oaths had been taken; and that was held under the words of the statute not to be sufficient.

How is the case with regard to landed property, purchased by Protestants from Catholics, since the year 1778?-In practice it has not been looked to much; very few Catholics have sold landed property; they have been rather acquiring than selling; but in practice no barrister could allow a Protestant client to purchase a property from a Catholic, without taking special care to see that a certificate of his having taken the oaths was enrolled in the court of Chancery.

It would not be a good title without?-I should not consider it so I would call it a bad title.

Is the oath required to be taken, the oath of the Act of 1773? There are the Acts of 1773, 1778, and 1793, that include oaths.

Do they all relate to purchases of landed property?—All those that are required are necessary, in order to give title to land.

Does any practical difficulty arise in taking those oaths according to law?-Some little delay, but no substantial difficulty in taking them; the great defect at present is, that they may be taken at sessions, and the roll kept there; there is no obligation to transmit that roll to Chancery; and as the records of the inferior courts in Ireland have been hitherto very badly kept, there is a danger of the loss of the evidence of having taken them.

Can you mention to the Committee, any other disabilities, to which Catholics are liable, under the existing laws?—I have not, upon my recollection at this moment, any other; to the best of my recollection, I have gone through the actual disabilities.

An impression has gone abroad, particularly in Ireland, that the priests of parishes throughout Ireland, have got records of the forfeited estates in Ireland; will you state, whether that has come within your knowledge?-I am thoroughly convinced, that there is not one single particle of truth in it; that it is as unfounded as any thing can possibly be; and having been examined, as to the forfeited properties the last day, and having been asked, whether I had any myself, I would wish to add this, both my brothers are in independent circumstances, wealthy for country gentlemen; they are both younger than me; all the property of each of them is forfeited property; and I just closed a purchase for my youngest brother, of an estate near the town of Threlin, a fee-simple estate, producing at present about 700l. a year, which was forfeited at the usurpation, by a Colonel Roger M'Eligot, and in that in

stance we considered it a better title for having been forfeited; and the way that I knew it was the forfeiture of a Colonel Roger M'Eligot, was, by it so appearing upon the patent and the official documents making part of the title.

Are not Catholics prohibited, as Catholics, from having arms in their possession?-There is a higher qualification required for a Catholic to carry arms than a Protestant; he must have 1007. a year in freehold estate, or a thousand pounds personal fortune.

Every Protestant may carry arms?-Every Protestant in Ireland may carry arms.

He must also take the oaths?-Certainly; the entire penal code is enforced against any Catholic who has not taken the oaths; there are recent Acts, requiring the registry of arms of Protestants as well as Catholics, but those are expressly temporary statutes; and I do not speak of those temporary statutes applying to disturbed times; but with the exception of those temporary statutes, the right of every Protestant to carry arms in Ireland is, in my opinion, unqualified.

Do Catholics generally take those oaths, is it a matter of course for them to take them? -The Catholics are always perfectly ready to take the oaths; I never knew a Catholic refuse to take them.

Are they all aware of the necessity of taking them? They are not all aware, by any means, of the necessity of taking them; when it was necessary to take them before an election, so as to have a certificate of their having taken them at the election, all Catholics had taken them; but when the law was relaxed, so as to enable them to be taken during the election, it became useless for the candidates to object that the certificate of a Catholic was not ready to be produced, for the objection could only pospone the vote a few minutes; the consequence is, that the candidates no longer object, they give up an objection that would be futile, and as, therefore, practically, the certificate is not called for, the Catholics are beginning very much to neglect taking the oaths; and in the next generation, if some alteration is not made in the law, great confusion as to property will ensue.

Are Catholics all obliged to take those oaths, to qualify for voting at elections?-To this extent, that in point of law they have not a right to vote unless they have taken the oaths; at present they need not have a certificate beforehand, for they may take them during the election if the objection be raised. I was two or three times assessor to the sheriffs, and at that period there was not any difference on the subject of these oaths.

In the event of a petition against the return, would the votes of all those persons who could not produce a certificate, be disallowed?-In my opinion they ought to be; however the question would arise thus, if the Catholic takes the oath at any time, it has under the statute of 1793, a retrospective effect, and a question would arise upon that objection to him, if he had taken it before his vote came before the committee, it would certainly be contended that that was sufficient, besides, it could not well come before the committee, unless an objection were made at the election, and if it were made at the election it would have been obviated at once.

Has not, in practice, the entry of the clerk of the peace been sufficient at the time of election ?-No; the clerk of the peace was directed by the statutes to keep a roll, that roll would be sufficient, for it was from that the certificate was taken.

Are you aware that by an English Act of the 31st of George III. Catholic places of worship and Catholic clergymen are protected from disturbances, during divine service? Yes.

Does the same privilege and protection exist in Ireland ?→ No, it does not: there is no statute protecting Catholic places of worship or divine service in them, except the Whiteboy Acts, when a county is disturbed, and no county, unless disturbed, is within the purview of the Whiteboy Acts; they are called into operation, and the felonies created by those statutes are constituted felonies by the fact of the county being disturbed; whenever a place is so disturbed, then it is either a misdemeanour or a felony to disturb divine service in a Catholic place of worship, or to injure the building itself; they get, therefore, protection by statute only by the Whiteboy Acts, the Catholic clergymen having been frequently the object of those Whiteboy disturbances, as well as the owners of tithes.

