It was at this time she took a step which was sharply canvassed,--that of forsaking the church in which she was born, and putting her arm, as it were, under that of Protestantism. She went a long way, and in strange companionship too, in order to take this step. She and Sheridan made a pleasant excursion, on the occasion, through Mullingar to Longford and Carrick on Shannon, and on, by Lough Allen and Drumshamboe, till they stood on the verge of the Pot of the Shannon. Murphy fancies that as Roman Catholics could not then legally wear a sword, she renounced her old faith that she might carry one, in male characters, without offending the law! This is sheer nonsense.[76] But whatever took her to the little village on the mountain side, it is impossible to conceive a more striking contrast than the one between this magnificent district, where occasionally an eagle may be seen sweeping between Quilca and Sliev na Eirin, with Covent Garden or Smock Alley! I do not know if at that period, as till lately, the Primate of Ireland had a little shooting-box on a platform of the mountain, but to the modest residence still existing of the Protestant pastor, Sheridan and Margaret took their way; and there the brilliant lady enrolled herself as a member of the church by law established. The influences which moved her to this were simply that _she_ would not lose her chance of an estate for the sake of the old religion in which she had been baptized. Her ex-admirer, Mac Swiney, had left her heiress to his estate of £200 a year; and that the bequest might be legal, and the succession uncontested, the frail Margaret qualified for prospective fortune by declaring herself a Protestant, in the presence of competent witnesses.