Ireland is nominally governed by a lord lieutenant or viceroy of the king, who, since December, 1905, and at present, is John Campbell Gordon, Earl of Aberdeen. He occupied the same position in the ’90’s, and has since been governor-general of Canada. Both Lord and Lady Aberdeen are well known in the United States, where Lady Aberdeen has taken an active interest in the work of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and many benevolent enterprises and social reforms. She will be particularly remembered as the promoter of the Irish village at the Chicago Exposition in 1893, and for her successful endeavors to introduce Irish homespun, lace, linen, and other products, and to make them fashionable among the American people. She is a woman of great energy, executive ability, and determination, and has been applying those qualities very effectively in Ireland in local reforms. She has organized societies of women throughout the island to encourage the virtues and restrain the vices of the people, to relieve their distress and advance their welfare, physically, mentally, and morally, by a dozen different movements of which she is the leader and director. She started a crusade against the great white plague, brought Dr. Arthur Green from New York as an organizer, while Nathan Straus of New York has been co-operating with her in setting up establishments for the sterilization of the milk sold in Irish cities. She is president of almost everything, has a dozen secretaries and agents carrying out her orders, and is altogether the busiest woman in the United Kingdom.

The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has very little to do except to open fairs, lay corner stones, preside at public meetings, give dinners, and look pleasant. He is nominally the head of everything as the representative of his sovereign, the king, and is supposed to rule Ireland in his majesty’s name, but, like the Governor-General of Canada, the office is a sinecure. Its incumbent is allowed a salary of $100,000, a castle in the city, and a country lodge in Phoenix Park, a liberal allowance to maintain them and to expend in hospitality, a staff of secretaries and aids-de-camp, a full outfit of servants, and various other perquisites which would be appreciated by our President and all others in authority. And all this without any responsibilities, except to be tactful, amiable, and diplomatic, and to make friends with the people.

The actual ruler of Ireland is the Chief Secretary to the lord lieutenant, who is a member of the cabinet of the king, and spends most of his time in London, where he devises and directs the political policy of the government toward that distracted but improving portion of his majesty’s empire, looks after legislation in parliament, and attends to whatever is necessary for the good of the island. He is the Right Hon. Augustine Birrell, who is carrying out the lines of policy inaugurated by Mr. Bryce at the incoming of the present liberal government. The chief secretary is expected to spend a portion of each year in Ireland, so that he can keep in touch with affairs and get his cues from public opinion. He has a salary of $35,000 and a residence, fully equipped and appointed, near that of the lord lieutenant in Phoenix Park.

The man on the ground, the general manager of the government, and the de facto head of the executive administration, is known as the Under Secretary, who also has a handsome residence in Phoenix Park and all worldly comforts provided for him. He presides at the ancient castle in the center of the city of Dublin, surrounded by a staff of subordinates and clerks, and supervises the work of the several executive departments, most of them being scattered in rented quarters in different parts of the city. The government has long ago outgrown the castle and has appointed many officials and boards of commissioners and organized new executive departments without erecting buildings to accommodate them. Sir Antony Patrick MacDonnell, who resigned the office of under secretary, and was elevated to the peerage as Lord MacDonnell upon his retirement, is an Irishman who has spent his entire life in the service of his king, the greater part of it in India, where he was governor of four different provinces in succession and showed remarkable administrative ability. Retiring voluntarily, he came home to Ireland and was soon appointed to fill a vacancy in the office of under secretary, where he was very active, very positive in his convictions, and very determined in his methods. He made numerous recommendations that have not been adopted, and attempted to carry out a policy that was not acceptable to the politicians of Ireland, who rejected his plans for self-government and refused his overtures.

