THE CLANKING 
 OF CHAINS 
 
 BRINSLEY MAcNAMARA
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO i 
 
 j 
 
 s u 
 \J
 
 presented to the 
 UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 by 
 
 Tom Ham
 
 THE CLANKING 
 OF CHAINS 
 
 A STORY OF SINN FEIN 
 
 BY 
 
 BRINSLEY MACNAMARA 
 
 Author of "The Valley of the Squinting Windows" 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 PRINTED IN U. S. A.
 
 TO 
 
 A. C 
 
 WHO CAME WITH FLOWERS
 
 Was it for this the Wild Geese spread 
 The gray wing upon every tide? 
 For this that all that blood was shedf 
 For this Edward Fitzgerald died, 
 And Robert Entmett and Wolfe Tone, 
 All that delirium of the brave? 
 Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, 
 'Tis with O'Leary in the grave. 
 
 W. B. YEATS.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN .... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MEN AND THINGS 13 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FURTHER REALITIES ... & K > .... 26 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 MEN or YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 36 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 62 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 A REBEL : 76 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 INCIDENTS or THE DANCE 91 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 102 
 
 vii
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 A GREAT MEETING 112 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ASPECTS or IRISH SOLDIERING . . . . . . 125 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 137 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 1914 151 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE DARK YEARS 167 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 EASTER WEEK, 1916 180 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 VICTORIES 192 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION . 201 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE . . 217 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 AN ENEMY OF His PEOPLE ...... 233 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 EXODUS 246
 
 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN 
 
 THE little room at the back of the Court- 
 house in Ballycullen was animated un- 
 usually and a number of young men and 
 women were hurrying up the short stairway from 
 the street door. It was Sunday evening and 
 each seemed to wear an air of business curiously 
 out of keeping with the time and the place, for 
 this was the day of deadness and no effort, be- 
 yond that of the tongue, in Ballycullen, and this 
 little room was musty for lack of the warmth of 
 human industry and occupation. 
 
 It was true that every Friday of the year, with 
 the frequent addition of Fair days, this place dis- 
 played a certain connection with life, for it was 
 then the Office of the Bank Manager who came 
 over from Castleconnor with his Clerk, these two 
 hirelings of Mammon always looking very im- 
 portant and grand as they drove up through Bal- 
 lycullen about twelve o'clock in the day. Mr. 
 Alexander Waddell, the Manager, who always 
 
 i
 
 2 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 sat, well muffled even in Summer, on the left side 
 of the car, was a white-haired, wide-moustached, 
 successful Orangeman. He wore a half tall hat 
 and a Masonic tie-pin prominently displayed. 
 A sudden, complete impression of the man was 
 that of the conventional caricature of a villainous 
 Irish landlord of the early " eighties " of the past 
 century. Mr. St. John Marlowe, the Clerk, was 
 a young man with a beardless, characterless face. 
 He always wore an inane, superior smile. In 
 Castleconnor he was a ladies' man who played 
 golf and tennis, and in Ballycullen he served as a 
 shining example for the aspiring fops of the 
 locality. They bought the same kind of clothes 
 and wore them in exactly the same way, mostly 
 after tremendous effort, and, although they had 
 never heard him speak, since he never spoke to 
 any of them, they often attempted to converse 
 with the drawl which they fondly fancied must 
 be one superior aspect of the man who wore the 
 air and the clothes of St. John Marlowe. 
 
 " There's the Bank, begad," the shopkeepers 
 of Ballycullen would exclaim, and immediately 
 they would run into their shops to fumble for 
 their last halfpence in the greasy tills. A little 
 later they would go slipping up to this room 
 where the bank manager and his clerk would 
 be sitting behind a table looking very prosperous 
 and reliable with the little piles of gold and sil-
 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN 3 
 
 ver, the sheaves of notes, the papers and account 
 books before them. The shopkeepers of Bally- 
 cullen would never proceed here in couples or in 
 companies, but each would wait nervously until 
 his immediate neighbour had gone before him 
 or else take an exciting opportunity of running up 
 there before his neighbour. Even as the ac- 
 quisition of the money had been a thing done 
 secretly, furtively, evasively, the putting away of 
 it must needs be invested with a certain amount of 
 mystery. It was like going to confession be- 
 cause, for the most part, this acknowledgement of 
 possession threw them back inevitably upon re- 
 membrance of the means by which they had come 
 into possession. Friday was market day in Bal- 
 lycullen and an addition to the shopkeepers was 
 represented by the fowl-men and egg-men and 
 farmers who dribbled out occasionally from the 
 ragged crowd which represented the market, and 
 went up to the Bank, too. These in turn were re- 
 inforced on Fair days by graziers and grabbers 
 from all parts of the County Meath and cattle- 
 dealers and pig-jobbers from all parts of Ireland. 
 Always, however, with that elderly, owlish man 
 sitting there behind the money on the table and 
 the sleek clerk still smiling inanely as he manipu- 
 lated books and papers, there seemed to hang 
 about this primitive scene of financial industry 
 an odour of decay.
 
 4 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 But now the scene it held seemed to bring the 
 place into intimate and joyous connection with 
 life. The young men and women were laughing 
 or chatting gaily as they came up the stairway. 
 Each held a bundle of clothes, a little box of some 
 kind which might contain anything, a looking 
 glass or else some piece of material which might 
 be used somehow in stage decoration. The indi- 
 viduals, with the little burdens they carried, ap- 
 peared each as a distinct contribution to the gen- 
 eral effect, suddenly created in the room by their 
 unusual appearance here. It was not until the 
 young men had thrown off their overcoats and the 
 young girls their cloaks or wraps that their col- 
 lective purpose began slowly to be apparent. 
 The bundles were untied, the boxes were opened, 
 each bit of theatrical stuff began to find its place. 
 All the people in the room began to make them- 
 selves up as if for a play, the girls going behind 
 little screens at the side distant from the young 
 men who, despite this particular protection, re- 
 mained modestly turned away as if to insure 
 greater privacy. 
 
 Another young man now hurried in. He was 
 tall, dark and slight with some suggestion at 
 least of the face and figure of the idealist. This 
 was Michael Dempsey who immediately ap- 
 peared as the commanding personality of the 
 group for the other young men turned round at-
 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN 5 
 
 tentively upon his entrance and even the girls 
 came from behind the screens with some of their 
 stage garments held veilwise around them. 
 
 " Let us have a run through for words while 
 we're making up," he said. Then he took off 
 his coat and waistcoat, his collar and tie and, 
 rolling up his sleeves, went at his face, with one 
 of the sticks of grease-paint which had just been 
 brought in one of the little boxes, before one of 
 the looking glasses which had accompanied them. 
 From all sides of the room came spoken lines 
 which very soon began to assume the coherence of 
 dramatic dialogue but which, lacking for the 
 moment the accompanying illusion of the stage, 
 did not suddenly suggest the speakers in any 
 scene beyond that of the present. Yet the lines 
 which Michael Dempsey spoke, perhaps from the 
 intensity with which he filled them, perhaps be- 
 cause they were lines of beauty which had once 
 been spoken greatly by the man he was supposed 
 to represent, began more immediately to remove 
 him from the deathy reality of this little musty 
 room. It was a play about Robert Emmet and 
 Sara Curran that the Ballycullen Dramatic Class 
 were going to produce and Michael Dempsey was 
 to appear in the part of Robert Emmet. He 
 seemed to feel intensely the dignity of the imper- 
 sonation which was demanded of him. His in- 
 tonation of the lines seemed to hold a high sen-
 
 6 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 ousness which was also a little more slightly 
 apparent in the lines spoken by the girl who was 
 to play the part of Sara Curran from behind the 
 screen where she still remained dressing. In the 
 speech of the others there were numerous blunders 
 and the grandiose language was frequently 
 marred by illiterate pronunciation. But there 
 was a certain eagerness, an amount of enthusi- 
 asm which gave the quaint proceeding the 
 atonement of life. Even as they rehearsed thus 
 they were hurrying with their preparations and, 
 very soon would be ready for the stage. The cos- 
 tumes for the play, hired from an old woman who 
 carried on this business in a Dublin tenement, 
 were variously anachronistic, but even the pos- 
 sible humour of these defects removed itself dis- 
 tantly when one suddenly remembered again the 
 purpose of this little band. To-night they were 
 going to perform this drama about Robert Emmet 
 and Sara Curran in Ballycullen and a certain 
 sense of their own bravery successfully blotted 
 from their minds such minor occasions of self- 
 consciousness. Their fathers and mothers would 
 have come to see them on the stage as well as all 
 the boys and girls with whom they were intimate, 
 old men too, who through the miracle of patriot- 
 ism, still echoing in their hearts from the songs 
 of drunken ballad singers at fairs, knew well the 
 story of that dead man who had loved that dead
 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN 7 
 
 woman so long ago, and loved Ireland, too, with 
 a grandeur surpassing the common loves of men. 
 To the intelligentzia of Dublin this play might 
 not appear very striking drama. " Melodramatic 
 propaganda " would probably be their description 
 of it, but here in Ballycullen it was as one of the 
 great Greek tragedies of old in Athens. For all 
 his soul might have dwindled sadly, in very truth 
 what man was there amongst them at all had not 
 spoken out of his dream sometime of dying for 
 Ireland ? Of how, maybe, as he went down some 
 grass-grown boreen where the hawthorn blossoms 
 in Maytime fell and were blown on a light wind 
 like fragrant, tinted snow, and for all its rich 
 colour of the fields at sunset the shadow over 
 all had seemed to him the deadly shadow of Eng- 
 land. And then he had spoken to the girl walk- 
 ing by his side of " fighting the bloody British 
 Government," of " dying from a bullet in some re- 
 bellion or another," of being " murdered, maybe 
 in jail, the way they murdered Wolfe Tone." 
 "And what would you do then?" Then there had 
 come, probably, a little strained, beseeching look 
 into the eyes of the girl as she put her soft arm 
 about his neck, her brown, troubled head upon his 
 shoulder, and sobbed her request that he would 
 not go. And he had not gone, only marrying the 
 girl a little later and wondering ever since at the 
 " wildness " of himself and he a young fellow.
 
 8 JHE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 No Irish dramatist had seen this material and yet 
 it was the complete expression in tragi-comedy of 
 Ireland the Ireland of all the dreams and all 
 the songs and all the dying. 
 
 Many a young man would be behaving just 
 like this after to-night's performance and both the 
 young women and the old would be weeping little, 
 silent tears as they tried to remember or to picture 
 themselves in the disquieting, in fact desperate, 
 position of Sara Curran. But over all the audi- 
 ence, over its face as one man, would be clouding 
 a curious mixture of expression, combative, satiri- 
 cal, critical, comical, tragical really in its full 
 significance. 
 
 Already Michael Dempsey had taken the 
 Ballycullen Dramatic Class onto the stage and 
 they were all stiffly awaiting the rise of the cur- 
 tain. One of the girls, she who was to play the 
 part of Anne Devlin, complained of a little faint- 
 ness and someone rushed to get her a bottle of 
 minerals. The man who was to play Michael 
 Dwyer brought out a bottle of whiskey from his 
 pocket and took a good long drink. Then the 
 little drop-curtain which had been so badly 
 painted by Ambrose Donohue, the handy man, 
 screeched upward and the play began. 
 
 One might have seen immediately that, al- 
 though possessing the curious, intimate connec- 
 tion with Irish life already suggested, it was made
 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN 9 
 
 distant from Irish life by several focusses of un- 
 reality. It possessed no verisimilitude as a pic- 
 ture of the period, and, in the second place, was 
 no transcript of life, inasmuch as the method of 
 presentation was as far removed from realism as 
 it is possible for anything to be. And yet it did 
 not appear as any kind of spontaneous romance; 
 one could not call it a folk play. The lines were 
 spoken haltingly with a poor accent which did not 
 fully express their meaning. The entrances and 
 exits and the situations generally were most 
 crudely effected. Yet were the people gripped for 
 no other reason than because it was a play about 
 Robert Emmet. Indeed Michael Dempsey need 
 not have gone to such pains to give a great per- 
 formance. Merely to have stood there on the very 
 middle of the stage in his top boots with gold 
 tassels, white trousers and black cut-away coat, 
 his arms folded and a lock of hair brushed down 
 upon his forehead would have been quite suffi- 
 cient. In fact, from one aspect of Ballycullen's 
 point of view, the whole thing was quite unneces- 
 sary. The drunken ballad singers had told them 
 all they wanted to know about Robert Emmet and 
 this was exactly how they had always seen Robert 
 Emmet dressed up in a picture. Into their dull 
 minds was crowding a sudden warfare of con- 
 flicting thoughts. " The Lord save us now, but 
 wasn't Robert Emmet the grand young man en-
 
 10 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 tirely, and wasn't it terrible sad about himself 
 and his sweetheart, the poor thing? " 
 
 " The cheek of Michael Dempsey, anyway, 
 made up like the picture of Robert Emmet in 
 Marcus Flynn's parlour when you might see him 
 any day working for the bare life in Marcus 
 Flynn's shop. If it was some kind of laughable 
 ' farsh ' that he thought of getting up, but 
 ' Robert Emmet,' be the holy fly ! " 
 
 " Weren't the English now the walking devils 
 to go cut the head of a great hero like that in 
 Thomas Street in Dublin? " 
 
 " Why to hear my bold Michael going 
 through the speech in the dock you'd think 
 nearly that he'd have the cheek sometime to make 
 a speech of his own. Now if it was Marcus 
 Flynn himself, a good, solid man with a stake in 
 the country, that you saw getting up on the stage 
 and speechifying it would be something, but a 
 brat of a shop-boy, mind you, having them kind 
 of notions." 
 
 " Musha, there must be a great reward to the 
 souls of them that dies for Ireland like that poor 
 fellow and Sara Curran his girl so fond of him ! " 
 
 " The cheek of a lad like that wanting to 
 talk about Ireland, but sure he's always at it in 
 the shop even. Why, I declare to God, he'd 
 sicken you, and one only running in and out to 
 buy an ounce of tobacco or a box of matches."
 
 ROBERT EMMET IN BALLYCULLEN 11 
 
 It was thus and thus that the fume of expres- 
 sion arose in the intervals following the succes- 
 sive falls of the curtain. In this Ireland of a 
 late little day the glory of Robert Emmet's sacri- 
 fice was less to the mind of Ballycullen than its 
 anxiety to defeat the poor, struggling soul of 
 Michael Dempsey, the shop-boy in Marcus 
 Flynn's. It was the slight offense that the per- 
 sonality of Michael Dempsey represented to them 
 which held the eyes of their minds, for already 
 they hated him because it seemed to be his en- 
 deavour to lift himself beyond them. 
 
 Behind the curtain, during the last interval, 
 another aspect of the reality which had been 
 created by his sudden bringing of the ideals of 
 Robert Emmet into contact with the realism of 
 Ballycullen now held the young men and girls. 
 Michael Dempsey was chatting with Lena Con- 
 way who was taking the part of Sara Curran in 
 the play. Lena was another slave of the counter 
 in Thomas Cooney's shop a little way further 
 down the main street. She was a pretty girl with 
 bright, romantic eyes and rich, dark hair. It was 
 said, not without a touch of envy in the remark, 
 always that she had the best figure of any girl in 
 Ballycullen and that she dressed the best. Some- 
 one who had once seen a play of the same name 
 in Dublin had bestowed upon her the nickname 
 of " Mirandolina " and it had stuck consistently,
 
 investing her with a kind of romantic glamour in 
 Ballycullen. The refinement of beauty was in 
 her musically lengthened name Mirandolina 
 Conway. Somehow it made one think of music 
 and laughter and a girl dancing for love of life 
 in a place of gloom. Now Michael Dempsey was 
 looking down into her eyes even as he had looked, 
 in the part of Robert Emmet, into the eyes of her 
 as Sara Curran a few moments before. . . . 
 It seemed suddenly as if that long scene upon the 
 stage had been extended into this scene. . . . 
 A mist of fondness seemed to hang around them. 
 Then Michael began to speak for the first time 
 to her hearing in deep, passionate tones. But, 
 passing the love of any woman, his talk was of 
 Ireland. It was like the talk of Robert Emmet, 
 but they were his own words he was using now. 
 
 " And surely, Michael, you wouldn't leave me 
 and go give up your life for Ireland," she said. 
 
 It was in this moment, and really for the first 
 time, that he stood apart from the life which had 
 always succeeded in crushing him into itself, be- 
 cause the answer he spoke was not quite the same 
 that had been given to this very question by suc- 
 cessive generations of loutish lovers as they 
 walked with their girls on May evenings along the 
 grass-grown boreens. 
 
 Just then they were called to appear in the last 
 act of the play before the sweating audience of 
 Ballycullen.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MEN AND THINGS 
 
 NEXT day, as he moved behind the counter 
 of Marcus Flynn's grocery establishment, 
 a thousand tremendous feelings struggled 
 towards realization in the soul of Michael Demp- 
 sey. The sound of applause still seemed to be 
 ringing in his ears. . . . And it was in ap- 
 preciation of his endeavours that Ballycullen had 
 let out of itself that great burst of applause, that 
 almost tearful and wondering appreciation of him 
 and her as they stood within the wonder of one an- 
 other's gaze upon the stage. . . . Even dur- 
 ing the short time of the play's passage he had 
 became almost mentally metamorphosed. " Be- 
 gad, he was full of himself now," to use a phrase 
 out of the slang of Ballycullen. The words of 
 Robert Emmet which he had spoken were being 
 remembered by him somehow as if they had been 
 words of his own expression. It suddenly seemed 
 as if he stood for in his own person, with regard 
 to Ballycullen, what Robert Emmet had stood for 
 in his person with regard to Ireland and that the 
 
 13
 
 14 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 words of the part he had acted still continued into 
 reality signifying the same willingness to sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 The two causes which, in his own mind, seemed 
 to lend reality to this notion were the fact that 
 last night he had fallen in love with Mirandolina 
 Conway and that the part he had played had 
 given him the opportunity of expressing in public 
 ideas which had long been burning his secret 
 heart, a side of himself which was well hidden 
 indeed although the reason for its existence had 
 once been a daylight spectacle in Ballycullen. 
 There were times of course when he remembered 
 his father, Andrew Dempsey, the famous Parnel- 
 lite who had once owned the fine shop which was 
 now the property of Thomas Cooney, but who had 
 lost it through his devotion to " The Cause " and 
 the fact that he had followed Parnell, keeping in 
 his own rapidly dwindling way of business sym- 
 bolic company with the ruin of that heroic figure. 
 The hopelessness of his father's ending was still 
 reflected in his mother and the sister, for when 
 Andrew Dempsey had been finally broken by de- 
 votion to his dream all three of them had re- 
 treated to a little thatched cottage on the outskirts 
 of Ballycullen. . . . Because he had had to be 
 a breadwinner from his earliest years it was not a 
 little strange that the obsession of his father should 
 have appeared in him so strongly, with such
 
 MEN AND THINGS 15 
 
 powers of influence upon his young mind. But it 
 was true that, in the one passable room of the 
 little cottage, the poor room, with the bubble win- 
 dow which caused such a crooked view of King 
 John's Castle, the famous ruin which had 
 brought more than one batch of Antiquaries to 
 Ballycullen, after his long day of drudgery in the 
 shop Michael fed himself by candle-light upon 
 the more ferocious portions of the history of Ire- 
 land. His little library of well-worn volumes 
 seemed to stand for a certain snatched, secret 
 culture which had been always alien to the spirit 
 of Ballycullen for the soul of Ballycullen was un- 
 equal even to great hatred, and it was the lonely 
 creed of a great hatred that his books had taught 
 Michael Dempsey. Here in the quiet evenings he 
 would be alone with all the dead who had died for 
 Ireland and through their company he would enter 
 into a fierce spiritual ecstasy which, to common 
 eyes, might easily appear as mere savage hatred 
 of England, but which also contained in itself 
 its own atonement. Yet it was queer to think of 
 some of the books which had wrought the per- 
 sonality of this room, causing him, by an urgent 
 and oppressive sense of all the shadows which it 
 housed, to feed his mind down one byway upon 
 the darkness of John Mitchel's mind, a darkness 
 almost of the very grave, as his only way of re- 
 lease from the mean, crushing gloom of Bally-
 
 16 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 cullen. His mind had easily formed his taste 
 for this kind of reading, for, even as a boy, he 
 would turn from other boys at their games to read 
 lengthy, illustrated accounts of dead Fenians, 
 with dark looks and dark beards, in " The 
 Weekly Freeman." He used to pour over these 
 for long hours with wise, tearful eyes. 
 
 Later, about the time his father died and he 
 had come to work in Marcus Flynn's, the little 
 paper formerly known as " The United Irish- 
 man " had changed its name to " Sinn Fein " and 
 Michael bought it every week from old Mr. Mil- 
 lington, the ex-peeler, who sold notepaper, news- 
 papers and sweets. At first he had found it some- 
 what difficult to understand. It seemed to be so 
 urgently of the present, its young hope blowing 
 fragrant as a sudden rose, having none of the 
 musty odour of ransacked files, but clean from its 
 undying flowers on the graves of the dead who 
 had died for Ireland. Very soon it seemed to 
 open to his eyes a brighter vision of Ireland in the 
 days to be. It looked forward gladly to hope of 
 the future rather than sadly backward to the de- 
 feat of the past. It suggested many practical 
 means by which Ireland could enter into this fu- 
 ture; it endeavoured to adjust its ideas to facts 
 and institutions of the day, language, industry, 
 development of mineral wealth, railways, local 
 Government. It often seemed so certain to
 
 MEN AND THINGS 17 
 
 Michael that one could have this lovely Ireland as 
 an immediate future if all these things were done 
 that " Sinn Fein " suggested, entreated, almost 
 commanded, from Thursday to Thursday. It 
 would be revenge for the past. In his trembling 
 anxiety to realize the future there was, as a curi- 
 ous aspect of the psychology of this new creed 
 called " Sinn Fein," an intense, dependant 
 anxiety upon him also to be remembering the past. 
 Hence the unchanging quality of his reading in 
 his lonely room in the quiet evenings. Often, 
 after some Thursday night when the current 
 number of his beloved paper would have helped 
 him to vision the future more brightly in contrast 
 with the intensely remembered dark past, he 
 would be so far carried out of himself and his 
 realization of Ballycullen as to attempt next day, 
 at the risk of losing his job, to impress some of 
 these ideas towards the well-being of Ireland 
 upon Marcus Flynn. A strange contrast of per- 
 sonalities would immediately become manifest. 
 There he would be, the poor hard working shop- 
 boy, struggling to support his mother and sister 
 and yet live too for Ireland, by the side of that 
 solid, ignorant man who, quite unable to realize 
 that he had a country, knew Ballycullen far into 
 the last byway of its possibilities. No one knew 
 better than Michael the schemes of the lowest na- 
 ture which Marcus embraced to enrich himself.
 
 18 JHE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Through being forced to remain in his service he 
 was a party to all this but, strangely enough, he 
 seemed unable to realize it in its full relation to 
 himself. The visions which came out of his 
 room seemed to overcast even this dismal reality. 
 The power that Marcus stood for in regard to his 
 life was an immense something beyond which a 
 certain aspect of realization could not possibly 
 extend. There would be Marcus himself, stand- 
 ing hugely at his own door, fully impressive to his 
 own satisfaction that it was by his mercy Michael 
 was enabled to put a crust into three mouths. He 
 would be always lounging about the shop like this 
 when he was not actively engaged in superintend- 
 ing such little tricks of his trade as adulteration 
 and making up of groceries in light weight quan- 
 tities for the poor people whose means forced 
 them to buy the necessities of life from him in 
 this way. 
 
 It was true that all this long established system 
 of mean roguery was almost atoned for by one 
 courageous little effort on the part of Michael. 
 This was the notable occasion upon which he had 
 induced his employer to invest in a stock of Irish 
 manufactured matches. At a local aeridheacht 
 an eloquent speaker from Dublin had exhorted 
 the people to buy only Irish manufactured goods 
 " Irish manufactured matches, for instance," 
 he said. After much persuasion Marcus became
 
 MEN AND THINGS 19 
 
 slowly convinced. Well, begad, to begin with 
 boxes of matches would not do much harm any- 
 way and even if he did not make as much out of 
 them, who knew but Irish manufacture, with all 
 these fellows going about the country preaching 
 it, might get to be fashionable some day and it 
 would be just as well to have one's hand in in 
 case it might. Mebbe Mickeen Dempsey was not 
 such an idiot as he looked! On the morning 
 that the Irish manufactured matches were put on 
 sale, he was more greatly filled than ever with a 
 sense of his own national importance. Begad, he 
 was doing his best for the country in every damn 
 way that a man could possibly do it, a big sub- 
 scriber to " The Cause " always and now of a 
 sudden an Irish industrial developer. . . . 
 Coming in for the means of a smoke on their way 
 to the fields the dogged farmers, so very con- 
 servative in every turn of their thick minds, 
 seemed to regard the innovation doubtfully. 
 Their first thought, naturally springing from 
 their primitive reasoning, was that here appeared 
 another attempt on the part of Marcus Flynn to 
 give them bad value and to extortionate. The 
 English manufactured article, which they called 
 " MacMahon's Matches," was a bigger box and 
 there was a grand picture of Marshal MacMahon 
 on the outside and he was what you might call a 
 true Irishman. (This subtle, patriotic touch had
 
 20 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 been given the article, to secure a large sale for 
 it in Ireland, by the astute Englishmen who had 
 put it upon the market.) They gave expression 
 to their opinions upon this small matter as they 
 made their purchases and Marcus regarded them 
 the while with suppressed and gloomy profanity. 
 Next day, about the same time, as he stood in the 
 very same place to realise the results of his patri- 
 otic endeavours, one man after another came in, 
 his pipe unlit, and cursing the Irish manufactured 
 matches. 
 
 "The curse of hell on them anyway! I never 
 endured such persecution as striving to get a 
 smoke and the bloody things going out every 
 minute I'd light them. Give us a box of matches 
 that'll light, Mickeen, for the honour of God! " 
 
 It was the things which Marcus swore when 
 they went out that finally reconciled Michael to 
 the counter-stroke which he proposed. It was 
 nothing less than the making of a mixture in 
 equal proportions of the Irish and English manu- 
 factured matches so as to ensure sale of the pres- 
 ent stock of Irish manufactured stuff before too 
 bad a name entirely went out upon it. He re- 
 gretted fiercely that a stock of empty MacMahon 
 match boxes could not be ordered and so end im- 
 mediately one of the most damnable mistakes he 
 had made in the course of his whole business 
 career.
 
 MEN AND THINGS 21 
 
 The incident of the matches passed thus with- 
 out leaving much impression upon Michael. He 
 went on reading, mostly about the Ireland of yes- 
 terday in its bearing on the Ireland of to-morrow, 
 without fully realising the Ireland of his own day 
 or causing his own personality to bear upon it 
 greatly. His mind was unable to grasp Bally- 
 cullen as the microcosm of that macrocosm. After 
 a fashion he was definitely placed in the life of 
 his native village. The housewives of the dis- 
 trict spoke of his "off-handed way" when they 
 bought their groceries from him. He was tol- 
 erated by their husbands and sons because the 
 wild notions which clouded him from daily life 
 constituted a bearable contrast, accentuating 
 their own realism and solid worth. "Musha 
 now, he was his father's son, a foolish idiot," 
 they all said. It was part of his job to chat them 
 when they came into the shop with their ash- 
 plants held horizontally under their arms or to 
 listen patiently as they talked endlessly about 
 cattle and fairs and pigs and crops and land. 
 They accepted their nationality as they accepted 
 their religion, just passively, but they hated to be 
 reminded of it to the extent of anyone suggesting 
 courses of self-sacrifice more in agreement with 
 its tradition than the ways of their lives. "Ire- 
 land or that kind of madness" was not for them. 
 There was nothing they had greater contempt for
 
 22 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 than the man who talked about doing good for 
 Ireland. And the intention seemed to creep, just 
 a little too frequently into the talk of Michael. 
 They would be compelled to call him to attention. 
 
 " Musha, what in the name of God, man, did 
 you ever do for Ireland?" 
 
 Puzzled a little as to the meaning of it all, 
 Michael would retreat for comfort to the current 
 issue of "Sinn Fein" hidden behind two Jacob's 
 biscuit tins at the back of the counter. Then the 
 sergeant of Ballycullen, Sergeant Leonard, would 
 be coming into the shop to talk about the splen- 
 did manhood of "The Force", the security of a 
 job under the Crown and the greatness of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 "The Lord save us," he would say, for about 
 the tenth time on the same day, " they're a great 
 people, the British. Look it, when I think of 
 the hugeness of the power they've built up, why 
 it's something terrific, so it is. Sure, there isn't a 
 sensible little nation under the sun but's breaking 
 its heart near to get to be an integral portion of 
 the British Empire. Would you believe that 
 now? Well, that's a fact. Of course the only 
 foolish country in the world as usual is poor ould 
 Ireland and it's me that knows it. Sure, I spent 
 the greater part of my service in attending politi- 
 cal meetings all over the country. It was for dis- 
 tinguished service at them that I got the three
 
 MEN AND THINGS 23 
 
 gold stripes that you now see on my arm. Sure, 
 I could write a book of recollections, for there 
 isn't a great speech of the past 25 years that I'm 
 not after hearing or a successful orator, of no 
 matter what political brand, that I'm not after 
 seeing. Aye, every one of them able to set crowds 
 mad and everyone of them a smart fellow and 
 sure I often thought that if the goms they used to 
 make roar and bawl for Ireland were after hear- 
 ing as many of them as I'm after hearing they'd 
 come to have the same opinion of them as I have. 
 It'd make a fellow laugh sometimes, but more 
 times it would not be so laughable at all. To see 
 fine young fellows getting set astray by designing 
 blackguards instead of they going up to the Depot 
 to get trained for the Force. Why, it would 
 nearly go to your heart, so it would. That was 
 my ambition always, to see all the young fellows 
 in Ireland in the Force. To think of the peace 
 we'd have then in Ireland! There'll never be 
 peace in Ireland until we have done with oratory. 
 If there was no fine living in it for them lads 
 they'd soon give up speechifying and what else. 
 I ask you, who is responsible for all the devilment 
 in Ireland for the past hundred years or so? I'm 
 damn sure its not the British Government. I 
 thought all this out of my own head one day at 
 a meeting. Why, it's the only thing for it, says I 
 to myself, the full solution to a difficulty that has
 
 24 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 almost surpassed the ingenuity of man. If every 
 meeting began to be composed of peelers instead 
 of patriots, d'ye see? Q. U. E. D. solved just 
 like a proposition in Euclid. Ha! Ha! Ha! 
 Give up asking for recruits for the Army from a 
 rebel country but ask for recruits for the R. I. C. 
 instead. Then as sure as the sun is in the sky 
 you'd never want an army to put down a rebellion 
 in Ireland again." 
 
 On the day after the play the Sergeant was 
 more than usually eloquent in his blather. He 
 kept enjoying himself thus until Marcus Flynn 
 had gone to his dinner. It was good to rub it 
 into Mickeen, a cur that had it in him mebbe to 
 attack the peelers, while the opportunity offered. 
 Upon the disappearance of Marcus his tone sud- 
 denly changed into the accents of request and 
 supplication. 
 
 " Damn it, give us a bit of tobacco, Mickeen. I 
 can't afford to buy it now with the price of every- 
 thing and the wife sick and all the kids I have." 
 
 Michael did not refuse. Even though the Ser- 
 geant might be an employe of England he stood 
 for an immediate, definite reality in regard to 
 Ballycullen. He had heard of many a fellow 
 that had lost his job through the connivery of a 
 peeler. Yet there had leaped many moments into 
 this day when his mind rose grandly out of the 
 passive state to which it was chained almost con-
 
 MEN AND THINGS 25 
 
 tinuously by means of tortures. He would go to 
 the door then and look out at the other shop in 
 which Mirandolina Conway daily endured the 
 same slavery.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FURTHER REALITIES 
 
 THERE was some touch of ecstasy in this 
 day for Mirandolina Conway too. Even 
 the name which had been given her in the 
 satirical spirit of Ballycullen seemed more in 
 harmony with romance. . . . There was a 
 great gladness upon her when she heard it spoken. 
 In moments during the long day behind the 
 counter her eyes were dazzled by happy glinting 
 lights which had begun for the first time to flash 
 queerly almost out of the gloom of Ballycullen. 
 There did not appear to be the least vanity in the 
 thought that Sara Curran could not have loved 
 Robert Emmet more fondly than she now loved 
 Michael Dempsey. 
 
 She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, 
 
 And lovers around her are sighing, 
 But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, 
 
 For her heart in his grave is lying. 
 
 That was from the song that had been made 
 by Tommy Moore. Even as she remembered the 
 
 26
 
 FURTHER REALITIES 27 
 
 familiar lines they seemed to hold less sincerity 
 than she would wish them to contain, for had 
 not the proud and lovely Miss Curran, a little 
 later, married an English Officer! Imagine, an 
 English Officer, one of the very lot that butchered 
 Robert Emmet, and had not the poet Moore who 
 had written those lines taken up a Government 
 job ! Michael had told her these and many other 
 intimate little scraps of Irish history in the in- 
 tervals between the acts last night. She had not 
 known of such things, for what was she after all 
 only a silly girl in a shop reading only the silly 
 books that one could get in a place like Bally- 
 cullen ? But now, through power of all that was 
 hidden in the heart and in the mind of Michael 
 Dempsey, was her thought and hope being rapidly 
 linked with beautiful and noble things. He was 
 so very different in his way from anyone she 
 knew in Ballycullen. Her mind was confused 
 with thought of him and of Robert Emmet. . . . 
 Yet even in his day meanness and unfaithfulness 
 had crowded around the heroic figure of Robert 
 Emmet, and slackness and treachery had finally 
 brought that proud life to a poor, mean ending. 
 
 The leaping gladness of her mind was almost 
 transmuting her thought into the very stuff of 
 dreams. Michael Dempsey had something fine 
 in him surely, something which might yet change 
 the heart of Ballycullen and release the poor soul
 
 28 JHE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 of it from its chains. But the realities of Bally- 
 cullen were moving in across her mind, a drab 
 crowd of facts and people. Here, for instance, 
 was Anna Maria McGuinness running in every 
 few minutes for white spools, a lame excuse 
 enough, even though she was a dressmaker, see- 
 ing that she merely wanted to talk about the play, 
 for upon each occasion it was the first word that 
 came to her tongue. 
 
 "I suppose Michael Dempsey must nearly im- 
 agine that he's Robert Emmet himself now," she 
 said for about the fortieth time as she looked 
 quizzically into the eyes of Mirandolina. 
 " Musha, it was grand to see the two of yous kiss- 
 ing last night upon the stage and it suited, don't 
 you know, grand, grand. I don't think I ever 
 saw anything to suit so well so I didn't. It won't 
 come strange to yous to be doing it in private at 
 all and yous after performing like that in public ! 
 
 " Will you ever forget when Michael made the 
 curious blunder in the words and nearly knocked 
 you out of your speech and out of your standing 
 as well with the fright that he might be after 
 losing his memory or something ? It was strange 
 of him, don't you know, and he such a great 
 reader out and out. But sure I often heard my 
 father, the Lord have mercy on him, say that 
 there was nothing so bad as for a person of little 
 or no education to read too much.
 
 FURTHER REALITIES 29 
 
 "Mebbe Ballycullen'll get too hot to hold yous 
 now, that there'll be a touch of the showman in 
 the travelling company about him and a trace of 
 the actress about yourself, you looking like the 
 picture of a stage lady that you'd see in the 
 'Daily Sketch'? 
 
 " Oh, it was a great success, a great success 
 entirely. It would nearly make anyone think 
 that yous ought to be on for running away to- 
 gether and going on the stage for a living. Sure 
 they say that once you start playacting like this 
 you'll never be any good for anything else." 
 
 Anna Maria McGuinness had managed to 
 crush all this show of interest into her visits for 
 the purchase of spools which she did not want, 
 but she was compelled by many impulses to say 
 her say about the play. She was an old maid 
 past all hope of a man and the one immense sat- 
 isfaction of her life lay in her endeavours to 
 desolate the bright thoughts which might be 
 dancing in the mind of any young girl, and it 
 had already burned her very heart to think that 
 the long love scene between Michael Dempsey 
 as Robert Emmet and Mirandolina Conway as 
 Sara Curran had not been all playacting. . . . 
 It had poisoned all her thought towards her pur- 
 pose now. 
 
 Gradually, through power of these remarks 
 falling endlessly upon her ears, the thoughts of
 
 30 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Mirandolina became less bright than they had 
 been in the morning. She went often to the win- 
 dow and, through the brave show of fashionable 
 drapery, looked out upon the mean street of Bal- 
 lycullen. She saw some of the fellows who had 
 so recently appeared with her upon the stage 
 move about their business in their dirty working 
 clothes. She viewed, pantomimically, the accom- 
 panying grins of the loud sneers which greeted 
 them as they met others who had seen the play. 
 Michael Dwyer! Thomas Russell! Lord Nor- 
 bury! Leonard McNally! The names of the 
 figures of Emmet's dream and doom were ban- 
 died about in crude mockery, for this was a par- 
 ticular form of torture which would survive for 
 a long time after the play. The satirical identi- 
 fication of the players with the parts in which 
 they had appeared. It was merely another way 
 that Ballycullen had of enforcing its reality. It 
 was part of the effective throwing of the dish- 
 cloth of to-day upon the stained glass glories of 
 a bygone time. . . . There now were 
 "Michael Dwyer" and "Thomas Russell" work- 
 ing in the forge while " Lord Norbury," a rather 
 insignificant looking young man, was just riding 
 a screechy bicycle in from the school where he 
 taught, a common slave of the National Board of 
 Education and of the parents of the children. 
 And there also was " Major Sirr," the minister's
 
 FURTHER REALITIES 31 
 
 boy, driving the Rev. Henry Connor, rector of 
 Ballycullen, up the street in his open carriage 
 and looking very straight and stiff upon the peri- 
 lous seat in a white melton coat with big pearl 
 buttons and a high silk hat with a heavy cock- 
 ade at the side. Then there passed before her 
 eyes Ambrose Donohue who had taken the part 
 of "Leonard McNally." He was carrying a 
 paint-pot in one hand and a saw in the other. 
 
