234 DRAGGING PROTESTANTS THROUGH BOGS IN IRELAND.

DRAGGING PROTESTANTS THROUGH BOGS IN IRELAND.

CONTINUATION OF THE IRISH MASSACRE.

N the county of Antrim they murdered nine hundred and fifty-four protestants in one morning; and afterward about twelve hundred more in that county.

At a town called Lisnegary, they forced twenty-four protestants into a house, and then setting fire to it, burned them together, counterfeiting their outcries in derision to others.

Among other acts of cruelty, they took two children belonging to an Englishwoman, and dashed out their brains before her face; after which they threw the mother into a river, and she was drowned. They served many other children in the like manner, to the great affliction of their parents, and the disgrace of human nature.

In Kilkenny, all the protestants, without exception, were put to death; and some of them in so cruel a manner, as, perhaps, was never before thought of.

They beat an Englishwoman with such savage barbarity, that she had scarce a whole bone left; after which they threw her into a ditch; but not satisfied with this, they took her child, a girl about six years of age, and after ripping up its belly, threw it to its mother, there to languish till it perished.

They forced one man to go to mass, after which they ripped open his body, and in that manner left him. They sawed another asunder, cut the throat of his wife, and after having dashed out the brains of their child, an infant, threw it to the swine, who greedily devoured it.

After committing these, and many other horrid cruelties, they took the heads of seven protestants, and among them that of a pious minister, all which they fixed up at the market-cross. They put a gag into the minister's mouth, then slit his cheeks to his ears, and laying a leaf of a bible before it, bid him preach, for his mouth was wide enough. They did several other things by way of derision, and expressed the greatest satisfaction at having thus murdered and exposed the unhappy protestants.

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It is impossible to conceive the pleasure these monsters took in exercising their cruelty, and to increase the misery of those who fell into their hands, when they butchered them they would say, "Your soul to the devil."

One of these miscreants would come into a house with his hands imbrued in, blood, and boast that it was English blood, and that his sword had pricked the white skins of the protestants, even to the hilts.

When any one of them had killed a protestant, others would come and receive a gratification in cutting and mangling the body; after which they left it exposed to be devoured by dogs; and when they had slain a number of them, they would boast that the devil was beholden to them for sending so many souls to hell.

But it is no wonder they should thus treat the innocent Christians, when they hesitated not to commit blasphemy against God, and his most holy word.

In one place they burnt two protestant bibles, and then said they had burnt hell-fire. In the church at Powerscourt, they burnt the pulpit, pews, chest, and bibles, belonging to it.

They took other bibles, and after wetting them with dirty water, dashed them in the faces of the protestants, saying, "We know you love a good lesson; here is an excellent one for you; come to-morrow, and you shall have as good a sermon as this."

Some of the protestants they dragged by the hair of their heads into the church, where they stripped and whipped them in the most cruel manner, telling them, at the same time, that, "if they came to-morrow, they should hear the like sermon."

In Munster they put to death several ministers in the most shocking manner. One, in particular, they stripped naked, and driving him before them, pricked him with swords and darts till he fell down and expired.

In some places they plucked out the eyes and cut off the hands of the protestants, and in that manner turned them into the fields, there to wander out a miserable existence..

They obliged many young men to force their aged parents to a river, where they were drowned: wives to assist in hanging their husbands; and mothers to cut the throats of their children.

In one place they compelled a young man to kill his father, and then immediately hanged him. In another they forced a woman

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to kill her husband, then obliged the son to kill her, and afterward shot him through the head.

At a place called Glaslow, a popish priest, with some others, prevailed on forty protestants to be reconciled to the church of Rome. They had no sooner done this, than they told them they were in a good faith, and that they would prevent their falling from it and turning heretics, by sending them out of the world, which they did by immediately cutting their throats.

In the county of Tipperary, upward of thirty protestants, men, women, and children, fell into the hands of the papists, who, after stripping them naked, murdered them with stones, pole-axes, swords, and other weapons.

In the county of Mayo, about sixty protestants, fifteen of whom were ministers, were, upon covenant, to be safely conducted to Galway, by one Edmund Burk and his soldiers: but that inhuman monster by the way drew his sword, as an intimation of his design to the rest, who immediately followed his example, and murdered the whole, some of whom they stabbed, others were run through the body with pikes, and several were drowned.

In Queen's county, great numbers of protestants were put to the most shocking deaths. Fifty or sixty were placed together in one house, which being set on fire, they all perished in the flames.

Many were stripped naked, and being fastened to horses by ropes placed round their middles, were dragged through bogs till they expired.

Some were hung by the feet to tenter-hooks driven into poles; and in that wretched posture left till they perished.

Others were fastened to the trunk of a tree, with a branch at top. Over this branch hung one arm, which principally supported the weight of the body; and one of the legs was turned up, and fastened to the trunk, while the other hung straight. And in this dreadful and uneasy posture did they remain, as long as life would permit, pleasing spectacles to their blood-thirsty persecutors.

JUDGMENTS OF GOD ON PERSECUTORS.-A Dominican friar, of Munster, as he was inveighing in the pulpit against the protestant religion, which was then springing up, was suddenly struck with a flash of lightning, which immediately deprived him of life.