Sir Antony MacDonnell was the author of what is called the “devolution policy.” That’s a big word and has little meaning in America, but in Ireland it is in common use and full of significance; first being applied to a certain political project in Ireland by Lord Dunraven in 1904. If you will look in the dictionary you will see that “devolution” means “the act of devolving, transferring, or handing over; transmission from one person to another; a passing or falling to a successor, as of office, authority, or real estate.” In its application to the Irish situation devolution means the devolving upon the Irish people of purely local affairs, to transfer their management from the British government with a string tied to them, and that is what the Irish political leaders will not consent to. Their motto is aut home rule, aut nullus. With the co-operation of the Earl of Dunraven and others, Sir Antony MacDonnell prepared a plan of limited home rule in 1907. It gave the government of Ireland entirely into the hands of the people with the exception of the police, the courts, and the lawmaking power, which were retained under British control. The proposition was discussed by the largest convention ever held in the country and was unanimously rejected on the theory that it did not go far enough. The Irish people will never be satisfied until they are permitted to make their own laws. There were many grounds of objection from the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical authorities and others, who declare that Sir Antony’s plan of government, which was based upon his experience in India, could not be applied successfully to conditions in Ireland. Sir Antony is a very positive man, and when his solution of the Irish problem, to which he had given years of thought and study, was rejected, he concluded that he was not the man to rule that country and sent in his resignation, which was accepted with great reluctance by the government and with sincere regret by a majority of the people, who admire his ability and have confidence in his integrity and intentions.

His successor is Sir John Dougherty, his chief assistant, who has been in the office of the under secretary in Dublin Castle all his life, and has been promoted grade after grade from an ordinary clerkship to his present position because of his ability and his sterling qualities. Although he is not a man of marked individuality and initiative, like Sir Antony MacDonnell, he is considered a safe, conservative, and judicious administrator.

The next in importance, who, perhaps, should be ranked first of all, is a mysterious and autocratic official, known as the Treasury Remembrancer. He was described to me as “a lord over all, and the best hated man in Ireland. Nobody knows him or cares to know him. His fellow officials seldom hear or speak his name. He is a spy and a spotter and has arbitrary authority to disallow accounts, withhold allowances, and lock up the money chest whenever he likes. There is no statute authorizing his appointment, and there is no law or regulation defining his duties or limiting his authority, which he receives from the chancellor of the exchequer in London and to whom alone he reports.” The office pays $7,500 a year without any known perquisites, although the remembrancer is supposed to have mysterious sources of revenue that have never been found out. He cannot, however, spend the money of the crown. His authority is limited to preventing expenditures. He is “the watchdog of the treasury” in Ireland, and combines in one the duties and powers which are intrusted to the comptroller and auditors of the treasury in the United States. He interprets appropriation bills, customs laws, and decides how much money can be expended for this purpose and that. He audits all accounts, rejects many, disallows overcharges, and makes everybody who has to do with government finances a great deal of trouble. Hence his unpopularity and his habitual reserve.

In addition to these chief officials there are numerous secretaries and assistant secretaries, commissioners and boards of various jurisdictions, and executive departments, with corps of clerks similar to those in Washington. Each has its functions over some branch of the administration and all are subject to the supervision of the under secretary and the chief secretary in London. Their commissions are signed by the lord lieutenant, who knows nothing about them, has no authority over them, and acts only in a formal capacity, as the representative of the king. There is a great deal of complaint as to the excessive number of “civil servants,” as they call them over there, although such a term would be resented by the employees of the civil service in the United States. All railway officials are called “servants” in Great Britain. Every salaried person comes within that designation. Any one who will look over the printed register of government employees in Ireland will conclude that home rule has already been adopted, because the treasury remembrancer is said to be the only Englishman on the pay roll, except the lord lieutenant, several of his secretaries, and the military officers at the garrison, and several Scotch experts in the employ of the Agricultural Department and Congested Districts Board. But what spoils it all to the people of Ireland is that these officials receive their appointments from what they consider an alien authority. The touch of the English giver poisons the gift. They will never be satisfied until their commissions are signed by an Irish name. Nobody in the employ of the government is loyal. Every man hates and loathes England, and doesn’t hesitate to say so in public and in private, on all occasions, although he draws his rations from the British government. And when you remind him of that he answers promptly that the money comes from the pockets of the Irish rate-payers and England grabs £3,000,000 of it for herself.

Ireland contributes an annual average of £10,500,000 in taxes to the imperial treasury and £7,500,000 of it is expended in maintaining her government and constructing her public works. The remaining three millions is her contribution toward the support of the British empire, the wages of the king, the expenses of parliament, the support of the army and navy, and the interest upon the public debt, which is not kept separately for Ireland, and for various other purposes.

