"Cromwell cleared the road before him. If any great man stood against
him he would pull down his castle the same as he pulled down that
castle of your own, Ballinamantane, that is down the road. He never got
more than two hours sleep or three, or at the most four, but starting up
fearing his life would be peppered. There was a word he sounded out to
the Catholics, 'To hell or Connacht,' and the reason he did that was
that Connacht was burned bare, and he that thought to pass the winter
there would get no lodging at all. Himself and his men travelled it, and
they never met with anything that had human breath put in it by God till
they came to Breffny, and they saw smoke from a chimney, and they
surrounded the house and went into it. And what they saw was a skeleton
over the fire roasting, and the people of the house picking flesh off it
with the bits of a hook. And when they saw that, they left them there.
It was a Clare man that burned Connacht so bare; he was worse than
Cromwell, and he made a great slaughter in the house of God at Clonmel.
The people have it against his family yet, and against the whole County
of Clare."