 A little girl who was barely able to reach up to 
 the counter came into the shop. 
 
 "I want a pennorth of pure silk ribbon, Miss." 
 Then she put on a wise smile which Mirandolina 
 thought appeared a little too old-fashioned upon 
 the face of so young a child. 
 
 "Sara Curran, I saw you last night on the 
 stage, so I did, and you were lovely." 
 
 Later there came grave, matronly women who 
 said, between many winks and eloquent shakes of 
 the head, that the play was simply beautiful but 
 that the Ballycullen Dramatic Class were not a 
 very select crowd and that of course a girl de- 
 pending altogether for her living by the public 
 upon her good name could not be too careful. 
 Of course some of the class were all right but the 
 rest of them were not all as one. 
 
 All day her heart seemed to be gasping for- 
 ward towards the quiet, soothing hour when the 
 shops would be closed and in which Michael and
 
 32 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 she had arranged to meet. It would be some- 
 thing to know the comfort of his presence again 
 if even only for a short space. He must surely 
 be filling the drab place through which they were 
 moving with the light of dreams and the wonder 
 of immortal longing. This would not be the first 
 time that they had met and moved around Bally- 
 cullen after both had come out of their shops 
 and there was nothing at all strange in the fact 
 that they should have slipped into this affection 
 for one another. It was here as natural that 
 shop-boys and shop-girls should mate with one 
 another as birds of the same species in the trees. 
 If either of them were of a loftier station than 
 the other it might have been cause of the same 
 anxiety always, but now, through power of their 
 recent notable achievement, they had both won 
 already to a certain prominence which might eas- 
 ily make Ballycullen concerned for their future. 
 And the play too had intensified them in the eyes 
 of one another for, hitherto, it could not have 
 been said that they had made the same fine regard 
 to hang as a mist of tenderness between them. 
 Thus a new aspect of their relationship seemed 
 suddenly to have been established which might 
 finally perfect whatever splendour of romance 
 this connection of their lives was destined to 
 bring. 
 
 They met, about half-past eight, where the
 
 FURTHER REALITIES 33 
 
 high demesne wall sweeps in a graceful curve 
 along the road to Castleconnor and the ivy hangs 
 out a rich green continuous festoon above the 
 footpath. There was something about his near 
 approach to-night that strangely thrilled her with 
 a feeling that had not been customary in such a 
 moment. He too felt himself moving with a 
 gladder swing and the red coal of his cigarette 
 seemed to glow more intensely as he caught up 
 with her on the footpath. All day it had felt as 
 if Ballycullen had been beating them down from 
 their high places, but now, in its efforts to abridge 
 their emancipation, was it defeated again. 
 
 Their talk soon began to draw out of all per- 
 sonal aspects of the night before and to become 
 again a part of the dream of Ireland. . . . She 
 was hungry for more romantic history, which 
 would link him down all the star-lit ways of her 
 vision with those who had given their all for 
 love of Ireland. 
 
 " Tell me more," she said. His talk seemed to 
 tumble willy-nilly out of his disordered reading, 
 bits of history, bits of biography, bits of poetry, 
 bits of dramatic knowledge derived from notices 
 of the National Theatre Society's plays in "Sinn 
 Fein." Yet his words seemed to cause the flash- 
 ing of much beauty before her eyes as he went on 
 with unaccustomed eloquence. . . . They 
 seemed to be walking a way of wonder although
 
 34 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 it was only the wet sidewalk which led from Bal- 
 lycullen to Castleconnor. . . . Now and then 
 they would stop and look, with a wild tenderness, 
 into the eyes of one another. They seemed to do 
 this at the bidding of a common impulse, for it is 
 only the eyes which mirror the secret processes of 
 the heart. How much of all this distant dream 
 of Ireland involving them might yet come true? 
 They scarcely dared to fancy. . . . They had 
 yet to cut a way for themselves up from the life 
 of Ballycullen to which both were chained by 
 strong links of the same strength. Some day it 
 might be, but some day, as the old people said, 
 was a long day. . . . And already Ballycullen 
 was edging itself in to oust their momentary hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Here was Michael already telling her that he 
 simply had to attend a meeting of the Dramatic 
 Class to-night. The reason seemed so slight and 
 mean beside the magic that their company had 
 made. There was some money for tickets he had 
 sold which he had to give an account of. If he 
 did not turn up to-night they would probably say 
 that he was trying to stick to the money. They 
 were probably saying that already. There was 
 some talk of a new hall. He would probably be 
 honoured by being put on the committee. He 
 would feel compelled by his principles to watch 
 and see that the committee was given an Irish-
 
 FURTHER REALITIES 35 
 
 Ireland constitution as well as all that might take 
 place in the hall a complexion coloured by the 
 same principles. Maybe, through all this influ- 
 ence the thought of which came to him as a sud- 
 den sense of power, he might yet be able to lead 
 Ballycullen up into the noble company of the new 
 Ireland. Yet, continually in the things she said 
 was she still retreating within the precincts of the 
 dream. She clutched and fondled him. . . . 
 There was upon him also in sudden moments an 
 anxiety to be keeping her with him this night as 
 if the great purpose which absorbed him held 
 some foreshadowing of separation from her. 
 
 At last, after much half gladsome, half pain- 
 ful dalliance, a few kisses and a few laughs, he 
 went up the little stairway into the Bank room 
 which, on occasions like the present, was also the 
 Committee room of the Ballycullen Young Men's 
 Hall. She continued down the street a little way 
 and, passing through a dark, damp hallway, went 
 upstairs to her narrow room over the shop where 
 she worked every day.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 
 
 THE little history of the place into which 
 Michael had shown some anxiety to go set 
 it resolutely in symbolic relation to the 
 history of his country, especially that intense, 
 agrarian history which is perpetuated down 
 through power of local feuds, now taking the 
 place of the battles and rages of Captains and 
 Kings. It lay within the shadow of King John's 
 castle, as they called the great broken pile at the 
 head of the town, and, forced as it were by the 
 conquering personality of those grim walls, dis- 
 played a certain connection with tyranny, for it 
 had once been a courthouse. 
 
 The rich fields, which some Norman grabber 
 had taken from the Irish, had determined the 
 pride, importance and position of the castle. 
 Later it was the same wealth which had caused 
 Cromwell to come this way and blow it to hell. 
 . . . Sometime in the Eighteenth century this 
 quaint courthouse had sprung up here. There 
 was a queer touch of humour in the thought that 
 
 36
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 37 
 
 it had been built of the stones which had been 
 blown out of King John's castle by the guns of 
 Cromwell. . . . From it had issued forth, 
 under the false pretence of law and justice, the 
 sheer cruelty which the rich fields had raised up 
 in the hearts of men. Men had gone from it to 
 be hanged in '98 on Gallows Hill at the other end 
 of Ballycullen. Later, in '48 and '67 the mur- 
 derous process was here begun which had ended 
 in their transportation. And so on down to the 
 days of the Land League when men had been 
 here found guilty of divers offences and worthy 
 of Kilmainham. Even this mean aspect of 
 majesty had dwindled in the hopeless, dead 
 empty years which followed the death of Parnell. 
 The security of tenure which had been won for 
 them had driven all the ancient, redeeming fire 
 out of their souls. Men never did anything 
 worth sending them to jail for now except drink 
 and beat their wives and break into pubs back- 
 wards on a Sunday. Passed even was the pag- 
 eant of a dark crowd of armed peelers with spiked 
 helmets and fixed bayonets standing all round 
 the still defeated people, with a gouty removable 
 magistrate on the bench giving vent to his venom 
 in long tirades about the villainy of the people of 
 Ireland. . . . 
 
 The magistrates who assembled in Ballycullen 
 now were for the most part sons of men who had
 
 38 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 done jail for agrarian crimes. They were most 
 popular men. So too were the peelers, all, all 
 popular men. Those who committed the more 
 gentlemanly forms of petty felony being popular 
 men also, the Petty Sessions Court was generally 
 a very amusing little social gathering, the only 
 people severely dealt with being those of the 
 tramp class or occasional rebellious spirits who 
 sometimes questioned the authority of the smug, 
 contented men in their acquisitive ways which lay 
 remote from the magisterial dispensation of jus- 
 tice. In fact on the whole, considering the 
 scenes presently enacted within it, the old court- 
 house had possessed an historical tradition too 
 severe and so the machinery of the law had been 
 removed to a modern, pretentious building a little 
 further down the street. So its consequent empti- 
 ness had determined its conversion to a Young 
 Men's Hall. It was sufficiently suitable for this 
 purpose, because a young men's hall, no matter 
 how euphemistic the title might sound, was noth- 
 ing more than a roof under which men of all ages 
 assembled to smoke and spit and gossip and play 
 cards around a fire. It was very like a public- 
 house only it had no license. To be thus in pos- 
 session of the courthouse was a triumph for 
 the forces of the people certainly, yet, curiously 
 enough, in the Young Men's Hall of all the 
 places in Ballycullen there was no hint of the
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 39 
 
 spiritual uplift which Ballycullen so badly 
 needed. Before the coming of the Hall, or "the 
 Club" as it was more commonly called, Culligan's 
 corner outside had been the place of assembly. A 
 correct impression of the Hall was simply that 
 the corner had been turned inside. 
 
 The principal part of the courthouse into which 
 the people of Ballycullen had so recently packed 
 themselves to witness Robert Emmet had once in- 
 cluded the whole court, the auditorium where 
 poor, broken spirits came to be awed, the dock 
 so securely fenced with strong spikes, the arena 
 where legal gladiators had made ferocious at- 
 tacks upon one another, the high place, with the 
 gilt and purple canopy above it, where his wor- 
 ship or his honour or his lordship tugged at a 
 mangy moustache as he thought out his judg- 
 ments in the interests of those who had hired him. 
 . . . Yet the result of this almost poetic re- 
 placement was not everything to the mind of 
 Michael Dempsey. One could not successfully 
 link a single thought of this place with a thought 
 of the nation. The drift of the years which had 
 followed the death of Parnell was the very nega- 
 tion of all nationality and these were the years 
 that had left the most intimate mark upon the old 
 courthouse. 
 
 This young men's hall had been inaugurated 
 " with a great flourish of trumpets," to use a
 
 40 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 phrase from the local paper, and of course, as a 
 tribute to their natural elevation at the head and 
 front of everything, the publicans had been 
 chosen to lend a hand and they had left, in their 
 own words, " no stone unturned " to make it a suc- 
 cess until they began to see in its very success a 
 promise of their own decline. It was bad policy 
 after all to support a thing which had for one of 
 its objects the keeping of the young fellows out of 
 the public-houses. They ceased suddenly to 
 have any great interest in the hall or its objects 
 just as soon as they became fully convinced of 
 this. Whenever any of them came in now at all 
 it was only in the hope of getting back a bit of 
 what he might have lost at nap in the little card- 
 room at the back which was just like one of their 
 own tap-rooms only there was no beer. In the 
 reading room were still a few books of a miscel- 
 laneous kind which had been presented to "The 
 Library" in the days when the Young Men's Hall 
 threatened to become the University of Ballycul- 
 len. The younger and minor members of the 
 club spent their time mostly hunched up like old 
 men around a big stove in one corner looking into 
 the quiet glow with silent, aged looks. . . . 
 The thick silence was often broken by the sizzle 
 of a spit as one was landed successfully upon the 
 red hot lid of the stove. . . . The Dramatic 
 Class organised by Michael Dempsey had come
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 41 
 
 as it were to put new life into something practi- 
 cally dead and it had suddenly seemed to some 
 of the minor members that the Club might be 
 made to mean something after all. And thus had 
 a sharp division arisen between what might come 
 to be the progressive and what certainly was now 
 the conservative element in Ballycullen. The 
 elderly, unchangeable men still wanted their room 
 for smoking and spitting and playing cards in. 
 The arrangement of dressing-rooms, etc., for a 
 play occasioned them an amount of disturbance 
 which they bore with ill grace. Besides, in those 
 days before the war and its demoralising influx 
 of money, making most for the independence of 
 the publican, those publicans who could always 
 influence the older men anxiously desired every 
 penny to be spent in their houses, and a concert or 
 a play was a thing that made away with a lot of 
 money that to their way of thinking by right was 
 theirs. Besides also what purpose could the 
 fund they were making up by such means have 
 other than the upliftment of Ballycullen which 
 was something they did not want at all seeing 
 that they throve upon its degradation. Bally- 
 cullen had been growing more and more lifeless 
 until this little stir of a clash had come. The 
 young men, or those who were still merely eager, 
 unfledged boys, had gathered, as they thought, 
 around Michael Dempsey, while the elderly men
 
 42 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 had begun to cling together angrily like wasps 
 as elderly men always will when their authority 
 is threatened. Hitherto the few ideas which had 
 come to Michael from his scattered reading had 
 only caused a poor, dumb stirring in his mind, 
 but now the fancied emancipation of a sudden 
 madness was upon him. It was the things that 
 were done in Ballycullen which in a way had 
 caused all the sadness of Ireland. And now that 
 Mirandolina had come dancing brightly into his 
 life the feeling that he must question the guilt of 
 the place greatly was upon him as he entered 
 the hall. 
 
 The ugly, discoloured walls, the remains of 
 the law-court fixtures, expressed silently a con- 
 nection between this place and bygone times, but 
 the people who now stood waiting for Michael 
 in one of the little rooms were most dismally of 
 the present and its drifting emptiness. They 
 were grinning broadly at one another about the 
 many laughable side-issues of the play, of how 
 one man had given a bad two-shilling piece at 
 the door only to be ignominiously "collared" by 
 one of the stewards just as he was marching into 
 one of the grand front seats with his girl. . . . 
 Of how Seumas Cunneen in the part of Michael 
 Dwyer had tried to make it a funny stage-Irish 
 part, like the way it would be done by a fellow 
 in a travelling company, although there was little
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 43 
 
 humour in the lines of the stern man who had 
 been hunted like a wild dog all across the Wick- 
 low Hills. . . . But the bottle of whiskey 
 found necessary to defeat the nervousness which 
 appearance before Ballycullen brought upon 
 him, left by accident to peep out of the pocket 
 nearest the audience, had helped to give the part 
 a different reading than that which Michael 
 Dempsey, always so serious, had intended, and 
 one very much more acceptable to the taste of 
 Ballycullen. And thus, out of their mean out- 
 looks on all things the talk became smaller and 
 smaller. Then someone suddenly remembered 
 Robert Emmet. This was Gilbert McCormack 
 whose father had been Hugh O'Donnell McCor- 
 mack, the most notable Parnellite in this part of 
 Ireland. With his pinched face and womanish 
 hands this man was certainly, as almost always 
 happens, of a meaner breed than his father who 
 had been something like a man, enduring for his 
 attachment to a lost cause even unto destruction. 
 Perhaps, because his own father had been broken 
 in the same hopeless fight, Hugh O'Donnell Mc- 
 Cormack was a man whom Michael was able to 
 remember with the most extraordinary clearness, 
 perhaps through his own childhood remembrance 
 of having seen him in the flesh and in the crea- 
 tion of his mother's talk. He could see him 
 always, when he looked upon his son Gilbert,
 
 44 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 driving out of Ballycullen on a summer evening 
 in his shabby trap to the big damp house upon 
 his dwindling farm. . . . There in the mould- 
 ering parlour decorated only with pictures of 
 William Ewart Gladstone and Charles Stewart 
 Parnell, Hugh O'Donnell McCormack would 
 look sadly into the eyes of his young wife as she 
 said: 
 
 "Well, I suppose you had a meeting to-day?" 
 
 "Aye, indeed, Martha. We had a meeting to- 
 day." 
 
 "Is there any sign of the persecution slacken- 
 ing, Hugh?" 
 
 "Oh, we had a great meeting entirely to-day. 
 John Carrick, Martin Burke, Loughlin McNa- 
 mara, Andrew Dempsey and myself. Only the 
 few faithful followers of the Chief in Ballycul- 
 len, Martha. We had a great chat over a lot of 
 things and it was most terrific to see the enthu- 
 
 siasm." 
 
 Then the sad look, falling like a mist upon her 
 bright eyes, would show that she knew how this 
 man she had married in the prime of his patriot- 
 ism had spent his day with the others in some 
 dark room at the back of one of the public-houses 
 in Ballycullen talking about poor Parnell and 
 telling them that his heart was in the grave in 
 Glasnevin with his dear, martyred King, and 
 striking the table and whispering fiercely the most
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 45 
 
 dreadful things about the Bishops and Priests of 
 Ireland. . . . They would have achieved 
 nothing by all this, for they were merely futile 
 men drifting with their country down a dark 
 tide. . . . 
 
 Then this pretty girl-wife had died, the broken 
 Parnellite never realising the hand he had in her 
 death until she was gone. But ever after attend- 
 ance at some such meeting in Ballycullen he 
 would stumble drunkenly across the fields to cry 
 over her grave. ... A curious madman surely 
 this Hugh O'Donnell McCormack who might 
 have won some respect and admiration for his 
 devotion to a lost cause in a more decent country 
 than the Ireland of his time. 
 
 He had not left much of a son after him surely 
 in the person of Gilbert McCormack. "One of 
 the biggest bowsies of a cur on the Ballycullen 
 District Council" was the standard estimate of 
 his character, yet he never failed to snatch at 
 every little opportunity to give himself distinction 
 as his father's son. He was always very jealous 
 of any other one who showed the least promise of 
 jumping into prominence. 
 
 Standing beside him now, huge and powerfully 
 ignorant, was Thomas Cooney, the publican. He 
 was here to-night for the first time in a great 
 while, for he felt that his rights had been dis- 
 tinctly encroached upon. He was a man whose
 
 life was sped by the rages of a mean mind and 
 it was his aim always to keep people down. 
 ^There were three ways in which he worked 
 towards this end. His money stood in particular 
 for one aspect of his power. There were so many 
 people belonging to Ballycullen and the parish 
 in his books that they could not possibly afford 
 to go against him. It was an almost religious 
 principle of business with him to give them a run 
 of certain distance in his books so that they could 
 not afford to be against him in any turn of poli- 
 tics or of business. He had never liked this hall 
 either, although he had given it a certain amount 
 of support at the outset. It struck at the very 
 foundation of his power. So long as he had the 
 young men coming in to tipple in his pub he 
 knew that he had them at his mercy. In their 
 strong drunkenness they were blind to the offence 
 he stood for against the national life and their 
 own very existence, but sobriety was a thing that 
 might cause them to see. He clung like a big 
 excrescence to all that was elderly and decaying in 
 the life of his country and to him always the very 
 notion of innovation of any kind went very hard 
 upon his conscience. Because of many an ex- 
 tension of his influence the hall had declined 
 almost to vanishing point, but now this fellow 
 Michael Dempsey, his rival Marcus Flynn's 
 shop-boy, had the cheek to stand for a great
 
 MEN OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 47. 
 
 revival of the hall and it was because of this that 
 he looked upon Michael as a personal enemy with 
 a gaze of ferocity that was perfectly apparent in 
 the little room. 
 
 The third man, now looming largely in the 
 group, was Ambrose Donohue, a young man of 
 ambitions too but of a kind which were in strong 
 contrast with those of Michael Dempsey. He 
 possessed a certain distinction in the place of 
 some years standing such as had now suddenly 
 fallen upon Michael. But it was to England 
 that Ambrose Donohue had looked for his in- 
 spiration. He had consistently read every one of 
 those English weeklies which were described as 
 demoralising, degrading, immoral, filthy, and 
 west British by the Irish weeklies which Michael 
 read. But the shoneenism of Ambrose was in 
 more perfect keeping with the shoneen heart of 
 Ballycullen. The flashy, cheap clothes which he 
 bought "made to measure" in England, his lout- 
 ish air and superficial manner were as one with 
 the cheapness, the shoddiness, the frothiness of 
 life which in this place had departed so far from 
 the grandeurs of the ancient Gaelic civilisation. 
 The songs which he sang were out of the English 
 music halls, the books which he read were 
 English drivel, the few plays he had ever seen 
 were English rubbish also. The part he had 
 chosen in " Robert Emmet," that of Leonard Me-
 
 48 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Nally, the informer^ the villain of the piece, he 
 had given the full benefit of his cheap taste. 
 Thus had it been a struggle between him and 
 Michael Dempsey for applause, a struggle be- 
 tween the worst and the best in those who had 
 witnessed the play to mete out the applause in 
 the proper proportions. Ambrose Donohue was 
 such a popular lad, never doing anything to 
 offend them, while he kept before them at all 
 times the figure of one to be admired as one of 
 themselves. While always loudly making dis- 
 play of his distinction he remained at their 
 beck and call, thus flattering their vanity. Be- 
 sides being " the genius," as he was proudly 
 called, he was also the principal handy man 
 of Ballycullen. He was in the one body a 
 carpenter, a mechanic, a comic artiste and 
 a painter of the fronts of public houses. This 
 was the first occasion upon which anyone had 
 leaped beyond him into the public eye of Bally- 
 cullen, but he was wearing the look of one who 
 did not seem to have noticed it. 
 
 Michael Dempsey could not be described as 
 having really entered the room until, in three 
 sudden flashes, he was thus surrounded by the 
 reality of these three men.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 
 
 THE remainder of those present in the little 
 room did not seem of so much account. 
 Not one of them was even so important as 
 Gilbert McCormack who wrote D. C. after his 
 name and hobnobbed with the crowd that came 
 into Ballycullen every Friday to manage its 
 affairs and pass resolutions declaring confidence 
 in those who mismanaged the affairs of Ireland. 
 It was by creating the like of Gilbert McCormack 
 that the British Government had struck most 
 subtly at the self-respect of Ireland and almost 
 destroyed it. In their office and their persons 
 these District Councillors stood fully for a be- 
 trayal of Ireland. 
 
 The petrifying influence of Thomas Cooney 
 and the rigid conservation of thought which his 
 presence induced were strongly upon them. In 
 them was made manifest the gombeen-man's 
 loudest boast that there wasn't a man in Bally- 
 cullen could as much as sneeze at him. Why, 
 they were almost afraid to look at him. All oi; 
 
 49
 
 50 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 them had always been pleased to imitate Ambrose 
 Donohue, never seeming to realise at all that he 
 also was an imitation of a further imitation. 
 They stood for less than nothing with regard to 
 the life in which they were fixed. 
 
 Here now, in presence of some foreshadowing 
 of the clash which it was destined should arise in 
 Ballycullen, their recent stirring of admiration 
 for Michael felt somehow strained a little from 
 their feelings and subjugated. He was a decent 
 "gom" of a fellow right enough, but what did he 
 always want to be blathering about Ireland for? 
 That was no sort of talk for a young fellow like 
 him at the present time. It was all very well for 
 old fellows in the days gone by when a sup of 
 drink would nearly make them think that they 
 were Robert Emmet or Wolfe Tone. In addi- 
 tion to those who had taken part in the play their 
 number was re-inforced by the Priest's boy, the 
 Tailor's son and the Sergeant's gossoon. 
 
 Thus almost, as if by a skilful effort of stage- 
 management, was created the definite reality 
 which had for its object the sudden suppression 
 of Michael Dempsey who had just been talking 
 of doing so much for Ireland. There was a 
 spasm of piercing pain in the thought that it was 
 hard to reach at once beyond the limits of his 
 narrow life, even for love of Mirandolina. The 
 dream of Sinn Fein had lifted him of course be-
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 51 
 
 yond the life of Ballycullen, but there are mo- 
 ments in life when one feels that dreams are 
 dreams. . . . 
 
 A discussion as to what might best be done with 
 the money made by the play was already far ad- 
 vanced. Twenty pounds had been cleared and 
 already it was making itself insistent that some- 
 thing should be done with it. In Ballycullen, 
 money, for whose collection a number of 
 people were responsible, always seemed to 
 possess of itself this compulsion to uneasiness. 
 Michael was very anxious that at least a portion 
 should be devoted towards that purpose which 
 was always most in his mind. As yet of course 
 Sinn Fein had no fund on the lines of the Irish 
 Parliamentary Fund, swollen so enormously 
 with its shiploads of dollars from America, for 
 in this as in all else Sinn Fein did the thing 
 differently, but in Michael its principles were so 
 deeply ingrained that quite unconsciously he al- 
 ways thought along Sinn Fein lines. 
 
 This Dramatic Class was, he felt, a form of 
 good national work and besides there was a side 
 to it which had for him a very subtle appeal. It 
 seemed to stand for a kind of continuous asso- 
 ciation with Mirandolina and a making of him- 
 self a figure of the miracle she represented in his 
 life. A slight feeling of vanity had taken pos- 
 session of him, for he felt that he had done his
 
 52 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 part well. It might easily appear that a more 
 finished elocutionist might have done it better, 
 for it was merely a dramatic recital of the things 
 that Robert Emmet had said so long ago. But to 
 Michael these were more than mere words. They 
 seemed the rich concentration of all he had ever 
 learned of Irish nationality. What Emmet had 
 said Wolfe Tone had said before him and his 
 very words had been repeated later by Mitchel 
 and Davis. Michael had always longed to say 
 them as an expression of his own heart and that 
 was why he had repeated the words of Robert 
 Emmet's part so well. 
 
 Now Thomas Cooney had never approved of 
 Robert Emmet, and it almost caused him to speak 
 excrementitiously when he thought of the mad 
 ideals that the poor unfortunate fellow had at- 
 tempted to foist upon the Ireland of his time. To 
 his mind, determined realist as he was, the mag- 
 nification of Ireland was connoted by every man 
 in it doing the best he could for himself, with- 
 out being too particular as to the means. What 
 Call had any man to make an exhibition of him- 
 self by talking of dying for Ireland or of sacri- 
 ficing himself for sake of Ireland? It was all 
 good enough now to be a member of " The 
 Laygue." It was a respectable sort of connection 
 that brought a man into direct touch upon many 
 an occasion with " the Leaders of the Irish race
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 53 
 
 at home and abroad." It was a way of bringing 
 custom to a man's shop and of helping a man out 
 of many a hobble, but to think of going further 
 well, damn it, that Robert Emmet must be a 
 wild omadhaun anyway and he a kind of a 
 gentleman, don't you know, that could live a soft, 
 easy life and marry the girl if he had a mind for 
 it instead of mixing himself up with the riff-raff 
 of Dublin that only made a show of him when 
 he started the little rebellion. To his mind all 
 that foolishness which nearly sickened him was 
 now expressed, for his particular offense, too, in 
 the person of Michael Dempsey. Of course he 
 had always felt obliged to distrust him as the 
 fellow in Marcus Flynn's shop, for Marcus and 
 he had been rivals of long standing. Conse- 
 quently the proposition he now ventured came 
 from him easily as if ready made for a great 
 while. 
 
 " Now idle money like this should always be 
 given to ' the Cause ' and I may go further and 
 say that it must be given to ' the Cause.' If we 
 don't support them that's fighting our battles on 
 the floor of the house what'll they think of us, 
 what'll England think of us, what'll the world 
 think of us? " 
 
 There was immediate and prolonged applause 
 in the little room, for it was in the nature of a 
 fixed tradition or a politico-religious rite that
 
 54 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Thomas Cooney should always be whole-heart- 
 edly supported whenever he made a public pro- 
 nouncement of this kind. Besides they thought 
 that they were about to be treated to a whole 
 speech. 
 
 Gilbert McCormack's thin voice now chipped 
 in with the proposition that it should be devoted 
 to " a sinking fund." He had often heard the 
 phrase used at a meeting of the Ballycullen Board 
 of Guardians and not really knowing what it 
 meant, he thought it was the right thing to say 
 here. 
 
 "A sinking fund for what, in the name of 
 God ? " said Michael, stung more by its absolute 
 unintelligibility than by the remark itself. One 
 of the chorus, the tailor's son, made a poor joke 
 about sinking a pump. It caused a laugh of 
 course for there were already twenty-seven barren 
 pumps in Ballycullen Union. Gilbert appeared 
 quite unable to explain but as it were in support 
 of his proposition he began to stutter further 
 phrases out of the fortnightly meeting of the 
 Ballycullen Board. Queerly enough, some of 
 those in the little room began to gape at him in 
 admiration. Even if it was not really anything 
 at all his talk sounded like something, and the 
 reputation of the Ballycullen Board for " dodg- 
 ery " was so widespread that after all by very 
 nature of this thought was it suggested to their
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 55 
 
 minds that his oblique statement might really con- 
 tain more at bottom than the more direct and 
 powerful pronouncement of Thomas Cooney. 
 
 The moment became propitious for a third sug- 
 gestion and it was made by Ambrose Donohue. 
 It had already been prefaced by suggestive 
 coughs and the whispered remark: 
 
 " I wonder what has Ambie to say?" 
 
 " I think, gentlemen, it is a great chance to 
 have the Hall fitted up with a new floor for 
 dancing and a touch of paint on the walls and 
 things. A bit of swank, you know! Swanks 
 would come here then to a ball if we had one and 
 give a bit of a tone to the place as well as to 
 everyone that had a hand in getting it up." 
 
 This was well said for Ambrose Donohue. It 
 had the effect of flattering all without offending 
 any, yet it stood to give him the distinction He had 
 always aimed at, now more than ever, since it 
 would seem to have been questioned by the recent 
 performance of Michael Dempsey. Also, on ac- 
 count of his inclusive profession he would be 
 given both jobs of flooring and painting and 
 thus probably most of the money would find 
 its way into his pocket. On the surface it 
 sounded as the announcement of a sportsman and 
 with the kind of appeal that must make it im- 
 mediately popular. The thinly veiled sneer he 
 had worn since the entrance to the room of
 
 56 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Michael broadened into a wide smile as he con- 
 tinued: 
 
 " You see, even if nothing more than invest- 
 ment, it ought to be certainly worth while. When 
 we'd have the proper fixtures set up we could give 
 a big dance for profit, for ' the Cause/ at any 
 time and a little left by every time we'd have a 
 dance, for deterioration of floor, walls, etc., would 
 provide the only kind of sinking fund we may 
 need." 
 
 Both Thomas Cooney and Gilbert McCormack 
 nodded their heads at the points where considera- 
 tion for their suggestions was so magnificently 
 expressed. The others were smiling jubilantly, 
 and they considered Ambrose Donohue a damned 
 smart fellow entirely to have thought of it. It 
 was not every day that such a complete plan for 
 their own upliftment was laid before them. Their 
 feeble imaginations struggled suddenly to pic- 
 ture themselves as captivating gallants dancing 
 around and around with grand girls from Castle- 
 connor and Mullaghowen, instead of dressing 
 themselves up in dirty figarios out of some im- 
 moral tenement house in Dublin and then striving 
 to disport themselves on a narrow, dangerous 
 stage to make doubtful pastime for all the grin- 
 ning idiots in Ballycullen. The words of Ambrose 
 continued to fall psychologically upon the mo- 
 ment.
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 57 
 
 " If we went on doing more plays I think that 
 the people of Ballycullen would jolly soon tire 
 of them. Besides I don't think that they want 
 much of this Robert Emmet stuff anyway. 
 They're a bit beyond it, don't you know? It's all 
 very well for galoots out far in the country that 
 don't know any better but for a smart little show 
 like Ballycullen that's getting to be a bit of all 
 right. I think now that my suggestion is alto- 
 gether the more practicable. Do I express your 
 feelings, boys?" 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" 
 
 "Hear! Hear!" also from Thomas Cooney 
 and Gilbert McCormack. 
 
 Michael was left without a word in his mouth 
 so successfully had he been cornered, and he had 
 not been given the opportunity of offering a single 
 suggestion, for already the whole arrangement 
 had been, carried above his head. . . . There 
 ran swiftly through his mind the thought of all 
 the time and trouble he had given to the pro- 
 duction of this play. To begin with how he had 
 spent many weary nights in striving hard to talk 
 the bare idea into them and then the difficulty of 
 finding a proper place for rehearsal, sometimes 
 being compelled to rehearse along the road, re- 
 peating their lines between one another as they 
 walked. Also as they came nearer the night of 
 production there would be the painful necessity
 
 58 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 of dragging absent male members out of the pubs, 
 and the female members from the intoxication 
 of gossip in the little holes of dressmaker's shops. 
 All the hopeless indifference, the stupidity, the 
 despondence which he was obliged to remove con- 
 tinually by an enthusiasm which it was always 
 difficult to assume in Ballycullen. Then, to assist 
 all these in their very determined efforts to defeat 
 him was the power of gossip, the terrible tongue- 
 tyranny of old women who sat in remote nooks 
 in the village prating, prating always. . . . 
 Sometimes it was desperate surely and none knew 
 the utter bitterness of his struggle. It was almost 
 a thing of ecstasy, this hidden heroism, and 
 Michael, as he went about it, often thought of 
 those who had suffered in secret silence for some 
 dream like this that had come out of the history 
 of Ireland. . . . Yet it was the only way he 
 had of showing his love in this poor place. He 
 had triumphed even unto the success of the pre- 
 vious night and it was directly upon that little 
 achievement that he wished to build higher for 
 the enjoyment of Mirandolina Con way. . . . 
 And here now was a sudden defeat after he had 
 tried so very hard to avert defeat the gigantic 
 sneer which would spring to spread itself wide 
 from the talk of the old women now because he 
 had not been able to hold on to his small triumph. 
 It was his very success that had caused him to
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 59 
 
 make the big mistake of his life. Hitherto they 
 had borne with him because they had not taken 
 him too seriously, but now, for the first time, 
 they saw in him a fellow with lofty aspirations, a 
 bit of a brat that certainly wanted a little rough 
 handling. The three men before him had spoken 
 on behalf of the feeling which had been created 
 against him in Ballycullen. . . . And they 
 had done their work well. . . . 
 
 Before his eyes of anger passed again the 
 vision of all he had dreamt of doing. He thought 
 last night that he had increased his following 
 from the handful of boys who sat, in imitation 
 of their elders, spitting and gabbling around the 
 stove, in fact that he had created a great impres- 
 sion and that the people were with him. That 
 was all that had ever seemed wanting. Just to 
 be with him that he might tell them all he had 
 learned about Ireland, all he had thought and 
 dreamed. ... If only they would read but 
 in this connection he realised immediately the 
 omnipotence of the cursed capitalised, Anglicised 
 press. Of course they never read anything worth 
 reading but very often they went to concerts and 
 dramatic entertainments, and the thought of put- 
 ting certain kinds of plays before them was not 
 without its wisdom. Plays in which aspects of 
 Irish history and national thought in keeping 
 with Sinn Fein principles might be given, gradu-
 
 60 JHE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 ally sugar-coated as it were by the extraneous 
 interest of dramatic performance, to be swal- 
 lowed, possibly to the extent of creating a genu- 
 ine taste and enthusiasm at some future time for 
 the ideas themselves. He had thought of a Gae- 
 lic Class in addition, yet had felt instinctively that 
 anything of the kind was before its time in Bally- 
 cullen. But he might just as well have tried all 
 now as well as the part he had so carefully nursed 
 only to die so young. The dumbness of sudden 
 defeat was upon him and the power he had but 
 temerariously questioned was even now more bru- 
 tally strong just because he had failed. 
 
 After the way in which Ambrose Donohue had 
 put it nothing more could be said and his way of 
 putting it also was such that it seemed perfectly 
 ridiculous that anything had been said at all. 
 This agreement upon the point at issue must have 
 appeared so perfectly obvious all the time. Yet, 
 curiously commingled, the sigh of defeat and the 
 shout of victory were in the air. . . . 
 
 The meeting ended abruptly and Michael's 
 face was hot from anger and confusion as he 
 stumbled out into the street. It was the same 
 old muddy place lighted by the street lamps of 
 dream no longer. In the light of a new moon it 
 appeared coldly naked. Of a sudden was it 
 starkly plain and of power and significance in 
 his life, although a little while since he had
 
 A POINT AT ISSUE 61 
 
 scarcely seen it at all or else only vaguely as part 
 of some immortal scene. . . . That was to- 
 night too just before he had parted with Miran- 
 dolina. To think that he would have nothing at 
 all to tell her at the end of the long morrow. And 
 she would have heard of his defeat. In fact 
 already the rumour was spreading as to what was 
 going to be done with the money that Michael 
 Dempsey had made out of " Robert Emmet." As 
 he swung quietly around Culligan's corner and 
 down to the little house, where there was always 
 an immense depression on his mother and sister, 
 he could hear one corner-boy say to another. 
 
 " Well, now wasn't he a common idiot anyway 
 to make such a lot of money for them to have the 
 sport out of it?" 
 
 " Sure it serves him damn well right, the great 
 actor, moryah: D'ye know what I'm going to 
 tell you? If fellows like that wasn't kept in their 
 places a man couldn't live in Ballycullen."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 
 
 THE old deadness was upon Marcus Flynn's 
 next day. Michael came out from behind 
 the counter often to take a look at the 
 muddy street of Ballycullen. Marcus himself 
 bustled in and out while cursing still with the old 
 ferocity. He had already heard of the thing that 
 had happened and, as he thought it over and over 
 now, it appeared more and more in the nature of a 
 personal affront. It represented a triumph for 
 Thomas Cooney because it was his own shop-boy, 
 and consequently himself, who had been defeated. 
 In the rage of his foiled spitefulness a perfect fury 
 possessed him. Everything was wrong, every- 
 thing was going to hell, as he put it. And as 
 there was no one else in the shop while he spoke 
 so fiercely Michael appeared as the one directly 
 responsible for this universal damnation. Every 
 time he passed in or out he would hit the counter 
 fiercely with his fist and shout hoarsely: 
 
 "And be God, Thomas Cooney is a bigger man 
 than Robert Emmet. I suppose you wouldn't be- 
 lieve that now, eh?" 
 