Ireland has twenty-three peers in the House of Lords and one hundred and two representatives in the House of Commons, of whom eighty-two are nationalists or home rulers. The remaining twenty are conservatives, unionists, and anti-home rulers, who believe in maintaining the present system of government and the existing relations between Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish members of parliament have been a thorn in the flesh of John Bull for many years, ever since Daniel O’Connell was admitted to the imperial legislature in 1829. They have fought fiercely for concessions term after term, have built fires in the rear of the government and have attacked it upon all sides until they have accomplished a great many reforms and are near to the point of achieving final success. If the liberal party wins at the next election every patriotic Irishman expects political emancipation, because its leaders are pledged to complete home rule on the same basis that Mr. Gladstone proposed several years ago, when he was prime minister.

The Irish peerage, like that of Scotland, are not entitled to all the rights and prerogatives enjoyed by the British peerage, and have only twenty-eight seats in the House of Lords. The total peerage of Ireland consists of two dukes, ten marquises, sixty-three earls, thirty-six viscounts, and sixty-four barons, a total of one hundred and seventy-five nobles, of whom seventeen also have titles in the English peerage, nearly all by inheritance.

The Irish peerage are represented in the House of Lords by twenty-eight of their members who are elected for life. As soon as one of these representative peers dies two or more of his colleagues notify the lord high chancellor of England of the vacancy. The latter thereupon issues a writ in the name of the king under the great seal proclaiming an election. Copies of this writ are served upon every Irish peer through the clerk of the crown at Dublin naming a date for an election. Each of the one hundred and seventy-five Irish peers has a vote, but they never assemble. They merely write to the clerk of the crown at Dublin, naming their choice, and forward a duplicate of the letter to the clerk of the House of Lords at London.

Scotland has only sixteen representative peers, who are elected by an assemblage at Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh when notified of a vacancy. There is considerable formality in the proceedings, and every peer is required to present himself to answer the roll call before he is allowed to vote. There is a good deal of preliminary canvassing in both Scotland and Ireland, and that was particularly the case of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, who was elected to the House of Lords as an Irish peer after his return from India. The candidates for the vacancy usually visit their fellow peers personally and solicit their support. Social influences go a great way. Lord Curzon was handicapped in many respects, but was elected by a large majority because of the high esteem in which he is held.

When the ballots are all in the clerk of the crown at Dublin makes up a tabulated statement which he sends with his report to the clerk of the House of Lords. The latter checks it off from his own records and announces the result to the lord high chancellor and to each of the Irish peers in person.

The representative peers at present are the Earls of Annesley, Bandon, Belmore, Darnley, Drogheda, Kilmory, Lucan, Mayo, Rosse, and Westmeath, Viscounts Bangor and Templeton, and Barons Bellew, Castlemaine, Clonbrock, Crofton, Curzon, Dunalley, Dunboine, Headley, Inchiquin, Kilmaine, Langford, Massey, Musckerry, Oranmore, Rathdonnell, and Ventry.

The premier of the Irish peerage is Maurice Fitzgerald, who is the Duke of Leinster and also is Marquis of Kildare, and represents the most distinguished and celebrated family in Ireland. His dukedom dates back to 1766. The second in rank is the Duke of Abercorn, James Hamilton, who is also Marquis of Hamilton. The third is James Edward William Theobold, twenty-seventh Marquis of Ormonde, and the fourth is Rudolph Robert Basil Aloysius Augustine Fielding, Earl of Desmond, who is also Earl of Denbigh.

The oldest titles in the Irish peerage are the following:

• Baron Kinsale, created 1223.
• Lord Dunsany, created 1439.
• Lord Timlestown, created 1461.
• Viscount Gormanston, created 1478.
• Baron Louth, created 1541.
• Lord Dumboine, created 1541.
• Baron Inchiquin, created 1543.
• Viscount Montgarrett, created 1550.
• The Earl of Fingal, created 1620.
• Viscount Grandison, created 1620.
• Earl of Cork, created 1620.
• Baron Digby, created 1620.
• Earl of Westmeath, created 1621.
• Earl of Desmond, created 1622.
• Lord Dillon, created 1622.
• Viscount Valentia, created 1622.
• Earl of Meath, created 1627.
• Baron Sherard, created 1627.
• Viscount Lumley, created 1628.
• Viscount Taffe, created 1628.

All the remaining peerages of Ireland were created later than the year 1700.

