REMINISCENCES OF AN IRISH PRIEST 1 8 4 5-1920 By Canon B. R.
Young, M.A.
. Mr. Shane Leslie, in a brief foreword, recommends this little book, Reminiscences of an Irish Priest, 1845-1920 (published by W. Tempest, Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, 5s.), to those who love the savour of old days and the preservation of literary &quer- rotypes. The fortunate reader who chances on Canon Young's memoirs will certainly agree. Here are absorbing glimpses of Ireland after the Famine, of dark days of suspense -during the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny. One early memory is that of John Duffy, who was then one hundred and twenty years old. He was dressed in the traditional grey tail coat and vest, drab corduroy knee-breeches and grey stockings, and shoes. "He had married a year before I met him, and his wife presented him with a son, at whose birth my father officiated, and it was to pay his fee the old man had walked four miles that morning.' Even in the 'fifties the railroad was still an adventure. Canon Young was on the first train that crossed the new viaduct over the Boyne. 'The train crawled, the 'passengers were • warned not to look out of the windows. Men were grim, ladies shrieked and fainted. The historic river had been safely crossed I Vigorous and eccentric ecclesiastics flourished in the Church of Ireland before Disestablishment, and Canon Young records anecdotes and ancient conflicts. The Rector of Ballybay was at variance 'with Bishop Stack, but he kept to his principles with sturdy loyalty. He was not only a Home Ruler—an .unheard of thing in the days of Isaac Butt—he was, moreover, an ardent High Churchman. The memorial which he caused to be erected in memory of his wife aroused a storm of protest. But "the Cross was fixed and there remains, the first Cross in a Church of Ireland graveyard of Clogher diocese since the Reformation." Opposition culminated on a Sunday in the !seventies. Two hundred men, provided with bludgeons, gathered from the Orange Lodges and filled the nave, but their plans were frustrated by armed police.
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