 62
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 63 
 
 Towards the end of the afternoon his awful 
 visitations began to decrease in number and in 
 vehemence and Michael surmised from past ex- 
 perience that he had fled from the torment of his 
 narrow heart to the comfort of the bottle secre- 
 tively in his own room. This was a day of the 
 week, the Tuesday, when few customers came 
 into the shop until evening and Michael had 
 plenty of leisure in which to see his torment re- 
 flected in the muddy pools of the street. The 
 heavy silence which held everything at this 
 hour effectively prevented any brave thought of 
 life from disturbing the mind of Michael towards 
 the holiness of hope. This death in life was of 
 no recent occurrence in this place. He rapidly 
 figured it in fugitive glimpses of its historical 
 aspect. 
 
 After all, and in spite of the boasted tradition 
 of the courthouse, that place, the very thought of 
 which caused such a recent wound of the memory, 
 must really have sent few heroes to the scaffold 
 in '98. On the contrary, the progenitors of its 
 present breed must have gone bowing and scrap- 
 ing to the murdering yeomen as they came riding 
 through. The mean villiany of the act of Union 
 had called forth no passionate protest from 
 Ballycullen. Of Emmet's Rebellion they had 
 never heard for long years after it had happened. 
 And in those after years, that dark diminuendo
 
 64 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 of Irish history, it had stood, as might be ex- 
 pected, behind O'Connell, a contingent which was 
 still one of its proudest boasts having gone with 
 green and gold flags to the great meeting in Tara. 
 The melodramatic windiness of " the Liberator " 
 had most perfectly expressed the heart and mind 
 of Ballycullen. To the present day both Thomas 
 Cooney and Marcus Flynn would tell as their best 
 stories the famous flashes of wit which had passed 
 between the great Dan and Biddy Moriarity, the 
 nshwoman. Ballycullen had condemned as one 
 man the foolishness, the patent foolishness of the 
 Young Ireland Movement. Its geographical situ- 
 ation had kept it from suffering during the 
 Famine and some of the long processions of carts 
 with food for export, from what was practically 
 a starving country, had left Ballycullen undis- 
 turbed, although the same economic outrage had 
 goaded Smith O'Brien to his feeble rebellion. 
 Ballycullen's contribution to the Fenian move- 
 ment had been a few informers whose descendants 
 were now amongst the most respectable parish- 
 ioners. The immense, ramified power of the 
 middle class, the allied graziers, shopkeepers and 
 strong farmers, had effectively stilled any notable 
 outburst here during the days of the Land war. 
 The men doomed to suffer always had suffered 
 then, but this class had increased its prosperity. 
 The later days of the Parnell split had stood for
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 65 
 
 the reveaiment of Ballycullen. Lukewarm in its 
 support of the Chief it had been at boiling point 
 in its antagonism. Never before had it been 
 known to take up any cause or any denial of a 
 cause with the same enthusiasm. It had broken 
 the few poor faithful fools like Hugh O'Donnell 
 McCormack and Michael's father, Andrew Demp- 
 sey. . . . Later still it had twisted, with fine 
 opportunist agility, and become a constituent por- 
 tion of " the solid phalanx," whatever that might 
 mean, upon the side of Parnell's old party re- 
 organised. Perhaps the tyranny of the mental 
 state which had caused it to so fiercely admire 
 O'Connell was heavy upon it again but it was a 
 fact that for many empty years it had hung 
 anxiously upon the pronouncements of " the 
 leaders of the Irish Race at home and abroad." It 
 had contributed of its best to the hypnotised, stag- 
 nant, tragic state. Most determinedly had it met 
 with disfavour the co-operative movement, a tall 
 brown-bearded man, probably "A. E," who now 
 occasionally reviewed books for " Sinn Fein," 
 getting a very bad reception here on the night he 
 had called a little meeting to tell them all about 
 it. At the present time it was most amazing to 
 contemplate the complete agreement which existed 
 between the aims of the leaders and the general 
 opinion of this place. On evenings when the 
 paper reported a great speech by either of the
 
 66 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Johns Redmond or Dillon or T. P. O'Connor 
 or Joe Devlin young men and old mumbled 
 rapturously between them the momentous and 
 golden words. . . . Their very souls seemed to 
 cling desperately to this queer, perverted ideal- 
 ism. " The Old House in College Green " had 
 become the Hy Brazil of Ballycullen. Failure in 
 any man at all to experience the same consuming 
 enthusiasm was put down as the most depraved 
 factionism and a sin certainly as great, if not 
 actually greater, in their eyes, than avowed athe- 
 ism. . . . 
 
 It was not a little strange, Michael thought, out 
 of his semi-political, semi-historical reverie, that 
 ere now, otherwise and less admirably he must, 
 because of what was in him, have moved inevit- 
 ably into conflict with this absence of spirit. It 
 was now about the beginning of the period when 
 John Redmond " held England in the hollow of 
 his hand " and as there appeared no occasion at 
 all to doubt the immediate result the utter deprav- 
 ity of any form of factionism was blackly em- 
 phasised. Sinn Fein, for the moment, was in 
 abeyance. But here and there were men working 
 hard to keep it alive, doing little things such as 
 Michael Dempsey had done by the production of 
 the play. It was the like of this, in the tradition 
 of the drunken ballad singers and the wild women 
 of the roads, that had blown up the embers al-
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 67 
 
 ways. Now, his mind clouded by the past and 
 clouded by the present, was he reviewing its fail- 
 ure reflected in the muddy pools of the main street 
 of Ballycullen. . . . 
 
 Somebody was whispering at his elbow: 
 " I saw you playing Robert Emmet the other 
 night, Michael, and it was grand, grand. But of 
 course the mouths that you were playing it for 
 didn't understand, but I understood, so I did, be- 
 cause I read in the history of Ireland everything 
 about him and before I forgot it entirely I had 
 off his speech by heart and could sound it out aye, 
 nearly as well as yourself, Michael. And it 
 would bring me a power of drink, too, this ac- 
 complishment of mine, whenever I'd go to a decent 
 town where the blood of Fenianism still stirs in 
 a few veins but of course, condemned as I am to 
 live in this sorrowful place, where there's scarcely 
 a mother's son with a bit of blood in him, for 
 want of exercise it went out of my mind includ- 
 ing most of my knowledge of ancient and modern 
 history through having to be looking at them day 
 after day, the narrow, miserable crew. . . . 
 Will you give me the lend of tuppence, Michael? 
 I hadn't a'er a drink yet this blessed day." 
 
 Michael turned to look at Kevin Shanaghan, 
 one of the strangest figures in Ballycullen. A 
 man who, still not without a certain glimmer of 
 intellect, lived from pub to pub, and from drink
 
 68 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 to drink. He might be about fifty, but neglect 
 and hunger and drink had added to his years 
 and the unshaven gray stubbles upon his white, 
 wasted face gave him the look of a man who had 
 descended past all hope. And the look in his 
 eyes too was one from which hope had fled. It 
 was a sad, wistful, famished look and might be 
 that of a man who, at some time in his life, had 
 been stricken by a great misfortune from which he 
 had never since recovered. But there was one 
 great day in Ballycullen and Kevin Shanaghan 
 had been a great man that day. It was the day 
 the meeting had been held to celebrate the triumph 
 of the people in the Land War, even in this part 
 of Ireland. 
 
 The throngs that marched four deep came like 
 detachments of victorious armies down every 
 road into Ballycullen with their banners blazing 
 in the sun. And Kevin Shanaghan rode at the 
 head of all after they had passed into one great 
 company and with the staff laid proudly across 
 his shoulder he carried a huge green flag with a 
 gold harp on it. 
 
 He was a great going man, as they said in those 
 days, a gentleman nearly, and sure he could be 
 really one if he liked, for he had more than a drop 
 of the noble blood and as well a fine, lovely farm 
 of rich land. He used to be most beautifully 
 dressed, for he was a grand, handsome man and
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 69 
 
 it was often said that he could marry a land- 
 lord's daughter if he liked. His appearance 
 would remind one almost of a likeness of 
 Meagher of the Sword. People used to say that 
 his name would go down to history, for Michael 
 Davitt had a great opinion of him. There used 
 to be long accounts of him in the papers, and 
 full reports of the eloquent speeches he used to 
 make fine, fiery speeches about the land and 
 about the poor, downtrodden people of Ireland. 
 And what he was striving to do for the people 
 was never in the hope of any reward but just for 
 the pure love of Ireland. One could see it in his 
 very face and feel the intense fire flashing from 
 his eyes. It was past counting what he must 
 have spent in " the Cause." He used to be all over 
 the country. One day he would be down in the 
 wilds of Mayo, another day at a meeting in the 
 county Wicklow speaking words of encourage- 
 ment, words of anger or words of comfort to the 
 people as they might need them and as the case 
 might be. 
 
 They used to cheer him tremendously when he 
 would appear in public life, for he was doing 
 great work for them every day of his life, showing 
 clear as noonday both to God and man that he 
 loved them more than he loved himself. It used 
 to seem too as if he wanted to pay them for the 
 privilege of being allowed to give up all his time
 
 70 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 to them. He would always head the list of sub- 
 scriptions when there would be a meeting for the 
 formation of a new branch of the Land League. 
 . . . Kevin Shanaghan 5. ... Kevin Shan- 
 aghan 10. . . . Kevin Shanaghan 20. . . . 
 Everyone said, to be sure, that he was a true 
 Irishman, but that he would get it hard to stick 
 it at that rate. . . . 
 
 While he was so busy looking after the busi- 
 ness of all the landless people of Ireland, how 
 could he be minding his own business, they said ? 
 He had parties minding his land for him that 
 were robbing him and letting everything go to the 
 bad. The day of the great meeting in Ballycullen 
 should have been the proudest of his life, but 
 everyone said that there was something on the 
 poor fellow's mind. It was queer indeed and 
 Ballycullen in the day of its deliverance too, as 
 one of the speakers had just reminded them. 
 Maybe he felt that when the shouting was all over 
 he would be face to face with his own troubles. 
 . . . But sure it was the grandest thing in the 
 world to be standing there on the same platform 
 with Michael Davitt himself who had always a 
 fierce expression and one sleeve empty. . 
 
 When Kevin Shanaghan rose to his feet the 
 whole world seemed filled with the tumult of 
 cheering.
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 71 
 
 " Men of Ballycullen," he said, " we're at the 
 end of the long fight and the day is won." 
 
 The cheering rose so tremendous with his first 
 words that for nearly half-an-hour he could not 
 get to say another word. He stood there like a 
 statue just as if they were after putting up a 
 monument to his memory in Ballycullen. It was 
 a strange thing that seemed to bring him back to 
 life. ... A girl on the outskirts of the crowd 
 waved a green silk handkerchief and he smiled, 
 but there seemed to be something very sorrowful 
 in his face even then. . . . When he opened his 
 mouth again he let such a flood of eloquence out 
 of him as made the people say that Kevin Shan- 
 aghan was after making the greatest speech of 
 his life. Then the throngs made way for Michael 
 Davitt and himself and they drove off in an open 
 carriage, the people going absolutely mad and 
 they in return raising their hats for all the world 
 like two kings. . . . 
 
 It was not long until Kevin Shanaghan had to 
 part with his fine, lovely farm, but what broke 
 his heart completely was that the girl he said he 
 was very fond of broke away from him just as 
 soon as the word began to go around that he was 
 going down. It preyed on his mind a great deal 
 and drove most of the patriotic fire out of him. 
 He did not go to so many National meetings after 
 that and of course his subscriptions here and there
 
 72 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 were something smaller, for he had only a little 
 income coming to him in return for all the fine 
 land he was after parting with. He had little 
 to do but talk all day long about the way he was 
 after wasting his life. Between all he became 
 a kind of queer in himself. He used to move a 
 great deal and very quietly about the fields talk- 
 ing to the men who were after getting fixed in the 
 land. Some of them had pity for him but most 
 of them did not seem to care. " Why didn't he 
 mind his own grand farm when he had it in- 
 stead of speechifying and idioting around the 
 country?" they'd say. It used to hurt him, for 
 often he would go the road muttering to himself 
 like a madman, " The soul is gone out of them ! 
 The soul is gone out of them! " 
 
 Then he turned to drink to lift up his mind, for 
 he was after getting very, very quiet in himself. 
 He would never be out of the public-house, where 
 he might be seen the whole day long with a bit 
 of a newspaper in his hand, wasting his time 
 reading some speech or another out of it to a lot 
 of fools who would be only grinning in their 
 sleeves all the time. . . . It is there he would 
 be always with a dirty collar round his neck and 
 an inch of beard on his face and the front of his 
 waistcoat all slobbery and shiny. . . . But 
 whenever there would be any sort of a little meet- 
 ing at all in Ballycullen the stewards would have
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 73 
 
 enough to do to keep him off the platform. " God 
 knows, but it's pathetic," he'd say, " to hear these 
 poor, halting fellows striving to stir the people. 
 But sure there's nothing in them now that can 
 be stirred even if they were able to do it itself, no 
 spirit. Lord God, to think of the mighty gather- 
 ings of yore and how they used to respond so in- 
 stantaneously to the very touch of the sound of 
 my voice. But they got the land so what do 
 they care now about the noble cry of nationality? 
 And it was I myself that had a big hand in de- 
 stroying their souls." This was the way he would 
 be always mumbling to himself at a meeting, 
 standing there so quietly, his eyes running water 
 and his mouth dribbling like that of a young 
 child. Then sometimes he would let a mad 
 screech out of him that no one in Ballycullen 
 could ever understand : " A wasted life, a blas- 
 phemy of life ! Oh, Jesus, lift up my life again ! " 
 In Ballycullen no one ever thought of what 
 this man had once been, for he was now merely 
 Kevin Shanaghan, " the bowsie." Having no pur- 
 pose in life he had effected something in the na- 
 ture of a transvaluation of Ballycullen's valu^ 
 ation of him and had become a kind of philoso- 
 pher, particularly on the political side. . . . 
 Thus it might be that he had a purpose in this 
 place after all, for often as he stood wasting his 
 life over a pint in some pub, he would say a
 
 74 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 thing which those standing by would treat with 
 indifference as coming from a person of no con- 
 sequence, but a few days or a week or probably 
 a year later, if his mind had thought it worthy 
 of notice, he would have seen such people acting 
 as it were in obedience to the ideas which had 
 blown casually out of his philosophy of life and 
 the almost God like way in which he laughed 
 over the political rages of his time. It was thus 
 that his life had been lifted up again. In this 
 way, remotely as it might seem, did he exercise a 
 definite influence upon the life of Ballycullen 
 towards its prosperity and upon his own life 
 towards its decline; and they became more and 
 more contemptuous of him, yet was there the same 
 wan smile upon his face always as he observed 
 their doings. "A fool," they called him, yet he 
 knew a wisdom which all the mean struggle of 
 their lives had prevented them attaining. His 
 simple anxiety was for sufficient money to keep 
 him " a kind of foolish " always, the only condi- 
 tion to which drink was able to bring him now. 
 When he was " a kind of foolish " he dropped the 
 best things out of his mind and was most success- 
 fully blinded to the sight of Ballycullen. . . . 
 Michael now put his hand in his pocket and 
 gave him a sixpence. As Kevin Shanaghan 
 moved away in the direction of Thomas Cooney's 
 Michael said to himself:
 
 A POLITICAL PHILOSOPHER 75 
 
 "And that's what a place like Ballycullen is 
 fit to make of a man of intellect, who was once a 
 man of patriotism and purpose as well! ' : 
 
 Then he turned in from the door to endure the 
 shop of Marcus Flynn until closing time.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A REBEL 
 
 A FEW hours later, as he took the quiet 
 way beneath the ivy boughs, it seemed 
 that his little brave effort to snatch 
 Ballycullen from itself had ended. It was 
 scarcely possible that either Mirandolina or he 
 should ever feel the same thrill in the presence 
 of one another again. The little link, by which 
 he had hoped to unite his own life and hers with 
 the olden, beautiful life of Ireland, had snapped 
 beyond repair. Mirandolina would know as she 
 came along to meet him that for the present at 
 least Ballycullen had beaten him in his attempt to 
 climb beyond it. And he felt further that it was 
 in the nature of women to be impatient of 
 failure. . . . 
 
 This was one of the most remarkable features 
 of the place, that the absence of two from one an- 
 other for even a day might successfully under- 
 mine the fondest love or the deepest friendship by 
 the mean light in which Ballycullen would make 
 either, out of its malevolence, appear to one an- 
 other in the meantime. She was later by many 
 
 76
 
 A REBEL 77 
 
 minutes than the appointed time and there was 
 something of hesitation in her manner as she ap- 
 proached him. There was an awkward silence 
 upon both for what seemed a long while. Then, 
 quite suddenly, she arrived at the point with al- 
 most unnecessary abruptness. She began to 
 speak of the awful gloominess of Ballycullen in 
 the long evenings and that wouldn't it be grand 
 when the dance hall was fixed up? It would be 
 some pleasure to turn to an odd time. Wasn't it 
 very up-to-date on the part of Ambrose Donohue 
 to think of it? Begad, Ballycullen would be very 
 swanky then and would compare with the best of 
 places like Castleconnor and Mullaghowen. 
 
 The mind of a woman after all affords many 
 corrective contrasts to the romantic mind of a 
 man, and although Mirandolina had been moved 
 to gladness by his talk last night it was very prob- 
 ably because her mind had dwelt upon the aspect 
 of his triumph which promised further little 
 triumphs for her in the days to come. . . . But 
 already she had begun to picture herself, for much 
 the same reasons, as moving in the new scene 
 which would be created, although the plan had 
 been snatched out of Michael's hand to be made 
 at once, in the promise it represented, a part of all 
 the West British vulgarity which was so alien to 
 his mind. . . . 
 
 He would have had no direct hand in doing
 
 78 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 all this, although it would appear that he was the 
 one mainly responsible. He thought, as they re- 
 mained silent, that he might be compelled to ac- 
 company her to some of the dances, going there in 
 half-hearted acquiescence without enthusiasm or 
 hope of enjoyment. He grew more darkly and 
 more sadly silent. . . . She seemed to be laugh- 
 ing in her heart at his very discomfiture. 
 
 Suddenly she had pity and ventured an ex- 
 planation of her coldness. She told him of the 
 spiteful relish with which the news had been 
 broken to her, of how all the day long in the 
 shop women and girls had been dropping broad 
 hints for no other purpose, it would seem, than to 
 wound her in her thought of him. Of how even 
 Ambrose Donohue himself had come into the shop 
 upon such a slight excuse to make a big fellow of 
 himself in her eyes by holding forth at great 
 length about what he was going to do to brighten 
 up Ballycullen. She told him exactly of the way 
 he had spoken to her: 
 
 " This patriotism and preaching to the people 
 even in Robert Emmet plays is only a cod. What 
 more does it do at any time only rise a few cheers 
 and just as many jeers out of a lot of grinning 
 idiots that don't understand or want to under- 
 stand? What we all want is a bit of fun, a bit of a 
 dance. Life is too short to bother too much about 
 it or about Ireland. Just to make the best of it
 
 A REBEL 79, 
 
 and not to take it too seriously ought to be our 
 ideal. Sure if you were to become the greatest 
 patriot in Ireland, a second Parnell for instance, 
 they'd throw dirt in your eyes in the end just as 
 they did with him. The man that would try to 
 lift Ireland out of itself that way was only a 
 bloody fool for himself." 
 
 " A bloody fool ! " It was the most expressible 
 epithet of derision and degradation in Ballycul- 
 len. Kevin Shanaghan, that fallen and besotted 
 man, was a typical example of its correct applica- 
 tion. 
 
 As she clung to him he knew that her sympathy 
 was sincere although he felt also that it was of the 
 nature of a woman to be glad only of the suc- 
 cess of her man. . . . Always eager to feel this 
 subtle correspondence it almost seemed, because 
 of his own sadness in the desolation of his pride 
 before the eyes of his girl, that hope of final 
 triumph had, for the moment, been put away as 
 an ended longing from the mind of Ireland. . . . 
 
 Although he tried to talk on of other things 
 she did not show much wish to linger with him 
 and he was not without a certain thankfulness 
 that this was so. He was about to make an ac- 
 customed retreat for a little comfort. The power 
 of Ballycullen was driving him remorselessly to 
 this, it suddenly seemed, even as it had driven 
 Kevin Shanaghan to drink. . .
 
 80 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 They parted quietly and soon he was hurrying 
 along a narrow road where there were clusters 
 of labourer's cottages. Already he had often gone 
 like this, but never quite in such a hurry as to- 
 night, to the house of Connor Carberry, an old 
 broken man in whom the flame had been lit in 
 '67 and so brightly that the power of Ballycullen, 
 or the wide world through which he had wan- 
 dered, had not sufficed to quench it. 
 
 Although it stood in the midst of rich fields the 
 cottage always gave one the impression of loneli- 
 ness and desolation. Even the richest vegetation 
 around it at the noon of summer, the brightest 
 blossoms of lilac and hawthorn springing 
 bravely from the green profusion of the low hedge 
 before the door, the sunlight of the Irish eve- 
 nings making golden its crooked windows never 
 succeeded wholly in driving away this forlorn 
 look. It seemed as if someone that the cottage 
 knew well had beaten a broken retreat to the 
 loneliness of this quiet place. 
 
 And yet, one is never right even in what seems 
 the most indisputable surmise of the self-evident, 
 for it could not be said after all that Connor Car- 
 berry was a lonely, forsaken man. He too had his 
 good comrades in the end of his days, the friends 
 to whom he whispered out his soul, and what can 
 any man have more, even one who has been rich 
 and great and had the biggest share of the world?
 
 A REBEL 81 
 
 Yet no one had ever seen his companions come 
 here of an evening, with no Heraclitus of his heart 
 had he ever " tired the sun with talking and sent 
 him down the sky." Passers-by who would see 
 him standing sometimes at the door gazing out 
 over the luscious land would speak their pity of 
 the wan, famished look upon his time-scarred 
 face and say that Connor Carberry was the lone- 
 liest poor man in all the world. He had himself 
 to thank for it, they said, for when he had re- 
 turned here after his long sojourn in the Bush of 
 Australia many an old man had limped up here 
 from the village or across the fields in the eve- 
 nings to talk about their young days together with 
 Connor Carberry. But the experiment had not 
 been successful, and the offering of their friend- 
 ship and their remembrance had not been ac- 
 cepted. In Connor Carberry they had discovered 
 the strangest thing that may befall a man, they 
 saw one who had forgotten, and after all what 
 has an old man but his memory and the things 
 he would be remembering of his youth? . . . 
 As they came into the cottage and sat down, their 
 bodies humped heavily over their crooked sticks, 
 one by one, and for many an evening before they 
 had finally grown tired of trying to make him 
 respond. A little light, the joyous light of the 
 great power of memory, had welled into their 
 rheumy eyes. . . .
 
 82 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 " D'ye remember, Connor, the ferocious game 
 you played the day of the great match between 
 Castleconner and Mullaghowen? . . . " 
 
 " D'ye remember the escape we had that dark 
 night in '67? ..." 
 
 " Don't you remember the dances and all the 
 fine, lovely girls you used to have breaking their 
 hearts after you them times, for you had the 
 lightest foot of e'er a lad in the parish . . . ? 
 And musha, don't you remember Martha Doyle. 
 Sure she was the handsomest craythureen ever 
 lived. Meybe you never knew that she waited 
 for you for long years after you'd gone to Aus- 
 tralia. She had some notion, I suppose, that 
 you'd send for her, so she never had a mind for 
 anyone else, for it took the two of yous to make a 
 dancing pair . . . ? " 
 
 No word from Connor Carberry sitting there 
 so silently upon the other stool, no sudden stir of 
 recollection to make his eyes as bright as theirs. 
 There seemed to be some great grief in his mind 
 across which their regard for him as friends of 
 their youth could not make a bridge. ... No 
 word from him at all, only queer talk of black 
 men and Chinamen, and Japs, and all the other 
 heathens with whom he had sojourned in one of 
 the wild places of the world. . . . 
 
 They had grown tired of trying to be a solace 
 to his loneliness and a comfort to his friendless
 
 A REBEL 83 
 
 age here in this little place where he had been 
 born. So no one ever came into the cottage now, 
 yet Connor Carberry still retained the brightest 
 power of his soul and he was not lonely. They 
 thought maybe, that he was a queer man who had 
 no regard in his heart for his country or the 
 friends of his youth, an inhuman man. God 
 knows but it was this terrible thing they must 
 think of him, an inhuman man that was best left 
 to himself. 
 
 They did not know of that awful period in his 
 life, the dark blank when his mind and his blood 
 seemed to stand still for very sorrow on leaving 
 Ireland. Then there had flowed in upon his con- 
 sciousness the immense loneliness of " the Bush," 
 when for long periods he might only talk to his 
 dog and his horse and the sun-scorched trees. It 
 was to those dumb things he had whispered all 
 his heart's love of Ireland, whispered through the 
 agony of his tears, whispered, sang, aye even 
 shouted madly to dumbness until the very voice 
 of his love grew dumb within him again. . . . 
 
 It was their fancy to think that he could not 
 remember now beyond that dark night that had 
 fallen upon his mind, he could not recollect, he 
 could not refashion in fancy the scenes of his 
 youth, he could not make good comrades of the 
 old, old men like himself. . . . But he was 
 not without his good comrades although these
 
 84 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 were unnoticed by human eyes, for they were not 
 human. . . . There wereTrixie and Peg and 
 Lord John. They were all that he wanted to be 
 talking with through the length of the days that 
 were left him. . . . 
 
 Trixie was a fine cat still, although her left 
 fore-leg had been cut away by a trap in the 
 woods of the Hon. Reginald Moore. 
 
 " My noble Persian kitten, my noble Trixie," 
 he would say as she purred upon his shoulder. 
 " Trixie must have her saucer of milk now, and 
 then we'll have a talk about Australia, a great 
 chat about the wild, ungodly places of Australia." 
 
 The contented purr of Trixie would tell him 
 that he had an attentive listener to the long same- 
 ness of his narrative of " the Bush." He could 
 tell her all. He could tell her of the gorgeous 
 women he had seen. . . . 
 
 Long before Trixie had grown tired Peg would 
 come out of her box near the fire and begin to 
 peck about his feet. 
 
 " My lovely checker hen," he would say, and 
 putting Trixie gently down he would take a hand- 
 ful of meal and as she fed out of his hand he 
 would say his say to her about the bright birds 
 he had seen flitting through the dark trees and 
 of how their rich plumage had splashed his loneli- 
 ness with colour. The tenderness of Peg and all
 
 A REBEL 85 
 
 her delicate movement about his hand would re- 
 call all the tender thoughts he had had in exile. 
 
 Then, by the time that Peg was ready, that is, 
 sufficiently fed and sufficiently regaled by his 
 conversation, to be put back in her box which he 
 also called " her bed," for Peg was a kind of 
 delicate bedridden hen, there would be loud call- 
 ing quacks from the outhouse at the back. 
 
 " Lord John," he would say, " Lord John is 
 hungry now, the poor fellow!" Often as he 
 mixed up the feed in a little dish he would smile 
 as he thought of how well he had christened Lord 
 John after Lord John Rochfort-Pelham whom 
 he had fought to the death beneath a starry sky in 
 the very lonely midst, it would seem, of all the 
 lonely sheep-runs. . . . 
 
 This other Lord John, this champion Ayles- 
 bury, could listen well to his wild tales of fight- 
 ing and drinking, and his strange and startling 
 accounts of the many times his very blood had 
 tried so wildly to burst the bondage of his loneli- 
 ness. A loud quack ! quack ! of enthusiasm well 
 placed here and there was Lord John's way of 
 showing his appreciation of this long account of 
 how the brute had often leaped to life in Connor 
 Carberry but which the years had now so well 
 subdued. 
 
 It was only to these, his good comrades, that 
 it had been given to know what Connor Car-
 
 86 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 berry had lost to his soul and won to his soul 
 during his long years of exile. . . . But every 
 man, they say, has two lives, two souls, which 
 it takes different men and different moments to 
 evoke in turn. 
 
 Connor Carberry was a proud, valiant man 
 still, even in his loneliness and defeat, and as he 
 sat here in his quiet cottage, by a poor fire of 
 an evening the lights which danced across his 
 furrowed, wasted face seemed to mirror some of 
 the beauty he had seen. Although lonely to all 
 seeming, he was not lonely, for he dwelt remote 
 with those who had died for Ireland. The only 
 one who ever came now to make a ceilidh with 
 him in the evenings was Michael who merely 
 came as it were to listen to his rambling talk 
 which sometimes grew into the semblance of con- 
 versation with those who were dead and gone. 
 . . . They were a right goodly company be- 
 ginning with Owen Roe O'Neill and including 
 Charles Stewart Parnell. His own defeat did not 
 seem sufficient, for nightly here, in the emptiness 
 of his old age, he lived through their lives and 
 endured their struggles and defeats. Had they 
 known of this at all they would have said that 
 his mind had been touched, God help us, by the 
 long, long years he had spent out in the hot sun 
 of Australia. 
 
 " Comparing himself to the great patriotic men
 
 A REBEL 87 
 
 of Ireland he does be, the poor, unfortunate fel- 
 low!" 
 
 It was thus that he would have been fixed in 
 the minds of his neighbours and when he rose up 
 raging at the end of a long night's brooding and 
 communing and shouted: "Oh, Lord! Oh, God, 
 when will it all end, dear Christ Almighty? " 
 he was very like a madman surely. He had 
 suffered in exile for Ballycullen but Ballycullen 
 was quite forgetful of his sacrifice, yet he was 
 full of forgiveness of this offense against him- 
 self in his fierce, angry love of Ireland. Even 
 just as he seemed to exist remotely his sentiments 
 sustained themselves without any reference to 
 reason or any practicable scheme of well-being for 
 his country. Indeed he had scarcely any com- 
 prehension of the present at all, for his mind 
 seemed almost incapable of removing itself out of 
 the past. And how well he had concealed his 
 memory from Ballycullen ! What little reality may 
 have been in him must have died with Parnell but 
 often, on a night like this, he would break out of 
 his dream for a moment and say a memorable 
 thing to Michael: 
 
 " A man never died for Ireland, nor a man 
 never went to jail for Ireland, nor a man never 
 spent long years of torture away from Ireland, 
 nor a man never suffered in any way for Ireland
 
 88 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 in vain, and that's the God's honest truth I'm 
 telling you, young fellow." 
 
 Spoken again with the old intense sadness these 
 words seemed on this night of his life to hold a 
 sense of holy comfort for Michael that was very 
 sweet to his ear. But as Connor Carberry re- 
 lapsed into his raving, a thread of grey question- 
 ing seemed to run through his mind as he listened, 
 sitting on a low stool and looking also into the 
 poor fire. . . . Through his very intensity ap- 
 peared the very sadness of the obsession of this 
 old man by the heroic side of all the queer busi- 
 ness of Irish history. There was a rapturous ex- 
 altation about all this beautiful and pure dying, 
 but was there not something further in this con- 
 nection which the present trend of his thoughts 
 was compelling him to feel? Could England be 
 such a fiendish enemy after all when it had not 
 succeeded in trampling out this heroic spirit down 
 through all the years? Those who had sold 
 themselves as common informers or worse, if any- 
 thing could be, although sufficiently formidable 
 in numbers were, after all, comparatively few, but 
 what of the greater traitorous element in the heart 
 of Ireland itself, the murderous apathy which had 
 crushed more powerfully, more subtly than the 
 ostentatious tyranny of Britannia because it had 
 so successfully remained unseen? That was the 
 ghostly, silent, deadly thing which enslaved. Yet
 
 A REBEL 89 
 
 was it the stuff that Connor Carberry talked, even 
 when mouthed meaninglessly by politicians, that 
 had blinded the eyes of Ireland to this terrible 
 thing. But it was hard to listen to Connor Car- 
 berry and remain unmoved. . . . 
 
 Surely Sinn Fein included a quality other than 
 this dwelling hopelessly upon old unhappy things, 
 the bitterness of defeat, the sad endings of broken 
 men. This was its constructive side which spoke 
 bravely of the building of the nation from within, 
 the goodly thing which cometh of an honest con- 
 science and a man's right hand. Their in- 
 dustries might be revived, their language, they 
 might attain to a certain decency in public life, 
 they might come to control their affairs if they 
 desired it greatly. ... If only all the people of 
 Ireland could be made to feel the truth and beauty 
 of Sinn Fein! If that could not win them na- 
 tional salvation nothing surely in God's world 
 could ! It would be sufficiently strong and proud 
 too to throttle even the subtle, traitorous element 
 in a death grip ! 
 
 Yet here was he, a Sinn Feiner, fled from the 
 tyranny of a portion of Ireland at the present time, 
 hoping to win a little consolation from the past as 
 remembered by the wild mind of this sad man. . . . 
 
 He wondered momentarily was Sinn Fein, for 
 all its brave show of hopefulness for the better- 
 ment of the present, really dependent in its essence
 
 90 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 upon a sense of the past. . . . To be here 
 listening to Connor Carberry was indeed very 
 like the way of Kevin Shanaghan solacing him- 
 self by drinking in a pub. ... It was an at- 
 tempt to win the comfort of forgetfulness. Yet it 
 was something to feel that he would go from this 
 place with his dream annealed and just as if noth- 
 ing had happened to hurt its loveliness. And he 
 knew that when Connor Carberry would rise at 
 the end of his long monologue to lunge savagely 
 at the door with the rusty imitation of a pike he 
 had hidden under the stairs, not even the flicker 
 of a smile would disturb the calm intensity of the 
 trance-like emotion which would be mirrored on 
 his own face.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE DANCE 
 
 THROUGH the remainder of the winter of 
 1913-14 there was scarcely anything 
 spoken of in Ballycullen but the new hall 
 they were making out of the old courthouse. This 
 notable attempt at transformation seemed to ab- 
 sorb the activities of the villagers. Apart alto- 
 gether from the admirable ambition to see a place 
 of amusement in their native village there was not 
 a man in Ballycullen but was making his bit out 
 of it somehow, men like Thomas Cooney and 
 Marcus Flynn who sold building materials, 
 as well as everything else under the sun, 
 masons, carpenters, painters, limeburners, sand- 
 men, labourers and handy men. To create such 
 vast employment it had been found necessary to 
 extend the scheme far beyond its original con- 
 ception and money had been borrowed from Mr. 
 Alexander Waddell and Mr. St. John Marlowe, 
 twenty-four good, solid men assembling in the 
 musty premises of " the Bank " one Friday to 
 give their security. The small sum which Mi- 
 chael Dempsey was instrumental in making had 
 
 91
 
 92 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 been swallowed up in preliminary expenses and 
 Ambrose Donohue, the architect, as he now 
 styled himself, had already managed to arrange 
 for the expenditure of the second. A sense of 
 eager futility lay heavy upon Ballycullen. 
 
 It almost appeared as if the passion which had 
 flowed, even out of the Ireland of his time, into 
 the soul of Michael was now ebbing away. There 
 seemed to be some power creeping into the world 
 which stood for the putting away of all clean 
 things. Sinn Fein had grown very timid, its 
 small voice sounding a note of apology almost 
 for its own existence. Some vulgar, shoving 
 thing was edging it out of the world. An ex- 
 emplification of the ugly process was happening 
 here just now in Ballycullen. They could talk of 
 nothing but the hall and the dances they were 
 going to have. The healthy pleasures of the 
 hurling or football field with a dance, in the com- 
 pany of bright-eyed girls at the end of an epic 
 day, in some barn or by some cross-roads had 
 held a quality at once beautiful and Irish but all 
 this efficient organisation of something which 
 should spring spontaneously was vulgar and Brit- 
 ish. Well and truly had Sinn Fein laid stress 
 on this from the beginning, the absolute in- 
 decency it was for Irish people to ape the ways 
 of their conquerors. There was a great deal of 
 this kind of thing in Ballycullen. The young
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE DANCE 93 
 
 men who did read looked out at life through the 
 eyes of " The News of the World " and " The 
 Umpire," the girls coloured all their romantic no- 
 tions by attempting to apply sentiments from 
 Charles Garvice and to imitate photographs in 
 "The Daily Sketch." . . . Michael often 
 thought that, were the English gifted with much 
 sense of humour, they must laugh hugely at what 
 might here be seen. Although he did not know 
 the story by Balzac of the Ass in the Lion's skin 
 it was of some such laughable pretentiousness he 
 thought whenever he would allow his mind to 
 dwell sufficiently long upon the shoneenism of 
 Ballycullen. . . . Yet, in immediate, tremen- 
 dous offensiveness, was the thought that, because 
 of the wave of prosperity now creeping over it, 
 his country, in the direction of many social es- 
 sentials, was rapidly assuming the mentality of 
 England while there was still something, it might 
 be in the very air and colour of the green fields, 
 which still clung them pathetically to the old 
 picture. . . . Great God, why could not Ire- 
 land possess that oneness, that rich content of cor- 
 respondence with its own soul which is what one 
 should mean by nationhood! This much was 
 certain, that in no country in the world had the 
 word nationality been so often used and yet al- 
 ways so misapplied. It might be that the eman- 
 cipation of the Irish farmers had caused them
 
 94 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 to discover a mode of expression for their free- 
 dom. They came drunk to dances in their motor 
 cars and did their best, in spite of a poor educa- 
 tion and an amount of peasant crudeness, to ape 
 the manners of landlord's sons, a class they had 
 replaced. The strong farmer had become the 
 Irish country gentleman, just as it should be, an 
 Irish man living in his own country and possess- 
 ing the means to keep up a certain " style." The 
 middle or smaller farmers were driven in turn 
 by their women to ape these and the smallest 
 farmer often produced a daughter who, as a sym- 
 bol of this spirit, would sit by the fire all day 
 dressed in the tip of the fashion and reading silly 
 romances. The shopkeepers in small towns like 
 Ballycullen were identical in the same exhibitions 
 of emancipation. And then there was the mob, 
 those to whom all these made a kind of vague 
 headline to be copied indiscriminately. Drunken- 
 ness, vulgarity and pride were everywhere to be 
 seen. To all seeming the ancient, ornamented 
 pattern of Ireland might be the same and run- 
 ing in the same moulds, but to him the metal was 
 heavily alloyed at its very source. Would they be 
 worthy even of Home Rule? He often thought not 
 in moments of extreme despondence, although that 
 catch-cry of the politicians almost appeared a 
 blasphemy to him as a Sinn Fein.
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE DANCE 95 
 
 He was one of those who came to the first 
 dance in the grandiosely converted courthouse ex- 
 actly after the fashion in which he had fancied 
 he must come here. He had merely bought a 
 double ticket and so had come with Mirandolina. 
 Their friendship or affection had not progressed 
 to any surprising extent in the months which had 
 intervened. They had met of evenings pretty 
 frequently but always, as it were, under the 
 shadow of their disappointment. It seemed to 
 abridge continually any long flights into the 
 richly coloured country of Romance. Always it 
 seemed that this lovely and fine thought of Mi- 
 randolina was made so small and timid and that 
 he must be no different in her eyes from any poor 
 brow-beaten shop-boy whom she might meet in 
 a hundred other Irish towns if she went away 
 from Ballycullen in the morning. 
 