The people as a rule are respectful towards the nobility, and treat them with a consideration which is not always deserved. The bitterness of politics is more intense in Ireland than in any other country, and, as Sydney Brooks in his recent book on “Ireland in the Twentieth Century” says, “Class distinctions are not mitigated by political agreement. Differences of creed are not assuaged by harmony of economic interests. The cleavages of racial temperament are not, as in other countries, bridged over by a sense of national unity. On the contrary, all the bitterness of caste and creed, of political and material antipathies and contrast, instead of losing half their viciousness in a multiplicity of cross-currents, are gathered and rigidly compressed in Ireland into two incongruous channels. Throughout the country you can infer a man’s religion from his social position; his social position from his religion, and his views on all Irish questions from both; and nine times out of ten you infer rightly.”

That is strictly true. Nowhere in the world is a man’s politics so influenced by his religion and his social position as in Ireland. Although you will find home rulers in all classes of the English population, you will never find them outside one class in Ireland. If you are told what business he is engaged in or what church he belongs to in Ireland, it is not necessary for you to ask his politics.

While the ancient nobility of Ireland is gradually becoming extinct and their estates are being divided up among the farmers who till them, a new aristocracy is developing. The sons of what is called the middle class are invading the sacred haunts of the ancient aristocracy and are taking the places of the dukes and earls as the latter retire. Every peer that has been created in Ireland of late years has been a son of a manufacturer, a tradesman, or a country gentleman of the middle class, and at the present rate the descendants of earls and marquises will be compelled to stand back and give the sons of brewers, distillers, and other manufacturers their places at the front of the stage.

A century or even half a century ago no Irish trader or contractor, lawyer or doctor, unless he could produce the proper sort of pedigree, could enter the social world or the best clubs of Dublin and other Irish cities or participate in the sports of the gentry and aristocracy. But to-day their grandsons have the entrÉe to that gilded gate which hangs upon broken hinges and will soon be entirely removed. This is the result of the decadence of one class and the advance of another. A brewer or a distiller who can obtain a seat in the House of Lords must necessarily be eligible to the clubs where his colleagues meet. Nearly all of the twenty-three peers created by the present government in England have sprung from families of humble origin and are sons of men who made their money in manufacturing and trade. And there is room for more of them in the peerage. You hear irreverent people talking about “breeding up the peerage of Great Britain,” just as they talk about improving their cattle, horses, and swine, and in the clubs of London this subject is revived every time the son of a decaying family of the nobility marries the daughter of a wealthy tradesman, or the daughter of an earl weds the son of a wealthy commoner.

In Ireland the shopkeeper now educates his son for a profession. The sons of contractors become architects and civil engineers. The sons of lawyers and doctors enter the army and navy and diplomatic service. Among the large families of the middle class you will find one son a lawyer, another a doctor, and the other two in the army and navy. In order to keep pace with them and be able to appear properly in the society which their brothers enter, and in order that they may be considered suitable wives for the sons of similar families who are on the upward grade, the daughters of the middle classes of Ireland are sent to the best schools and colleges and spend their winters in Paris.

For these reasons very little is said about pedigree in Ireland these days. The army that is advancing does not look back. The decaying nobility dare not question nor criticise lest they may be trampled upon. The only people who talk about their ancestors are the peasants, who trace their descent from the Irish kings.

Mrs. O’Leary met Mrs. O’Donahue one day and in the course of conversation asked if she had ever looked up her pedigree.

“Phwat’s that?” inquired Mrs. O’Donahue.

“The people you sprang from,” was the reply.

“I’d have you know that the O’Donahues never sprang from anybody,” was the indignant retort. “They sprang at ’em.”

Every influential leader of the liberal party is a home ruler. The Earl of Aberdeen, the present lieutenant governor, Earl Dudley, his predecessor, who is now governor-general of Australia, James Bryce, recently chief secretary for Ireland and now British ambassador at Washington, and many other influential men in high places, are earnest in supporting the Irish claims for self-government, and the national party, which, after the death of Charles S. Parnell, became demoralized and split into factions under the leadership of John Redmond, John Dillon, and others, has been a unit since 1900 and is working harmoniously. The liberal leaders have promised to make home rule the leading issue at the next parliamentary election, which will probably occur in two years or so. In the meantime the Irish party in parliament will continue to pursue the policy that has already been so successful in securing concessions for the relief of the people and the promotion of the welfare and prosperity of Ireland.

