated persons in the neighbourhood; but they were leagued against the poor peasant; they demanded rent and tithes, which he had no means of paying; they refused justice, which he had no means of obtaining.  The priest, then, was the only friend the peasant had.  His friendship was disinterested—­he gained nothing by his ministration but poor fare and poor lodging; his friendship was self-sacrificing, for he risked his liberty and his life for his flock.  He it was—­

    “Who, in the winter’s night,
    When the cold blast did bite,
    Came to my cabin door,
    And, on the earthen floor,
    Knelt by me, sick and poor;”

and he, too, when the poor man was made still poorer by his sickness,

    “Gave, while his eyes did brim,
    What I should give to him."[556]

But a time came when the priest was able to do more.  Men had seen, in some measure, the absurdity, if not the wickedness, of persecuting the religion of a nation; and at this time priests were tolerated in Ireland.  Still, though they risked their lives by it, they could not see their people treated unjustly without a protest.  The priest was independent of the landlord; for, if he suffered from his vengeance, he suffered alone, and his own sufferings weighed lightly in the balance compared with the general good.  The priest was a gentleman by education, and often by birth; and this gave him a social status which his uneducated people could not possess.[557] Such, was the position of Father Nicholas Sheehy, the parish priest of Clogheen.