BISHOP CROKE ON IRELAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7106, 26 August 1884, Page 6

BISHOP CROKE ON IRELAND.

Ah imposing demonstration, half religious, half political, took plaoe on Sunday, July 6, at Ballyneety, not far from the Limerick Junction, a place rendered memorable by a daring exploit of the famous Sarsfield. The Mayor and a number of the Corporation of Limeriok attended, as did also a deputation from the Town Commissioners and Board of Guardians of Tipperary. The ceremony consisted in consecrating and dedicating a new Roman Catholic church, snd it was performed by Dr. Croke, Archbishop of Cashsl, whose presence secured an immense attendance. The church is built just beside "Sarsfield's Rock," a place where Sarsfield blew up William's siege train. In the course of his sermon the Archbishop exhorted his audienoe to pray for their country, that she might be a nation onoe again, a* they all wished her to be, and that the Irish (>eople might never fail in their allegiance to the Holy See. Subsequently an address was presented to His Grace on behalf of the Corporation of Limerick, and in the conrse of a lengthened reply he gave a sketch of the life and death of a former Archbishop of the same see—Dr. Hurly, who was in 1584 strangled by the English— and insisted on the necessity of an energetio course of action if the people wished to attain their rights, civil or religious. The proceedings were most enthusiastic.