 Now that the days had lengthened out their 
 meetings would be less and less frequent. In fact, 
 because of their enforced timidity, such oppor- 
 tunities of intercourse must have vanished alto- 
 gether by the time the summer had come, when 
 their moments together should be confined mainly 
 to Sundays. Leaving the village at different times 
 and by different roads they would meet in some 
 distant place after going circuitous journeys still 
 half afraid as they walked, rather more it would
 
 96 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 seem with their bicycles, than with one another 
 in the sunlight. . . . 
 
 However, on the occasion of a dance, such as 
 the present, no one minded. Flirtation or what- 
 ever it might be or be called was on such a night 
 a thing to be paraded rather than hidden. It 
 was always a night of the pride of all things in 
 Ballycullen. It was a night of artificiality and 
 show working only towards the success of those 
 thus inclined. 
 
 It was a great night for Ambrose Donohue, for 
 he had used a good deal of the money made out 
 of the scheme of recreative improvement towards 
 further correcting the lout in his appearance. He 
 had even gone so far as to hire a dress suit from 
 Dublin. In this the moment of his triumph he 
 appeared particularly anxious to extinguish 
 Michael. The attentions he so forcibly lavished 
 on Mirandolina became rapidly such as no girl 
 could possibly resist or refuse. Thus very early 
 in the night was Michael left without the com- 
 panionship which alone could make this place 
 bearable and also without his only excuse for 
 being here. ... It was a blow too that he had 
 not expected. The last vestige of glamour faded 
 from the scene around him. . . . He saw, with 
 almost sickening clarity, the gaudy, untidy, un- 
 tasty attempts of poor-looking girls to adorn 
 themselves, their amateurish attempts to paint
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE DANCE 97 
 
 their faces in imitation of women of the streets 
 and women of the stage. . . . He saw even 
 Mirandolina flash him the look of the light 
 woman from her crudely pencilled eyes. . . . 
 She had thrown herself upon the winning side, 
 for it is in the nature of a woman, as he had 
 already felt, to applaud the victor. In sudden 
 darkness he felt the almost decadent weakness 
 and colour of scenes which made him think of 
 scraps of ancient history he had read wherein was 
 pictured the lustful look upon all things which 
 comes before an Empire's fall. . . . His coun- 
 trymen in flattery of England were already wal- 
 lowing. ... It was strange to think of the 
 inevitable fall of the British Empire being ful- 
 filled prophetically in them. . . . 
 
 These well-fed agricultural gallants were now 
 crowding, mostly drunk, around the bar. They 
 were spinning yarns out of their adventures which 
 had happened mostly in Dublin and, as they 
 talked, Dublin suddenly appeared a very wicked 
 place indeed. Michael, with an intensified, dra- 
 matic sense of his characterisation saw Ambrose 
 Donohue come amongst them. Companionship 
 was here easily effected, for these were his equals. 
 He too was a story-teller of this kind and what 
 was better still he could flatter their vanity by 
 making funny, plagiaristic attempts to tell them, 
 as his own, stories which were of their own au-
 
 98 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 thorship, brand or copyright. They patronised 
 him with amusement to themselves as he abased 
 himself abysmally in their sight. He hung 
 around them in accommodation while they made 
 him the wisp of straw, as it were, upon which 
 they wiped their dancing slippers as they made 
 entrance to different aspects of their grandeur. . . . 
 
 A few moments before Michael had been al- 
 most vexed that his lofty and remote aceticism 
 in Ballycullen had always placed the comfort, 
 such as it was, of drink beyond him. In such a 
 time as this it would be a comfort surely. . . . 
 Immediately he felt a kind of gladness of emanci- 
 pation as he was compelled to hear. . . . The 
 talk continuously, endlessly, appallingly was of 
 women and of women. . . . Ambrose Donohue 
 was contributing some very realistic remarks to 
 the symposium. It was in anger that Michael 
 thought how this fellow had been so recently 
 dancing with Mirandolina. . . . 
 
 He went out again amongst the dance where 
 the blessed light of day was beginning to break 
 in and flood over the artificiality of the dance. 
 The whole gay scene was coming to appear so 
 poor and mean. . . . Mirandolina looked frail 
 and faded as she sat by the wall. Another dance 
 had begun to move round and round and she ap- 
 peared momentarily very deserted sitting there. 
 . . . She gave Michael a long, quiet look, but he
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE DANCE 99 
 
 passed her unmindful and did not mingle with 
 the dancers again. He got his coat and went out 
 on his way homeward. After all it seemed a 
 slight incident to have marked this night for him 
 with such dark emphasis. But in a place like 
 this where life moved in hidden ways, in fact 
 almost as an undercurrent always, there were 
 many who saw in his going the melodramatic 
 touch which distinguishes all the real happenings 
 of life and so it reminded them to the verge of 
 weeping sentiment of sad moments in the stories 
 which were slipped over for their consumption 
 from England. ... A night such as this always 
 marked the ending of old romances and the be- 
 ginning of new romances which would be new and 
 bright for only a little while. . . * 
 
 She was after being foolish enough " to get her 
 name up with him " and now they were very glad 
 indeed to see her give him the go by. It was a 
 further and no doubt for him more painful aspect 
 of his defeat. It was a pity he had ever given 
 his ambition towards the upliftment of Ballycul- 
 len the dramatic turn, for in their narrow eyes, 
 as in those of the English Law, the stage player 
 was resolutely fixed as a rogue and a vagabond. 
 Also the stage was to them very definitely synony- 
 mous with certain ragged little bands which came 
 here heralded by huge, lying handbills. These 
 always set up their show in patched canvas booths
 
 100 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 and performed such thrilling dramas as Sweeney 
 Todd, the Demon Barber, East Lynne, All for 
 Love, Only a Mother, etc., etc. "Admission 6d: 
 Front seats I/ Children half price." At night 
 the hissing duck lights lent some aspect of wonder 
 to the show but during the day, when the men 
 drank in the dirtier pubs and sucked at " Wood- 
 bines " stuck almost continuously to their lower 
 lips, the women looked for milk and bread while 
 the choice people of Ballycullen spoke their pity 
 of them just as if they were mere tramps. The 
 animosity already stirred in such minds had 
 caused them to picture Michael as doing some- 
 thing like this with Mirandolina Conway who 
 was a very nice girl, or at least they were ready 
 to say so in their moments of deepest spite against 
 him. . . . Indeed and indeed for many and many 
 a reason were they glad of his discomfiture as he 
 went out of the dance hall. . . . 
 
 The bloody, cursed cheek of him anyway, the 
 damnable ideas and the talk of him, the way he 
 used to be talking about the strike for instance. 
 It was the great Dublin strike of 1913-14 to 
 which they referred, a thing fought very remotely 
 from Ballycullen for many reasons. Michael 
 had been heard to drop words of sympathy with 
 the strikers, although " Sinn Fein " had not been 
 with them and the employer controlled press was 
 very solicitous to censor anything in the nature
 
 INCIDENTS OF THE DANCE 101 
 
 of a decent opinion. ... It was very meet in- 
 deed that Ballycullen should be remembering this 
 against Michael in a moment of gaiety. . . . 
 
 " But, the Lord save us, anyone that'd have a 
 good word to say of either Connolly or Larkin 
 was nothing short of a scandal! ' 
 
 This was the word which sprang from the 
 thought of Ballycullen, with such vehement en- 
 thusiasm did it place itself on the side of the 
 angels in opposing the workers of Dublin and 
 their leaders. ... A fitting punishment had now 
 been visited upon this fellow for his championship 
 of such blackguards. 
 
 As he turned the corner of the old courthouse 
 Michael saw a man standing up against one of 
 the high windows with his nose flattened white 
 against the glass. . . . 
 
 " Musha, it's nor the same way we all go mad," 
 said the man smiling down queerly at Michael as 
 he went by. It was Kevin Shanaghan eagerly 
 watching and waiting to drain the bottles and the 
 half empty glasses when the revel was ended. . .
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 
 
 THE winter yawned balmily out of its sleep 
 into the wild, bright days of spring and 
 the coming of Home Rule was heralded 
 by more and more intensely excited groups that 
 remained longer and longer talking on the street 
 of Ballycullen in the evenings. Strangely enough, 
 in preparation for this long-sought freedom, there 
 was a more determined return to drunkenness and 
 all the ancient rages which drew their inspiration 
 from the bottle. Rumours came through the 
 papers of the arming of the Orangemen in the 
 Black North and of course, being countrymen of 
 their own, the people of Ballycullen hated this 
 unholy tribe more by a great sight than they hated 
 England. This arming was a most damnable 
 business, they all said. 
 
 There was a prophecy prevalent hereabouts 
 that the Orangemen would break loose some day 
 and never stop until they came to the Bridge of 
 Athlone where an old woman with a stockingful 
 of stones would stop them. Meanwhile they 
 
 would have massacred all the " Irish " in their 
 
 102
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 103 
 
 track. And by a curious misfortune Ballycullen 
 lay directly in the curved course they would take 
 between Belfast and the Bridge of Athlone. And 
 they were all " Irish " here. . . . Then came the 
 Larne gun-running, and for the first time in its 
 long history Ballycullen became genuinely 
 alarmed. It was something shocking to think 
 of it, Ned Carson and Campbell the lawyer and 
 the Marquis of Londonderry and Captain Craig 
 and Galloper Fred Smith coming down from Bel- 
 fast with a lot of raging devils to kill them all . 
 Their enthusiasm for Home Rule, which somehow 
 seemed to stand for little beyond protection of 
 their own skins, now became absolutely tremen- 
 dous. In their sudden fear and excitement they 
 did not know exactly what to do with themselves. 
 Often now, his meetings with Mirandolina hav- 
 ing been ended by the dance, as Michael strolled 
 disconsolately down the street after closing time 
 he would hear them talking excitedly in little 
 groups : 
 
 " D'ye know what it is now? Any man that 
 wouldn't make a stand against them bloody ruf- 
 fians from Belfast, d'ye know what I'm going to 
 tell you now? He'd be no man." 
 " Well, here's me for it to the last! " 
 "Aye and me. I was never a great man to talk 
 about Ireland but I'd never stand to see that day 
 lived over me ! "
 
 104 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Of course some remark directly about him 
 would be dropped just as soon as he had gone by 
 and immediately they would fall to wondering 
 why Michael of all people " and he full up of 
 Ireland " should be taking the whole thing so 
 coolly. Why, man alive, he had a kind of a 
 smirk of a grin on him enjoying it, begad ! And 
 certainly he did see something to laugh at 
 sadly in these days in Ballycullen. 
 
 He saw something fine about all this fierce in- 
 tention of the North which made it truly compar- 
 able with the Ulster of Henry Joy McCracken 
 and William Orr. It stood most truly for the 
 olden beautiful spirit of Irish Nationality. 
 Ulster's cold exterior had hidden this for so long 
 like the spark embedded somewhere in the flint, 
 but all the softness and slobberiness, all the heart- 
 wearing on the sleeve of the rest of Ireland con- 
 cealed no fire. It had all been frittered away in 
 blather and in Ballycullen were they blathering 
 still. The mind of Michael was with the men of 
 Ulster, but experience had already taught him 
 not to be too free in letting known his mind, and 
 open expressions of his opinions now would be 
 far more disastrous than his foolishness in speak- 
 ing well of Connolly and Larkin. In conse- 
 quence he knew the joy of pondering his thoughts 
 in unsullied loneliness, for there comes a great 
 kindliness from the unspoken thought. Al-
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 105 
 
 though he never met Mirandolina now he had not 
 heard that she was yet " friends " with another. 
 There was no bitterness in his mind regarding 
 her, but somehow he saw Ambrose Donohue more 
 clearly than ever before. Continually this prom- 
 ising young man came smiling diplomatically to 
 discover his opinion on the present crisis, but all, 
 his attempts so far had been unsuccessful. By 
 intimate contact with the facts of life which he 
 sought to change, the Sinn Fein spirit in Michael 
 was rapidly becoming more practical. It was 
 the traditional importance of talk which may have 
 been responsible for the blunders he had already 
 made. Ballycullen had not succeeded in mak- 
 ing him in the least like itself, yet this caution he 
 had acquired was essentially of Ballycullen. But 
 he knew that should he be so foolish as to discuss 
 this Ulster business with Ambrose Donohue that 
 eager young man would immediately reproduce 
 it as well-reasoned out matter of his own towards 
 his own benefit for the enlightenment of those 
 now wildly anxious to know what to think. But 
 he was not to be drawn by even the most intense 
 exhibitions of confidence. . . 
 
 It gave him some pride in himself in these days 
 to feel around him all the seething anxiety which 
 he might have ended at his pleasure, yet was he 
 almost angry to feel that, could he speak to them 
 out of his love for Ireland, they might see a clear,
 
 106 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 gleaming way. . . . Then suddenly he grew more 
 angry to see that the Party, which to his mind 
 had left the mark of the beast upon Ireland, was 
 endeavouring to produce upon large National 
 lines something which seemed but a faint copy of 
 the fine spirit of the North which Carson, al- 
 though only another political trickster, had 
 evoked in its real sincerity. They were a suffi- 
 ciently subtle crowd, he knew, and probably their 
 real object was to destroy the very thing that they 
 now seemed solicitous to endorse. The result 
 of all this eloquent striving might become ap- 
 parent in Ballycullen at any moment. This must 
 be very interesting indeed, Ballycullen summoned 
 collectively to effort in obedience to the mandate 
 which would go forth. He thanked God for his 
 share of humour, more particularly because in 
 the days of its fear the quality of humour was 
 notably absent from Ballycullen. If it really 
 came to fighting the Orangemen in Ballycullen he 
 wondered how he should be fixed. There would 
 be the form of conscription created by a strong 
 public opinion and this he knew would be very 
 powerful. Marcus Flynn himself would probably 
 order him to service for Ireland as part of the duty 
 he owed him as his shop-boy and a servant of 
 Ballycullen. . . . 
 
 Then what he had most feared came naturally, 
 almost as an inevitable result of the political
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 107 
 
 whirl of the time. It was the announcement in a 
 flaring poster that a meeting to form a corps of 
 the Irish National Volunteers would be held in 
 Ballycullen upon the date therein mentioned. 
 The very thought of it was almost maddening. 
 It seemed such a sin against the progress of the 
 world, not to speak of common decency or think 
 of the olden, beautiful traditions of Ireland. It 
 was treacherously anachronistic, more nearly 
 blasphemous. The platform, perhaps in an en- 
 deavour to perpetrate a touch of irony, would be 
 erected beneath the shadow of the new court- 
 house. It would be built of rough planks laid 
 upon empty half barrels out of the pubs. The 
 other fixtures of the platform were stored upon 
 the premises of Thomas Cooney, like the fittings 
 of a stage laid by from performance to perform- 
 ance. The only thing ever requiring replace- 
 ment was the top rail of the platform, which had 
 been frequently broken by the fists of very power- 
 ful local speakers in driving home some impor- 
 tant point. Now were all these queerly symbolic 
 things to be dragged out into use once more, like 
 the things of a child's playbox. A new aspect of 
 Irish Nationality had been suddenly discovered, 
 and so the annual pageant of the platform must 
 be held beneath the laughing skies. . . . Parnell 
 had spoken from this same platform and Michael 
 Davitt, and William O'Brien, and John Dillon
 
 JOS THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 and a great many minor men of more thunderous 
 vociferousness, a long line of unnecessary heralds 
 of the day of deliverance. . . . 
 
 Now, of a sudden, was there much prate in 
 every place of the Convention of Dungannon and 
 the Volunteers who had won the Parliament of 
 1 782. There was much searching of the memory 
 for almost forgotten facts of history and on the 
 street of Ballycullen of an evening might be heard 
 character sketches of such strongly similar and 
 strongly contrasted patriots as Henry Grattan and 
 Meagher of the Sword, Wolfe Tone and Dan 
 O'Connell. There seemed to be a general up- 
 springing of martial ardour and Ballycullen was 
 making its soul in preparation. 
 
 Kevin Shanaghan often came into the shop 
 where Michael worked during these days. He 
 had a hunted, almost fearful look, and there 
 seemed an immense eagerness upon him to be 
 drunk. He expressed his sense of disgust rather 
 well and it was remarkable that he should be 
 driven to express himself so forcibly at this be- 
 yond any other time: 
 
 " The Lord knows but it gives me a kind of 
 sickness in the very bowels when I have to listen 
 to now in this God damned place ! It was hard 
 enough to have to listen to them always, but it's 
 something hellish to hear them talking of dying 
 for Ireland! "
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 109. 
 
 Michael was not able to bestow upon this sad 
 man even his accustomed amount of compassion. 
 He, too, was excited more and more as day suc- 
 ceeded day, angry, puzzled, and doubtful in a 
 way he had not hitherto known. Although the 
 pure gold of its essence still shone through Sinn 
 Fein yet did its outward, combative life seem to be 
 struggling within the shadow of a mighty impulse 
 which was gradually shaping all things to its 
 need. 
 
 Not one seemed able to think of anything but 
 the Volunteers " Volunteers to have and to 
 hold our newly-won liberties;" "Soldiers of 
 Erin;" "Gallant Defenders of our Faith and 
 Fatherland." Such well-worn phrases and old 
 sayings abounded in the great speeches now hold- 
 ing the country spell-bound. 
 
 Often now in the vacant moments of the shop 
 his mind almost pained him in his attempts to 
 find answers for wild questions. . . . Could it 
 really be that the Dawn was come, having chosen 
 thus to manifest itself in places like Ballycul- 
 len? . . . The young farmers and graziers 
 who had been accustomed to come into the shop 
 with their sticks held horizontally under their 
 arms, a great doggedness in every movement of 
 their minds and bodies, now walked about excit- 
 edly whenever they came in with the very same
 
 110 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 sticks held against their shoulders in imitation of 
 rifles. 
 
 The Sergeant came often to declare that he'd 
 think nothing, so he wouldn't, of throwing down 
 his arms and of taking up others in defence of 
 old Ireland against Carson and his mob. Am- 
 brose Donohue was already beginning to take ad- 
 vantage of the military situation by sawing 
 wooden guns out of suitable timber. 
 
 There was a further and more intense aspect 
 becoming increasingly manifest. There was more 
 fierce drinking in an endeavour to catch the spirit, 
 it would seem, which men would soon be needing 
 to meet and conquer their enemies in battle. . . . 
 And there was never an angry word against Eng- 
 land. England was anxious to do the right thing 
 at last only for this murdering crew in Belfast 
 that was thinking of rising out, in fact, telling the 
 world loudly that they were going to rise out to 
 keep the rest of Ireland from its due. ... In the 
 evenings motors would be stopping by the door 
 and, evidently mistaking the shop for a pub, 
 young louts of prosperous farmers would be stag- 
 gering in looking for drink and cursing Carson. 
 Carson was now cursed in Ballycullen with a 
 vehemence comparative only to the cursing of his 
 Holiness the Pope in Portadown. 
 
 Michael was often almost driven madly to give 
 out his opinion by some of the things he was com-
 
 THE URGE OF ULSTER 111 
 
 . pelled to see and hear. . . . But for the love of 
 God or Ireland he remained silent and besides 
 Sinn Fein seemed to have grown so silent now. . . . 
 "I'd like to get a red-hot poker " a patriot 
 of Ballycullen would often begin only to have his 
 expression of longing immediately drowned by a 
 wild, drunken chorus of ferocious desire with 
 regard to Carson. . .
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A GREAT MEETING 
 
 THE bright June day was heavy with the 
 hum of martial music, very badly played 
 indeed, yet noisy and stirring. Down all 
 the four roads into Ballycullen the people came 
 like armies in the sun. The gold upon the green 
 banners, although tarnished through age and 
 rough usage, now struggled into its share of 
 brightness and crude glory. As the music came 
 into Ballycullen it approached nearer the quality 
 of harmony. The street was plentifully bedecked 
 with laurel and other green stuff. There were 
 triumphant arches across the street, all covered 
 with crooked letters crowding out at the ends, 
 which had been painted by Ambrose Donohue. 
 " God Save Ireland! " " Cead Mile Failte! " 
 " Ireland, Boys, Hurrah! " " Down with Car- 
 son!" Triumphant arches, but in celebration of 
 what triumph ? The head of Michael was deeply 
 puzzled as he tried to find an answer. 
 
 There were moments when he thought that the 
 
 connection of his country with England was a 
 
 112
 
 A GREAT MEETING 113 
 
 vague, meaningless, almost imaginary thing, as 
 vague and meaningless perhaps as the symbols 
 set up so often to celebrate an imaginary separa- 
 tion. A very momentous thing had just hap- 
 pened. A few British Officers at the Curragh 
 had mutinied in religious obedience, it would 
 seem, to Ulster's threat of rebellion. This extraor- 
 dinary event had inflamed the mind of Ireland 
 in a way that was curiously contradictory to tradi- 
 tional sentiment. . . . Was it not really in 
 keeping with the old, heroic rebel traditions and 
 rather something to be proud of that, at long last, 
 even a section of Irishmen in the British Army 
 had refused point blank to advance savagely upon 
 another section of Irishmen? Yet for all the way 
 in which it really should be regarded this thing 
 had made Ireland very mad indeed. What was 
 happening here was but one shout of the great 
 collective shout which was being performed this 
 day all over Ireland. This tremendous answer 
 stood everywhere for a tumultuous coming and 
 going as if of an army with banners. . . . 
 
 " I declare to Christ, but this is the greatest 
 day ever seen in Ballycullen! " said an ancient 
 man in the hearing of Michael, just as the speak- 
 ers seemed to float onto the platform upon the 
 highest wave of enthusiasm. The chair was 
 taken, as a matter of course, by Thomas Cooney 
 who was the ex-officio chairman of all meetings
 
 114 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 held in Ballycullen. People often said that 
 where in the world could such a chairman be 
 found as Thomas Cooney ? Gilbert McCormack 
 moved nervously beside him as if anxious for and 
 feeling entitled to some distinction as his father's 
 son, yet meek and deferential in the presence of 
 the power and popularity of Thomas Cooney. 
 Ambrose Donohue was prominent, also, in a green 
 " God Save Ireland " hat and a big green tie. 
 He was anxious for the success of the meeting, as, 
 he had hammered the platform together, and had 
 not yet been paid for the work. But, of course, 
 there would be subscriptions towards a fund at 
 the end. It was quite impossible to think of a 
 public meeting without this natural conclusion. 
 
 Michael caught a glimpse of Mirandolina, also, 
 on the outskirts of the crowd with a little cluster 
 of girls. She was wearing a pretty summer dress 
 and a white hat with a broad green ribbon around 
 it. Her eyes seemed strained to catch some 
 meaning from the scene as soon her ears must be 
 strained to catch some meaning from the flood of 
 words. If only he and she were talking now, he 
 might be able to explain or at least to give her his 
 opinion upon the whole performance. 
 
 Connor Carberry was on the platform, too, al- 
 though not prominent as a speaker, but his look 
 was strained into a mixture of adoration and ad- 
 miration upon the flag. . . . His eyes were
 
 A GREAT MEETING 115 
 
 running water and his mouth was dribbling like 
 the mouth of a young child. . . . His mind 
 would seem to be folding and unfolding itself in 
 the madness of his dream as the flag fell and flut- 
 tered and floated smoothly again upon the soft 
 summer breeze. . . . 
 
 Distantly, upon the further outskirts of the 
 crowd, and appearing almost as an essential fix- 
 ture of Whelehan's public-house, stood Kevin 
 Shanaghan, with the same decaying, almost ob- 
 scene face, wearing the same smile as if he were, 
 laughing at all this with a suppressed, continuous 
 chuckle in the very middle of his mind. It might 
 be that all this invasion of Ballycullen " played 
 into his barrow," as he was fond of saying with 
 sarcastic use of the slang of Ballycullen. The 
 Sergeant always kept a vigilant eye on him on 
 Sundays to prevent him effecting a breach of the 
 Licensing Act, but, to-day there would be a laxity 
 of vigilance in this direction. There would be 
 opportunities and flows of drink and he would at 
 least win the means of forgetting the scene which 
 Ballycullen, out of his abysmal possibilities, was 
 now forcing him to witness. . . . 
 
 The Sergeant himself was sweating under his 
 spiked helmet, that monstrous full-dress headgear 
 of the Royal Irish Constabulary. His agony was 
 neither so complete nor exquisite as usual, for he 
 had a certain sympathy with the object of this
 
 116 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 patriotic National meeting. His powerful allegi- 
 ance to his sovereign Lord the King had suddenly 
 become watered down and beneath the deceptive 
 hide of his dark green uniform an Irish heart was 
 beating. He was always against these cursed 
 Orangemen, anyway. His goings to Belfast for 
 special duty on " The Twelfth " had always ap- 
 peared as departures for " The Front " away from 
 his wife and family, never knowing what trip 
 might be his last with a belt of a bottle from a 
 dirty savage of an Orangeman in Sandy Row. . . . 
 
 But already Thomas Cooney had got on a good 
 way with his speech. He had got so far as to 
 affirm the ancient fact that he was standing there 
 like all the good and true Irishmen around him in 
 sacred defence of the ancient, indefeasible rights 
 of the Irish people. 
 
 " We won't be tramped on any longer, so we 
 won't." (Cheers.) Now that we were just in the 
 last stages of the age-long fight. (Cheers). When 
 the ship was at the harbour's mouth as you might 
 say, in the words of the greatest Irishman, or as I 
 might say the greatest patriot, of all the time, our 
 own true and gallant leader. (Loud and prolonged 
 cheering; shouts of " Up Redmond! " " To Hell 
 with Carson! ") A clear clarion call has been 
 sounded to the young men of Ireland, which, of 
 course, includes the young men of Ballycullen. 
 And it is to see, I say it is to see that we hold fast
 
 A GREAT MEETING 117 
 
 to the prize at last given us by England. Given 
 us, moryah, aye when it was absolutely beaten 
 out of them by the great statesmanship of our re- 
 nowned leader and the squeeze he gave them in 
 the hollow of his hand. (Tremendous cheering 
 and shouts of "More power there, Thomas! ") 
 And let it go forth from this mighty assemblage 
 of all creeds and classes which is to be compared 
 only with the mighty gathering of our forefathers 
 on the renowned Hill of Tara in the days of yore. 
 (Cheers.) And at this crisis, as I might say in 
 our beloved country, Ireland's fate, the men of 
 Ballycullen will be found, as they have always 
 been found, in their accustomed place leading the 
 van. I have little more to say in conclusion, 
 fellow countrymen, only " God Save Ireland !" 
 (Loud and vociferous applause.) The continu- 
 ous applause seemed to echo and re-echo for such 
 a long time that it had the effect of also announc- 
 ing the fact that Marcus Flynn had come to the 
 front of the platform and was speaking, at least 
 he was gesticulating eloquently in pantomime. 
 The shouting died suddenly and in the wide still- 
 ness of the pause, by an unlucky accident, Marcus 
 should be just letting the words, " I'm not much 
 of a speaker! " out of his mouth. There was a 
 loud laugh, which seemed to break blessedly upon 
 the ears of Michael, because of the sudden comedy 
 it gave the scene and upon the ears of Kevin
 
 118 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Shanaghan, too, he thought, because of the sym- 
 pathy there was between them. . . . That 
 vague man still stood afar off. . . . 
 
 The loud laugh, which went on exploding suc- 
 cessively for a while, appeared to nettle Marcus a 
 little, but he could not be thus suddenly silenced, 
 for to-day his mind was working nimbly because 
 he had taken a large dose of whiskey to fortify 
 himself for the ordeal. He was spitefully con- 
 scious of the fact that he could not manufacture a 
 speech with the ease and precision of Thomas 
 Cooney, business rival and long established 
 enemy in many ways as he was and to-day it was 
 urgently incumbent upon him for commercial and 
 social reasons to create a great impression upon 
 public opinion. Already he had thought out his 
 plan over a whiskey bottle in the parlour : 
 
 " I'm not much of an orator, fellow-country- 
 men," he continued, " but I second every single 
 word that my eloquent friend (there was a sup- 
 pressed laugh at this), Mr. Cooney has said, and 
 there! " 
 
 He turned around suddenly and grasping the 
 hand of Thomas Cooney shook it with such 
 warmth as nearly threw the late speaker out 
 of his standing. It was a tremendous anti- 
 climax, for the eloquent gombeen-man had built 
 upon his well rehearsed speech to completely 
 knock the devil out of Marcus Flynn, who had
 
 A GREAT MEETING 119 
 
 not a word to throw to a dog in private, not to 
 mention in public, on a great occasion like the 
 present. He was flabbergasted but what could 
 he do but return the magnanimous hand-shake 
 there in the full gaze of the now fiercely enthusi- 
 astic throng. . . . On the part of Marcus it 
 had been a ruse most subtly instinctive of the 
 political showman, but good whiskey was often a 
 great help to a man in a tricky situation. . . . 
 The crowd was now absolutely mad. To see 
 two ancient enemies shaking hands like that! 
 Why, it was a tremendous act, almost as great in 
 their eyes as if, at the present juncture, in agree- 
 ment upon some brilliant plan to settle the Irish 
 question at last and end for ever all the different 
 forms of English political trickery, Sir Edward 
 Carson had suddenly shaken the hand of John 
 Redmond before the gaze of a wondering world. 
 . . . Thus in the bewildering moment of its 
 happening did it appear as the greatest thing that 
 had ever been done in Ballycullen and what way 
 could anyone feel after the like of that only all 
 for Ireland? . . . United we stand, divided we 
 fall! . . . That's what would settle Carson! 
 The drummers hit the drums with their fists and 
 a few fifes were blown as if to further emphasise 
 the fact and the glory of the incident, making it 
 one that should not soon fade from the memory 
 of Ballycullen. . . .
 
 120 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Gilbert McCormack seemed to think better of 
 it at the last moment and did not come forward 
 to stutter his usual few words, but a lone voice 
 full of forced enthusiasm shouted : 
 
 " Three cheers for the son of Hugh O'Donnell 
 McCormack, the man that f ollied Parnell ! ' : 
 
 The few poor cheers which followed were 
 rather for Parnell and his memory than for Gil- 
 bert McCormack and the memory of his father. 
 But these trailed away very timidly, those who 
 had given them utterance becoming suddenly 
 ashamed that other people present might think 
 they were cheering Gilbert McCormack himself. 
 Besides, there was a shrewd suspicion in not a few 
 minds that this shout had been hired for the 
 occasion. 
 
 Nor did Ambrose Donohue venture a speech. 
 It was his policy of the moment to flatter, by his 
 silence, those who thought that they could speak. 
 He had his eye on the job of secretary or treas- 
 urer of what might result from this meeting. In 
 either capacity he might be able to manage an odd 
 little slice of the fund. And, of course, there 
 would be a fund. He knew well that there would 
 be a fund. 
 
 A young man just arrived by motor from Dub- 
 lin now made a dramatic appearance at the front 
 of the platform. To the eyes of Michael the 
 whole scene seemed to stagger loutishly away
 
 A GREAT MEETING 121 
 
 from the sudden splendour of this young man's 
 words. . . . He had not caught his name as 
 he was being introduced to the meeting. Some- 
 one beside him now asked someone else : 
 
 " Who's that fellow, anyway? Begad he can 
 speak, not like the lot of stuttering idiots we're 
 after listening to? " 
 
 " Be hell, they say that's Shaun McDermott 
 from Dublin." 
 
 That name, linked with the wild, sweet words, 
 which were falling as if to cleanse Ballycullen 
 like the way a dusty place is made bright again 
 by summer rain, brought Michael to greater at- 
 tention. He knew this man to be one of the gal- 
 lant little band that had raised up in him the 
 flame which had been hidden, almost quenched, 
 here. . . . He remembered, with a sense of 
 atonement in the very thought, that, for the mo- 
 ment they had come down from their lofty places 
 in order to teach all the futile, anxious, puzzled 
 men the way to love their country. Perhaps 
 Shaun McDermott would tell Ballycullen what he 
 himself had been afraid to tell it. They might 
 listen to a man from Dublin but not to him. . . . 
 
 A finer enthusiasm seemed to have come upon 
 them already and there was no playing for ap- 
 plause in the speech of this young, handsome man, 
 who had filled his gentle heart with the pure pas- 
 sion of his ideal, only a quiet, continuous per-
 
 122 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 suasive flow of great words spoken almost in 
 gladness. . . . Michael had already forgotten 
 that he was still in Ballycullen. He seemed to be 
 standing in the very middle of Ireland and within 
 sound of the strong chains clanking madly to 
 the moment of release, while all around him were 
 men flashed suddenly into worthy comradeship 
 with those who had died for Ireland. . . . This 
 surely appeared as the moment for which, through 
 all the weary years of Ballycullen, he had been 
 preparing his heart. . . . 
 
 He did not suddenly become aware that they 
 were beckoning to him from the platform. . . . 
 Why, of course, there was nothing wrong with the 
 platform now, so he ran up amongst them joy- 
 fully. 
 
 " We're just having a little preliminary confab 
 here among ourselves," said Ambrose Donohue. 
 " You know, of course, that there'll have to be a 
 little fund. It's a bit late in the year for dances, 
 but you could pull a big crowd with a patriotic 
 play, now that we're all in the game for Ireland 
 as you might say. We were just thinking that 
 you're the very man in the gap. ' Robert Emmet ' 
 again, you know! We might run it for three or 
 four nights on the strength of the present enthu- 
 siasm and make a hat-full of money ! " 
 
 "The very thing! The very thing! " stut- 
 tered Gilbert McCormack. " We'll all have to
 
 A GREAT MEETING 123 
 
 let bygones be bygones now. It's everyman's 
 cause, for it's the common danger, so it is, and we 
 must all be united! " 
 
 Thomas Cooney leaned across the table from 
 his proud place in the chair and, catching Mi- 
 chael's hand in his which was almost limp with 
 the excitement of the moment, whispered tensely: 
 
 " Good man, Michael! Good gossoon! I know 
 you won't fail us ! ' 
 
 Marcus Flynn said thickly, drunkenly, yet 
 proudly and possessively: 
 
 " Fail the devil! Isn't he my man? Amn't I 
 paying him and keeping the roof over his 
 mother's and sister's heads. And if he's not a 
 hell of a lot in the shop, he's a damned fine 
 actor!" 
 
 But Michael in this moment needed neither 
 urging nor coaxing nor threatening. The man 
 who had thrilled him to the very soul was still 
 speaking and the words of the others came to him 
 as if through a golden, auricular haze. He 
 merely whispered "Certainly! " He did not 
 hear the immense sigh of relief which the others 
 heaved nor did he realise at all the commitment 
 of himself that he had made. . . . He saw 
 only Connor Carberry looking up at the flag with 
 the tears streaming down his face. . . . Kevin 
 Shanaghan had vanished, even as a dim speck 
 from his consciousness, having doubtless de-
 
 124 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 scended upon Whelehan's public house at the 
 highest moment of excitement. . . . The green 
 band of her hat flashing suddenly bright across 
 his vision and his mind did not cause him to 
 remember that he had put himself in the way of 
 meeting and speaking with Mirandolina again. 
 
 The meeting was at an end, having become so 
 beautiful an atonement for itself in its concluding 
 stages. He was honoured to find himself shak- 
 ing hands with the man who had just spoken so 
 finely. The bands were drumming up again for 
 a triumphant march past and the great meeting 
 of Ballycullen in June, 1914, was at an end.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 ASPECTS OF IRISH SOLDIERING 
 
 ELTS and bandoliers. We'll have to get 
 belts and bandoliers! " 
 "And caps! " 
 
 "Aye, and caps," the other would affirm, al- 
 though he evidently gave first place to belts and 
 bandoliers in the military scheme. 
 