The city government of Dublin is very much like that of London. The lord mayor is second in official rank to the lord lieutenant, and within the precincts of the city takes precedence of everybody except that official (who is the personal representative of the king), the royal family, and foreign ambassadors. He precedes the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is the primate of England, the two archbishops of Armagh, the primates of all Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the chief secretary for Ireland, and even the prime minister of England, while the lady mayoress has the right to walk before every duchess, marchioness, and woman of title in the kingdom except the royal family. The salary of the lord mayor is $15,000 a year, and he has a beautiful old house to live in—one of the most attractive in Dublin. It is situated on Dawson Street near Stephen’s Green and is surrounded by a picturesque garden. Here in olden times the lord mayor used to entertain like a prince. It was a matter of pride that the Mansion House should never be outdone by the castle in the magnificence of its hospitality. But of late years the civic entertainments, as they were called, have been abandoned and the lady mayoress has not attempted to shine in society.

The Right Honorable Gerald O’Reilly was Lord Mayor of Dublin when I was there in 1908, and he managed to look after his private business as grocer and liquor dealer at Towns End in connection with his official duties. He was elected to office by the nationalists and the labor element, who control the politics not only of Dublin but of all Ireland, and have elected his predecessors for many years. And they have been men of the people without exception. No aristocrat, no landlord, no member of the nobility could ever hope to become Lord Mayor of Dublin.

Mr. O’Reilly was born, reared, and educated in County Carlow, where his father was a groceryman and liquor dealer like himself. When he became of age he came up to Dublin, went into business on his own account and prospered. He is not a rich man, but well to do, with a good patronage, a good reputation, and a large influence in politics. For twenty years he has served as a member of the common council and the board of aldermen, where he has proved his usefulness and his right to promotion. Mr. O’Reilly’s predecessor was an actual workingman, G.P. Nanetti, a son of an Italian artist who came to Ireland fifty years ago to engage in his profession as a decorator. Mr. Nanetti was born in Dublin, educated in the national schools, learned his trade as printer in the office of that ancient and well-known paper, the Freeman’s Journal, and was advanced from grade to grade until he became the foreman of the composing-room. In the meantime he went into politics, became a leader among the workingmen, was elected to the common council and then to the board of aldermen, and, after serving two terms as lord mayor, was elected to parliament as the representative of the business district of Dublin, which surrounds the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College. Before him Timothy Harrington was lord mayor for three terms, a longer period than any of his predecessors since the creation of the title by King Charles I. on the twenty-ninth day of July, 1641. He, too, was a great success in the office and was sent to parliament for the district which includes the docks.

The Mansion House is well adapted for entertainment. The main room is a large circular chamber, adorned with statuary, which was built especially for the reception of George IV. when he visited Ireland. The Oak Room is entirely sheathed, floor, ceiling, and walls, with a rich reddish brown oak, delicately carved. Over the fireplace is a rack for the reception of the mace and sword which are the symbols of office, and formerly, when the lord mayor went about on official occasions, they were carried before him, but Mr. O’Reilly and his recent predecessors have abolished many of those interesting old ceremonies.

There are some fine pictures in the Mansion House, portraits of Charles II. by Sir Peter Lely, George IV. by Sir Thomas Lawrence, the Earl of Northumberland by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and the Earl of Westmorland by Romney. In the entrance hall are preserved the mace and sword carried by the lord mayor who fought for James II. at the battle of the Boyne. When he fled with the rest of James’s forces he dropped the heavy insignia, which fell into the hands of the Williamites and were retained by them until a duplicate set had been furnished, many years after.

Many famous men have been entertained at the Mansion House, including General Grant, who visited Dublin during the holidays of 1878; Capt. Edward E. Potter, commander of the United States man-of-war Constellation, which brought a cargo of food to the starving people of Ireland in 1880; the Hon. Patrick A. Collins, while he was Mayor of Boston, who, by the way, is recorded as a senator from Massachusetts, a distinction he never attained. The Hon. Richard Croker, formerly of New York, received the freedom of the city of Dublin several years ago, and has been a frequent guest at the Mansion House, although he moves about very modestly and puts on no airs.

The Lord Mayor of Dublin is elected annually on the 23d of December by the aldermen and councilmen and must be one of their number. He has a deputy who exercises authority during his illness or absence. There are fifteen aldermen and forty-five members of the council, whose authority and powers are very much the same as in our cities at home.

