" BUNNAHONE."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR..]
SIR,—One cannot but feel instinctively when reading "Father Ralph" that the writer• is thoroughly acquainted with the life he portrays. Although he finds fault with much of the system of the Roman Church in Ireland, yet he does not fail to show us the holy and the noble characters—both clerical and lay—that exist within it, typical of the deep innate religious feeling of the Irish as a race. With regard to what Miss Monahan says about church-building, there are few if any old churches in Ireland in use by any communion. I do not include the cathedrals. Nearly all the Protestant churches I have seen throughout Ireland are of one type and of a com- paratively recent date, and could by no possibility have been " taken from " Roman Catholics. The increase in the build- ing of their churches has been enormous within my recollection, and it is still going on, while we know the population has
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