 A man thus fully equipped with belt, bandolier 
 and wooden gun had something like the halo of 
 a crusader shining around him. The conception 
 of knighthood and fair women had somehow 
 struggled into Ballycullen. Those who carried 
 wooden guns in public boasted in private that 
 they had plenty of " the stuff " hidden in safe 
 places. " The stuff " included everything in the 
 shape of guns and ammunition, from blunder- 
 busses to sixteen-chambered revolvers of the most 
 approved and deadly pattern. Groups of con- 
 spirators gathered nightly in the pubs to discuss 
 these things in hushed, fierce tones. ... It 
 was damnable to think of this happening after so 
 many years, their being called upon to die for 
 
 125
 
 126 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Ireland, but a branch of the Irish National Vol- 
 unteers had been established in Ballycullen and 
 it must be done. ... On drill nights the 
 countryside would be emptied of its youth and all 
 would be congregated in one of the darkest places 
 in the parish forming fours under the direction 
 of an ex-soldier who had " gone through it " with 
 Lord Roberts in Afghanistan. The life had been 
 almost hammered out of him by discipline, but 
 now he was having some sort of revenge for the 
 wasted years of his slavery through the insolent 
 blasphemy with which he shouted his commands 
 at even the sons of strong farmers. He was 
 " mad drunk " every night, for he had to be paid 
 always before he could be induced to make a 
 start out to the drilling place from either Cooney's 
 or Whelehan's. He behaved continually as he 
 had seen fierce, drunken Colonels behave. 
 
 The convention of meeting in a lonely place 
 would seem to have been revived to most subtly 
 induce the ancient spirit. Yet they appeared 
 heavily chained at every turn, even by their own 
 melodramatic patriotism, which was part of the 
 effort before the world to prove the sincerity of 
 their ambitions, their struggles and their hopes to 
 escape from bondage. Hence all the secrecy of 
 their meetings appeared unnecessary when one 
 thought of the loud openness with which they 
 spoke of "the stuff" in the dark "pubs" of
 
 ASPECTS OF IRISH SOLDIERING 127 
 
 Ballycullen. But there was an amount of what 
 one might call " feeling " become manifest. Back 
 into many minds from which all glad thoughts of 
 love and death had been blotted by the drifting 
 years were struggling verses of Leo Casey's 
 Fenian song: 
 
 Down beside the singing river 
 
 That dark mass of men were seen; 
 
 Far above their shining weapons 
 Hung their own beloved green. 
 
 By such means were they forcing their minds 
 to believe that they were doing a noble and a 
 Fenian thing, while there was not a gombeenman 
 or a Cromwellian descendant of the parish but 
 had already subscribed to the fund to buy belts 
 and bandoliers and wooden guns. . . . The 
 list of subscriptions was headed on the one hand 
 by Thomas Cooney and Marcus Flynn, and on the 
 other by Captain Beaumont Fortescue and the 
 Hon. Herbert Fitzherbert. In fact, so great was 
 the enthusiasm for the Volunteers amongst all the 
 local gentry that Captain Beaumont Fortescue, 
 who had distinguished himself in various expedi- 
 tions against Zulus and other inferior peoples, 
 had promised to review the troops in Mulla- 
 ghowen at an early date. The remarkable con- 
 descension and decency of this proceeding were 
 enthused over both at the drill meeting and at the
 
 128 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 pubs. But extraordinary things were happening 
 every day. New political talent was being 
 forced to the front in the most amazing way, 
 efficiency in military knowledge being the only 
 thing apparently necessary. A man who had 
 spent a short time as a carpenter in Aldershot had 
 been elected Captain of the Ballycullen Volun- 
 teers solely on account of his military experience. 
 Another man with his eye on political advance- 
 ment at any cost had become " President of the 
 Volunteers," a curious political position in a 
 military organization. 
 
 At the meeting for the election of officers 
 Michael's name had not been selected. There 
 were two reasons for this. In the first place, even 
 in spite of the enthusiasm he had shown for the 
 Volunteers, ' since the day of the great meeting 
 there had sprung up a certain amount of " feel- 
 ing " against him because he had openly ex- 
 pressed himself as being in favour of Carson. 
 At least he had frequently said in the shop that 
 Carson should be thanked for being the means of 
 putting into their hands a great possibility. It 
 had already begun to be whispered around that 
 he would probably be put out of the Volunteers 
 for this, but he was tolerated for the time being 
 because he was " getting up " the crowd again 
 to make funds for the purchase of more belts and 
 bandoliers and wooden guns. Besides, as he was
 
 ASPECTS OF IRISH SOLDIERING 129 
 
 being so completely used for this purpose, he could 
 not spare the time necessary for " officering." The 
 fact helped to prolong his enthusiasm which 
 might have waned slightly had it been brought 
 into too continuous contact with the Volunteers. 
 His evening occupation in striving to bring to life 
 the words and thoughts of Robert Emmet still 
 kept alive in his heart that part of his dream 
 which the hope of the Volunteers had lit brightly. 
 It was not his nature either to seek petty exalta- 
 tion, so in any case they might have spared them- 
 selves the trouble of snubbing him. But he would 
 show them again what he could do upon the stage. 
 He would flash back the military ardour that 
 had been raised up in them. They would be 
 forced to accept him, as it were, through power of 
 his own inherent ability. Maybe he would speak 
 yet to great gatherings of men of his own country 
 sufficiently purified to drink to its full glory in 
 the spirit of Emmet and Tone and Davis and 
 Mitchel. . . . Mirandolina was very near him 
 again and although they were all three rehearsing 
 in the same room of an evening Ambrose Dono- 
 hue made no further attempts to cut him out of 
 her regard. Ambrose wanted the concert to be a 
 huge success because he was Secretary of the 
 Fund. Mirandolina went rather shyly about the 
 business of rehearsal, yet with a certain balance of 
 assurance well maintained between the two men
 
 30 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 as if nothing at all had happened between the 
 three of them. They had been recalled to this 
 work at the bidding of Ireland, and so all per- 
 sonal thoughts being driven away for the moment 
 by the urgent, all embracing love of Ireland, they 
 were as happy as three enthusiastic Socialists in 
 their dream of the perfectly ordered world in the 
 coming time. 
 
 The situation of Michael and Mirandolina in 
 relation to one another and to Ireland and Bally- 
 cullen and the stage and Romance had been taken 
 up by both just at the point where they had 
 thought well to move away from it for a little 
 while. Its old rich hue was upon the enthusiasm 
 of Michael, and at no behest of common sense 
 would or could he have kept from doing this thing 
 now. Mirandolina had returned to her place in 
 his dream just as all other things seemed to fall 
 naturally as pieces of circumstance into their 
 places in the mosaic of his life. Of course he 
 did not take any walks with her down the old ivy- 
 hung pathway now, for all had more anxiety 
 presently than would permit them to find pleasure 
 in the like of this. Besides, there would be no 
 nights now at midsummer, no fragrant darkness to 
 curtain them from prying eyes, and in addition 
 there were men always hurrying along the road on 
 Volunteer business at every blessed hour of the 
 evening. But, after the rehearsals in the hall, the
 
 ASPECTS OF IRISH SOLDIERING 131 
 
 talk would ever turn upon Ireland, Michael freely 
 pouring out as a poet might his poems for love of 
 some beautiful woman, all the history and tradi- 
 tion of Ireland which he had learned, and Am- 
 brose Donohue getting him to repeat bits over and 
 over again so that he might have them quite pat 
 to repeat towards his own advantage in pubs or 
 places where Michael was not likely to go, for 
 the intellectual and patriotic benefit of newly 
 arisen fops of farmers who had not a word of 
 Irish history in their heads although a lot of 
 money had been wasted on them at expensive col- 
 leges. It was very fashionable at the moment 
 to be patriotic, and this man, who could adjust 
 himself to every whim of the public taste in Bal- 
 lycullen with the slippery elasticity of an eel, had 
 given up retailing doubtful jokes from " The 
 Winning Post " and " London Opinion " to talk 
 feelingly about semi-obscure patriots like Ter- 
 ence Bellow McManus and Peter O'Neill Crow- 
 ley. 
 
 There were times now when Michael almost 
 appeared a veritable madman, so remote from 
 reality would he be, not seeming to be living in 
 Ballycullen or any place near it at all. . . . 
 Mirandolina liked to hear him talking, for it 
 lifted her and him beyond this mean place, but 
 she being only a woman, and so constantly nearer 
 the cruel reality of things, never seemed to forget
 
 132 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 that this man who was fondly mirrored in her 
 heart was only a poor, half -cowed spirit after all, 
 doomed to suffer here in Ballycullen. And so it 
 was that often as he would be setting about some 
 of the grandest flights of his dream-lit imagina- 
 tion, she would look at him in a curious, quizzical 
 way, as if she truly pitied him for his foolishness, 
 a great, big silly baby, as he seemed to her, who 
 had not yet learned to look out upon the world 
 through the eyes of the life he knew. She often 
 felt as if she would like to give him a really good 
 shaking into common sense. Of course, it was 
 the sudden twist towards patriotism pure and 
 simple of Ballycullen that had put her also in 
 this play, but it was Michael who seemed to be 
 primarily responsible, for he would be always 
 talking like a fool about Ireland. 
 
 In the drapery department of Thomas Cooney's 
 establishment she did not come greatly into con- 
 tact with the all absorbing activity of the moment. 
 Excepting that Ambrose Donohue sometimes 
 came into the shop to buy calico for arches and 
 flags, and even elderly married women would 
 come to ask her assistance in deploring the woeful 
 foolishness that had suddenly taken possession of 
 their men. Not a word of scornful criticism was 
 ever passed upon the dramatic class, for did it 
 not flourish under the very respectable wing of 
 Thomas Cooney? Even on Sundays Michael was
 
 ASPECTS OF IRISH SOLDIERING 133 
 
 .kept very busy around the club looking after 
 scenery and other things. It was impossible for 
 him at present to indulge his fancy in the spectacle 
 of a field day of the Ballycullen Volunteers. 
 
 On the Sunday before the Concert, as he stood 
 upon the steps talking to a few others, the ap- 
 proaching music of the small band told him that 
 the Volunteers were at last and for the first time 
 concentrating upon Ballycullen. To him it was 
 a glad fact, a magical, coloured sound as if out of 
 some of the brightest pages of Ireland's history 
 that were being lived over again. To him it was 
 this surely, although just now, even in this intense 
 moment, he became conscious of the old sad smile 
 upon the face of Kevin Shanaghan even though 
 it was Sunday and his rags seemed dirtier than 
 ever and the soles of his boots were bound to his 
 feet by bits of twine. . . . Michael won- 
 dered what in the world the smile could be for. 
 So far he had not been given the opportunity of 
 discovering what the opinion of Kevin was in re- 
 gard to the Volunteers, but it did not seem likely 
 that the silent, enigmatic man would venture an 
 opinion although he might smile. . , . The 
 Volunteers were coming nearer, and as the music 
 suddenly seemed to fill with wonder the lovely 
 day all the thoughts that Michael had ever had 
 about Ireland came thronging gladly back into 
 his mind.
 
 134 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 He thought that all the valiant heroes of the 
 Gael were commingled with the Volunteers as 
 they swept past, Owen Roe O'Neill and Sarsfield, 
 Wolfe Tone, Michael Dwyer, John Mitchel. . . . 
 Again had his dream blinded him, and he did not 
 see the reality of Ballycullen in the shining mul- 
 titude that went marching by. There was only 
 one face that touched him, and this was the face 
 of Connor Carberry, who carried the flag. The 
 long, lean gnarled hands, that had been worn in 
 jail and in Australia, were firmly clasped upon 
 the staff above his head and his eyes, lifted up to 
 look upon the flag, had something heavenward 
 also in their gaze. In the impassioned moment 
 he appeared almost like a holy man of God. As 
 the procession approached and passed, Michael 
 saw him most clearly as a figure of his dream. 
 He did not see the motley crowd in all its queer 
 equipment, some only with caps ; others with Boer, 
 or what were still known as " God save Ireland " 
 hats of dark green, with a celluloid photo button 
 of John Redmond attaching the leaf to the crown; 
 some with belts only, some with bandoliers only, 
 others with both and a wooden gun as well. There 
 were some who preserved a stage of Irish militar- 
 ism in the blackthorns which they carried, and a 
 few courageous souls of Land League traditions 
 carried muzzle loading shot-guns. Immensely 
 brave, indeed, these felt themselves to be, seeing
 
 ASPECTS OF IRISH SOLDIERING 135 
 
 that they had to pass the barracks, and, for all his 
 talk of being a patriot now, the sergeant was a 
 hidden scoundrel. No, not these. Connor Car- 
 berry was not walking by the side of them. . . . 
 
 In a continuous, single file, and moving as an 
 accompanying column, were the officers and offi- 
 cials of the Volunteers. . . . Very proudly 
 came the President, the Colonel, the Treasurer, 
 the Captain, the Secretary, the Quartermaster ser- 
 geant, numerous lieutenants, sergeants, corpo- 
 rals, etc. The number of officers, commissioned 
 and non-commissioned, almost exceeded the num- 
 ber of men. Experts in public life, who always 
 managed somehow to edge into the uppermost 
 politics of the moment, were very prominent. . . . 
 Michael did not suddenly realise as part of his 
 perception that they had been halted just outside 
 Thomas Cooney's public house for " refresh- 
 ments," a term vaguely indicative of the fact 
 that they were going in to drink pints at their 
 own expense and merely as a considerable in- 
 crease to his custom for Thomas Cooney. The 
 broad smile which flittered into the conscious- 
 ness of Michael from a flash, as it were, across the 
 face of Kevin Shanaghan was as the accompani- 
 ment of words which rang unspoken on his ear: 
 
 " Well, thanks be to God that there's always 
 something that gives a fellow the chance of a 
 drink even on Sunday. Isn't it a great move
 
 136 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 entirely to have the publicans at the head of 
 the Volunteers? Now, out on a route march, for 
 instance, sure the lads can be halted turn about 
 outside of all the true patriotic pubs in the 
 country. Whenever, also, there is a field day, so 
 to speak, in Ballycullen, for the lads in Bally- 
 scallan it is only natural to think that the visiting 
 Volunteers '11 give their custom for their porter 
 only to such as are tried and true friends of The 
 Cause, and vice versa when the boys from Bally- 
 cullen go over to visit Ballyscallan." 
 
 And this surely was the graphic impression 
 which was flaming up in the still unbroken mind 
 of Kevin Shanaghan while Michael Dempsey was 
 about to rehearse his players in the trial scene of 
 Robert Emmet for its second production in Bally- 
 cullen. Thomas Cooney was filling out the porter 
 for his numerous new customers. And who could 
 say that the people were not coming to the front 
 at last, for to-day never a peeler was barking, so 
 to speak, as Thomas said, in Ballycullen.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 
 
 THE days and nights now whirled with what 
 seemed but one meaning towards the 
 night of the concert. Several tickets had 
 been sold for every available seat and the hall was 
 packed to suffocation on this summer night. 
 What with the heat of the night and of the densely 
 packed house there was a certain weariness upon 
 Michael so that he felt that for him at least the 
 greater part of the performance must be in panto- 
 mime above the sound of a drunken conversation 
 and lewd jokes and scintillant sparkles of saliva, 
 which would intermittently introduce the quality 
 of light into the thick air. . . . Somebody 
 had already said that it was an unnatural thing 
 to have a concert in Ballycullen in the summer. 
 It was something worse. It was almost ob- 
 scene. . . . But some kind of show would 
 have to be made by the performers of the eve- 
 ning. The players, male and female, were al- 
 ready perspiring in the dressing-rooms before 
 they went out upon the stage at all. . . . 
 
 137
 
 138 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Michael did not feel the old pride in his Robert 
 Emmet costume and he thought as he looked upon 
 her that Mirandolina appeared sickly in the mix- 
 ture of daylight and candle-light. Outside, con- 
 tinuously, could be heard the wild sounds of 
 Volunteers arriving from all parts of the country. 
 The street was already thronged with men un- 
 able to gain admission. They were turning back 
 and gaining admission to the pubs instead. All 
 the pubs were crowded and around the hall was 
 no sign of Thomas Cooney, or Whelehan, or Nu- 
 gent, or Phillips, or Brannagan. This was a 
 remarkable night of their lives, and they were 
 all doing well. 
 
 Michael went out before the other players and 
 took a look at the audience through a hole in the 
 drop curtain. All the faces seemed commingled 
 queerly into one great, leering sweating face. 
 Here and there were individual touches which 
 distinguished its color and quality. A huge hulk 
 of a Volunteer in his belt and bandolier and cap, 
 his moustache waxed military fashion, sat by the 
 side of his sweetheart, a servant girl, and from 
 staring fixedly upon the stage would turn in odd 
 moments to gaze upon her foolishly in strong, 
 agricultural rapture. . . . Later, she would 
 be leaning upon his shoulder as he told her what 
 he would do, so powerful was the spirit which 
 had been raised up in him presently. And so in
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 139 
 
 its immediate effects this old passion play of Ire- 
 land at this production was no different in its 
 results from what it had been always. Yet was 
 there something different in the constitution of 
 the audience. Here, suffering for their country 
 for the first time in their lives, were fellows with 
 weak, effeminate faces and " swanky " clothes, 
 shop-boys from Castleconner or Mullaghowen, 
 and exclusive Gaels who aspired in imitation of 
 St. John Marlowe, the ladies' man who drove with 
 Mr. Alexander Waddell up through Ballycullen 
 every Friday. All Colonels or Captains or Ma- 
 jors of local corps of Volunteers, they felt some- 
 how as if they were expected to put in an appear- 
 ance. . . . 
 
 Soon, however, just as soon as the damned thing 
 started, they would have managed to escape into 
 the air and would be handing one another half- 
 pints of whiskey outside the door, or else trying to 
 " pick-up " girls of Ballycullen as they rushed 
 almost fainting out of the hall a little later 
 on. ... . Perhaps because the remainder of 
 the hall appeared so densely crowded, Michael 
 noticed particularly six empty chairs in the front 
 row covered with green cloth and looking very 
 like reserved seats for notable people. . . . 
 Somebody just beside him, and looking also 
 through the curtain, remarked that these seats 
 were reserved for Captain Beaumont Fortescue
 
 140 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 and the Hon. Herbert Fitzherbert and their 
 ladies. ... Of course these had bought 
 tickets but this was not sufficient to make certain 
 the fact that they would come here. Yet this 
 ostentatious emptiness had been arranged in their 
 honor just as their horses might be led after the 
 gun carriage were they being given a military 
 funeral by the great Empire they had served so 
 well. Some of their labourers were here to-night 
 and they would be glad to hear from them to- 
 morrow of this mark of respect to the " nobs." 
 It might mean a further subscription to the Fund. 
 
 There did not seem to be any use in waiting 
 further for more people to crowd into this suffo- 
 cating place. But there was an urgent reason for 
 delay. Ambrose Donohue had not yet arrived 
 from Dublin on the recently purchased second- 
 hand motor bicycle which his secretaryship of the 
 Volunteers had brought him. . . . 
 
 But just now, of a sudden, the noise of his 
 two-stroke engine could be heard, the hum ris- 
 ing gradually higher, like the approach of a great 
 bee, until Ambrose at last jumped off just outside 
 the door and came into the dressing-room. He 
 was hot and dusty and excited, and partly drunk. 
 
 " Oh listen, d'ye know what's after happen- 
 ing in Dublin to-day?" 
 
 They crowded around him to hear the news. 
 He began to tell them what might appear through
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 141 
 
 his excitement, half truth, half fantastic rumour, 
 as a description, of what might result as an epoch- 
 making event. How there had been a great land- 
 ing of guns at Howth to-day as the Nationalist 
 counterblast to what had happened in Larne. 
 That the military had been called out against 
 them and how the Volunteers had fought to the 
 last man. There had been a great battle all along 
 the sea road from Howth and a regular massacre 
 at Bachelor's Walk. But, thanks be to God was 
 the prayer of everyone in Dublin, that the guns 
 were safe. 
 
 " Isn't it bloody awful?" said even Ambrose, 
 stung to this expression of his patriotism, " that 
 Carson wasn't interfered with, but now d'ye see 
 that the dirty Scottish Borderers didn't forget to 
 shoot when it was us that was in it. By God, it's 
 not fair!" 
 
 It took a little time for Michael to realize the 
 news, and when at last he did, it was just before 
 he went out upon the stage to play the part of 
 Robert Emmet. There came a passionate 
 twitching into the muscles of his face and 
 a new splendour into his words. . . . There 
 seemed to be a great gladness upon him and a 
 feeling that this was the sublime moment of his 
 life. There was a hoarse cheer from the dense 
 audience, which seemed to re-echo upon the street 
 and far down into the very bowels of the pubs.
 
 142 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 It was like a sound of purpose against the flash- 
 ing magic of this moment in Ireland. The wild 
 cheers which echoed and re-echoed through Bally- 
 cullen as the play went on told the audience that 
 the story of Robert Emmet and what had hap- 
 pened to him was nearer them than ever before 
 by reason of what had just happened in Dublin. 
 The British, the English, the Sassenach, the Gov- 
 ernment, or by whatever other name you wished 
 to describe them, were still the same rotten 
 scoundrels out of hell in spite of all their talk 
 about Home Rule, and Asquith and the great 
 British democracy. Groups were passing out of 
 the hall every few minutes so that others might 
 come in to see the play and so have the oppor- 
 tunity of cheering to their heart's content. On 
 the whole it was the most awful orgy of patriot- 
 ism ever seen in Ballycullen. The appeal of the 
 passion play had been something to conjure with 
 always, but now they were translated almost to 
 the extent of being transferred back bodily into 
 all the most glamorous periods of Irish history 
 simultaneously, successively, inclusively. . . . 
 In the oblivious moment of their madness they 
 cheered Michael Dempsey as if he were no longer 
 the shop-boy in Marcus Flynn's at all, but in- 
 stead some new and inspired saviour of Ireland 
 suddenly come amongst them for the first time. 
 Yet the madness of Ballycullen was as nothing
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 143 
 
 beside the madness that was upon Michael Demp- 
 sey. He was tense, passionate, stricken white al- 
 most through his grease-paint. He saw, half 
 comically, across the red smear of the night, even 
 his master, Marcus Flynn, applauding him as he 
 sat there immensely in one of the very front seats. 
 It was the thing that summoned his mind to the 
 final effort towards which it had been struggling. 
 When the curtain had fallen upon the last act of 
 the play he would speak to them in his own words, 
 from his own heart and out of the hatred of Eng- 
 land that he had fanned up around his soul in 
 his lonely room in his mother's house. No one 
 in the whole world knew how much that room of 
 dreams meant to him, but to-night he would give 
 them a taste of its splendour. . . . 
 
 The final curtain had fallen and he had 
 stepped before the painted canvas. He saw only 
 a lumpish, moving mass and a sickening 
 sea of faces, and yet he was speaking, speaking 
 with a wild vagueness out of the dream that had 
 come to him. He did not see the wide, wide, sneer, 
 nor all the shiny, dribbling smirk of derision that 
 was upon every face. . . . 
 
 God knows, but wasn't it simply barbarous, the 
 cheek of him! Wasn't it bad enough to have to 
 listen to him going through his part without hav- 
 ing to set up with this bloody dose? A Republic ! 
 That's what he was saying. Did anyone ever
 
 144 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 hear such nonsense ? God knows, but Home Rule 
 was bad enough ! Good God Almighty ! did any- 
 one ever hear such lunacy at this stage of the 
 world's history? Wasn't it a wonder, now, that 
 Marcus Flynn, a shrewd man, would keep an 
 idiot like that in the house ? 
 
 He did not hear the derisive whoops of " Good 
 man there, Mickeen ! " from the mob, or a loud, 
 full-blooded " Yahoo !" at intervals. . . . 
 
 He became aware that someone was pulling 
 him by the sleeve, whispering him with feverish 
 anxiety to come off the stage. Then he returned 
 to realisation as the curtain was lowered slowly 
 before his eyes. He could not hear the roaring in 
 the street nor the wild demoniac laugh of de- 
 rision. . . . Then in a sudden instant he 
 became Michael Dempsey again. . . . He saw 
 Mirandolina Conway looking up tenderly into 
 his eyes and heard her saying in tones of the 
 strangest consideration : 
 
 " Oh, Michael, why ever in the name of good- 
 ness did you take that wretched whiskey? It has 
 set you mad." 
 
 It was a peculiar instant of earthly conscious- 
 ness when someone who might be said to be very 
 fond of him was trying out of her pity and out of 
 her love, perhaps, to find an earthly excuse for his 
 sudden flight of madness. Drunkenness ! It was 
 a sufficiently reasonable supposition to believe
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 145 
 
 that he must be drunk, seeing that mostly all those 
 around him were " blind to the world," and even 
 Ambrose Donohue had been just barely sober 
 enough to ride the motor-bike from Dublin. . . . 
 
 Mirandolina had always felt it was a thing 
 greatly to Michael's credit that here in this de- 
 moralising atmosphere of Ballycullen he had 
 held himself from drink. 
 
 And now it was hard to think that already the 
 report was spreading broadcast that Michael 
 Dempsey, like all the rest of the bucks connected 
 with the Dramatic Class, had been the worse of 
 drink at the concert, and that he had tried to make 
 a speech and that he had gone on with the mad- 
 dest kind of talk about a Republic and Rebel- 
 lions and the Fenians and idioting of the sort 
 that nobody minded these times. 
 
 The story about that this revival of Robert Em- 
 met, having been the means of effecting a recon- 
 ciliation between them had somehow got abroad 
 and all kinds of women and children and others 
 would be coming into the shop next day to sympa- 
 thise with her and to suggest how very drunk 
 Michael Dempsey had been. It would not seem 
 to matter that mostly every crippled or able- 
 bodied man in Ballycullen had been in the same 
 state. The difference was, of course, that Michael 
 Dempsey thought he was a great fellow and that 
 they did not put up to be anything. And she
 
 146 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 would be so deeply wounded by this, while he 
 would not feel or know. . , . 
 
 Yet, why was she looking at him so sadly 
 when he really felt himself to be more sane and 
 sober than he had ever been? Why were all the 
 others giving him such dark looks as they slipped 
 out ? Why was she leaving him, too, with such a 
 poor "Good-night" only upon her lips? Oh, 
 why was it at all, or was it merely because he had 
 tried to tell them? 
 
 At last it came to him that he was alone in 
 the dressing-room. He hurried on his clothes, for 
 to-night it seemed that there was a tremendous 
 urgency upon him to be thinking and it seemed 
 that he could think along the line he wished only 
 in the loneliness of his own room. ... At 
 the door two men were waiting to see him or 
 speak to him as he went out. These were Connor 
 Carberry and Kevin Shanaghan. The wild look 
 upon the puzzled face of Connor seemed to grow 
 more intense, and the wise, sad smile to deepen 
 upon the face of Kevin Shanaghan. . . . 
 That was all before they separated. It happened 
 so quickly that it did not seem like a moment 
 slung across his path by Fate. ... It was 
 a little strange to think that in the loftiest moment 
 of his life those who had come to him were a 
 drunkard and a madman. . . . Recollection 
 did not suddenly spring as a comfort to tell that
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 147 
 
 King Lear had gone out to meet his end accom- 
 panied by a fool. But it would have been quite 
 improper on the part of one so recently self-de- 
 clared an Irish Republican, Lear having been de- 
 scribed by Shakespeare as a British king. 
 
 There was upon him when he entered the little 
 room a feeling of triumph such as he had never 
 before known. This night his dream had been 
 real, he had spoken out of all his lonely planning 
 within these four walls. He had surprised Bally- 
 cullen. He supposed that they thought they 
 knew him, the thing that stood up inside Marcus 
 Flynn's counter every day, and that they had 
 correctly fixed his possibilities in their continu- 
 ous sneer. But now he was as one most subtly 
 different from any estimate which might flow off 
 common tongues. He went to a box, and with a 
 certain air of reverence, which was upon him this 
 evening in keeping, as it were, with his sudden 
 grandeur, unlocked it. It was a goodly bundle 
 of manuscript that he took out and placed upon 
 the table in the circle of the lamplight. He 
 locked the door and put the key in his pocket, an 
 unnecessary precaution it might be, for there did 
 not seem much risk of possible interruptions. 
 Yet he went on almost to affect the gestures and 
 whispering secrecy of one conspiring tremen- 
 dously with himself. Then he opened the bundle 
 of manuscript and gazed down at the plans. . . .
 
 148 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Here were all the maps and full particulars of 
 the rising which he had spent long, sleepless 
 nights in working towards perfection. . . . This 
 was a better plan than Robert Emmet's. It was 
 something that had come to him here in the 
 dark and lonely moments of his brooding, 
 through all the long time he had been engaged 
 in reading the little papers and dwelling upon 
 the history of Ireland. It was the light that had 
 broken in upon his mind, his inspiration out of 
 the far ways of the ancient Gaelic civilisation 
 towards which his soul had been eternally grop- 
 ing, for it had appeared to him that the agony of 
 Ireland must surely be lifted as by a miracle of 
 God. . . . All down the ages there had been 
 manifestations of the Holy Spirit through such 
 lowly people as he was. And through the mouth 
 of more than one prophet had Ireland been prom- 
 ised her freedom. . . . What if not the 
 moving of some such impulse towards this end 
 had caused him, Michael Dempsey, a shopboy 
 who had not moved very far away from Bally- 
 cullen, and who had received only a very indif- 
 ferent education, and who had fed his mind only 
 on scraps of Irish history and mediocre journal- 
 ism, who had scarcely seen a member of any mili- 
 tary body in his life, with the possible exception 
 of the peelers in Ballycullen marching down to 
 the court two deep on the first of every month, to
 
 MICHAEL'S DREAM 149 
 
 think of this great thing? How had it been 
 possible for him to contrive with such rich com- 
 pleteness the heap of plans upon the table ? These 
 were not the mere ravings upon paper of a dis- 
 ordered brain. On the contrary, they were orderly 
 and thorough, and quite convincing. To a very 
 encouraging degree the promise of success was 
 upon them. It seemed impossible to imagine that 
 there was further foreshadowing of a sudden dis- 
 aster here. ... So very convincing were they, 
 indeed, that they would certainly fetch a good 
 price in the hands of one who would be in direct 
 succession from Dermot MacMurrough down 
 through Leonard McNally to Richard Pigot. . . . 
 His reading of Irish history had given him this 
 warning, also, to be careful. . . . He must 
 wait, however, and bear with it until the coming 
 of other times and the rise of other men should 
 naturally evoke his assistance. For a great 
 while now it had been his fancy to think that all 
 the circumstances of Ireland must naturally move 
 to the moment from which he should emerge. It 
 seemed to him to-night that the moment was 
 rapidly approaching and it was because of what 
 had happened in Dublin to-day and its connection 
 with the things of his vision that he had 
 spoken. ... He hoped now, in an instant 
 of stark sanity, that he had not gone too 
 far. . . . No, it was the very fullness of his
 
 150 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 heart that had saved him from himself. The 
 very blindness and dumbness of passion that had 
 come upon him towards the end of his speech, 
 through the intensity of his love, had helped him 
 to effect something like caution. . . . But maybe 
 he had said sufficient to give them a glimpse of 
 himself as he might be when Ireland should 
 honour him as the man sprung so lowly at length 
 attained to power through strength of a supreme 
 love. . . . Through him it might be that the 
 Queen, almost grown too sad and desolate to 
 win a lover, might be fondled and kissed again 
 towards a rarer beauty than her Dear Dark Head 
 had ever known.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 1914 
 
 NEXT morning Michael stood behind the 
 counter as usual. Marcus Flynn came 
 into the shop looking rather seedy, as he 
 had disposed of a good many half-pints to bring 
 him through the ordeal of the previous night. He 
 peered narrowly at Michael. 
 
 " You were in a grand condition last night," 
 he said. " But curse of hell on the same Robert 
 Emmet, anyway, sure everyone in the whole place 
 was rotten, and I suppose I'll have to excuse you 
 for this time." 
 
 Having said this, Marcus went out of the shop 
 and back into the parlour to enjoy himself. . . . 
 So that was the construction already put upon it 
 by his employer, and doubtless all Ballycullen 
 was already saying the same thing or worse. 
 It was his immediate reward for speaking to them 
 from his very heart. It was a straight and power- 
 ful blow, of the nature and significance which 
 Ballycullen only could deal out of its malevolence 
 and its perpetual satrical leer. His wandering, 
 
 151
 
 152 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 affectionate mind, so warm always with his great 
 love and sympathy, was frozen to the cold atten- 
 tion of realisation and to-day he saw his native 
 village as he had already seen it many a time 
 when his lonely love, struggling from his im- 
 prisoned heart had been defeated by some slash- 
 ing and brutal blow leaping out suddenly with a 
 certain treachery from the life of this place. To- 
 day it was raining, too, and the muddy pools 
 which sometimes gathered upon the earth of the 
 street were the perfect mirror for Ballycullen. A 
 relentless drizzle had been falling on to twelve 
 o'clock, when the daily papers came in from Dub- 
 lin. He was all eagerness to read the ac- 
 count of the Howth gun-running, but just at that 
 moment it happened that numerous customers 
 came into the shop, women exceedingly gabby 
 over their small purchases, who even distracted 
 Marcus from whatever he might be doing in the 
 parlour to come in and have a look at them, a 
 desolate and lugubrious expression upon his dark 
 countenance. Then he went, finally it would 
 appear, for a long, drunken day in the parlour, 
 and the shop became vacant once more. . . . 
 
 At last Michael opened the paper and his mind 
 seemed to but dimly comprehend the amazing 
 news until his eyes fell upon the Bachelor's Walk 
 portion of it the massacre and then his 
 vision was blotted into a fierce, vengeful con-
 
 1914 153 
 
 sciousness. He seemed to remain staring out for 
 a great while with a remarkable look of sadness 
 in his eyes, such as the defeated protagonist 
 might wear just before the fall of the final cur- 
 tain in a tragedy. . * . It was scarcely the 
 look of the victorious enthusiast thinking wildly 
 out of his dream. But it was not a dream. His 
 plan for a rising that could not possibly be de- 
 feated was a real thing, and this news of the day, 
 too, was real and full of old truth, for it told of 
 the ancient butchery of England. Maybe this 
 would show the people of Ireland that they were 
 not so far distant yet from what Cromwell had 
 done in Wexford and Drogheda. His great plan, 
 of course, was inclusive in such a calculation. 
 The weak, yet insinuating foolishness about the 
 overflowing, sympathetic breasts of the democ- 
 racy of England had not deceived him. All his 
 life he had been trying to tell them in Bally- 
 cullen the thing of which this was such a desper- 
 ate and convincing proof, and they had not 
 listened to him. The seed of his mind had been 
 blown on the indifferent winds of Ballycullen to 
 find no place of rooting in their hearts. It was 
 only last night that he had tried to consolidate 
 his message in flaming words. He had told them 
 that they could never have anything or be any- 
 thing until they had done with England and that 
 any thought or endeavour built upon other foun-
 
 154 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 elation was but vaporous folly and the dream of a 
 dream. . . . He did not notice Marcus 
 Flynn beside him, so stealthily had his master 
 come. There was a little wicked glint in the 
 gombeen-man's eye. 
 
 " Look here," he said, snapping the paper 
 from Michael, " this is all bloody nonsense. A 
 lot of mad headed idiots of fellows, maybe in the 
 pay of the Government, getting up to go destroy 
 Home Rule. And think of solid, respectable men 
 like me that's after giving our lives to it, a laugh- 
 ing-stock in the country if we don't get it now. 
 This is a most damnable business to go happen 
 at present and we rising up like one man, so to 
 speak, to finish Carson." 
 
 Michael said nothing, for this was the kind of 
 talk to which he could never reply. Besides, to 
 reply to Marcus might have been construed as a 
 piece of impertinence, worthy the losing of his 
 job. . . . Now Marcus spoke fiercely. The 
 derision of Ballycullen to its uttermost was in the 
 diminution of Michael's name : 
 
 " I say, will you listen to me, Mickeen! I 
 made a man of you, so I did, and if you don't 
 keep your powder dry it'll be the gutter for you 
 again. It's your mother and sister you have to 
 think most of and not Ireland, so I'd advise you 
 not to be drinking. I have my good name and the 
 good name of my shop to keep up, so I have, and
 
 1914 155 
 
 it doesn't look well. Ireland is in the proper 
 hands to-day. The man who stops the onward 
 march of the nation to the old House in College 
 Green is a traitor to his country. Anything that 
 takes the mind of the country off Home Rule is 
 a sin, so it is, and plays right in to the Orange 
 camp. This wild talk about fighting for the free- 
 dom of Ireland is all as I roved out. Carson 
 doesn't mean to fight, nor we don't mean to fight, 
 but we want him to think we are, while his whole 
 game is to keep us from thinking that he's not. 
 I'm after reading about the Howth business. 
 Well, wasn't it all the fault of them lunatics in 
 Dublin ? Dublin was never right nor proper since 
 that cursed Larkin was allowed to set foot in it. 
 All a bit of thickness and show-off this was, and 
 so they provoked the soldiers to shoot, so they did. 
 Why didn't they bring in the stuff in the dead of 
 the night in a dark place, where in any event there 
 could never be more than a few peelers, who could 
 be bought with pints. No, of course, they had to 
 show off. But they'll make a mistake if they 
 think that is going to rouse the country, for I 
 know Ireland at the present time. It's men like 
 me with a stake in the country that's looking the 
 proper way for Home Rule. But there was al- 
 ways a crowd in Ireland ready to lead the peo- 
 ple on a wild goose chase and to spoil the game. 
 I'm a patriot, Mickeen. You're only an idiot.
 
 156 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 If you had any cutting in you at all you'd re- 
 member that Joe Devlin himself was a grocer's 
 curate before The Cause made a man of him." 
 
