those schools by the Catholic children. The bishop, the Most Rev. Dr.
Kernan, could not tolerate such a barefaced attempt at proselytism,
and insisted on the children being withdrawn from the schools. For
obeying their bishop in this, the Catholic parents were treated most
unsparingly. I have before me just now a most remarkable instance
of the length to which this gentleman carried his proselytising
propensities, which I will mention. In the vestry, or sacristy,
attached to Corduff Chapel, was a school taught by a man named Rush,
altogether independent of the schools aided by Mr. Shirley, and by
largely subsidising the teacher, the then agent actually introduced
his proselytism into that school too. The priests and people tried
legal means to get rid of the teacher, but without success, and in the
end the people came by night and knocked down the sacristy, so that in
the morning when the teacher came he had no house to shelter him.
The Catholics were then without a school, and in order to provide the
means of education for them the Rev. F. Keone, administrator, under
the Most Rev. Dr. Kernan, applied for aid to the Commissioners of
National Education, and obtained it; but where was he to procure
building materials? The then agent, in his zeal for "converting"
Catholics, having issued an order forbidding the supplying of them
from any part of the Shirley estate, which extends over an area of
fifteen miles by ten, Father Keone went on the next Sunday to the
neighbouring chapels outside the Shirley estate, told his grievances,
and on the next day the people came with their horses and carts and
left sand, lime, and stones in sufficient quantities to build the
house inside the chapel-yard. The priest and people thought it
necessary to "thatch" their old chapel, and, though strange it may
seem, the agent actually served an ejectment process on the father
of the two boys who assisted the priest to make the collection at the
chapel door for so absolutely necessary a work. I may add, this man