The headquarters of the mayor are in the City Hall, which was formerly the Royal Exchange, where merchants met daily to make bargains and sign contracts. It was used as a prison during the rebellion of ’98, and has had other experiences. As you enter the building through the vestibule you pass into a large circular room, with a dome sustained by many columns, which was formerly the trading place, but is now the anteroom to the mayor’s office and is usually filled with politicians and place hunters, which are quite as numerous in Ireland as they are anywhere else.

The name of the capital of Ireland is a compound of two Gaelic words, Dubh-Linn, which signify “the black pool,” and was bestowed upon it more than two thousand years ago. There is a complete history of the city since the year 150 A.D., when a warlike king called “Conn of a Hundred Battles,” who had long been the overlord of all Ireland, was defeated by his rival, “Mogh of Munster,” and compelled to consent to a division of territory, the line being drawn from High Street, Dublin, across to the Atlantic Ocean near Galway. Three centuries later St. Patrick stopped on his way from Wicklow to his home at Armagh. The people complained to him of the bad quality of the water they were obliged to drink and he relieved them by causing a miraculous fountain to spring up near the site of the present cathedral that bears his name. In 1152 Dublin became the seat of an archbishopric by a decree of the pope and, shortly after the landing of Henry II., became the seat of the English government. In 1210 King John visited Ireland again and conferred many privileges upon the city. In 1394 King Richard came over with an army of thirty-four thousand and lived in great splendor in Dublin. All of the Irish chieftains submitted to his conciliatory policy. The great O’Neill, King of Ulster; MacMurrough, King of Leinster; O’Brien of Munster, and O’Connor of Connaught, the four kings of Ireland, were knighted and promised allegiance, but no sooner had Richard returned to England than the country was again in confusion.

In 1409 the “pale” (or inclosure) of Ireland was established, with the city of Dublin as its capital, a narrow strip of land thirty miles long by twenty wide, which alone was under English control and whose inhabitants alone in all Ireland could be relied upon to respect the royal commands. Dublin has been besieged, invaded by pirates, has been swept with plague and pestilence, and has been fought over by rival princes, but has kept growing, and in Queen Elizabeth’s time reached such commercial importance that it was necessary to erect a custom-house and a lighthouse to show the channel to those who went down to the sea in ships. The people were famous for their wealth and fashion. An official band of musicians played three times a week through the chief streets, there was a city physician, a fire department, an attempt at sanitation and waterworks were introduced, each citizen being allowed as much water daily as would flow through a quill.

In 1661 the people of Dublin spent $150,000, which was an enormous sum in those days, to celebrate the restoration, with banquets, fireworks, a pageant, and various other evidences of rejoicing. And the king, as an acknowledgment, sent the mayor a gold chain and conferred upon him the title of “The Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of Dublin.” Under the administration of Ormonde, Dublin expanded on all sides, and has since been growing, although from time to time there have been periods of distress and disorder.

Gradually, however, matters settled down into civilization and order. Courts were established, and an imposing building called “The Four Courts” was erected to accommodate the four divisions of the judiciary,—chancery, king’s bench, exchequer, and common pleas. In early times each term of court was opened by a religious service, when the choir of Christ Church would sing an anthem and the dean would offer prayer. One of the boundaries of the Four Courts was a dark, narrow passage, which a wit, struck with its gloom, nicknamed “Hell,” and carried out his idea by erecting at the entrance a fantastic figure supposed to represent the evil one. A Dublin newspaper of that date contains an advertisement reading as follows:

“Lodgings to let in Hell, suitable for a lawyer.”

You will remember Burns’s line: “As sure ’s the deil ’s in hell, or Dublin city.”

Dublin now has 300,000 population, and, although it is not so enterprising as Belfast, is one of the few cities in Ireland that shows growth. The population is divided as follows: Roman Catholic, 237,645; Church of Ireland, Episcopal, 41,663; Presbyterian, 4,074; Methodist, 2,342.