 When he had said this he went out to march 
 himself through Ballycullen, a successful 
 moneyed man with a right to have an opinion of 
 his own. It was his intention to put a stop to the 
 talk of those who might be beginning to express 
 sympathy with the lads that were after making 
 fools of themselves. In spite of his befuddled 
 condition it was the chilling common sense of 
 Marcus' words which forced itself upon Michael 
 and left him with not a little of the hope and 
 purpose ebbed from his mind. . . . 
 
 The day's rain had now turned into a con- 
 tinuous downpour and soon men were coming 
 into the village because they could not work in the 
 fields, some merely to divert themselves in the 
 pubs, others to get horses shod at the forge as well. 
 Many topical remarks were passed in Marcus 
 Flynn's shop, but the importance of the thing that 
 had happened in Dublin was subjugated to the 
 leer which all of them had on their faces for 
 Michael. 
 
 "There'll be no marching to-night ! " one would 
 say to another with the most irritating insistence, 
 " we're all tired after last night and everything. I 
 wonder will we be supplied with boots out of the 
 Funds of the organisation. It's all damned fine
 
 1914 157 
 
 to talk about giving us caps and belts and bando- 
 liers that we wouldn't wear out in the course of 
 our natural lives. But a new pair of boots lasts 
 no time at the marching." 
 
 " It's only a kind of mug's game, anyway, this 
 military business after a hard day's work when 
 a fellow is fit for little more than lying at the 
 back of a ditch to have a snore or a drink! " 
 
 The torture of this day for Michael super- 
 seded that of all his experience in Ballycullen. 
 It was a continuous battle between the romantic 
 notions of his mind and the hard facts of all 
 this cruel realism. He listened in vain for some 
 remark which might be in harmony with his 
 burning sympathy. . . . To-night he would 
 have to visit Connor Carberry, whose blood 
 would be on fire because of what had happened in 
 Dublin. ... He knew that the old man 
 would have been flashed into a full, blazing 
 ecstasy by the news that men had not forgotten 
 
 how to die for Ireland. ... 
 
 ******** 
 
 The first intimation of the Great European War 
 broke quietly on Ballycullen. Always so inti- 
 mately concerned with the small affairs of the vil- 
 lage and the parish and their little selves, they did 
 not perceive the full ghastly portent of the first 
 flickers of the great calamity. Their sense of in- 
 sularity was a distinguishing characteristic so
 
 158 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 firmly rooted now in this particular year of Our 
 Lord that it had almost sapped the natural 
 feelings of human sympathy which should have 
 struggled to life somehow, even in the Ireland of 
 1914. But the sin of pride which is the root of 
 all unkindness and negation of humanity was al- 
 ready theirs. There was a mere unreasonable 
 gladness upon Michael that England was going to 
 war, this time against a powerful enemy, and not 
 as of old, against the Boers or inferior races of 
 Africa, or the East, or poor Ireland. He tried hard 
 to do a little clear thinking, but his mind, at no 
 time very supple along this line, did not suddenly 
 move towards complete understanding, yet as the 
 first days of the war passed into the beginning of 
 the long, bloody encounters, he came to have a few 
 hopes. Perhaps Ireland's great opportunity, his 
 great opportunity, would come now, and of old he 
 had learned that England's difficulty was Ire- 
 land's opportunity, because the same idea was 
 embodied in a phrase which jumped naked con- 
 tinually out of all the welter of speechmaking, and 
 to-day it would seem that the world was beginning 
 to be swayed altogether by wild, copy-book 
 phrases of that kind. 
 
 It was curious to see now the attitude of the 
 papers that had been most fiercely National- 
 ist. Michael recollected, not without some pain, 
 that it had been different at the time of the Boer
 
 1914 159 
 
 war, which was now but a far, boyhood memory. 
 He remembered how his father in those days, the 
 concluding stages of his broken life, had been 
 very fond of reading the papers to old Lem 
 Broderick, the Fenian, the two men creating a 
 kind of madness between them, like that of Con- 
 nor Carberry, in the little, poor house, amid the 
 mean dejected way in which they were driven to 
 end their days. ... It was still splendid 
 to think of the attitude of the Irish newspapers 
 in those days because the little heroic handful 
 of Boers had afforded a parallel to the poor, 
 down-trodden people of Ireland. The Irish 
 members of Parliament just at this time were 
 absolute rebels but the Land Bill of 1903 had not 
 yet been passed. The Irish Brigade, under 
 Colonel Lynch and Major MacBride, was fight- 
 ing on the side of the Boers, and there were men 
 from even Ballycullen fighting on the side of the 
 English, and, strange to say, all were regarded 
 equally as national heroes. The supreme nar- 
 rowness of mind which had come to the Irish 
 farmer with the passing of the Land Bill of 1903 
 had not yet corroded their hearts, although the 
 change in them was imminent. Already the sym- 
 pathies of Michael, working in unconscious 
 harmony with the old memories, were drawing 
 him into sympathy with the Germans, because, 
 for a great while, surely, it had seemed that all
 
 160 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 peoples, even a proud, iron people aiming 
 towards world-power, might appear very poor and 
 down-trodden and very meek and humble of heart 
 beside the villainy and the might of Eng- 
 land. . . . The food with which he had sup- 
 ported his mind had only built it immovable upon 
 a sense of the past. Thus, had it appeared to him 
 a traitorous, in fact an almost blasphemous thing, 
 that Sir Edward Grey had given Mr. Asquith 
 the opportunity of making the infamous speech 
 in which he referred to Ireland as the "one 
 bright spot." It seemed that this had been the 
 way with him always. His mind was unable to 
 grasp to its full extent and in all the variations 
 of its possibilities the constant flux of the thing 
 that wiser men called " the present." 
 
 Now, most of these reservists who had been 
 prominent in drilling the Volunteers were being 
 called to the colours. But no one thought of this 
 immediately as a serious blow to the Organisation, 
 seeing that all the national soldiers of Ireland, par- 
 ticularly those who made up the amazing bat- 
 talions of officers, now considered themselves 
 fully equipped and drilled, and did not want any 
 impertinence from cheeky, drunken "bowsies," 
 that used to be considered the scruff of the earth 
 until their use had been found at the present junc- 
 ture. But, continually this outlook was becoming 
 changed, almost surprisingly in some of its aspects.
 
 1914 161 
 
 It would seem that even the Party had notions 
 of going out to recruit. Some of the weightiest 
 people in Ireland had already pronounced in 
 favour of the justice of the Allies' cause. Numer- 
 ous fine young men, who had been the pride of 
 the Volunteers from their inception, were think- 
 ing of joining the army for the little while that 
 the war would be on, a few months or so, and of 
 " seeing a bit of life." Elderly men, too, were of 
 a sudden showing surprising military ardour and 
 in this connection it must be remembered that 
 the ages of the Howth Volunteers had ranged 
 from nine or ten years to the honourable, grey- 
 haired condition of sixty-five years. It appeared 
 to many that on the word of the almost almighty 
 Mr. Redmond, a kind of Irish Territorial Force 
 was to be organised "for the defense of the 
 coasts," and many old men were delighted to 
 think that here, surely, was an opportunity of 
 respite from the long grind of their years. To de- 
 fend the coasts poor old fools! But their ex- 
 cuse lay in their longing for a soft job to afford 
 them peace for a little while just before their end. 
 To the flaming, angry mind of Michael it ap- 
 peared that the last lingering embers of Fenianism 
 had been finally quenched. Yet he went on to 
 raise up his small, lonely voice in favour of the 
 truth in these days, but they would not listen. 
 . . . Why wasn't he backing the war now, and
 
 162 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 he to be always on the side of everything new on 
 mad? He was a quare idiot entirely. 
 
 " Are you not backing up the war, Mickeen?" 
 said Marcus Flynn to him very morosely one 
 morning. 
 
 " I don't believe in it. I don't consider that it 
 is any of Ireland's business to go mad about it." 
 
 " And why the hell don't you? What am I 
 paying you for only to believe in it? and in 
 everything I say or do? It's a powerful and a 
 just war and it is the clear duty of every Irish- 
 man living to go out and fight, and die, too, if 
 needs be. What would happen a man like me, 
 the backbone of the country, if we don't fight? 
 The Germans coming in on top of us and taking 
 everything we have. What would the like of you 
 do then for employment? I'm after having seri- 
 ous complaints from big parishioners, people with 
 a stake in the country, about the way you do be 
 blathering, and they with enough worries on their 
 minds already about the war. Look here, 
 Mickeen, I'm after getting enough trouble from 
 yourself and your opinions this while back and 
 if you don't drop it you'll be mebbe left with noth- 
 ing to do but join the very army that you're never 
 done but running down. . . . And what would 
 
 your mother and sister do then? Eh, Mickeen?" 
 $ $ $ $ $ . ifc $ 4 
 
 Before the end of the year men from Bally-
 
 1914 163 
 
 cullen, reservists who had been called up, were 
 being killed in the war, and a recruiting meeting 
 had been held in Bally cullen at which the prin- 
 cipal speakers, after Captain Beaumont Fortescue 
 and the Hon. Herbert Fitzherbert, had been 
 Thomas Cooney and Marcus Flynn, with Am- 
 brose Donohue very prominent on the business 
 side. For the first time in his life this feeble, 
 imitative opportunist had been permitted to rub 
 shoulders with the gentry and in this achieve- 
 ment would seem to have reached the summit of 
 his ambition. Although the proceedings were 
 most enthusiastic, no one joined up. But the suc- 
 cess of association to which he had attained, drove 
 Ambrose Donohue to apply for a commission 
 which was granted him a little later in the Army 
 Service Corps. The British bent of his mind, 
 his " shoneenism," had given him these convic- 
 tions, of which this was a result, combined with 
 the fact that he did not see much further possi- 
 bilities in the Volunteers. . . . Although 
 of course not to the full extent of joining it in a 
 body, the collective mind of Ballycullen had 
 moved towards the army and Ambrose, as al- 
 ways, had moved with it, thus helping still further 
 to fix him as the popular young man that he was. 
 Besides all these and other considerations a com- 
 mission in the Army represented a jump at one 
 bound into the very bosom of an exclusive set.
 
 164 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 All his life he had been striving to ape distantly 
 the very thing he would now be a part of in its 
 essence and reality. . . . Besides he might 
 get a fine job when the war was over. In fact it 
 would appear that the war had been sent to make 
 him, just as it had been sent to unmake the Bally- 
 cullen Volunteers. These had dwindled hope- 
 lessly. A rumour had gained currency that, in the 
 event of a general call to military service, the 
 Volunteers would be the very first to be 
 taken. . . .Of coure, they fully believed 
 everything that was said in the Nationalist Press 
 about it being right and just to go out to fight, 
 but they did not believe that any such noble obli- 
 gation should be extended to them. The last hope 
 of being given the soft job of minding the coasts 
 had, by this time, disappeared from the minds of 
 the old men. The prospect of the war being ex- 
 tended to Ireland seemed to have vanished since 
 the German fall-back from Paris had happened. 
 The price of cattle had risen enormously and all 
 anybody wanted was to be left alone to make 
 money. The public opinion of the country 
 seemed to be perilously suspended between sup- 
 port of those who went about recruiting with the 
 intention of saving them from the Germans and 
 of those who spoke against it, thereby demonstrat- 
 ing their intention of saving them from the dark 
 conscriptionist intention of England with regard
 
 1914 165 
 
 to this country. Of course a " mouth " like 
 Michael Dempsey did not matter either way. To 
 begin with, he had no stake in the country, and, in 
 the second place, he did not live in Dublin, from 
 whence a dark wave of rebel oratory had begun 
 to flow. 
 
 JC 3| 9|C JJC 3|C 3)C 9|C 2|C 
 
 On the last night of 1914 Michael was stand- 
 ing desolately at the corner when he heard a 
 faint drumming in the distance. It seemed like 
 the approach of the Ballycullen Band coming in 
 from the deserted drilling place of the Volunteers 
 to ring out the old year, but it was a mean, feeble 
 noise, which displayed great gaps in the music, 
 almost an insult to the dying year, this poor 
 flickering sound. 
 
 " The army is now concentrating upon Bally- 
 cullen," said a wag who propped the wall by the 
 corner. But from the very moment of his mo- 
 mentous declaration, the sound seemed, unfortu- 
 nately, to die further and further away, until at 
 last it might be some very sad thing going out 
 forever with the dying year. . . . And, in 
 this moment it seemed that some part of Michael's 
 soul had gone away forever, too, for there was a 
 couple just passing now and he barely lifted his 
 eyes to look at them, although they were two whom 
 he knew very well, Second Lieutenant Ambrose 
 Donohue and Mirandolina Conway, the girl he
 
 166 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 had confused, in his love-thoughts of her and 
 Ireland, with Sara Curran, when they had per- 
 formed together in the play about Robert Emmet. 
 It was queer to think now that the real Sara had 
 married a British officer. . . . Anyhow, 
 what matter ? A man should have only one love, 
 his girl or his country. 
 
 Ambrose Donohue looked remarkably spruce 
 in his well-fitting uniform, while even the very 
 pockets of his own poor suit were bulged and 
 broken with books and papers about Ireland. 
 
 It seemed little wonder that Mirandolina had at 
 last made her choice between them.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE DARK YEARS 
 
 AS time drifted on more men from Bally- 
 cullen went into the army, driven there 
 for the most part by the ruthless, eco- 
 nomic reasons of the moment. Although Michael 
 was intensely opposed to the ideal, or, perhaps ab- 
 sence of ideal, for which they stood, he could feel 
 the pangs of their isolation when they came back 
 from the fields of death to Ballycullen. 
 
 " Isn't this getting to be an awful bloody 
 place? " he would often hear one say to another as 
 they stood lonely by the corner. There they 
 would be, strange aliens with frightened eyes, try- 
 ing to express themselves in the jagged jargon 
 of hell, which was their only acquisition from the 
 Great War. . . . They, somehow, always ap- 
 peared bedraggled and forlorn, all mud and 
 blood as they came into Ballycullen and into the 
 pubs. They might have a few pounds saved 
 from the money they had got from passing 
 through hell and immediately they would fall 
 into the hands of the corner-boys and lowest 
 " bowsies " of Ballycullen. There might be a 
 
 167
 
 168 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 few quiet days in an attempt to win oblivion and 
 blindness from appalling memories and horrid 
 sights. Then a fight, maybe, with one of the 
 corner-boys, and blood drawn in the muck of the 
 street, and shouts and the re-whooping of half 
 frightened, half-savage war cries from Ypres and 
 Bethune, with Sergeant Leonard suddenly coming 
 sweating amongst them to quell the noise. . . . 
 There were others, of course, the more innocent 
 of the lambs who had gone on young, supple 
 limbs to the slaughter. Michael would often stop 
 to drop a word with them, for they, too, were 
 drawn to the mean torture of the corner. When- 
 ever he heard them speak, his mind was kindled 
 into a fuller and finer sympathy. He could see 
 that something monstrous had been suddenly pro- 
 jected into their lives until they were no longer the 
 light-hearted fellows with whom he had played 
 football and hurling but a year or two before. 
 And it was all the more strange to think that his 
 countrymen were beginning to have a certain 
 mean and unworthy anger in their hearts against 
 these poor lads. Michael could always feel as 
 he talked with them the guiltiness of those who 
 had told them that it was really for Ireland they 
 were fighting when they went to France. It was 
 surely a lonely destiny to which they had been 
 called. Their own countrymen did not want them 
 now and England would not want them for very
 
 THE DARK YEARS 169 
 
 long after they had served her turn. . . , He 
 was often maddened by the sound of some gross 
 insult flung savagely upon hard words at one of 
 these poor souls by the corner. ....'. . But 
 how could he, as a Sinn Feiner, possibly say a 
 word? He was rather content to expect consola- 
 tion for himself and the tormentors of these from 
 those who were striving to prevent young Irish- 
 men from enlisting in the British army. Yet, very 
 often would it appear to him that the men who 
 were getting jailed for this by England were in 
 enmity to a certain rotten element in their own 
 country as well as to that which lay further afield. 
 And, already was it extending further into his 
 soul, this realisation of the traitorous element 
 which continually stood for the denial of what 
 was great and beautiful and heroic in the soul of 
 Ireland. It was something more than a portion of 
 the afflicted warp of all human life. It was a 
 quality which stood up fiercely urging defeat of 
 what was bravest and best always. There were 
 a great many around Ballycullen who disap- 
 proved of the present activity of the Sinn Feiners. 
 
 " Damn it, but they're going a bit too far with 
 it, anyway. Now, d'ye know what I'm going to 
 tell you? I would not like to see England bet 
 in this war. That's honest ; but, sure, I have to be 
 in the fashion by talking the other way." 
 
 He saw, too, that the aspiring fops of the lo-
 
 170 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 cality, the imitators aforetime of St. John Mar- 
 lowe, went about now with all the more rabid 
 Sinn Fein papers sticking ostentatiously out of 
 their pockets, " The Spark " and " Honesty " 
 replacing " London Opinion " and " The Win- 
 ning Post." 
 
 " Did you see this?" they would suddenly say, 
 taking out one or another of these obscure sheets 
 and pointing to some scurrilous and laboured 
 witicism at the expense of T. N. Kettle or Stephen 
 Gwyn, or another of the other recruiting sergeants. 
 As one with a fairly long-standing reputation for 
 being a Sinn Feiner, Michael was forced to show 
 some interest, although this was scarcely Sinn 
 Fein. There was a time, not so far back, when 
 Sinn Fein seemed to light a lamp which shone out 
 over the world. But this was mean; this was 
 low. . . . Yet, there were, even still, grand 
 flashing moments. ... It was in " The 
 Spark " that he first read Padraic Pearse's ora- 
 tion over the grave of O'Donovan Rossa, the 
 heart within him leaping gladly to the throb of 
 the mighty words : 
 
 " It has been thought well, before we turn away 
 from this place in which we have laid the mortal 
 remains of O'Donovan Rossa, that one among us 
 should, in the name of all, speak the praise of that 
 valiant man. And if there is anything that makes 
 it fitting that I rather than some other, I rather
 
 THE DARK YEARS 171 
 
 than one of the grey-haired men grown old with 
 him in suffering, should speak here, it is, perhaps, 
 that I may be taken as speaking on behalf of a 
 new generation which has been re-baptized in the 
 Fenian faith and which has accepted the responsi- 
 bilities of carrying out the Fenian programme." 
 
 He was one of the generation for which Pearse 
 spoke thus so proudly. He was a man of the age 
 of Cuchullain and the Red Branch Knights, the 
 Homeric Age of Ireland. But what of the bulk in 
 reality of the Irishman of his time? The breed 
 of them had been great fighters in the " eighties " 
 for the land and the fill of their bellies but never 
 since nor perhaps never again. 
 
 All through the winter he had knowledge, 
 through the little papers, of what was passing in 
 Dublin. Some part of Ireland, at least, was being 
 freed from the drugging, poisonous influence of 
 Redmond and his Party. He was with them most 
 truly in the unity of spiritual kinship; his little 
 room now was at once a temple and a cell. It 
 was dedicated to the memory of all those who had 
 died for Ireland and it seemed to hold, through 
 power of his lonely brotherhood, the imprisoned 
 souls of those who would die again. In Bally- 
 cullen, now, there was urgent need of such spirit- 
 ual communion. . . . He refilled his mind 
 continuously with the dark, destructive anger of 
 Mitchel.
 
 172 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Some evenings when he would take a walk to 
 ponder what he had read on the nights before, he 
 might meet Mirandolina walking, lonely, too, and 
 only the faintest glimmer of recognition would 
 pass between them. The grind of Marcus 
 Flynn's had remained much the same. He be- 
 gan to think of " bettering " himself, of going 
 to Dublin. He had already mentioned his inten- 
 tion casually to a few, but he could see that, even 
 so soon, was it having a definite result in two di- 
 rections. Marcus Flynn spoke of raising his 
 salary and Mirandolina made efforts to struggle 
 back into his friendship. . . . Once or 
 twice upon meeting, it would seem quite acci- 
 dentally, she had glanced at him shyly with a 
 smile hovering tremulously upon her lips. 
 
 About Christmas the results became definite; 
 his salary was raised and he became friendly with 
 Mirandolina again. They had soon fallen to 
 talking just as if nothing had happened at any 
 time to set up even the faintest misunderstanding 
 between them, and, even though he began to grow 
 more and more fond of her, he did not become 
 less fond of Ireland. There seemed to be upon 
 her now an eagerness to be meeting him that 
 was curiously fettering when he had so recently 
 thought of being away in Dublin. . . . Be- 
 sides, in her presence, too, he never felt quite so 
 free. . . . Quite unconsciously, perhaps, but
 
 THE DARK YEARS 173 
 
 by her talk, she would be always dragging him 
 down from his dream into the barren byways of 
 life which straggled out like muddy boreens from 
 all the talk of Bally cullen. Yet, this was life. . . . 
 Such and such a couple were engaged and would 
 soon be married. . . . How they were getting 
 a little place and setting up a shop of their 
 own. . . . How it must be so grand to have a 
 place of one's own and to be settled down. . . . 
 The power of Bally cullen (this was the burden of 
 her talk) could not then cut so powerfully be- 
 tween two that loved. . . . There were times 
 when his lonely soul would seem eager beyond all 
 greater yearning to snatch some comfort from her 
 words, and so they would be supremely happy in 
 their friendship upon many an idyllic night. 
 But he would be continually breaking away in 
 his mind from the trend of the talk which was a 
 joy to her. . . . 
 
 Sometimes she grew petulant and said cruel, 
 unreasonable little things, as a woman always will 
 in the unseen presence of the thing that threatens 
 her love. . . . He would talk of what was 
 brewing in Dublin and what might happen there 
 soon. . . . Then her love would be most won- 
 drously re-kindled, and she would speak in that 
 wild way of the heart which is past all under- 
 standing of the mind. She would kiss and 
 fondle him and whisper winning, soothing words
 
 i!74 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 as a mother might to a wayward child whose 
 mind was upon some wild, dangerous way of 
 
 play. . . . 
 
 ******** 
 
 About St. Patrick's Day, 1916, she almost felt 
 herself losing her grip of him again and she grew 
 afraid to have him away from her in the evenings. 
 It seemed to her almost as if one whole evening's 
 brooding in his lonely room might lead to dis- 
 aster. There was something in the air. . . . 
 And then came Easter Week, stark and terrible 
 in its surprise. 
 
 Someone who had travelled to and from the 
 Fairyhouse races on a bicycle told it in Thomas 
 Cooney's and in Marcus Flynn's almost simul- 
 taneously. To the lovers this news was tre- 
 mendous, thrilling, filling him with a sudden sense 
 of pain, her with a feeling of anxious gladness. 
 Thomas Cooney had merely torn the paper he was 
 reading in the drapery into a hundred " fliggits," 
 and Marcus Flynn had solemnly cursed his God 
 and then retreated to the comfort of the bottle. . . . 
 
 It was a dark, misty night and all day the pools 
 had been like dull mirrors of tragedy upon the 
 street of Ballycullen. . . . He could not speak 
 to her as she clung wildly to his arm all along the 
 old way of the ivy boughs. ... It was in 
 Dublin he should be on this Easter Monday in 
 the year of our Lord, 1916, fighting for his coun-
 
 THE DARK YEARS 1 75 
 
 try with the men of Ireland. It seemed as if all 
 his life should have moved inevitably to this glad 
 consummation. He was wildly silent, merely 
 sighing nervously. 
 
 " I am sorry, Michael," she said. " It is I 
 who have kept you from them. God knows I 
 have done it, but I was glad to-night when I 
 heard how it had come to this. I knew that if 
 you had gone to Dublin there before Christmas, 
 then you'd have been out with them now. Im- 
 agine little me doing this with my talk and kisses. 
 Do you remember the poetry book that you lent 
 me, The Eyes of Youth, with the Arab love song 
 by Padraic Colum? Don't you remember the 
 lines ? 
 
 " And as for the kisses of women these are honey, 
 
 the poet sings, 
 
 But the honey of kisses beloved it is lime for the 
 spirit's wings." 
 
 She laughed almost hysterically. 
 
 " Oh, I'm glad, God knows I'm glad, for do- 
 ing what kept you here! ' 
 
 She clung to him in passionate thankfulness 
 to herself for his presence by her side as she went 
 on babbling love words which were half unheard 
 by him. . . . Then she began to speak 
 quietly : 
 
 " But, listen, Michael, where's the use in it at
 
 176 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 all? Sure, they can't be more than a little hand- 
 ful, anyway, and maybe they're beaten by this. 
 Don't you know well what the English are ? Sure, 
 poor little foolish me never knew until you taught 
 me the history of Ireland. May the Lord Jesus 
 have mercy upon the souls of them that's dying 
 for Ireland this night! ' 
 
 These last words seemed to stir him a little out 
 of his trance. . . . They smote him with a 
 sense of the pitiful littleness of all human life, 
 and it had been given Mirandolina to speak them. 
 They made him hear again, in one startling in- 
 stant of remembrance, his own words on the night 
 they had first come to talk greatly to one another 
 during the production of the Robert Emmet play 
 in the Courthouse. He had spoken that night of 
 dying for Ireland and surely now he must be no 
 more in her eyes than the drunken braggarts of 
 Ballycullen, who had ever taken the easiest way 
 of making great fellows of themselves in the eyes 
 of their girls by talking of dying for Ireland. . . . 
 He was of their generation and their creed and 
 yet he was not in Dublin with those who were 
 dying to-night. ... It appeared suddenly to 
 his agonised consciousness as an abnegation of 
 his manhood. 
 
 Yet had the quiet pity of her words flashed 
 him into dearer kinship with those who were dead 
 or dying. And so it was that the first words he
 
 JHE DARK YEARS 177, 
 
 spoke were nearer to reality than any which had 
 yet passed between them. 
 
 " I hope you don't think bad of me for this, 
 Mirandolina, that I am not there, and that be- 
 cause of it you will never throw the laugh in my 
 eyes. I'm chained here, God knows I am. My 
 father lost all by fighting this same fight, al- 
 though the methods were different. There's my 
 mother and sister, Mirandolina, and you know 
 that I must keep them as best I can. It would be 
 hard to see them having to stretch out the hand 
 to the purse-proud shopkeepers of Ballycullen or 
 go down the road some lonely evening and into 
 the workhouse." 
 
 " Of course not, darling. I understand aye, 
 even far better than you. Sure, it is all this that 
 I have been striving hard for so long to make you 
 see that Ballycullen, and all it means to you, are 
 nearer than Ireland. God knows, Michael, I'd 
 do anything for you and it goes to my heart to 
 see you wasting yourself upon impossible things 
 and impossible dreams. In a day or two you'll 
 be seeing how foolish all this wild adventure in 
 Dublin was, and then, maybe, it's what you'll be 
 thanking me. And, although I don't know them 
 to speak to, I'd be glad, indeed, to be telling this 
 to your mother and sister." 
 
 Her words in their quietness were so very 
 real that it was little wonder he seemed to come
 
 178 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 down gasping a little from what suddenly ap- 
 peared merely a cloudy eminence of conceited 
 dreaming. Already was struggling into his con- 
 sciousness a certain disillusionment regarding 
 this Easter Rising. They might be beaten, it was 
 true, but they were righting this ancient battle 
 against England and so his heart was with 
 them. . . ^ 
 
 There was peace upon the mind of Mirando- 
 lina at parting. She knew that she had tri- 
 umphed over him even in this great crisis. It 
 was a somewhat sobered Michael Dempsey who 
 went back to the house where he lived with his 
 mother and sister. . . . His thought was not 
 wholly introspective. The greatest thing since 
 the Rebellion of Robert Emmet was happening 
 this night in Dublin, yet Ballycullen appeared 
 quite undisturbed. The most gallant gentlemen 
 since the Fenians of '67, the Fenians of 1916, 
 were dying for love of them, and yet he could see 
 that, in their cowardice, the men of Ballycullen 
 were going to bed earlier than usual. Through 
 the mind of his girl on this very evening he had 
 begun to see again in its full significance the 
 immense power which would range itself on the 
 side of England now, and spell defeat, as always. 
 And yet, as he closed the door of his little room 
 behind him, he was not without a prayerful hope 
 that, by some great atonement, it might be cleansed,
 
 THE DARK YEARS 179 
 
 and that his country might yet be seen very radi- 
 ant in a mirror of blood. . . . 
 
 $ $ 4t 4* 4t $ $ 
 
 He remained there, torn to his very soul, until 
 near daybreak when he proceeded very carefully 
 to burn his plans for a successful rising. . . . 
 The dawn itself had never seemed to be so coldly 
 bright as he sat there over the ashes that remained 
 of them in the little grate. . . .
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 EASTER WEEK, 1916 
 
 THE next fortnight passed in one continuous 
 whirl of rumour. No one seemed to real- 
 ise what was happening in Dublin al- 
 though all were agreed that something fierce was 
 going on. After all his reading of the history of 
 rebellions, mistily radiant through the perspective 
 of the years, it was curious to be living through 
 the period when a real rebellion was passing in 
 Dublin. The most fantastical stories were being 
 told each day in Thomas Cooney's and in Marcus 
 Flynn's. There was to Michael a most ludicrous 
 and contradictory quality in every item of news. 
 It was infinitely sickening to see the things of gold 
 all muddied with the dirt of the street. 
 
 One of the strangest things was one of the first 
 to be apparent. With those who had recently ex- 
 pressed rebel sympathies there was some kind of 
 feeling that the rebellion was in the nature of a 
 personal affront. It was all very well to have 
 talked, to have shown enthusiasm in support of 
 the thing that was saving them from military 
 service, but this rebellion now was neither right 
 
 180
 
 EASTER WEEK 1916 181 
 
 nor proper, so everyone said. Besides, it would 
 give the Government an opportunity of coming 
 down on Ireland once more. It was made to 
 appear as bad tactics, for how the hell, they said, 
 could England have budged if they had merely 
 let on they were going to fight the way the Irish 
 Party had worked it for long years? In fact, to 
 many it appeared that the Irish Party had merely 
 provoked this outburst, like the clever devils they 
 were, so that they might soon sweep tremendously 
 into power again. 
 
 The first definite news that came was news of 
 defeat, in itself, perhaps, old and honourable in 
 Ireland, but still defeat, a saddening thing telling 
 as of old of wasted bravery and of wasted blood. 
 Michael found himself very curiously mixed up 
 in the reality of thought which replaced the phan- 
 tasy of the rumours. Larkin's crowd were out 
 again and this was something in the nature of a 
 real attack upon the people of Ballycullen, at 
 least to their own way of thinking. There were 
 not a few of them who had lost money through 
 their dividends declining in the Dublin United 
 Tramways during the period of the great strike. 
 Michael, never ready to speak ill of any man, had 
 not spoken ill of Larkin. The subtle bond which 
 united him to all men struggling for the right had 
 manifested itself again with regard to the labour 
 leader. There were men who looked darkly at
 
 182 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 him now that they remembered this. . . . 
 Wasn't Connolly in it and wouldn't Larkin have 
 been in it, too, if they hadn't run him out of the 
 country? It was something damnable to think 
 of that crowd robbing the poor, unfortunate shop- 
 keepers and employers of Dublin. . . . Mar- 
 cus Flynn fumed in and out of the shop continu- 
 ously and his fury was so immense at all times 
 that Michael knew full well that, were he foolish 
 enough to open his mouth, it would spell instant 
 dismissal. . . . He had never seen his em- 
 ployer quite in this state before. He was like a 
 raging madman. Nothing else could explain the 
 extraordinary fact that he had gone into Thomas 
 Cooney's and stood himself a drink, Thomas al- 
 most falling out of his standing because of the 
 unaccustomed friendliness of the action. On the 
 same day Thomas himself lurched into the shop 
 where Michael was, looking for his " old friend 
 Marcus " to have a chat with him. A little later 
 he could hear them complimenting one another 
 that " the whole country was united now against 
 them damned ruffians that were after breaking 
 out in Dublin." 
 
 In the days immediately after this, the feeling 
 of unity seemed to find further expression. Often 
 as he stood at the door now striving half blindly 
 to glimpse some meaning on the street of Bally- 
 cullen, he would see within earshot the Sergeant
 
 EASTER WEEK 1916 183 
 
 discussing the situation with a group of young 
 men. 
 
 "D'ye know what I'm going to tell you? Sure 
 it's all nonsense. The Government'll make mince- 
 meat of them." 
 
 He became more emphatic in his thought of 
 the rebels' villainy when he spoke of Ashbourne 
 and the battle that had been fought there. 
 
 " The curse of hell on the Cpunty Meath men 
 and the curse of hell on the County Dublin men. 
 The bad drop was in them to go attack the 
 police! " 
 
 Between all, the poor man had been given an 
 anxious time. The worry come of his own cow- 
 ardice was upon him and, besides that, as part of 
 his job, he was expected to put some courage into 
 the remaining peelers of Ballycullen. As these 
 were mostly married men, one or another of their 
 wives was almost always certain to be in the bar- 
 rack wailing loudly in dread that her husband 
 would have to go to " The Front." Then there 
 were the worries to which he was subjected exter- 
 nally by the shopkeepers of Ballycullen. They 
 were all in such a state about their money. The 
 money in the keeping of the Post Office had al- 
 ready been transferred to the barracks and so a 
 headline had been struck which all of them were 
 anxious to copy. They had him worried almost 
 out of his mind, he said.
 
 184 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 On the Friday of the first week when Mr. Alex- 
 ander Waddell and Mr. St. John- Marlowe did 
 not arrive as usual from Castleconner at twelve 
 o'clock, there was a kind of panic. The little 
 shopkeepers ran this way and that, asking one 
 another did they think had the Bank gone smash 
 or what on earth was to become of them at 
 all. So the torture, replacing the mean joy of 
 this moment when every one of them had been 
 accustomed to run up to the Bank with their bits 
 of money in their fists, had come inevitably. 
 Therefore, it was little wonder that the sergeant 
 was mad, for how could a man in danger of his 
 life and having the anxiety of a lot of people in 
 danger of their money upon him at the same time, 
 be expected to remain calm. He cursed a great 
 deal, the Sinn Feiners, the Government, and the 
 day he joined the force. There was something 
 decent about being a soldier. One had only one 
 bother to face but this was a very nest of annoy- 
 ance. 
 
 On the Monday of the second week a diversion 
 was created by the appearance of rambling 
 Seumas in the street. He was one who had come 
 often to Ballycullen, a powerful dark man with 
 a great voice and a fiddle. The reputation of 
 Seumas consisted in the rumour that he tramped 
 this way out of Connacht and up through the 
 Midlands making a fine living out of the people
 
 EASTER WEEK 1916 185 
 
 of Ballycullen, who had so many scoundrels like 
 him ready to thrive on them. In his ballads he 
 communicated and kept alive the history of Ire- 
 land. As he had gone from door to door pro- 
 ceeding through his repertoire, he had, to his own 
 thinking at least, maintained a little flicker of 
 nationality. But of late he had come to be re- 
 garded merely as a ragged survival from a van- 
 ished Ireland, who, in October and in April, 
 passed this way, lifting a good bit of money out 
 of Ballycullen by his performances from door to 
 door. In fact, he had always left it with his 
 breeches pocket heavy with coppers and calling 
 down a blessing on all the good people who were 
 there. 
 
 Now, this evening, as he came into Ballycullen 
 past the police barracks he felt that, step by step, 
 was he coming nearer Dublin, where the actuality 
 of all the singing he had been doing for so many 
 years was happening now. He had always been 
 well received by the people of this place. He 
 would frighten hell out of the peelers immedi- 
 ately. . . ;<> 
 
 The first door at which he stopped was that of 
 Marcus Flynn. Michael came out and gave 
 him sixpence before he started and this looked 
 like a good omen. Marcus heard the scrape of 
 the fiddle, as he sat in the parlour and he came 
 out of the shop in a fierce whet of temper. It was
 
 186 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 bad enough surely to have all the worries of the 
 devil on a man's mind, without having this lousy 
 old cur coming along to set a fellow mad alto- 
 gether with his singing. His coming almost 
 made itself heard to Seumas, who was blind, so 
 he struggled timidly away from the door. In 
 Thomas Cooney's a crowd of men, drinking to 
 ease their anxiety, had to hold one another from 
 getting at him when he came in to ask the reward 
 of his singing of " Who Fears to Speak of Ninety- 
 Eight." Thomas himself, thinking it safer than 
 to have a ballad-singer murdered on the premises 
 by someone who was after taking a drop too much 
 in the shop, sent up to the barracks for the ser- 
 geant. But rambling Seumas, out of the rebel- 
 lious mood of the vagrant, managed to bawl out 
 another ferocious song before the whole force of 
 twelve peelers moved down in a body to arrest 
 him. They caught him and broke his fiddle into 
 a hundred smithereens and kicked him down 
 through Ballycullen. Out of his mouth, which 
 was all bloody from their blows, he went on bawl- 
 ing songs that faded into silence over the bog like 
 the mournful cries of sad birds. . . . But al- 
 though the plan that had come into his mind of 
 singing proudly, rebelliously, all the road to Dub- 
 lin had been broken, thus almost at its inception, 
 he could not be robbed of memory of the songs 
 which enshrined the deeds of those who were
 
 EASTER WEEK 1916 187 
 
 gone. . . . And there might be songs made 
 about those who were dying now and he was the 
 man would sing them. He drank all he could get 
 in the wayside pubs, and no one who saw a blind, 
 mad ballad-singer passing along the roads of 
 Meath and roaring wildly felt that he represented 
 a definite climax in Irish history. . . . 
 
 Back in Ballycullen a feeling of jubilation was 
 beginning to creep in triumphantly. The rebels 
 were after being beaten, beaten to hell, and so men 
 were returning to the ancient sense of security 
 again. They knew the fierce comfort of a certain 
 satisfaction, too. It was fine to think of the 
 bloody-looking idiots that were after getting up to 
 destroy the country being bet to blazes. A grand- 
 looking lot of devils, anyway, with English names 
 and the like, that nobody ever heard of before, 
 and the whole damned lot of them, maybe, in the 
 pay of the Government. 
 
