Lord Monk accosted him by this name one night, and Mr. Scully replied:—­

’If you have taken the “e y” off your own name, my lord, it is no reason you should do it off mine.’

Here is another story of him.

Mr. Dillwyn said to him, a Roman Catholic:—­’I have lived sixty years in this world, and I don’t yet know the difference between the two religions.’

‘Bydad,’ retorted Scully, ’you will not have been five minutes in the other without finding it out.’

Shortly after the franchise was enlarged—­which threw Imperial Parliament at the mercy of the ignorant—­old Lord Kenmare died and the present peer was called up to the House of Lords.

Lord Kenmare was the most popular landlord in Kerry, and he selected a Roman Catholic cousin of his, Mr. Dease, to stand for the county, Mr. Roland Blennerhasset, a young Protestant landlord, being started against him in support of Home Rule principles.

The Roman Catholic bishop and most of the priests backed Mr. Dease, but the Home Rule candidate beat him by three to one.  Some of the priests, who were very obnoxious to the people, supported Mr. Blennerhasset, and were then idolised, whilst a very popular parish priest, who canvassed for Mr. Dease, had to run for his life.

From thenceforth no one but a Home Rule candidate had any chance in Munster, and Mr. Roland Blennerhasset, having seen the error of his ways, afterwards became a Unionist candidate in England.  He is a very clever man, who was quite young then, but has now blossomed into a K.C. in London, and is mighty shrewd about speculations.

The election was great fun except for the stones and bricks, of which enough were thrown about to build a city without foundations.  Mr. Dease got a blow on his ribs at Castle Island, which told on his health, and he died soon afterwards.  He was a brother of Sir Gerald Dease, and a man very much liked.

It was during this election that I was fired at one night at Aghadoe, returning from Puck Fair at Killorghin.  A rumour was started that it was the work of one of the tenants on Sir George Colthurst’s Cork estates, and the Tralee correspondent of the Examiner telegraphed his belief in this, adding ‘so repugnant are Kerry men to these dastardly outrages.’

They took to them as greedily as a duck to water in later times, as all the world knows; and in the light of subsequent events it is delightful to remember that the Freeman stated, ’All condemn this dastardly act, for Mr. Hussey is universally respected.’

It atoned for this lapse into truth by subsequently taking my name in vain hundreds of times in the bad periods that were ahead.

There had been a libel case between the Rev. Denis O’Donoghue, parish priest of Ardfert, and myself.  The address of this cleric in proposing Mr. Blennerhasset at the nomination had annoyed those he assailed intensely.  Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after that I strained every nerve to defeat Father O’Donoghue’s nominee.