On Sunday last a serious and strange calamity fell upon
the Catholic worshippers in the little chapel of Derrybeg, near Gweedore, in Donegal. The chapel is built over the surface of a stream by which a little lake communicates with the sea, and is built there because the neighbouring proprietors, who are Pro- testant, would not give an inch of ground anywhere else for the chapel. Last Sunday, during service, a mountain flood suddenly came down, filled the chapel to the height of twelve feet, and drowned many who were in it, the priest himself only escaping by leaping upon the altar, then upon the table above the altar, and making his way ultimately through the window. The population of Donegal have been some of the greatest sufferers by the recent famine, but the most patient of those sufferers. They have not resisted eviction ; they have not shot at the agents ; they have not assembled in crowds to resist the process-servers. Mr. A. M. Sullivan writes an admirable appeal to the Times of Thursday on behalf of the sufferers from this calamity, the people's natural benefactor, Mr. Ross, of Dunlewy Castle, being away in Egypt, and many families, in great distress before, reduced to actual want by the sudden disaster which drowned those by whose labour they were supported.
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