 A paper from Belfast had somehow managed 
 to get to Ballycullen, and this gave an account of 
 how O'Connell Street was in ruins, and the back 
 was broken in the rebellion. The Sinn Feiners 
 were beaten and everyone was against them already 
 because they were beaten. If by any chance they 
 had won, a great many must, ere now, have been 
 making political somersaults to their side. But 
 now, because they had failed, it was " the curse of 
 hell on them." " Did anyone ever hear such non-
 
 188 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 sense? " " To go get up in the middle of the war 
 to go attack what protected them all along from 
 the hated Hun! " "Traitors to their brothers 
 and they dying for them beyond in France! " 
 "All for the sake of Germany! " "The dirty 
 black streak breaking out in the Irish even at the 
 present time! " "Rebellions were all damn fine 
 long-ago, but it's no sort of work to be doing at 
 the present time! " "Why, begod, you'd think 
 that we were still bloody savages in the heart of 
 Africa ready to lep at one another's throat when- 
 ever we feel like it! " " Sure, I suppose there was 
 nothing only Irish chaps in the regiments they 
 mowed down coming in from Kingstown! " 
 "Home Rule is finished now anyway! " "Poor 
 John Redmond, it will go to his heart! ' 
 
 The May Fair had come but it had not been 
 attended by any dealers. Neither Alexander 
 Waddell nor St. John Marlowe had been there 
 to open the Bank. This, to everyone an almost 
 sacrilegious breach of custom, seemed to sum- 
 marize and signify the villainy that the outburst 
 had been. 
 
 " Now d'ye see what the rebellion is after do- 
 ing, and d'ye know what I'm going to tell you? 
 Only for the Government we wouldn't have the 
 bit to put in our mouths, and that's God's truth." 
 
 Out of this kind of talk and a thick, heavy 
 silence leaped a sense of gloom and disquieting
 
 EASTER WEEK 1916 189 
 
 foreboding of the future. In Michael's mind 
 continuously was a thought that had sprung 
 there on Easter Monday night and it was that 
 the period which stretched from the General Elec- 
 tion of 1910 had been one of set back for Sinn 
 Fein, and that, as often happens in a country 
 moving nebulously towards Freedom, the destruc- 
 tive element had been all this while moving into 
 the ascendant. 
 
 It appeared to him that there could be no room 
 in a country like Ireland for a constitutional and 
 a revolutionary movement: signifying on the 
 one hand a certain dependence upon England, 
 and on the other complete independence. Thus 
 had come inevitably this conflict between 
 these two policies through the universal dis- 
 turbance of the Great War. Ireland had 
 not been equal to the travail of a bloodless 
 revolution because even re-birth must begin in 
 blood. . . , 
 
 It was a puzzling feature of Michael's mind to 
 see how intensely sane his outlook could sometimes 
 be, and his reason, too, when one considered the 
 wild, weedy places in which it sought its food. 
 It was, in short, a mentality bespeaking a certain 
 political culture which might have given him an 
 honourable standing in a country that, unlike Ire- 
 land, had not been poisoned to its very soul by 
 politics. . . . Thus was it all the more strange
 
 190 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 how the blood of him could be always so easily 
 fired into a sentimental regard. 
 
 He had almost become, through the inner con- 
 solation, induced by outward persecution and mis- 
 understanding, now fully resigned to his great 
 betrayal of himself by his absence from Dublin. 
 
 One evening a Dublin paper was given him by 
 Mirandolina. It contained the simple announce- 
 ment that the O'Rahilly had been killed in Moore 
 Street. His immediate thought had one touch of 
 the colour of Ballycullen. This was a rich man, 
 they said, richer than anyone in Ballycullen, and 
 yet he thought all that he had very little to give to 
 Ireland. . . . This news plunged him into a 
 black, bitter mood again, and Mirandolina could 
 get no good of him at all. The rebellion and all 
 that it meant to him now made an immense, leaden 
 sadness. 
 
 "Musha," she said petulantly, at last, "why 
 didn't you go to Dublin and be done with it, any- 
 way?" 
 
 He broke from her quietly and they went home 
 by different ways. . . . In the days which 
 followed his little room seemed to call him again. 
 They were beginning to shoot the leaders now. . . . 
 He began to think of his plan for a rising that 
 he had burned. The Sergeant came more often 
 into the shop to warn him as a friend that it 
 might be better if he burned any incriminating
 
 EASTER WEEK 1916 191 
 
 literature in his possession. ... It seemed 
 that Ireland was again to be thrown back one 
 hundred years. And he was going with it. There 
 was really nothing in his little room now which 
 was worth keeping in defiance of the advice of 
 the Sergeant. . . . Oh, God, it was a room of 
 agony and of the blindness and dumbness of 
 defeat.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 VICTORIES 
 
 IRELAND seemed to pass now into one of the 
 accustomed states of drifting futility, 
 wherein all that was bravest and best would 
 seem to be submerged by some dark, meaningless, 
 muddy flow. The flower of the rebel leaders had 
 been long in the grave, and Dillon and Devlin were 
 making great speeches once again. Roger Case- 
 ment had been hanged with all the show of medi- 
 aeval butchery which marked the killing of Robert 
 Emmet 113 years before. In all that long century 
 and more the British had been unable to shed the 
 beast in them. Michael was left to snatch some 
 comfort from such melancholy relics of the dead 
 as Thomas McDonagh's poem of " The Suicide ": 
 
 '* Here when I have died, 
 
 And when my body is found, 
 They will bury it by the roadside 
 And in no blessed ground. 
 
 And no one my story will tell, 
 
 And no one will honour my name; 
 They will think that they bury well 
 The damned in their graves of shame. 
 192
 
 VICTORIES 193 
 
 But alike shall be at last 
 
 The shamed and the blessed place, 
 
 The future and the past, 
 
 Man's grace and man's disgrace. 
 
 Secure in my grave I shall be 
 
 From it all and quiet then, 
 With no thought and no memory 
 
 Of the deeds and the dooms of men." 
 
 It was a lonely thing to remain with this and 
 with picture postcards of those that were gone. . . . 
 Soon, however, the old spirit was bursting out to 
 the light, as it had always done after every defeat, 
 in doleful ballads. " Who Fears to Speak of 
 Easter Week?" was being sung with such a wide- 
 spread vehemence as to claim for it an enkindling 
 quality greater than that of the poor parody which 
 it was of a finer song of a more spacious day. It 
 was in ten thousand throats and more emphati- 
 cally in those which had been accustomed to dis- 
 play their vocal powers in productions out of the 
 English music-halls. 
 
 The general round-up which was going on now 
 was driving even the most degraded shoneens to 
 make some sort of show. Anyhow, and at their 
 worst, the cursed Government could not put a 
 whole country in jail. . . . 
 
 Marcus Flynn and Thomas Cooney were very 
 princes of political dominion in Ballycullen in 
 these days. What harm could a few idiots sing-
 
 194 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 ing songs do to them any more than Rambling 
 Seumas that the peelers had kicked forever out of 
 Ballycullen. No one from Ballycullen had died 
 for Ireland. Even he who should have made the 
 great atonement for this place had not died and 
 no song had been made about him. He was still 
 only Michael Dempsey, the shop-boy in Marcus 
 Flynn's. 
 
 All through this period he was meeting Miran- 
 dolina. Her sentimentality was being captured 
 gradually by the overwhelming impulse of the 
 time. She continually wore little ribbons or 
 badges and read little books or leaflets in memory 
 of and in sympathy with the ideals of those who 
 were dead. Even Thomas Cooney permitted a 
 display of such sympathies on the part of his em- 
 ployes, for although it was not a change that 
 pleased him he saw that the country was gradu- 
 ally veering round to this side. He still loudly 
 asserted his allegiance to the old party and 
 the old cause but a man like him had to 
 manoeuvre as best he could between all the dam- 
 nable twists of the Irish mind. . . . The 
 commonsense of such tactics was being forced on 
 Marcus Flynn, too, although ever since the rebel- 
 lion he had been moving from the shop to the 
 room, saying very fiercely, so that Michael might 
 hear: 
 
 " Where's the bloody Sinn Feiners now?
 
 VICTORIES 195 
 
 What? Hah! Explain! .Where the hell are 
 they now I say?" 
 
 All the same he was pleased that Michael was 
 a Sinn Feiner, for it was something of which he 
 could take business advantage. The fact that 
 he possessed such a shop-boy, and Thomas Cooney 
 did not, appeared as something in the nature of 
 a personal, not to say a political, triumph. It 
 fully flattered his opinion of himself. 
 
 There was much in what Michael realised 
 around him now with which he was out of sym- 
 pathy. He felt as if he must some day be 
 driven to express his distaste of it. There was 
 something almost heroic, something certainly 
 appeared a more intimate part of his militant 
 being which he felt was best expressed in not 
 being at one with the collective mind that, on 
 matters of politics, he felt must be always wrong. 
 After all, the best men were those who had stood 
 most alone. Parnell had been greatly alone at 
 the end, because he was a good man. 
 
 Mirandolina was not pleased that he should 
 consistently want to be different. Her talk was al- 
 ways crowded with significance. There now was 
 Seumas McEvoy, who had never been anything, 
 but who already had seen his great opportunity 
 and taken it. He had opened a little shop and was 
 already doing a thriving business in Sinn Fein 
 books, Sinn Fein papers, Sinn Fein Songs and
 
 196 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 Sinn Fein badges. There seemed to be a hint in 
 this that Michael should have done something of 
 the same kind, and, had he done so, it seemed that 
 she must have come into more love for him. 
 In her eyes, then, he would have been some- 
 thing like a Sinn Feiner, as well as appearing 
 more of a man. . . . He felt inclined to have 
 a tiff with her one evening when her words went 
 on to suggest this to his mind. She had already 
 hinted that she was growing a little weary of her 
 life in Thomas Cooney's and there was a curious, 
 wistful, intimate note of regret in her voice when 
 she tried to tell him how a girl fades in a draper's 
 shop in a country town. . 
 
 The men who were euphemistically described 
 as "Prisoners of War" came out of jail at 
 Christmas, and this might be said to mark the 
 beginning of the new political period when the 
 flood of eloquence became almost as torrential as 
 of old. The Peace Conference had replaced the 
 old house in College Green as the Hy Brazil of 
 Ireland. The truth, in the nature of a triumph 
 to a great many, but to him and a few others as 
 something more nearly akin to defeat, was that 
 Sinn Fein had become a political party. It 
 would seem to be out to capture the country. 
 Stalwart Chairmen of County and District Coun- 
 cils who, a little while since, had been hanging 
 affectionately to the coattails of John Redmond,
 
 VICTORIES 197 
 
 because they were looking for jobs on behalf of 
 all their friends to the most distant degree of 
 blood, were now standing up in the face of the 
 world to declare their advocacy of this new cause. 
 The might of Redmondism had of a sudden be- 
 come a feeble, defeated, thing. The signs were so 
 strongly significant to any fool that it was plain 
 a general election would see Sinn Fein sweeping 
 the country. 
 
 The antics of the newspapers were certainly 
 sufficient to excite at least amusement. Day by 
 Day " The Freeman," slipping further and fur- 
 ther towards a deserved damnation, clutched at 
 straws and the shadows of straws drifting with it 
 down the dark tide of its own futility in desperate 
 hopes of a little political salvation. " The Inde- 
 pendent " gave the widest publicity to the aspect 
 of victory which stood for this defeat, with ap- 
 parently no other aim in view than the bringing 
 of heavy sorrow to the heart of " The Freeman." 
 Although its tremendous attitude was sufficient to 
 deceive a great many, Michael could see that, al- 
 though the flesh of " The Independent " was will- 
 ing the spirit was weak. " The Irish Times," in 
 its heavy concern for the welfare of Ireland, was, 
 perhaps, the most amusing of the three, since the 
 humour shone so unconsciously through its 
 ponderous seriousness. 
 
 The election of Count Plunkett for North Ros-
 
 198 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 common was made to appear an event of more 
 real and actual importance to the New Ireland 
 than the Rebellion of Easter Week. The mind 
 of the idealist was a thing difficult of understand- 
 ing, but to "best" another man even thus mag- 
 nificently at the polls was in intimate relation to 
 the game they were always playing in Ballycullen. 
 Michael cycled to Longford and from meeting 
 to meeting when the election was at its highest 
 pitch of excitement there. In the conduct of the 
 campaign there was nothing so very different 
 from all that he remembered of a fight between a 
 Nationalist and an Independent Nationalist in 
 the days before Sinn Fein had dared to lift its 
 head. The staunchest supporters of Joe Mc- 
 Guinness had once been staunch supporters after 
 the same fashion of some nominee of Redmond's. 
 In many of its aspects the whole thing seemed 
 little more than a determined return to the ancient 
 factionism with which his country had been so 
 heavily cursed. Of course, there was an attempt 
 to colour with the merely melodramatic signifi- 
 cance of the rebellion this small fight as if it were 
 for this and this only that Pearse and Connolly 
 had died. . . . As a sudden illumination Michael 
 caught a glimpse of political opportunists of both 
 parties secretively drinking hand to fist in an 
 hotel bar in Longford town. ... He carried 
 this with him back all the road to Ballycullen as
 
 VICTORIES 199 
 
 an impression vastly more important than the 
 feeling created by the spectacle of John Dillon 
 attempting to teach the young priests of Ireland 
 their religion from a penny catechism. . . . 
 Surely to God there was something wrong with 
 his country, something terrible and inexplicable 
 which boggled his intellect as he tried to puzzle 
 it out. There sprang into his mind as bits of 
 explanations the strangest and most contradictory 
 notions. Yet the only certainty to him was the 
 conviction that the winning of Ireland at the polls 
 could never be more than what the journalists 
 always like to call " A Phyrric Victory." 
 
 He tried to explain the gathering force and 
 direction of his thoughts at this juncture to Mi- 
 randolina. She did not appear very anxious to 
 follow his reasoning. Her way of making a 
 show of her political convictions was by spending 
 a good deal of her time in the long bright even- 
 ings chatting about Sinn Fein with Seumas Mc- 
 Evoy over a show of Sinn Fein merchandise. . . . 
 
 Then came the East Clare Election and the 
 sentimental side of Michael was touched once 
 more by the dashing and romantic figure of 
 Eamonn De Valera. It seemed that this man 
 talked differently, and might he not be the very 
 one to kindle the embers of the nation towards the 
 great flame. 
 
 So influenced was he by the tremendous victory
 
 200 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 that he led the "James Connolly" Sinn Fein 
 club through the street of Ballycullen in celebra- 
 tion on the night of the declaration of the poll, 
 and everybody cheered madly, with the exception 
 of Thomas Cooney and Marcus Flynn, although 
 their shop-girl and shop-boy were in the crowd. 
 
 He went to see Griffith and De Valera at a 
 meeting in Mullaghowen a few Sundays later and 
 was keen to realise the poor colour of the mere 
 frothings which ebbed and flowed upon the 
 empty cheers around them. . . . But he saw 
 the proud head of De Valera and heard the voice 
 of Griffith. He was happier than for many a 
 month, and Mirandolina had begun to meet him 
 more often. . . .In fact, there seemed to be 
 upon her the very same anxiety about being with 
 him that she had shown during Easter Week. 
 
 There came many a moment now in the lonely 
 room in his mother's house when he tried still fur- 
 ther to puzzle out the strange mixture of contradic- 
 tions that Mirandolina was, and the stranger mix- 
 ture which was his country. Poor Mirandolina 
 Conway and poor Dark Rosaleen! How sad 
 the finest love that ever was might come to seem 
 when the heart's flame is quenched! Love of 
 country, love of woman. It would be all the 
 same when the ending came and the fire had gone 
 out.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 
 
 THERE were moments in its history when 
 Ballycullen appeared to be situated psycho- 
 logically as well as geographically in the 
 very middle of Ireland. More especially now, 
 when the tumult which had begun in Clare seemed 
 to boom greatly around the silence of this place in 
 which one might endeavour to realise the meaning 
 of the encircling sound. It often seemed almost a 
 part of all beauty and wisdom for the mind of 
 Michael Dempsey to look out upon the world from 
 its prison in Ballycullen and to feel his country 
 struggling at last into the great, pulsing flow of 
 world life. Ireland, it would almost seem, had 
 begun to move at last towards some lofty destiny. 
 The Hamlet of the nations was beginning to 
 throw off the mantle of sadness which had en- 
 shrouded it with its own nature. 
 
 It often seemed very strange to himself that 
 he was one of those to first see the essential truth 
 which might eventually shape this present con- 
 dition of the National mentality. Sinn Fein had 
 
 201
 
 202 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 always been to him a thing of splendour and im- 
 mense importance although it ignored the disturb- 
 ing element of political development and deter- 
 mination by the accidental circumstances of any 
 unforeseen moment, and this was the most im- 
 portant political factor in the world of the present. 
 A policy created upon a sense of the past was 
 striving desperately to adjust itself to a situation 
 which it had not previously studied, for the situa- 
 tion it had evolved almost treacherously from the 
 feeble human breed in the Ireland of the time. 
 Sinn Fein, it would seem, had managed success- 
 fully to adjust itself to the moment, because, by a 
 curious coincidence, the moment itself was in the 
 melodramatic tradition of the past. It might not 
 be able to adjust itself to the new political devel- 
 opments which must arise inevitably out of the 
 economic realities of peace conditions with their 
 certain monstrous aspects of surprise. Sinn Fein 
 and the present had always appeared curiously an- 
 tagonistic on the basis of any reality, and com- 
 pletely contradictory in terms of economics. There 
 were moments when the Rebellion, with all its 
 beauty and heroism, seemed a wild and fruitless 
 adventure. The calling of it " The Sinn Fein Re- 
 bellion " was, although merely a journalistic mis- 
 take, in reality, more deadly to the real Sinn Fein 
 spirit than the guns of Maxwell. But continually 
 it appeared not so much was it what had ever
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 203 
 
 been said or done that mattered now as the force 
 of the world impulse which brutally threatened 
 the very soul of Ireland's older beauty. Yet, per- 
 haps, the increasing tide of prosperity was what 
 Ireland had been struggling for through every 
 generation, and that the millennium had at last 
 come to Ireland. Home Rule and every other 
 dream had been realised in one great crash of 
 poetic justice. 
 
 For the first time had been fully translated into 
 action the idea that it is not its form of Govern- 
 ment which controls a nation, but the supremacy 
 of its own will. It was the interpretation of " our- 
 selves alone " by Sinn Fein, but this interpretation 
 would seem to have been intended only in relation 
 to things of the spirit, and was surely never meant 
 to signify the uncharitableness of vulgar, shoving 
 individuals and groups who believed in getting 
 everything for themselves alone and to hell, as 
 they felt and said, with everybody else. It stood 
 for self-reliance, self-respect, charity, common 
 decency, comradeship, and now this other reality, 
 so painfully manifest, was the negation of all 
 these things. The very heart of Ireland had al- 
 ready begun to be decayed by the pride of pros- 
 perity until now it was rotten almost to the core. 
 Michael's mind was, of course, reasoning with 
 regard to the agricultural population. The real 
 Sinn Fein spirit might survive still clean in the
 
 204 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 cities, but always, from where he stood watching, 
 he fancied that he was nearer the forces of life 
 which caused the colour and expression of his 
 nationality. . . . But could anyone have 
 dreamt that the profits made out of England's 
 war might have such a subtle power to destroy 
 this, the cleanest thing he had ever known. Even 
 the ostentatious bursting of young men into vari- 
 ous acts of rebellion all over the country was, in 
 reality, a denial of the same beauty. To put it 
 very plainly, indeed, the whole thing appeared as 
 the " letting off of so much steam." The men who 
 had fought for the land and " the fill of their 
 bellies " in the " eighties " had been better men 
 and, in reality, nearer to spirituality than all those 
 who prated so glibly of an Irish Republic. And 
 even at the beginning of the succeeding dark, 
 futile period there were men who had endured 
 more for love of Parnell than a great many of 
 the present breed were likely to endure for Arthur 
 Griffith or De Valera. And what was all fighting 
 worth if men did not stand to the last by their 
 captain or their king? The poor, dwindled, 
 blithering figure of John Redmond was something 
 calculated rather to excite pity than the oppro- 
 brium embodied in all the mean scurrility which 
 had dragged down his name in the dust. 
 
 The men with the real spirit in them could not 
 be said to truly represent Ireland any more than
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 205 
 
 Michael at any period of his life could be said 
 truly to represent Ballycullen. Looking out from 
 Ballycullen over Ireland, one saw it more clearly 
 than if one looked out from Dublin over Ireland. 
 There seemed urgent need that the gathering 
 pride of Ballycullen should be humbled, for Ire- 
 land was nothing more than a bigger Ballycullen, 
 and it is through suffering only that National sal- 
 vation may be won. 
 
 Continually some orator or another of Sinn 
 Fein was asserting that the whole system of Im- 
 perialism in Ireland had broken down. It was 
 something which Ireland had not achieved until 
 now, but Ireland also had achieved the assump- 
 tion of some alien quality, some brutality of mind 
 shaping towards a certain tyranny which was, in 
 reality, a negation of Sinn Fein, in fact of the 
 very basic principle of Irish Nationality, for it 
 made for intellectual subjection, the worst slavery 
 of all. Ireland had not suffered through the war. 
 In fact, quite the opposite. How many hundred 
 times had Michael heard farmers say in the 
 shop: 
 
 " Well, thanks be to God, but be hell this war 
 is after making up the country, and damn the lie 
 in it! " 
 
 There might be war profiteers in other coun- 
 tries, yet in those places, too, the men who had 
 fought did not return like aliens, but as honoured
 
 206 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 men. Bad as certain social conditions might be, 
 it was scarcely thus they were talking of their own 
 countrymen in other lands. 
 
 " Sure, they'll get no job. They'll get no land. 
 They'll get nothing. Why, begod, weren't they 
 awful bloody-looking idiots to go out and fight 
 for England. What will England do for them 
 now? " 
 
 What could England do? Had not the whole 
 system of Imperialism in Ireland broken down? 
 Those who had struck at the foundations of guilt 
 were, for all that the young men of Ireland were 
 wearing celluloid badges of them in their but- 
 tonholes and singing their names in songs, ac- 
 counted pretty much as these others who had 
 fought. They were all bloody fools. If a large 
 proportion of the farming population of Ireland 
 had subscribed to the National Aid Fund, was it 
 not the best way just presently open of showing 
 off the money they had made in the second and 
 succeeding years of the War? 
 
 It was not that Michael really begrudged them 
 their prosperity, but he would welcome anything 
 which might make them worthy. He longed to 
 think that, at last, something might make them 
 sincere. Sinn Fein was almost altogether politics 
 now and there was nothing needed but a general 
 election to effect its complete substitution in 
 everything for the vanishing Irish Party. There
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 207 
 
 was no promise of suffering in this unless, perhaps, 
 the certainty of decline and ultimate defeat to 
 complete the analogy which was a natural expec- 
 tation in consideration of something relying for 
 its existence upon anything so shadowy as the 
 votes of men. 
 
 Connor Carberry ! There now was a man who 
 had surely suffered sufficiently, one would be 
 driven to think, for his face looked almost as if 
 it had been scarred by fiery knives, leaping almost 
 murderously out of his own brain. And still, 
 when Michael felt puzzled almost to distraction 
 by all the ethical and political subtleties of his 
 native country, he sought an answer and still 
 found it in the same hopeless contact with this 
 spent fire of ancient rages. It was sad, even as 
 one talked to him, to see this old man, driven to 
 suffer so much by the present, while he still talked 
 so bravely of the days of old. His rheumy eyes 
 seemed to be always full of the vision of a green 
 flag with a gold harp on it forever flapping 
 mournfully over those who were dead and gone. 
 In life he counted for nothing at all, while his 
 mind did not possess the full emancipation of the 
 dreamer. . . . The cost of the accessories of 
 his craft as hedge-carpenter had risen so consid- 
 erably that scarcely anyone ever employed him 
 now. He had refused to accept the pension, for 
 was he not a proud, Fenian man?
 
 208 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 There were times when Michael, thinking he 
 was hungry, would bring him some biscuits and 
 cheese from the shop. Yet he never complained 
 or made a request, for he was one of those in 
 whom the powers of the mind were almost suffi- 
 cient to triumph over the hungers of the body. . . . 
 On the morrow of a night he would have spent 
 with Connor Carberry there would be a quiet, 
 empty feeling in Michael's heart as if something 
 had been burned away by so wild passion of that 
 lonely, broken man. . . . 
 
 It was infinitely laborious, even physically, to 
 be always striving to find an answer to the ques- 
 tions which interrogated his very soul. It was 
 little wonder, he thought frequently, that Miran- 
 dolina had again turned from him to swing her 
 comely personality midway between two such 
 contrasted gallants as Ambrose Donohue, who 
 had put on the uniform of the king, and Seumas 
 McEvoy, who was making a nice little penny out 
 of the memory of the dead. He did not possess 
 the courage of his lack of convictions. He was 
 always torturing himself with grey-questioning, 
 although there had been a time when the rich 
 purpose of his mind had been as clear as amber. 
 How queerly all things could turn? There 
 seemed to be such an unaccountable twist in 
 human nature, which, in its most tragic moments, 
 became almost comic. How things were swung
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 209 
 
 so swiftly out of what would appear as their ap- 
 pointed courses, so that one could never tell but 
 that even some wise, great plan of a politician 
 might come to appear as the most benighted 
 foolery in the end. 
 
 Above all others came crushingly his thought 
 of Mirandolina, to whom he, at a time not so far 
 back, had spoken of Robert Emmet and his dream 
 of Ireland. She had gone walking with a British 
 Officer, " a temporary gent," as he would now be 
 described in the comic papers which had gone 
 to create him. It might be that it was the martial 
 gladness of Ambrose that had snatched her from 
 him. . . . Perhaps, he thought, as they had 
 gone walking around Ballycullen, Ambrose had 
 talked of dying for Ireland, too, and maybe she 
 had believed him. 
 
 Yet, through power of the feeling which had 
 arisen in the country, Ambrose was either afraid 
 or ashamed to come back to show himself off in 
 Ballycullen now. The uniform he wore was no 
 longer an appendage to adoration, and it consti- 
 tuted a further exemplification of the queerness of 
 all things that this, a man who had always been 
 sufficiently clever to adjust himself, could evi- 
 dently think of no compromise between his pres- 
 ent position and the present way of things in Ire- 
 land. 
 
 Now it was Seumas McEvoy who was gallantly
 
 210 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 gesticulating before the poor little mind of Mi- 
 randolina, the talk of him wholly inspired by 
 seditious Sinn Fein literature and all narrowing 
 down to the final declaration of intention of dy- 
 ing for Ireland, a small sandy young man stand- 
 ing behind his own counter, his chest decorated 
 by a number of medals which he had won from 
 the G. A. A. hung on his watch-chain, and just 
 presently making a good living by selling Sinn 
 Fein merchandise. He was rapidly taking the 
 place left vacant by the regrettable departure of 
 Ambrose Donohue from the midst of Ballycullen. 
 He was an authority upon every variation of the 
 moment, every arrest, every sentence, every Grat- 
 tan-like gesture of a leader, every " dirty move " 
 of the poor old Irish party. 
 
 Although Michael often dropped in for a chat 
 with him he was at no time vastly impressed by 
 the personality or purpose of Seumas McEvoy. 
 In occasional moments he thought it sad that 
 it was to this man that his girl was now speaking. 
 The riddle of Ireland and Mirandolina seemed to 
 shape itself by degrees into a darker complexity. 
 
 There was only one place where it seemed re- 
 flected, although darkly as in a black pool, and 
 this was in the sodden mind of Kevin Shanaghan. 
 One night they had a memorable meeting. It ap- 
 peared almost as the encounter on a rocky ledge 
 of their hell of two tortured spirits destined in this
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 211 
 
 moment to commingle as flickers of flame, the 
 strongest to leap high with the other absorbed 
 through the more powerful impression it had 
 made. Michael saw, in this stark instant, that 
 Kevin Shanaghan was in the concluding stage of 
 his life as a drunkard. Even now it was in the 
 hurried, nervous manner of a dipsomaniac that 
 he had caught his arm. . . . The war had 
 left the mark of the beast even still further im- 
 pressed upon this sad man. There had been huge 
 quantities of drink stirring around Ballycullen 
 for the past three years. He was laughing 
 emptily, foolishly, his face darkly smeared with 
 dirty beard and his eyes goggled into what at 
 first appeared an idiotic stare. 
 
 " Michaeleen, and how are you? I'm grand 
 myself. Great, as the saying is, great. But d'ye 
 know what they're calling me now? Begad, 
 they're calling me 'The Comic.' Isn't that a 
 develish name anyway to be giving a man of intel- 
 lect, making him all as one as a circus clown, mak- 
 ing even the flesh and blood of him a kind of jeer, 
 and he walking around on his four bones? And 
 it's not even as if I was making a living out of 
 it, like a common whore. Did you ever hear the 
 idiots talking about the stars and they half drunk? 
 Did you ever hear what they call a comet, the 
 lovely burning hair of a woman and it splashing 
 golden across the skies? Well, they call that ' a
 
 212 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 comic ' too, the dirty dobs. So, you see, this night 
 of Our Lord there's a comic on the earth and 
 there's a comic in the sky, myself begod, and some 
 lonely angel's golden hair. We're comics, God 
 help us, myself and all that splash of glory, to the 
 louts that come into Ballycullen in their dirty 
 brogues to look for porter. . , . But Mich- 
 aeleen, sure the comic going through the sky is 
 not a woman's golden hair at all, but the colour 
 of God's anger when the Almighty Man would 
 like to spit upon the world. I often wonder that 
 it doesn't drive him mad entirely. It was a queer 
 thing out of God's anger, too, mebbe that left me 
 seeing them as I do now. It was for sake of them 
 I suffered, for sake of them I was jailed, for sake 
 of them I lost my land. It was not until I fell 
 down as far as I am now that I saw them. Then 
 I became odious wise, a fool, mebbe, for the world 
 to see, but in the very middle of my mind as wise 
 as seven old men. I got to be not a bit like an 
 Irishman. Why, begod, I was more like a Jap or 
 a Chinaman, or a wise, godly man of India. I 
 saw everything. I heard everything. I got to 
 know everything. I was often not at all sur- 
 prised to hear myself saying everything, for you 
 must remember that I frequently spoke off the 
 one platform with Michael Davitt and Charles 
 Stewart Parnell. I wanted to destroy the me that 
 they had once seen until I had rehabilitated my
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 213 
 
 intellect as that of the most wonderful statesman 
 that the world had ever seen. I suppose that no 
 one ever thought, and I leaning half drunk over 
 some counter, that my mind was working with 
 the speed of a Lloyd George or an Asquith and 
 they holding a Cabinet meeting or taking Mr. 
 Dillon or Mr. Devlin off to breakfast in Down- 
 ing Street. I used often see a scrap of an Eng- 
 lish paper wrapped round a bottle that I'd be 
 taking away with me for the night when I'd spot 
 the account of some English journalist sent over 
 here to study the question at first hand and it 
 would make me think of the correctness of 
 Shakespeare's saying, 'Lord, what fools these 
 mortals be ! ' meaning, of course, the British. Isn't 
 it damned curious that none of them ever found 
 out me to tell what I know, and I dying to tell?" 
 
 Michael was almost grown tired of the inco- 
 herent outburst. The madness of drink was upon 
 this poor, neglected, almost outcast man. It was 
 sadder than any sadness, blinder than any blind- 
 ness. . . . And he was clutching him again, 
 his eyes looking wild yet not emptied of their 
 strange light. 
 
 " I know," he said, with something different 
 and calm returned to his voice. " It's not Sinn 
 Fein, it's not Unionism, it's not even Constitu- 
 tional Nationalism."
 
 214 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 " It's nothing at all, I suppose," said Michael 
 laughing. 
 
 Although he really did not mean to be unkind, 
 the laugh seemed to hurt Kevin, whose talk now 
 turned perfectly sane. It was filled with a re- 
 proach that sounded almost noble. 
 
 " I never laughed at you, Michaeleen, all the 
 long days I was surprised and delighted to see 
 that you had in you the seed and the roots of the 
 idea I thought was going to bring joy * to the 
 heart of Kathleen-ni-Houlihan' as the fellow said 
 in the play. Nor I wouldn't laugh at you now, 
 even though all you dreamt about is dead and 
 gone, all killed and bet and murdered. But you 
 wouldn't laugh if I told you of my plan, that's so 
 simple and so natural, why a child could work it. 
 I'm not going to tell you what it is, but to begin 
 with it would mean converting the Irish People 
 back to Christianity. As long as the British were 
 really keeping them down, there was comrade- 
 ship and charity in this country. I do be often 
 afraid to think what it might have come to only 
 for the civilising influence of the British." 
 
 There was no subtle, Swift-like irony in this, 
 although it possibly possessed a glimmer of fine 
 wisdom that had come through suffering and 
 degradation. It seemed the oldest thought in the 
 world, yet had it a new and surprising appeal for 
 this poor, disillusioned man. It embodied some
 
 SINN FEIN AND SOLUTION 215 
 
 ray of relief across the travail of his mind. The 
 light upon his face grew brighter as he spoke 
 again. 
 
 " And musha, Michaeleen, what kind of an 
 infernal hell would we have in this country if we 
 suddenly arrived at a Republic with the party 
 that's in power at the present time jumping into 
 all the Government jobs ? Why, begod, it would 
 be far worse than the persecution of the Penal 
 Days for th' other party." 
 
 There was a sudden glimmer of truth to 
 Michael even in this wild exaggeration. 
 
 "And so it must always be, for there's a dam- 
 nable kink in us, an element of the traitor break- 
 ing out every time because we all think we're great 
 fellows. What the hell, I ask you, could Redmond 
 do when the very thing that killed him is out 
 to kill Sinn Fein as well. What we want is some- 
 thing to level our pride and I wouldn't care a 
 damn what it was so long as it levelled that. 
 But I'm not relying on the brains of anyone else, 
 ,for I have a lovely plan of my own that would 
 do your heart good to hear." 
 
 Now it was Michael's turn to become suddenly 
 wise, and to win a flash of gladness to his mind 
 in a moment of intense clearness. This had 
 been the way of it always. How many unfortu- 
 nate men had thought that they had struck upon 
 a way? All of them had dreamt, for something in
 
 the very air of Ireland had filled their heads with 
 dreams. It was the same in the case of the true 
 man as in that of the traitor, with him who had 
 rotted in jail and with him who had supped in 
 Dublin Castle. It had evaded all of them so that 
 their lives had left nothing of reality behind 
 them. Even the mere thought of it stirred the 
 mud of futility in one's mind still. Here now 
 was Kevin Shanaghan, who must presently ask 
 the price of a pint, a man that could still go about 
 with his head encircled by the stars of his dream, 
 although his patriotism had broken him. And 
 Michael, too, although the certain traitorous ele- 
 ment in Ireland itself had been continually felt 
 by him in its full power, in its true significance or 
 form he could make no attempt to define it. They 
 were both strange " comics " falling ever through 
 the same crowd of stars.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 
 
 EVER since he had burned his plans for the 
 invincible rising, the mind of Michael, 
 through many such little encounters and 
 adventures, had been approaching nearer and 
 nearer to reality. But the faith in which he had 
 once believed so greatly had not yet gone down de- 
 feated. There was Ballycullen always such a stark 
 reminder of the meaner significance of his country, 
 but surely the last deluge of blood had not been in 
 vain. This hope was the white rose which sprung 
 out of the earth so richly sprinkled by that dew. 
 It almost seemed that he might have his right- 
 ful place now in the life of Ballycullen, for which 
 he had so fiercely longed for but a little while since. 
 All the young men seemed anxious to talk in the 
 evenings of things they had just read in " Nation- 
 ality" or "New Ireland" or "The Irishman." 
 They were continually speaking with perfect fa- 
 miliarity, too, of the sentences upon lesser or 
 greater men, of men in jail and of men on the run. 
 A portion of their conversation, too, consisted in 
 
 217
 
 218 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 the expression of an almost savage satisfaction 
 when it would appear that the British casualty lists 
 were on the increase. Marcus Flynn gave his silent 
 consent to such prating for business purposes in 
 his shop, because was not his rival in all things, 
 Thomas Cooney, making a speciality of selling 
 material for Republican flags in his "drapery?" 
 Neither had much blame to give out for they 
 were both doing very well, but both were vexed 
 that they had been plucked away from a regular 
 course of prosperity to perhaps a better way, but 
 one which required an adjustment of their an- 
 cient political prejudices. Heretofore their minds 
 had only been called upon to deal with little 
 things, while now they were expected to maintain 
 some show of personality in the biggest epoch 
 that the world had ever seen. Often it would 
 appear to their mean, stuttering intellects that the 
 war might never end and that in some desperate 
 Fee-Faw-fum-like or Jack the Ripper way the 
 Germans must eventually destroy all before them. 
 Cowardice is ever contagious and so now there 
 was not a man of military age in Ballycullen but 
 was a mad Sinn Feiner. This kind of Sinn 
 Feinery stood for volunteering again. There was 
 less display of military pride, because there was 
 more fear than fun in these soldiers of Ireland 
 who had sprung queerly out of a troubled time. 
 The officers were all disguised as privates and
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 219 
 
 securely hidden in the ranks. Captain Beaumont 
 Fortescue and the Hon Herbert Fitzherbert were 
 notable absentees from the crowd of supporters. 
 There could be no great meeting now and so a 
 source of advertisement and power had been 
 snatched from the hands of the gombeen-men of 
 Ballycullen. Although he did not desire it at all, 
 because he was not wholly in sympathy with the 
 causes which determined it, Michael was now of 
 more importance in the shop than Marcus his 
 master. The distinction would seem to have 
 arisen quite spontaneously, and if the war, so far, 
 had wrought no good thing, this surely, in its es- 
 sence held promise, perhaps, of good things to be. 
 It was something in the nature of the end of the 
 world, this sudden discovery that, at last, money 
 and political influence were not able to purchase 
 everything on God's earth, or save from disaster 
 akin to death. But, although barely able to smother 
 their tempers, the old men were not without some 
 watchfulness for their chance of power again. 
 
