IRELAND.

The Lord-Lieutenant is to leave Dublin today, on a visit to his father, Fortescue. It has been reported that he will not return, but thai be will succeed Lord Normanby at the Home Office ; Lord Normanby himself going out as Governor-General of India. The Globe, however, declares that the report is, " in all its parts, a mere fabrication."

The Lord-Lieutenant has appointed a Commission, consisting of the Duke of Leinster, Lords Rosse and firdare, Sir John Burgoyne, Sir Wil- liam Hamilton, Professors Lloyd and M'Cullagh, and Captain Larcom, who are to consider in what manner the sum of 5,3001., hitherto annually voted for the Royal Dublin Society, can be best applied for the promo- tion of science and the useful arts in Ireland. At the last meeting of the Society, it was resolved to petition the House of Commons praying it to address the Queen to recommend that the usual Parliamentary grant may be/ made to the Society, and further praying the House to institute an inquiry as to how the funds intrusted to the Society have been administered.

Mr. Edmund Macdonnel, of Glenarm Castle, has issued an address to the electors of Antrim county, in the Conservative interest. He says that " his principles contemplate the permanent maintenance of the Protestant religion "; but he concurs in the temperate course which has been pursued by the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel.

At the weekly meeting of the Repeal Association, in the Dublin Corn Exchange, on Monday, Mr. O'Connell made his reappearance. The Exchange was crowded to excess. The Agitator delivered a very long speech, crammed with repetitions of the old topics,—the unequal distri- bution of the Parliamentary franchise ; the seventeen small states of Europe that have independent governments ; Cromwell ; English hatred of Ireland, and so forth. By repealing the Union, he said, and freeing Ireland from her responsibility for the National Debt of the United Kingdom, she would be left with only forty millions of debt, (she owed but twenty millions at the time of the Union,) and she could take means to pay that off in five years : so he was struggling to free her from taxation. He gave a new turn to his standing quotation-

.— Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow ?'

And let me add-

. By your right arms the conquest must be wrought:

Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? Na.'

When the poet talks of getting redress from the Gauls and Muscovites, he answers ' No.' But mayhap the Gaul and the Russian may yet help to re- lieve us. Mark me—for the last six months England is in constant peril of war, and during all that time have the public writers been prophesying that it was inevitable. Have they been exciting the nation to such a war by eulo- .giunts on our national glory, or a perfect assurance in our success ? Nci such thing. For the first time in English history, the public writers in England, of all parties, have, instead of encouraging, deprecated hostilities with the utmost of their energies. They have been imploring France not to proceed to extre- mities, and arguing with every possible ingenuity to show that we should have no war. To America they have been also demonstrating that she ought not to raise the cry of battle, in a manner which enabled them to put forward ad- mirable specimens of logic. But, oh ! I ask, is this the ancient chivalry of England ?—arguing with and seeking to convince France that England is not disposed for hostilities! Worthy France,' they say, 'you look angry ; we im- plore you not to go to war. Excellent America—bold Republicans—you are very brave and very good; but pray don't be angry with England '? What are England's prospects ? She has a struggle in China, where much money and blood must be expended; she has a struggle in India, where money will also be ex- annded and blood copiously shed; and who shall tell me that there is peace in Syria? Two days ago a document was signed, and then John Bull's spirits rose— the Funds got buoyant ; but this very day we are told that, instead of the quarrel being amicably arranged, the last attempt made to do so has thrown new ingredients into the cauldron of already discontented France. I do not know how the matter will be settled ; but this I do know, that it is not wise for England to go to war with any country until she first conciliates Ireland. -(Loud cheers.) Again, look at America! • * * I am not, however, so sure that they will not take APLeod's life, although it would evidently be a base act of injustice ; for these things are thought very little of in America _amongst the Lynch-law men. I am, I repeat, by no means sure that they won't do it ; and if they do, war is inevitable. If the question of the Boundaries with that country be not also settled, England must submit, unless she makes peace with Ireland. If the question of the horrible traffic of slaves, which this Republican America still encourages—ah ! what a disgrace to the name of liberty !—be not discontinued—if England insists on searching slave-vessels, I would advise her not to go to war until concessions are made to Ireland."