Is not the state of the law, with regard to intermarriages of Catholics and Protestants, very much complained of?-It is much complained of, and I have known it in practice attended with great mischief; it was not at all generally known, and is not even now universally known, that the marriage of a Protestant and a Catholic by a Catholic priest, is void; recent circumstances, and the great circulation of matter through the press, have made it known; but I have known one instance of a Protestant of ancient estate who married a Catholic lady; the priest married them, they were both quite ignorant that that was a void marriage; they had three or four children; he had not the estate at the time of the marriage, the estate descended upon him afterwards, and when he came to consult counsel upon some of the arrangements of the estate, he discovered that his three eldest children were bastards, and could

not inherit, and then he went, after six or seven years cohabitation, to church and married the lady over again; she continued a Catholic, and does still.

What penalties are Catholic priests liable to, for marrying a Protestant and a Catholic?-There are two penalties by the law; the old statute makes it a capital felony, and the statute of 1793 gives a penalty of 500l. so that if both those statutes co-exist, there is first a capital felony, for which he may be hanged, and then there is a pecuniary penalty of 5007.; but my own humble judgment is, that the necessary effect of the latter statute is to repeal the former; it repeals it by necessary implication.

Have any instances of late occurred, in which priests have been prosecuted for marrying Catholics and Protestants? Several; a case occurred in the county of Galway, and there is a priest now from the county of Derry, a fugitive for having married a Catholic and a Presbyterian; that is now depending. The consequences of a marriage of that kind being celebrated, are to illegitimatize the issue?-Certainly.

And to create a confusion with respect to property?—Yes. You feel it a very desirable thing, therefore, that the thing should be prevented?-Certainly, that some arrangement should take place upon that subject.

Do not you think it would be a very desirable thing, if the Roman Catholic bishops were, in their several dioceses, to issue a cautionary letter to their several priests, to request them to attend to the provisions of the law upon the subject?I believe that that letter is unnecessary, because, in every case where a Catholic clergyman can abstain conscientiously from doing it, he is directed so to abstain; but there are cases in which he would feel it his duty, from motives of conscience, to marry persons particularly circumstanced, as where family peace and concord would be interrupted, and cases where one can easily conceive it may be necessary for the prevention of immorality, and preventing the continuance of immorality.

Could not that be equally effected by the ceremony first being performed by a Protestant clergyman?-It could; but there are cases where that cannot be arrived at so easily.

You mean, there are some cases of extreme urgency, that would not wait for the performance of the ceremony by a Protestant clergyman?-Yes, or there would be reasons for preventing it. Again, the Catholic clergyman is equally guilty in point of law, whether he knows that the party is a Protestant or not. There was a case tried at Galway, where the parties represented to the priest, that they were Catholics, and he incurred a capital felony, if the capital felony still

exists, by marrying persons who he was convinced were Catholics.

Was not there a case of that sort that occurred in the county of Roscommon ?-There was.

Was not that case one in which the party who was married represented himself to be a Catholic, and afterwards turning out to be a Protestant, he went and instituted an action against the priest, land recovered penalties?—Yes, 500l.

Do you recollect the name?-I do not recollect the name of the case.

It occurred last summer?-Within the last eighteen months. The facilities of marriage in Ireland are great; and my own opinion is, that they ought to be so; that immorality is produced by their not being so, and no other result; and I do not myself think there would be the least inconvenience in making the celebration of marriage more public, and allowing the clergymen of the various classes of Dissenters and Catholics to marry, where either of the parties was of the communion of the person celebrating the marriage.

Are there not a class of priests that go by the name of Father Tack'ems?—There are individuals in that class, that have been silenced by their bishops, deprived of their livings for misconduct, who have supported themselves afterwards by celebrating such marriages; but, as I remember, there is a statute making that species of celebration a transportable felony in the priest, although it does not render the marriage invalid, making it penal in him to follow that trade. No Catholic clergyman, who is not under censure of his bishop, has ever acquired that appellation, or has, I believe, deserved it.

What is the state of the law, with regard to Catholics attending vestries?-At present Catholics cannot attend vestries whenever any question arises respecting the building or repairing of churches; they are excluded by a statute passed in the reign of either George the First or George the Second, from such vestries; and sums to an extremely large amount are levied upon the property of Catholics, for it is the occupier that pays the parish cess, by very small vestries of Protestants, in consequence of that statute.

If the Catholic conforms to the Protestant religion, and then relapses to the Catholic, in what situation is he under, by the laws of Ireland?-I should speak with great diffidence upon that subject, because, whatever opinion I formed upon it was not, I believe, consistent with an extremely high authority in the law; but my opinion is, that if, after a relapse to Popery, the person takes the Catholic oaths at the sessions, .there is no question made as to the relapse, and he is precisely in the same

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