“Up to the death of these two men, John O’Callaghan and Rose’s father, together with a large party of their friends on both sides, were drinking in a public-house, determined to take no portion in the fight, at all at all.  Poor Rose, when she heard the shouting and terrible strokes, got as pale as death, and sat close to John, whose hand she captured hers, beseeching him, and looking up in his face with the most imploring sincerity as she spoke, not to go out among them; the tears falling all the time from her fine eyes, the mellow flashes of which, when John’s pleasantry in soothing her would seduce a smile, went into his very heart.  But when, on looking out of the window where they sat, two of the opposing factions heard that a man on each side was killed; and when on ascertaining the names of the individuals, and of those who murdered them, it turned out that one of the murdered men was brother to a person in the room, and his murderer uncle to one of those in the window, it was not in the power of man or woman to keep them asunder, particularly as they were all rather advanced in liquor.  In an instant the friends of the murdered man made a rush at the window, before any pacifiers had time to get between them, and catching the nephew of him who had committed the murder, hurled him head-foremost upon the stone pavement, where his skull was dashed to pieces, and his brains scattered about the flags!

“A general attack instantly took place in the room, between the two factions; but the apartment was too low and crowded to permit of proper fighting, so they rushed out to the street, shouting and. yelling, as they do when the battle comes to the real point of doing business.  As soon as it was seen that the heads of the O’Callaghan’s and O’Hallaghans were at work as well as the rest, the fight was recommenced with retrebled spirit; but when the mutilated body of the man who had been flung from the window, was observed lying in the pool of his own proper brains and blood, such a cry arose among his friends, as would cake (* harden) the vital fluid in the veins of any one not a party in the quarrel.  Now was the work—­the moment of interest—­men and women groaning, staggering, and lying insensible; others shouting, leaping, and huzzaing; some singing, and not a few able-bodied spalpeens blurting, like over-grown children, on seeing their own blood; many raging and roaring about like bulls;—­all this formed such a group as a faction fight, and nothing else, could represent.

“The battle now blazed out afresh; and all kinds of instruments were pressed into I the service.  Some got flails, some spades, some shovels, and one man got his hands upon a scythe, with which, unquestionably, he would have taken more lives than one; but, very fortunately, as he sallied out to join the crowd, he was politely visited in the back of the head by a brick-bat, which had a mighty convincing way with it of giving him a peaceable disposition, for he instantly