The Sun. — 1860-02-07 (London, England)

IRELAND.  DUBLIN, MONDAY MORNING.  ALARMING STATE OF TO,RMAKEADy. The brutal murder of Lord Piunket's plough. man, in this district, has turned public attention to the lawless state of affairs that prevails in it. The people, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, carry arms in the open day ; and since the burning of the school-house of Tuam, the former will not buy or sell with the latter. The Daily Express says :—" The horrifying murder at Tourmakeady is only one, though certainly much the worst, of a series of outrages, systematically planned and daringly perpetrated in the district of Pal try during the lust 15 months. This organised conspiracy is directed against Protestants, and chiefly against the tenants of Lord Plunket, with the avowed object of exterminating them. Unoffending men and women have been constantly attacked and severely beaten. The lives of witnesses attending the sessions at Ballinrobe have been endangered by furious mobs. One house was burned, and an attempt was made to burn another occupied by Protestants. Poor Harvison, the first victim of the systematic persecution, whose object is to banish the Protestants,' was a native of Monaghan. He settled in Tourmakeady seven or eight years ago. He was a respectable, inoffensive man. He was not a convert from Romanism, and he had no connection with the notices to quit served on some of the tenants. The only causes that cau be assigned for this foul murder are, that the victim was a Protestant, and that he was a witness in a case where the relatives of some influential parties were convicted for poaching on Lord Planket's estate. The Government should not be ignorant of the fact that for miles round Tourmakeady the Roman Catholic inhabitants carry arms in the open day, and shots are being continually fired at night. In consequence of the terror thus produced, increased tenfold by this murder, the few isolated Protestants are armed also in self-defence, and do not venture to retire to rest without barricading their doors. Is it not time, then, for the Government to protect these peaceable subjects of the Queen ? If something effectual be not speedily done, more outrages of a similar kind will probably be committed."  Another Dublin journal corroborates the statements of the Express, and adds : _ ___  " Some years since Tipperary was the Aceldama of Ireland. A vigorous execution of the law on the part of the Government, and a determined resistance on the part of the landlords, quelled Ribbon ism, and its result—murder--in that county. But the evil subdued in Tipperary has risen dominant in the King's County and Mayo. In the former, drilled bands of armed banditti attack the dwelling-houses of the gentry and respectable tenantry who are Protestants. Since the burning of the school-house of Tuam, the line of demarcation between Protestants and Romanists has spread wider and wider. No R'omanist will buy or sell with a Protcstant— Protestant children are assailed on their way to school—Protestant ladies are insulted in the streets with the coarsest, the most indecent, and insulting language, and the poor peasant who ventures beyond the limits of his own field to fair or market does so carrying his life in his own hand. For a year or more the districts of PL r,ry and Tourmakeady have been the seat of chronic agitation. A turbulent priest, the Abbe Lavelle, whose present conduct is only in conformity with his antecedents, has infused new vigour into the anti-Protestant crusade." Nor is he without other aid. A local journal, the Connaught Patriot, fans the flame of discontent—out-nations the Nation in its abuse of everything Protestant, and babbles away its treason to willing ears. As the result, the whole country is in agitation, and all who have anything to lose are in alarm. The priests openly proclaim the banishment of all Protestants from the district, and prophesy that before winter is ended many of them will " make clay" in the churchyard. Is it any wonder that an excitable and grossly ignorant rabble should interpret their words as an encouragement to crime, and believe that they cannot be punished for a little over-zeal in the cause of their Church ?