THE CASE OF FATHER CONWAY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 454, 23 December 1881, Page 17

THE CASE OF FATHER CONWAY.

The following letter to the editor of the Freeman is from Father Conway, who was recently sentenced to two months' hard labour — which conviction was afterwards quashed— for striking a bailiff, will be read with interest : Clonbur, 13th October, Dear Sir, — Commenting on Monday's proceedings at Ballinrobe, you say in your issue of Tuesday, that Father Conway is involved in litigation which has nothing whatever to do with the present troubles; and several f riends from different parts of the country having inquired whether the papers attempted to be served on me were not, as reported, for the purpose of recovering a private personal debt owing by me to Lord Ardilaun, you will oblige by allowing me to state that the only litigation I am involved in consists in my being served, at at his lordship's suit, with a writ from the Queen's Bench ordering, or compelling ma to remove a certain]causeway which " obstructed his right-of-way, flooded his mountain lands," &c ; and that I owe Lord Ardilaun nothing except thanks for his kind invitations to dinner, &c., which I declined, and for the promise of a site, together with assistance to build a church, ■which promise he has not yet fulfilled. The causeway, I may remark, consists of a pile of loose stones, heaped up according to the plans of the eminent engineer, Mr Nimmo, and intended as the foundation of a passage or bridge across a deep, dangerous ferry in a certain part of Longh Mask. This construction has been raised at an expense of over £100, supplied by my venerated Archbishop and the Land League Relief Committee. It gave employment without demoralising with charity daring three or four weeks of last year to over one hundred families. It has not been objected to by any of the proprietors on either side of the ferry ; one of them actually approved of and encouraged the work. And as to the alleged injuries sustained, I may remark that his Lordship, or any one in his employment, never passed that way, nor is ever likely to pass ; while the inspector of drainage, sent there last December by the Lough Mask Drainage Commissioners, to whom Lord Ardilaun first made his first complaint, declared in his report that there was no flooding whatever, " even at the lowest summer level of the water," caused to the adjacent low-lying lands, still less to Lord Ardilaun's mountain lands, which are six or seven miles distant. Even these lands were not owned by Lord Ardilaun at the time the causeway was constructed. The necessity and utility of the work may be judged from the tacts that scarcely a year passes without one or more deaths being caused directly or indirectly by the want which was attempted to be supplied ; that the 250 families who reside inside the ferry had, previous to its construction, no other means of crossing except by a small boat ; and when bringing stock to fare or to market, even in the depth of winter, they had been obliged to swim them at very considerable risk and not infrequent loss. When passing there on Sundays and at other times to celebrate Mass, attend calls, Sec, I, as well as my predecessors, were obliged to alight, take the saddle into the boat, and compel the horse, often covered with foam, to plunge into waters half frozen as they might be ; while the sufferings of passengers who came there late at night, and who were unable to awake the boatmen on the other side, and who were, therefore, obliged to remain out ail night, are as innumerable as they are heart-rending. The very first call I attended inside the ferry was to the mother of a large family whose sickness and death were caused by being thus obliged.to stay out all night. In. February, last year, a poor widow, who was detained here waiting for her dole of relief meal till late at night, proceded as far as the ferry on her way home. She tried in vain to awake the ferryman, and was obliged to remain on the shore all night. Next momiug she endeavoured to reach her little cabin, situated high up on a steep mouutain skle, but was unable to proceed farther than a neighbour's house at the foot, where she took ill and dietl in a few days, her death having been | caused by fever brought on by hunger and exposure. Her son and daughter who attended her were also stricken down. The little boy got up to his cabin, lay upon a wretched pallet of straw for eight weeks, during which human being never crossed the threshold except j his little brother, the medical doctor and myself. Some days after 1 the little girl was taken ill. The van for conveying her to the workhouse came as far as the ferry. Two men conveyed her on a door to the shore of the lake half a mile distant ; the door was put into a little boat and rowed over three miles of rou^h water. I helped to cunvey the patient to the boat, to steady the door during the passage, to put her into the poorhouse van, and I am not ashamed to admit that my feelings overcame me as I f ollowel the van on its way. Ami 1 am proud to say that I then resolved, and have partially carried out my determination, to remedy the ciuse of so much suffering. For endeavouring to carry out this work, which would injure none and benefit thousands, I have been cited, at the suit, &c, to a court where I cannot appear — at the suit of oue concerned. The citation was offered to a nou- Catholic, and a fabulous amount promised for the service. None but a notorious low character, bound to keep the peace, and now known by the sobriquet of Shan-na-Sog-garth, could be found to do the job. He dogged my steps to the deck of a public steamer (of course without directions to do so), and in the presence of a more than ordinary large multitude of passengers and bystanders, in the presence of Lord Ardilaun's agent and his wife, presented me with this document, t who3e purport even half a dozen of the lookers-on did not understand. The insult thus offered — not by the hireling, but by those who employed and directed him —I repelled in a manner which, I believe, has given offence to many whose esteem I value, but who may have formed their judgment in ignorance of the facts. Monday's proceeding* show that I have not forfeited the regard of those who knew all ths circumstances, and these proceedings may warn autocrats not to enter again into a prosecution or a persecution against a priest, however humble, who, while not neglecting his sacred duties, h&s endeavoured to temporarily serve his people.