One of the most frightful massacres which Ireland has yet
witnessed was reported here this day week as 'having happened in the county of Galway, on the night of Thursday week. The family of a wretchedly poor, industrious peasant, John Joyce, of Maamtrassna, a spot in the wildest and most mountainous part of Galway, not very far from Cong., was massacred on that night by a party of ten, who killed the father, mother, grandmother, and daughter on the spot; and wounded the two boys so fatally that one of them died the next day, while the youngest, who is being nursed at Gong, is still in a most critical state. The coroner's jury, some of whom understood ' only Irish, and did not comprehend all the evidence given, brought in a verdict of death by wilful murder against some person or persons unknown, the police not thinking it well apparently to produce the evidence they have collected as to the criminals before they had matured their case. Of what offence against the assassins Joyce had been guilty is not known, bat it is obvious that the Secret Societies of Ireland are afraid of the revolt of the peasantry against their authority, and determined to inspire the utmost terror wherever they see the smallest signs of independence.
