Horrors of Civil War in Ulster—Battle of Kilrush—Rory O’More Disappears from History AT first the civil war in Ulster—for in the main it was the Old Irish against the Anglo-Irish settlers of the Elizabethan régime, or their immediate descendants—was carried on without ferocity, but the Scottish garrison of Carrickfergus, in the winter of 1641, raided Island Magee, in the neighborhood, and put to the sword or drove over the cliffs, to perish in the breakers beneath them, or be dashed to pieces on the rocks, 3,000 of the Celtic-Catholic inhabitants, without regard to age or sex. Protestant historians claim that acts of cruelty had been committed on the Anglo-Irish settlers by the Celtic Irish before this terrible massacre was accomplished. There may have been some isolated cases of murder and rapine—for bad and cruel men are to be found in all armies—but nothing that called for the wholesale slaughter at Island Magee by fanatical Scottish Covenanters, who made up a majority of the Carrickfergus garrison. Christians, not to mention Mohammedans and savage heathens, have shed oceans of blood in fierce persecution of each other, as if they were serving a furious devil, rather than a merciful God. They forget, in their unreasoning hatred, that the gentle Messiah, whose teachings they profess to follow, never made the sword the ally of the Cross. The man made mad by religious bigotry is a wild beast, no matter what creed he may profess. Let us, as Americans, be thankful that we live under a government which recognizes the equal rights of all the creeds, and permits every citizen to worship God in peace, after his own fashion. May the day never come when it shall be different in this Republic!