Woodford is a pretty village seated on the shore of Lough Derg on the slope of the hills which divide Galway from Clare. The principal landowners there are the Marquis of Clanricarde, Sir Henry Burke, the Westmeath family, Colonel Daly, and Lord Dunsandle. Agrarian hatred is particularly alive in that district; the Galway man is bloodthirsty, and counts human life as nought. Five or six years ago Mr. Blake, Lord Clanricarde’s agent, was shot dead, and in March, 1886, a bailiff named Finley, a veteran of the Crimean war, had the same fate while he was going to proceed to an eviction on the account of Sir Henry Burke. The spot is shown still where the unfortunate man was murdered and his corpse left twenty-four hours without sepulture, nobody daring or willing to bear it away. A detachment of the police in the pay of the Property Defence Association having settled their barracks in the vicinity of Woodford, the inhabitants, about one thousand in number, organized a sort of grotesque pageant, which made its progress along the streets of the town behind a coffin bearing the inscription: _Down with landlordism!_ then concluded by burning the coffin in sight of the barracks. There are two churches, one Protestant, the other Catholic. The faithful who attend the first are two in number, no mere nor less, which would be sufficient to show how legitimate it was for the Irish to protest when obliged to pay the tithes of an altogether alien worship. The second is headed by a jolly compeer, much beloved by his parishioners for his good humour and liberality, Father Caen, a pastor of the old school, whose boast it is that he keeps the best table and cellar, and has the prettiest nieces in the county. He is president of the local board of the League; the treasurer of that committee is the _guardian of the poor law_ of the district, what we would call “l’administrateur du bien des pauvres;” but the true agent of the League—the _Deus ex machina_ of the place—is the secretary, Father Egan, curate of the parish, an austere, thin, fanatic-looking man, a peasant’s son, with all the passions of his race, who sucked the hatred of landlords with his mother’s milk, and ever remembers that many of his kindred have been reduced to emigrate, and that an uncle of his went mad after being evicted. A feature to be noted down; that priest, tall, strong, sinewy, is an excellent shot and an inveterate poacher. Nothing would be easier for him than obtaining leave from the landowners to shoot on their grounds; but he scorns the leave. His delight is to lurk at night till he has shot some of their big game, or to head openly a _battue_ for a general slaughter five miles round. * * * * * One of the finest estates in the county is that of Lord Clanricarde, to which are attached three hundred and sixteen tenants.