Mr. O'Connell replies to the argument that bullying England will obtain no good for Ireland, by citing instances in which England has been bullied with the best effect-

" How did the Catholics of Ireland get, in the year 1778, their first act of -emancipation ? General Gates conquered Burgoyne at Saratoga, and made the British army surrender. Ireland immediately rose and said, You must give us an Emancipation Bill:' and England was bullied, and granted it. (Cheers.) The next year the Volunteers sprang into action; and Ireland called for free trade, which England refused contemptuously : the Irish put on the cannon of the Volunteers, Free trade, or else —,' and the word else was just down by the touch-hole. (Cheers and laughter.) What was the con- sequence ? England was bullied, and free trade was granted. Again, in 1782, when the combined fleets of France, Spain, and Holland, swept the Channel, the Volunteers gained the independence of the Irish Parliament, which Eng- land was most unwilling to grant ; but she was bullied again, and may God bless their memories for doing so. (Cheers.) In 1792, the English Govern- ment refused to allow the petition of the Roman Catholics for further emanci • patina: but in that year Dumourier won the battle of Jemmappes ; and, at the close of it, England was bullied again to allow Catholic barristers to prac- tise ; for which I humbly thank them. In 1793, when Belgium was conquered by France, further concessions were bullied from England: and I want to know whether it was out of grace or favour she granted Emancipation ? England won't be bullied, forsooth ! I am not a fighting man, and yet I have bullied England from this room, and succeeded." (Loud cheers.)

A voice—" And will again."

Mr. O'Connell—" I hope I am doing it now. I had the at hero and the greatest statesman of England against me—Wellington of Waterloo—a mighty great general—and Peel, the great orator ; yet from this room, Protestant and Catholic bullied both statesman and warrior, and obtained Emancipation." .(Cheers.)

Then for the future-

" I throw out these things here in order to warn the people of England of the impolicy of their going to war under the circumstances in which they have placed Ireland at present. A single shot fired from a hostile vessel —one ball booming over the ocean from a hostile cannon to England then —" [Here the honourable and learned gentleman placed his finger to his nose, looked most significantly, and immense and enthusiastic cheering in- steady burst forth from every quarter of the room.] Mr. O'Connell declared that Lord Ebrington has lost the confidence of the Irish people, on account of his opposition to Repeal. Mr. O'Connell announced a plan for enrolling a section of the Repeaters into a baud of Volunteers, to devise the means of carrying out his new scheme for improving the tenant's tenure of land ; and he promised to detail his project in a report on the following Monday.

A great Repeal meeting was held in the Corn-market of Limerick, on the 25th March ; the congregated trades, with the banners of the several guilds, marching in procession to the place. The great bulk of the persons present, says the Dublin Pilot, "belonged to the class of independent farmers and intelligent operatives. There could not be less than from 15,000 to 20,000 persons present at any time during the proceedings."

At a weekly meeting of the Metropolitan Conservative Society of Dublin, on Monday, an address to the Queen was adopted, conveying an assurance of unshaken loyalty, and condemning the warlike threats of the Repealers-

" We have heard with feelings of indignation and regret, sentiments put for- ward by a party in this country, who assume to represent the feeling of the Irish people, ' that in the event of a war, your Majesty could not rely on the cooperation of your Majesty's subjects in Ireland unless further concessions be granted to that party.' We do not hesitate to assert our entire conviction that the great body of the people of Ireland do not participate in these senti- ments; while for ourselves, as Protestants, we feel bound to come forward and declare our unalterable attachment to your Majesty's person, and our deter- mination to uphold, as far as in us lies, the Union between Great Britain and Ireland; and we beg leave to assure your Majesty that we are now, as the Protestants of this country have ever been, prepared to support your Majesty against the aggressions of external as well as the hostility of internal foes." A "great public demonstration" in favour of Lord Morpeth's Regis- tration Bill was made at Clonakilty, on the 24th. " Every avenue to the town," says the Pilot, " was crowded with dense masses of the peo- ple, literally wedged together." Some speeches, a musical band, and a petition, were the attractions which drew the multitude together.

