came. On the Sunday Cromwell sent for him again, and he didn't come. And on the Monday he sent for him the third time, and he did come. 'Why is it you did not come to me when I sent before?' said Cromwell. 'I'll tell you that,' said the White Friar. 'I didn't come on Saturday,' he said, 'because your passion was on you. And I didn't come on the Sunday,' he said, 'because your passion was not gone down enough, and I thought you would not give me my steps. But I came to-day,' he said, 'because your passion is cool.' When Cromwell heard his answer, 'That is true,' he said, 'and tell me how long my law will last in Ireland.' 'It will last,' says the White Friar, 'till yesterday will come (that was Easter Sunday) the same day as our Lady Day.' Cromwell was satisfied then, and he gave him a free leg, and he went away. And so that law did last till now, and it's well it did, for without that law in the country you wouldn't be safe walking the road having so much as the price of a pint of porter in your pocket."

"Cromwell cleared the road before him. If any great man stood against him he would pull down his castle the same as he pulled down that castle of your own, Ballinamantane, that is down the road. He never got more than two hours sleep or three, or at the most four, but starting up fearing his life would be peppered. There was a word he sounded out to the Catholics, 'To hell or Connacht,' and the reason he did that was that Connacht was burned bare, and he that thought to pass the winter there would get no lodging at all. Himself and his men travelled it, and they never met with anything that had human breath put in it by God till they came to Breffny, and they saw smoke from a chimney, and they surrounded the house and went into it. And what they saw was a skeleton over the fire roasting, and the people of the house picking flesh off it with the bits of a hook. And when they saw that, they left them there. It was a Clare man that burned Connacht so bare; he was worse than Cromwell, and he made a great slaughter in the house of God at Clonmel. The people have it against his family yet, and against the whole County of Clare."

"Cromwell was very bad, but the drink is worse. For a good many that Cromwell killed should go to heaven, but those that are drunken never see heaven. And as to drink, a man that takes the first glass is as quiet and as merry as a pet lamb; and after the second glass he is as knacky as a monkey; and after the third glass he is as ready for battle as a lion; and after the fourth glass he is like a swine as he is. 'I am thirsty' [IRISH: Ta Tart Orm], that was one of our Lord's seven words on the Cross, where he was dry. And a man far off would have given him drink; but there was a drunkard at the foot of the Cross, and he prevented him."

"That was a great slaughter at Aughrim. St. Ruth wanted to do all himself, he being a foreigner. He gave no plan of the battle to Sarsfield, but a written command to stop where he was, and Sarsfield knew no more than yourself or myself in the evening before it happened. It was Colonel Merell's wife bade him not go to the battle, where she knew it would go bad with him through a dream. But he said that meant that he would be crowned, and he went out and was killed. That is what the poem says:

All great men gave attention to dreams, though the Church is against them now. It is written in Scripture that Joseph gave attention to his dream. But Colonel Merell did not, and so he went to his death. Aughrim would have been won if it wasn't for the drink. There was too much of it given to the Irish soldiers that day—drink and spies and traitors. The English never won a battle in Ireland in fair fight, but getting spies and setting the people against one another. I saw where Aughrim was fought, and I turned aside from the road to see the tree where St Ruth was killed. The half of it is gone like snuff. That was spies too, a Colonel's daughter that told the English in what place St. Ruth would be washing himself at six o'clock in the morning. And it was there he was shot by one O'Donnell, an Englishman. He shot him from six miles off. The Danes were dancing in the raths around Aughrim the night after the battle. Their ancestors were driven out of Ireland before; and they were glad when they saw those that had put them out put out themselves, and every one of them skivered."

"As to the Stuarts, there are no songs about them and no praises in the West, whatever there may be in the South. Why would there, and they running away and leaving the country the way they did? And what good did they ever do it? James the Second was a coward. Why didn't he go into the thick of the battle like the Prince of Orange? He stopped on a hill three miles away, and rode off to Dublin, bringing the best of his troops with him. There was a lady walking in the street at Dublin when he got there, and he told her the battle was lost, and she said 'Faith you made good haste; you made no delay on the road.' So he said no more after that. The people liked James well enough before he ran; they didn't like him after that."

"Seumus Salach, Dirty James, it is he brought all down. At the time of the battle there was one of his men said, 'I have my eye cocked, and all the nations will be done away with,' and he pointing his cannon. 'Oh!' said James, 'Don't make a widow of my daughter.' If he didn't say that, the English would have been beat. It was a very poor thing for him to do."

"Sarsfield was a great general the time he turned the shoes on his horse. The English it was were pursuing him, and he got off and changed the shoes the way when they saw the tracks they would think he went another road. That was a great plan. He got to Limerick then, and he killed thousands of the English. He was a great general."

"The Georges were fair; they left all to the Government; but Anne was very bad and a tyrant. She tyrannised over the Irish. She died broken-hearted with all the bad things that were going on about her. For Queen Anne was very wicked; oh, very wicked, indeed!"

"Carolan that could play the fiddle and the harp used to be going about with Cahil-a-Corba, that was a tambourine man. But they got tired of one another and parted, and Carolan went to the house of the King of Mayo, and he stopped there, and the King asked him to stop for his lifetime. There came a grand visitor one time, and when he heard Carolan singing and playing and his fine pleasant talk, he asked him to go with him on a visit to Dublin. So Carolan went, and he promised the King of Mayo he would come back at the end of a month. But when he was at the gentleman's house he liked it so well that he stopped a year with him, and it wasn't till the Christmas he came back to Mayo. And when he got there the doors were shut, and the King was at his dinner, and Queen Mary and the three daughters, and he could see them through the windows. But when the King saw him he said he would not let him in. He was vexed with him and angry he had broken his promise and his oath. So Carolan began to give out a song he had made about the King of Mayo and all his family, and he brought Queen Mary into it and the