The means of grace are greater than the hope of glory. Promises of salvation are offered from fully eighty churches, as follows:

The “disestablishment” of the Church of Ireland, by which is meant the separation of the Protestant Episcopal denomination from the government, occurred in 1869 under the leadership of Mr. Gladstone as the price of peace and the termination of the rebellion in Ireland. It was demanded by the Roman Catholic bishops, who saw the injustice of compelling people of all denominations, without discrimination, to pay taxes to support an official church and the propaganda of a faith which they did not profess. So that branch of the Established Church of England which was found across St. George’s Channel was forcibly divorced and given alimony amounting to £8,080,000, or about $39,000,000 in American money. This represented a commutation in advance of the stipends to which the clergy of that church were entitled under the ecclesiastical laws for a term of fourteen years, as well as a vast amount of real estate and other property which belonged to the Established Church and was transferred to the new organization represented by a commission appointed for that purpose. At the same time the Presbyterian church of Ireland received £750,000, the Roman Catholic College of St. Patrick at Maynooth, £3,372,331, the board of intermediate education for school purposes, £1,000,000, the pension fund for teachers in Ireland, £1,127,150 and the Congested Districts Board, £1,500,000. Since that time these funds have increased in value considerably, and the incomes from them are devoted to the purposes named. They were paid in lieu of the annual contributions from the Established Church which had been enjoyed for many years and were capitalized on the basis of fourteen years’ income; that is, the government in order to satisfy everybody advanced in lump sums what it would have given in annual installments for the next fourteen years if the “disestablishment act” had not been passed.

The general synod which controls the affairs of the Episcopal Church of Ireland is composed of the two archbishops, the bishops, the deans, and canons of cathedrals, and archdeacons of diocese. The property of the church has advanced in value until it is now estimated at more than £12,000,000, or $60,000,000, and the income is now more than $2,000,000 a year, which is very large in proportion to its numbers.

These are the figures furnished by the different church organizations, but you will notice they exceed the total population by the latest census and therefore are only approximately correct.

At the time of the disestablishment in 1889 the adherents of the Church of Ireland numbered 693,347, which is a decrease of 112,258 since that time. This corresponds very accurately with the general decrease of the population of the island.

There are now 1,628 churches and chapels belonging to the Church of Ireland, which is an average of one for every 350 people, and from my short experience I should say that the members of the church were very negligent in attending worship.

The Roman Catholic church is the largest, the most prosperous, the most energetic, and has greater vitality than any other denomination, and is involved in all the politics and secular affairs as well as the ecclesiastical administration of the country, which is perfectly natural, because 74 per cent of the entire population belong to that denomination, and the number as reported—3,308,661—are divided among 1,084 parishes with 2,350 houses of worship, churches, and chapels.

The constant stream of emigration which flows from Ireland to the United States, Canada, Australia, and other more progressive and prosperous countries comes chiefly from the Roman Catholic church, which lost 238,646 members, or 6.7 per cent of its numbers, between the last two official censuses of the country. The Church of Ireland lost 3.2 per cent from a total of 13 per cent, the Presbyterians 0.4, while the Methodists increased 11.7 per cent, the Jews increased 119 per cent, and other religious persuasions 9.1 per cent.

But it is strange to say that the numbers of priests and monks and nuns are increasing every year, while the number of parishioners is falling off. In 1851, when the island had twice its present population, there were 2,291 priests in Ireland; in 1901 there were 3,157, of whom 4 were archbishops, 27 bishops, 392 monks, and the remainder parish priests, including chaplains and professors in educational institutions. The total of priests increased 307 during the last ten years. There are many monasteries, nunneries, and other monastic and educational houses in Ireland—93 for men and 242 for women.

The Presbyterians are third in numerical strength, wealth, and influence, and are found mostly in the northern part of the country. The membership represents the manufacturing, mercantile, and commercial classes, while the Church of Ireland represents the landowners, the government officials, the aristocracy, nobility, and the gentry. The Presbyterians have a higher average of wealth than any other denomination. Their contributions to benevolent purposes in 1907 were $1,040,000, which is very large for a population of 443,494 and 106,000 communicants. There were 96,000 children on the roll of the Presbyterian Sunday schools in 567 churches, which are distributed among 36 presbyteries and 5 synods. The minutes of the recent general assembly show 650 clergymen of that faith.

The Methodists are active and energetic, and ever since John Wesley appeared in Ireland in August, 1747, they have been strong in the faith. They are mostly in the cities among the middle classes, and the latest returns show 250 churches, 248 ministers and evangelists, 358 Sunday schools, and 26,000 scholars, for a total population of 61,255.

There are several other denominational organizations. Friends’ meeting-houses are found in several of the cities of Ireland, and the members of that faith have been here for centuries. Macroom Castle, in which William Penn was born, is still standing, and the Castle of Blackrock, the place where he embarked for America, is now a popular Sunday resort for the working people of that city.