A "great meeting" of the county of Tipperary was held at Cashel, on the 25th, for the same purpose. The meeting was too great for the Court-house, where the people first assembled ; and so they adjourned to a platform which had already been prepared on the Green, in antici- pation of the probable adjournment. Here twenty thousand persons received the resolutions proposed, with " thrilling enthusiasm." On Wednesday, Mr. O'Connell attended the weekly meeting of the Dublin " Board of Trade" for the encouragement of Irish manufac- tures. After a long address, he moved a resolution, " That six trus- tees be nominated to prepare a prospectus for the public, and to take such further steps as may be necessary to establish the building of ships in Dublin, and to report this day week. Trustees—the Reverend Dr. Flanagan ; Daniel O'Connell, Esq., M.P.; James Fegan, James Haughton, James Perry, and William Winans, Esqrs." The resolu- tion was carried of course. Mr. O'Connell's countrymen are not very docile pupils in monopoly : a cover of a parcel of stockings was exhi- bited, marked " Irish manufacture," which had been detected to have been the cover of a parcel of English stockings from Nottingham.

A meeting was held last week at Belfast, for the purpose of esta- blishing a society for the promotion of the growth and better cultiva- tion of flax. Sir Robert Bateson, who presided, observed—" In no branch of husbandry is our inferority more manifest, on a comparison of our crops with those produced on the Continent, than in the culture and management of the article of flax. To a defective knowledge of the improved system of cultivating and preparing flax is to be attri- buted the coarseness of fibre which is found in the bulk of that brought to market in this country ; not to any obstacle which our soil or climate opposed to the production of flax of the finest quality." Sir Robert and other speakers thought that Ireland could rival Holland and Belgium in the quality of flax, with proper methods of cultivation.

At Cork Assizes, two men were found guilty of the abduction and violation of a young woman, under circumstances of great barbarity. What rendered the case remarkable, was the fact that the father of the prosecutrix had joined with the relatives of the prisoners to induce her to marry one of them, and on her refusal he threatened to get her mar- ried by force. She fled, and found protection with the police. When she came into court, a priest was brought to her, to induce her to con- sent to the marriage, before she entered the witness-box. After the trial, her father refused to admit an "informer" into his house. She will therefore be destitute, when her support as a Crown witness ceases. [Are there no people in Cork able and willing to ascertain the truth of such a tale, and to preserve the girl?]

During service on Sunday last, the house of James Carbery, steward to W. Roe, Esq., of Rockwell, was attacked by an armed party. The door being broken, a man with his face blackened entered, and pre- senting a gun at the breast of the maid-servant, who was the only person at home, demanded arms. On her saying there were none, he seized her by the hair and forced her into a closet, locked the door, and commenced a very diligent search. The girl contrived to make her escape to Rockwell House ; and was hotly pursued by the ruffian, who fired at her, but without effect. The Marquis of Waterford and the Reverend Mr. Mandeville, returning froin New Melton Church, heard of the outrage : his Lordship proceeded forthwith in pursuit ; and after a run of a mile and a half over a stiff country, accounted for his man in the house of Denis Hogan, at the commons of Cashel; where, on entering, his Lordship said, " Come along, old chap ! you should. have washed your face a little better." As soon as he brought the prisoner to the high-road, he placed him in his phaeton, which his servant fol- lowed with in the direction of the chase. His Lordship drove him to Rockwell ; where he was fully identified, and committed for trial at next Assizes. Two other fellows have since been arrested by Captain Nangle. —Tipperary Constitution.