 And as developments daily grew more serious, 
 the young men seemed to cling naturally to 
 Michael as their leader. Theirs was neither 
 election nor selection; it was just the crying need 
 of the moment that compelled them to seek him. 
 Day by day the young man seemed further 
 afflicted by panic and filled with the hopes that 
 it was he alone could save them and there were
 
 220 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 many fathers and mothers who felt that it was 
 he alone could preserve their lads to them. 
 " Marcus Flynn's " was, consequently, flourishing 
 beyond any place in Ballycullen, and so Marcus 
 himself could afford to sneer loudly at Thomas 
 Cooney in satisfaction of his spitefulness when- 
 ever they met in the street, for their wonderful 
 unity had broken down with the breaking up of 
 the National Volunteers. 
 
 It grew upon Thomas that in keeping Michael 
 on so long in the shop despite his unpopularity 
 through inability to hit off with the people upon 
 points of Nationality, until the fashion in politics 
 had veered round so completely in favour of the 
 brat, Marcus had effected a remarkable business 
 score over himself. The continual torture of it 
 drove him to think of Michael as the greatest 
 enemy he had in the world and he felt that he 
 would stop at nothing to bring down the cur and 
 drive him out of Ballycullen. The only thing 
 which saved his mind from almost certain de- 
 fection was his shrewdness in awaiting his op- 
 portunity. ... It should come. . . . Money 
 was still not without some power in the world. 
 . . . Despite all the big talk about a new heaven 
 and a new earth the heart of mankind was still 
 largely unchanged. . . . 
 
 The gathering protections of common sense 
 about Michael's mind had been suddenly torn
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 221 
 
 away. His view-point had again been pushed out 
 of balance until it was again lop-sided in its in- 
 clusion of the melodramatic. The British were 
 being hard-pressed in France. This overshadow- 
 ing reality seemed to make many other things 
 unreal. ... In the momentary submerg- 
 ence of certain elements he saw only the defeat of 
 those elements. Perhaps he had been mistaken, 
 and that Sinn Fein had won to final triumph 
 after all; and upon these sure foundations he 
 might rebuild his dream even here in Ballycullen. 
 There was a revival of Volunteering but it was 
 very different from the old style. There was now 
 no open marching, no degrading parades from 
 pub to pub. The miracle of a return to real Fe- 
 nianism had been effected and drilling by night in 
 dark quiet places was the order of the moment. 
 There was much wild talk of taking to the hills 
 and being put upon their keeping. There was 
 much fortification of themselves to endure the 
 privations of military service in the hope of de- 
 feating their obligations to military service. It 
 was surely a comical stage-Irish situation. But 
 there was no doubt that they would fight and 
 though there were moments when Michael was 
 still forced to see this certitude not as the result 
 of courage but rather as the inevitable outcome of 
 cowardice, it was none the less real as a circum- 
 stance of their lives because its greater reality was
 
 222 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 the whole soul of him. . . . He saw a tre- 
 mendous army rising in brigades and battalions 
 all over Ireland at the command of Eamonn De 
 Valera. He saw the English with their backs to 
 the wall ; he saw them finally being kicked into the 
 Irish Sea. The Empire was down and out. 
 There was not a Sinn Fein orator or a Sinn Fein 
 journalist within the four seas of Ireland who did 
 not loudly assert as much. " The Irish Independ- 
 ent" was very determined in its pronouncement. 
 The solid determination of the Irish people, etc., 
 
 etc. 
 
 ******** 
 
 The national pledge to resist conscription to the 
 death was to be signed in Ballycullen next Sun- 
 day, and a Defence Committee elected to admin- 
 ister the money which would be subscribed to the 
 Anti-Conscription Fund. So far, there was noth- 
 ing political about the widespread " determina- 
 tion," but Michael seemed to glimpse subcon- 
 sciously an approaching attempt to administer 
 some of the old political poison. Already many 
 of the murderous emissaries of the old game had 
 stolen by back doors into Sinn Fein. 
 
 Everything went to show that he was very near, 
 at last, to the fateful crisis of his lifetime, out of 
 which he might spring to some power for great 
 good even in this place. His very soul was 
 mobilising itself to a final effort.
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 223 
 
 As always when such moments had come into 
 his life here he was meeting and speaking with 
 Mirandolina again at the Hall which was the 
 Headquarters of the present activity. She was a 
 member of the Cumman-nam-Ban which had been 
 rapidly organised out of willing material where 
 one might have thought there was none. She was 
 being trained to be one of " The Sinn Fein 
 Nurses " as they called them in Ballycullen. 
 Like all the rest she had been compelled to seek 
 Michael for patriotic and military instruction. 
 As they chatted in little glad moments of co-op- 
 eration, he was again something like the man she 
 had seen in the part of Robert Emmet. He ap- 
 peared so perfectly unselfish and the shop of 
 Seumas McEvoy had become, through the pros- 
 perity which had fallen upon it, more like Thomas 
 Cooney's than a real Sinn Fein shop. . . . 
 And he, on his part, was well content to forget the 
 many little slights she had put upon him for sake 
 of two others, one a soldier of Britannia and the 
 other a soldier of Kathleen-ni-Houlihan, for was 
 he not already a man of power without any of the 
 boorishness which had long distinguished men of 
 power in Ballycullen. As much as possible did he 
 want to hold himself as an object-lesson in what 
 the cultured decency of Sinn Fein might do for a 
 man.
 
 224 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 " And him only a common shop-boy in Marcus 
 Flynn's." 
 
 " The Lord save us ! " " Did anyone ever hear 
 tell of the like?" 
 
 The whole country was in a vague ferment and 
 no one at all seemed certain of a proper course of 
 action. The Mansion House Conference was in 
 session with the object of formulating " an offen- 
 sive," as the now blood-drenched pens of the 
 daily press were calling it. Photographs had al- 
 ready been published of John Dillon sitting at the 
 one table with Eamonn De Valera. This evi- 
 dence of compromise was not altogether to the 
 mind of Michael. He foresaw people, individ- 
 uals with swollen and unhealthy ideas of their 
 own importance, making determined attempts 
 to attain to power and importance out of the pres- 
 ent situation. Already was their talk of Funds, 
 and Funds had always been demoralising and 
 dangerous. This inability to escape from the col- 
 lection of money had been responsible for much 
 of the drift and futility. But it seemed inevitable. 
 Yet was the mind of Michael immensely anxious 
 to hold as much as he might be able to influence 
 of this mighty movement cleanly together and for 
 clean purposes. He had burned his plan after 
 the failure of Easter Week, 1916, but now rapidly 
 into his mind was thronging the still unshapen 
 plans of another adventure for love of Ire-
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 225 
 
 land. ... It grew upon him through the 
 warm, exciting nights of April, 1918, almost with 
 the intense, swift gladness of the pulsing earth. 
 Great and heavy men were speaking ponderously 
 all around Ireland, but he did not hear them, for 
 his own mind was speaking with utter truth to 
 his own heart. 
 
 A Defence Committee was about to be formed 
 in Ballycullen and it was upon what might ap- 
 pear such a poor, ephemeral foundation that he 
 was building his plan. On the day before the one 
 upon which the momentous meeting was an- 
 nounced to be held he called the Volunteers to- 
 gether after a route-march and addressed them. 
 This was his second speech. The first time had been 
 on the night of the gun-running at Howth in 1914, 
 when he had spoken out of the dream of his plan 
 for an Irish Republic. Now, when the clay of his 
 country had been mixed with the blood of Easter 
 Week, to be remoulded into better men, they might 
 fittingly be made the agents of a better plan. . . . 
 Even as he spoke he saw the hoof-marks of Eng- 
 land upon the faces of the young men where the 
 accursed British Empire had trampled out their 
 very souls, or that part of them which should have 
 burned into a fierce look, now that their very lives 
 were threatened. . . . Michael had seen the 
 very same look, subdued almost to the expression- 
 lessness of spiritual obliteration, on the faces of
 
 226 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 the old, old men who had spoken of defending the 
 coasts after Redmond had made his great speech 
 upon the outbreak of the war. . . . These 
 young men knew nothing of their language nor 
 of the history of their country, nor of any decent 
 scheme of co-operation for the well-being of their 
 country. Yet it was to this he was appealing for 
 assistance in winning the glorious end which he 
 saw as a dim radiance. It was immensely moving 
 for him to think that it was even here in this 
 great movement that the power of his country's 
 soul was, at last, fully concentrated. Their lives 
 were threatened, their very women and their 
 homes, and was not the old, beloved Ireland their 
 common heritage? Yet was it a pitiful thing to 
 think that, after all the deluge of words that had 
 been spoken and written, and after all the fight- 
 ing that had been done there was such a wide- 
 mouthed lack of understanding, such a pachy- 
 dermatous inability to understand. ... At 
 the end of his words they still seemed uncon- 
 vinced. 
 
 He was compelled to feel their poor regard for 
 him after all, the meanness of the thoughts now 
 passing through their minds. . . . What he 
 said might be all right enough, but why had it not 
 come from the leaders. If only some of the great 
 men of the day said it. Why wasn't it in the 
 daily papers? They were prepared to believe
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 227 
 
 anything that might appear in the papers, but not 
 the stark truth that he had been trying to tell. 
 They would make a great show at the meeting to- 
 morrow, as was only natural but they would be 
 led by the leaders. . . . 
 
 To him there was only one aspect of leader- 
 ship at present, the truth of each man's soul which 
 had, at last, resolved itself into a compelling unity 
 towards realising the soul of the nation. But the 
 old dredging conception of leadership still clung 
 about their minds a garment of gombeenism, 
 gombeenism of Ballaghadereen, gombeenism of 
 Ballycullen. And here was the God-sent oppor- 
 tunity of lifting his country to the windy summits 
 of freedom out of the boggy lands of bond- 
 age. . . . He had sudden remembrance that 
 the clanking of chains had filled all the little 
 room where he had thought out his plan for a 
 rising, only to burn it in the same room after 
 Easter Week. But the plan and the hope he had 
 in his mind now could not fail. It was a real 
 thing, for it had come of the reality that had been 
 forced upon him. His every other thought had 
 been but the sadness of all dreaming. 
 
 The Defence Committee would not be formed 
 from the men of power in Ballycullen, but from 
 the young men, the men directly affected by the 
 proposed extension of the Military Service Act to 
 Ireland, the Volunteers. The sovereign power of
 
 228 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 the nation would be vested in them and they 
 would stand for a proud expression of the Na- 
 tion's will. All the old forces of re-action and 
 decay must sink into the background. Men of 
 importance in little places would be put in such 
 a position of insignificance and defeat as would 
 fittingly express the spent forces which had once 
 made them powerful. The District Councils, the 
 County Councils, all those outposts of Dublin 
 Castle would be swept away. It almost seemed 
 queer to think that England had been so fool- 
 ish as to give them this golden opportunity. 
 But the statesmanship of England had been on 
 the decline ever since the days of " ould Glad- 
 stone." The Ireland which had once kept its 
 edge so keen had rusted only to spring by a mir- 
 acle now as a clean and shining blade at the 
 heart of the Empire. The Empire was down and 
 out. And here, a part of some magical revenge, 
 was a great army, a line of steely determination 
 across Ireland. . . . This day also did he 
 break into a lone cry on paper which he hoped 
 might appear in print even at the bottom of some 
 heavier and more important stuff in the daily 
 press. His letter related to the Defence Com- 
 mittees. ... It seemed to hint that they 
 might be made the basis of a representative 
 assembly to express the country at its cleanest 
 and best. He had a notion that in other places
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 229 
 
 it might touch other minds with the flame that 
 had been lit in his. . . . After all the paper 
 he had blackened, this had the sudden, glorious 
 appearance of the first real bit of writing he had 
 
 done for Ireland. 
 ******** 
 
 It was a lovely April day when the Volunteers 
 trooped into the meeting to elect a Defence Com- 
 mittee for the Parish. There was no ear-split- 
 ting music this time, just an air of quiet de- 
 termination and a brake drawn up in the street. 
 It was Thomas Cooney's brake and the implica- 
 tion of ownership was ominous. Before the 
 Volunteers were well in line with it there was 
 Thomas himself climbing into it with the same 
 show of dignity, or rather of arrogant display 
 which of old he had shown upon ascending the 
 platform of any meeting that had ever been held 
 in Ballycullen. He was immediately followed by 
 some of the most select young men in the parish. 
 The aspiring fops of farmers, who, through power 
 and pride of their war-profits, had long since su- 
 perseded poor Mr. St. John Marlowe and the 
 snobs of his old days. They had sheltered with 
 simulated enthusiasm behind Sinn Fein while huge 
 sums by way of excess profits in their cattle were 
 rolling in as a steady tide. They were consequent- 
 ly most anxious to save themselves from conscrip- 
 tion now and what better security did the moment
 
 230 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 offer than a seat on the Defence Committee ? In 
 fact, one of them was already speaking and 
 Thomas Cooney was speaking and Marcus 
 Flynn was speaking and Gilbert McCormack was 
 making the best effort he could to interject a 
 stutter here and there. They all seemed to be 
 muttering mugger-mugger at the same moment, 
 publicly for the benefit of the crowd and between 
 themselves for their own purposes. . . . 
 Then it appeared that the miracle had been ef- 
 fected, that the Defence Committee had leaped 
 suddenly into being. ... A young fair- 
 haired man, who by the assurance of him, one 
 would say, in the language of Ballycullen, was 
 stinking with pride, proceeded to read out the 
 names. It included the Clergy, who were ex-officio 
 members of the Committee, but who were not pres- 
 ent, followed immediately by the names of Thomas 
 Cooney, Marcus Flynn and Gilbert McCormack, 
 followed by the names of the cowardly well- 
 dressed young men who now clung, as it were, to 
 the brake, as if it represented their last refuge 
 from conscription. . . . The scene and its 
 meeting seemed to dance before Michael's mind 
 as if out of a slimy sickness. . . . He 
 whispered something to those near him and there 
 was just the glimmer of indignation passing 
 swiftly through the ranks for a moment. . . 
 But it was stilled into a little, cold moment of
 
 THE MATERIAL DEFENCE 231 
 
 desolation by the powerful pronouncement now 
 proceeding from the brake. ... A list of 
 initial subscriptions to the Anti-Conscription 
 Fund was now being read aloud. A generous im- 
 pulse of gratitude seemed to hurry through the 
 very heart of the meeting. The sudden murmur 
 of disapproval was being replaced by applause, 
 even cheering, as the various amounts astounded 
 of a sudden by their generosity. ... It was 
 swiftly clear to Michael that every effort had been 
 in vain and very terribly clear as well was the 
 thought that this very scene was being enacted 
 all over Ireland at this very moment so that his 
 second great plan for the salvation of Ireland was 
 at an end. . . . But in this, the abysmal 
 moment of his sorrow and the wildest cry of his 
 heart, he seemed to be hurried on between his 
 anger and his agony to the supreme moment of 
 his life. He had a notion that, out of all that 
 stupid, staring throng, only one pair of eyes was 
 upon him as he went over to the brake to make his 
 protest. . . . 
 
 That this Defence Committee had been irregu- 
 larly selected and so did not represent the true 
 feelings of those most directly concerned, those 
 liable for military service. . . . An agonised 
 hush began to fall upon the crowd. It seemed 
 that the amazing madness of his action had not 
 been fully realised. There was an immense still-
 
 232 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 ness in the air as if after some great catastrophe. 
 It would almost appear as if the sky had fallen 
 down about Ballycullen. . . . 
 
 A small man with a pinched, peevish face now 
 rose in the brake. His small eyes and narrow slit 
 of a mouth seemed to exude fire. He proceeded 
 to wipe out any slight impression that Michael 
 might have made by a spitefully contrived 
 little blast of words. . . . The Committee 
 had been elected and what the hell did he want 
 by interrupting them and insulting them like 
 this? ... It was the general feeling of the 
 meeting that it was disgraceful. So it was, that 
 even one man could be found in the place pre- 
 pared to make an attack upon the unity that had 
 come upon them, and the like of which the world 
 had never before seen. . . . 
 
 A kind of last lone silence seemed to fall upon 
 Michael and upon the Ballycullen which he saw 
 around him through a haze of pain. . . . 
 Could it be that he had been finally broken even 
 as his father had been broken?
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 AN ENEMY OF HIS PEOPLE 
 
 THE succeeding days were the most intense 
 and startling that Michael had yet lived. 
 It was made to appear by every effort of 
 mean minds and lying tongues that he had done a 
 disgraceful thing. The looks of those he met were 
 averted in disdain. The people who came into the 
 shop, Volunteers and the rest, hurried out as soon 
 as they had made their purchases or dropped the 
 observations they had come to make about the 
 weather or the state of Ireland. 
 
 It would appear, from the papers of the time, 
 that a most determined attempt had been made 
 all over Ireland to destroy any hope of extend- 
 ing into reality the great thing he had seen in the 
 middle of his mind. But all Ireland seemed 
 vastly delighted with itself because of the part it 
 had played. There was so much blather about 
 " a Nation's will " that one might be almost in- 
 duced to think that Ireland had at last come into 
 possession of a will. ... Of course, Bally- 
 cullen stood by the Defence Committee it had 
 
 233
 
 234 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 elected, had added its quota to this awful power, 
 and Michael could not suddenly become aware 
 of anything noble in the air around him. It 
 rather seemed filled with the odour of pride, a kind 
 of blood-begotten stench which had been wafted 
 across Ireland from the European war. The situ- 
 ation was well epitomized in the fact that the 
 feelings of Ireland were about to express them- 
 selves in the largest subscription that Ireland had 
 ever seen. It seemed particularly fitting, indeed, 
 in spite of its irony, that the depth and degree of 
 Ireland's present hatred for England should be 
 expressed in terms of the money that had been 
 made out of England through the war. The blood 
 of Ireland was to be spared through sheer dint 
 of blood-money, but nothing that England had 
 done heretofore had to such an extent perturbed 
 those who had always availed themselves of the 
 opportunity of making money out of every turn 
 in the tide of affairs. For a week they were like 
 madmen not knowing whither to turn, but seeming 
 to think vaguely all the while that by signing their 
 names to the anti-conscription pledge they would 
 be somehow spared to make more money and that 
 by joining the Volunteers, or " the Vollyunteers," 
 as they were termed in affectionate anxiety, they 
 would not have to fight, although someone would 
 fight for them. . . . There was a set of wild 
 fellows in Ireland that could always be depended
 
 AN ENEMY OF HIS PEOPLE 23$ 
 
 on in a push. ... Hence this remarkable 
 hurry to join the Volunteers, just, as a few years 
 before, men had been running to join the United 
 Irish League in the hope of getting a bit of land. 
 
 All the potential manhood of Ireland had al- 
 ready been captured again by the very forces 
 which held with the strongest links the chains 
 about the mind of Ireland. It was not from the 
 Sinn Fein leaders that Michael could conceive 
 that they would take their orders now, but from 
 Thomas Cooney and Marcus Flynn and their like, 
 as exemplified here in Ballycullen, the men who 
 had made exhibitions of their qualities all over 
 Ireland in the amounts of their subscriptions to 
 the Anti-Conscription Fund. They were exces- 
 sively self-conscious, feeling themselves the bone 
 and sinew of the country at the present time. The 
 fact that twopence ha'penny could still look down 
 upon a twopence, even in the presence of death, 
 was manifest in their every expression of opinion. 
 
 " Fellows, begad, like Mickeen Dempsey, talk- 
 ing about a Republic. That's the curse of God 
 nonsense that has ruined The Cause always, fel- 
 lows with no stake in the country, not caring a 
 damn, of course, whether they play England's 
 game or not, fellows with nothing to lose. Talk- 
 ing about a Republic, moryah." 
 
 " Here was a way of showing what they thought
 
 236 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 about Ireland, but sure the most of them had 
 subscribed nearly nothing as yet." 
 
 "They might give a shilling or so, or a half- 
 crown, but it was men like Thomas Cooney and 
 Marcus Flynn, with their vast subscriptions, that 
 would save them." 
 
 "A fellow like Mickeen Dempsey was enough 
 to give you the sick, anyway, having the cheek to 
 go talk about Independence and about Ireland, 
 and Marcus Flynn keeping up his mother and 
 sister for so long." 
 
 "And what had he given to the Anti-Conscrip- 
 tion Fund?" 
 
 " He had subscribed nothing so far, for he had 
 objected to the way the people of the parish had 
 elected the Defence Committee." 
 
 The feeling of antagonism against him, find- 
 ing expression in such talk, was growing apace. 
 He could feel it all the week, a rumour of con- 
 flict in the air around him. Marcus would come 
 occasionally into the shop with a leer of contempt 
 upon his face, but without speaking a word. His 
 quizzical, contemptuous glance would seem to say 
 ten thousand things, but his pride in feeling him- 
 self a kind of saviour of his country would pre- 
 vent him opening his mouth. 
 
 Kevin Shanaghan came in just once for the 
 price of a pint. His serious, remote smile seemed 
 warmed a little into a kind of sympathy.
 
 " D'ye know what you'.re after doing Michael?" 
 he said. 
 
 " No !" said Michael dully. 
 
 " Well, you're after telling the truth and that's 
 the greatest crime that anyone can commit in 
 Ballycullen or in fact in any part of Ireland." 
 
 Passing the door a little later, Connor Car- 
 berry gave Michael a glance of pride through the 
 open doorway and raised his hand to the salute. 
 There seemed to be no need of words; they were 
 true brothers in the kinship of love and suffering 
 for Ireland. It was a noble gesture, surely, hold- 
 ing something almost lyrical in its grandeur, that 
 flashed into life with the movement of that 
 gnarled, withered hand. 
 
 At home there was a recurrence, very heavily, 
 of the old shadow over the house and by the very 
 fireside where his father had sat talking Parnel- 
 lite and Fenian and rebel talk with Leum Brod- 
 erick. His mother and sister, although as in- 
 nocent as ever of interference in the life of 
 Ballycullen, seemed somehow doomed to suffer 
 still. They were content in the possession of 
 Michael, and his mother had had no thought at 
 any time that he would come to be mixing him- 
 self up to his misfortune with the things that had 
 ruined his father. She had never made any at- 
 tempt to understand all the books and papers he 
 would be bringing into the lonely room. She had
 
 238 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 made no attempt to prevent it, although she had 
 always disliked to see him giving so much time 
 to brooding and reading. 
 
 Now, when she saw the great quietness of a pas- 
 sionate determination upon him, she felt in all 
 the strong, wise fear of her motherhood that this 
 terrible thing called Ireland, which had ruined her 
 man, was now throwing its shadow over the life of 
 her son. . . . These two poor quiet souls 
 without anger or harm. . . . He saw his 
 own sorrow mirrored clearly in the sorrow of 
 their eyes. . . . They were doomed to suffer 
 again even as all three had suffered through the 
 man who had followed Parnell. . . . 
 
 Just now the evenings were growing longer and 
 an intense realisation of the sorrow he was about 
 to bring upon them drove him forth again at 
 moments when he should have made the little 
 room, as always, a retreat from the torture of 
 Marcus Flynn's. . . . There seemed no one 
 left with whom he might find pleasure in a con- 
 versation of an evening. They looked at him 
 with averted eyes and he passed amongst them as 
 one about to be cast out by his people. He no- 
 ticed that the enthusiasm of the Volunteers had 
 begun to decline. They did not seem to be going 
 about the Hall hurriedly, eagerly, always on mili- 
 tary business, as it were, but stood idling around 
 the corner, after the old fashion, listlessly, joy-
 
 AN ENEMY OF HIS PEOPLE 239 
 
 lessly. . . . They were safe again. All the 
 strong men of Ballycullen were at the head of 
 the fund which was to save them. ... It 
 seemed so recently that Michael had been striving 
 to tell them something and in the way they eyed 
 him, meanly, suspiciously, he perceived how very 
 little they must think of him now. . . . Many 
 a man amongst those who were now almost middle- 
 aged had recognised the futility of striving to 
 remedy all that was wrong with Ballycullen. 
 They had been content to recognise in Michael's 
 earlier attempts to express himself in words or 
 action something that reminded them of their own 
 dreams, less fine than his, perhaps, yet dreams for 
 all that, when they, too, had thought of breaking 
 down the hate and pride of Ballycullen for love of 
 Ireland. . . . But to have made the attempt 
 and failed so utterly was far worse than their own 
 case, who had made no attempt at all. . . . 
 
 On the third evening he met Mirandolina as he 
 wandered lonely and tortured out of the atmos- 
 phere which held such a weight of sadness for 
 him. She would seem to have expected a meeting, 
 so anxiously did she quicken her step upon his 
 approach. Many a time had she hurt him here in 
 this place, which must be, in itself, a continual 
 cause of hurt to him, but now there was a look of 
 compassion in her eyes which gave promise of 
 atonement.
 
 240 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 There was no even momentary reserve between 
 them because of anything at all that had hap- 
 pened. He was not anxious to remember what 
 people had done to him, for he was too fully con- 
 scious of what he had done to himself; but she 
 was a woman and she knew. The mother instinct 
 had risen supreme over Ballycullen in this instant 
 and he saw that her look was deep to her very 
 soul with compassion. . * . She felt some- 
 how that what had happened to him was because 
 of things he had done for her sake. It might be 
 for love of Ireland he had worked, but it was for 
 love of her, too. Yet he had not wrought in the 
 way she had intended. He had merely gone on 
 attempting to commingle two loves, an impossi- 
 bility. If only they had never met he might by 
 this time have died for Ireland. If this insane 
 love of Ireland had not caught him young, he 
 might have become a better man to work for his 
 mother and sister. . . . He might have had 
 that little shop by the time Sinn Fein became such 
 a thriving business, and made just as much out 
 of it as Seumas McEvoy. . . . Sure all the 
 little jealousies she had tried to fan up in his 
 mind had only been to make him practical, to 
 pull him down out of his dream. . . . 
 
 The truth was if only he had not been so blind 
 he might have seen that she had loved him very 
 beautifully always. It was for his sake solely
 
 AN ENEMY OF HIS PEOPLE 241 
 
 that she had tried to contrive the best plans for 
 him that would come into her mind. And now 
 to think that he was ending in this defeat and 
 disaster. 
 
 Now she told him with such a rush of words 
 as made everything clearer than any noonday he 
 had ever known in Ballycullen. 
 
 " Oh, Michael, dear, I'm sorry, sorry that ever 
 I hurt your feelings in the least, for I know that 
 your mind is sensitive and grander in the way it 
 understands things than any mind that ever was 
 here in Ballycullen. But you have wasted your 
 sweetness on the desert air. D'ye remember a few 
 years ago when we played together in Robert 
 Emmet, and you used to have such talks with 
 me at the rehearsals and everything. I saw the 
 way your lofty, Nationalist notions might lead 
 you then, and I tried to tell you, but it was no 
 use. You were blind, blind, and it used to mad- 
 den me. It made me do mad things that you 
 must have thought me a worthless flirt on account 
 of doing. I went walking with Ambrose Donohue, 
 the soldier, and I used to spend the evenings talk- 
 ing with Seumas McEvoy, the Sinn Feiner. But 
 sure most of the time I only used to be telling 
 them what asses I thought the both of them, and 
 how true I was to you, all the time, and that you 
 were the only one I ever thought worth speaking 
 to around Bullycullen. I used to be hearing mean
 
 242 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 little talk about you that you never heard your- 
 self. I knew that when you began to put your- 
 self up as a leader here you were only making a 
 fool of yourself. I didn't like to hurt your feel- 
 ings by telling you, but God knows I was always 
 burning to tell and I used to be more annoyed 
 about you than you'll ever know now. . . . 
 But now I suppose you see the truth of things at 
 last. What will Ballycullen do for you now, what 
 will Ireland do for you? Nothing nothing at 
 all. You have only me. But, Michael, dear, you 
 have me now and always. I'll not forsake you, 
 never fear. But for my sake, in return, you'll 
 have to be done with your dreams. Let us think 
 only of one another. Between us, Michael, we 
 should be able to weather it out together, let the 
 worst come to the worst. It's reported everywhere 
 to-day that Marcus Flynn is going to sack you im- 
 mediately, but that he's going to make himself out 
 a great fellow by not disturbing your mother and 
 sister. And surely we can do much better for 
 them, the two of us, when you are away from 
 Ballycullen. God knows, they haven't had much 
 pleasure in their lives." 
 
 He tried to speak, but she overwhelmed him 
 with words. She would seem to have been sent 
 to snatch him from some final byeway of de- 
 struction. She seemed to think that he was one 
 who might easily drift into hopelessness and the
 
 AN ENEMY OF HIS PEOPLE 243 
 
 heaviest doom of defeat. Her face was wet with 
 hot tears as he kissed her. 
 
 " And I suppose you didn't hear that you are 
 going to be arrested this evening?" 
 
 "Arrested for what, Mirandolina? " 
 
 " For being a spy and an informer and a 
 traitor. It's after being well worked up by 
 Thomas Cooney. I saw some of the best scoun- 
 drels in the Volunteers leaving it this evening; 
 they want to disgrace you if they can before they 
 drive you out of Ballycullen." 
 
 " But I've done nothing. I can explain. I can 
 defend myself. I haven't explained to you yet, 
 Mirandolina. I'm sure you can see why I acted 
 as I did on Sunday " 
 
 " Of course, darling. But don't demean your- 
 self by giving them this final chance at you. 
 Come on, darling, and we'll talk about leaving 
 Ballycullen to-morrow." 
 
 " It may mean leaving Ireland." 
 
 As he turned to look at her the full meaning 
 of his words seemed to blot out for an instant the 
 very soul of Michael. ... To think of leaving 
 Ireland, but he must be immensely fond of 
 Mirandolina now. . . . 
 
 " Come on! " she said. 
 
 But just then six men sprang across the 
 demesne wall and seized him roughly. 
 
 " We arrest you in the name of the ' Irish Re-
 
 244 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 public'," they said, " and you must come to be 
 courtmarti ailed by the Competent Volunteer 
 
 Authority." 
 
 $ jfc $ 4c 4c 4< 
 
 Mirandolina laughed almost through her tears 
 as she hurried back into Ballycullen. It might 
 be just as well to convince him finally, she 
 thought. . . . Yet as she walked, with a f aintness 
 flowing in to numb almost the very limbs that 
 carried her, this evening of tears falling heavier 
 momentarily, there were odd great flashes of 
 strength from a woman's mighty passion to sustain 
 her. Yet was the very power of her love being 
 blown out in these fierce gusts. . . . The dis- 
 tance of Ballycullen from the place where she 
 had just dwelt in gladness for a moment with 
 Michael seemed such a great way, surely, this 
 misty, darkling evening. . . . Oh, God, she 
 might never be able to walk down the street and 
 into Thomas Cooney's. . . . But suddenly 
 upon the light wind came a sound of singing. 
 The magic of a noble anger flashed her poor 
 movement into the grace and majesty of a queen. 
 . . . Oh, she was proud now, proud and strong 
 again. . . . For the men who had marched 
 Michael away were singing, almost, it appeared, 
 with no other purpose than that of lifting her 
 mood upon each bar of the song.
 
 AN ENEMY OF HIS PEOPLE 245 
 
 " In valley green, on towering crag, our fathers fought 
 
 before us, 
 And conquered 'neath the same old flag that's proudly 
 
 floating o'er us; 
 
 We're children of a fighting race, 
 That never yet has known disgrace, 
 And as we march the foe to face 
 We'll chant a soldier's song."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 EXODUS 
 
 THERE was a remarkable air of excitement 
 about the Hall this evening. It seemed 
 almost incredible that the lethargy of the 
 place could have been so swiftly electrified into a 
 lively eventfulness. But an explanation seemed 
 to linger in the fact when Michael remembered 
 that this evening he was about to be court- 
 martialled in the name of Ireland. What on 
 earth had he done ? He could remember nothing. 
 Yet his appearance here to-night must be at the 
 bidding of Kathleen-ni-Houlihan to answer for 
 some crime against her. Although there was a 
 burning pain in his mind, he suddenly remembered 
 himself in great company, yet not with those who 
 had all died the same way, not with Robert Em- 
 met or Padraic Pearse, with Wolfe Tone or Roger 
 Casement, or any man of them at all who had 
 fallen before the might of Britannia. There was 
 one man who appeared in the remembered trag- 
 edy of his life and in the poor, dark ending of 
 that life to be suddenly akin to him, and this man 
 
 246
 
 EXODUS 247 
 
 was Parnell. He remembered again the supple- 
 ment from the weekly papers pasted on the wall 
 when he was a lad, and his father's words : 
 
 " There's poor Parnell, Michaeleen ! the poor 
 fellow. It's a hard case to think that it was my 
 own very countrymen killed him. It's even 
 worse to think that they pegged muck into his 
 eyes and lime before they murdered him out- 
 right." 
 
 This was what his love of Ireland had brought 
 Parnell and later the same fate to his own father, 
 and now to him, averted looks as he was dragged 
 into the hall to be given some sort of mock trial 
 before being driven out by his people. ... It 
 was England that had tried Roger Casement, who 
 had gone to his doom " in right noble succession 
 and in good company." But this Volunteer Hall, 
 where the lights were now glinting so queerly was 
 in Ireland. The Volunteers were for Ireland and 
 he was for Ireland. God only knew how much 
 he was for Ireland. He was about to lose the 
 little job, which meant so much to his mother and 
 sister, for sake of Ireland. He felt chilled and 
 lonely, but he thought that the eyes of Mirando- 
 lina Conway were looking into his eyes. . . . 
 Men came thronging into the hall with an en- 
 thusiasm he had never before seen amongst the 
 Volunteers. They had never been quite able to 
 accomplish the pure virtue of Patriotism, but they
 
 248 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 were well versed in all the ways of " downing " 
 another man. They were forever prating about 
 " Freedom " and yet an infernal hatred had ever 
 sprung into their hearts for the men who had 
 stood nearest to freedom in their own lives. 
 
 " The breed of Priesthunters and informers ! " 
 said someone. He looked around and there stood 
 Connor Carberry. In his presence Michael did 
 not feel so much alone. The " Commandant " 
 for the district took the chair. He was a slight, 
 fair-haired young man, with something of 
 Michael's idealistic look, something of the trust- 
 ing, kindly regard of all men which was not the 
 look of the little people with the little eyes. . . . 
 His sincerity was apparent, and, so dispassionate 
 did Michael grow by turns, so perfectly objective 
 concerning all that had determined the present 
 mess of his life, that he thought of this young 
 man as coming inevitably some day to know the 
 torture that he was enduring now. Beside him 
 sat two captains of Volunteers from neighbouring 
 towns. The " Commandant " had contrived the 
 best show of fair play that was possible. He was 
 only the son of a small shopkeeper in Castle- 
 connor and his commandantship in the Volunteers 
 was probably beginning to help already towards 
 the ultimate ruin of himself and his father. Per- 
 haps the gombeenism of such as Thomas Cooney 
 extending subtly through its power over his
 
 EXODUS 249 
 
 father to him aimed him in its mean bondage too. 
 So what he might do now, for sake of his own 
 soul and of Ireland, would cause the Hall to re- 
 echo curiously with the sound of another clank- 
 ing of chains. . . . But still it was his father 
 who would suffer most the pain of this wild effort 
 towards release. 
 
 He proceeded to read the Constitution of the 
 Irish Volunteers and then to ask for a definite 
 charge against Michael. There was dead silence. 
 . . . This was the way to treat him. Already 
 were they cringing respectfully behind their dark 
 scowls. 
 
 " You see," he continued, " we are a military 
 organisation." 
 
 "Might I offer a suggestion," said, or rather 
 stuttered, Gilbert McCormack. 
 
 "No suggestion; this is not a discussion. It is 
 a courtmartial in the name of the Irish Republic." 
 
 " It's the finishing touch to a damnable in- 
 former that we're going to run out of Ballycullen 
 this bloody evening." 
 
 " But there's no charge. Not a man amongst 
 you has even had the spunk to formulate a 
 charge." 
 
 " Oh, we don't want any of this highfalutin 
 that you'd see in an account of a courtmartial in 
 an English paper. We don't want to copy the 
 British even in that, for we're the heart's blood of
 
 250 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 true Sinn Feiners. We want to put a stop to this 
 fellow's gallop in Ballycullen and it'll have to be 
 done at all costs." 
 
 Now that such a successful opening had been 
 made by this hired man, around the hall rose a 
 low "Boo-oo-oo! " which had almost the quality 
 of a bull's bellow. So sudden and vehement was it 
 that it left a kind of singing in Michael's ears. 
 Momentarily, too, it seemed to lift his blindness. 
 But then it was another blindness again. The 
 mixture of daylight and candlelight made each 
 face look sickly. There crushed in around him 
 a mass of leering, sweating faces that was almost 
 an obscenity of the flesh like some stupendous 
 vomit. Yet even as this dark-faced, unshaven 
 lout stood there with such an admirable, although 
 affected, air of antagonism, Michael knew that he 
 was a paid man and that a good deal of free 
 drink had gone to the creation of his present en- 
 thusiasm. It was the power of gombeenism 
 again, so powerfully manifested always, whether 
 it was its hoof or its head appeared, in the linea- 
 ments and significance of a beast. 
 
 " I won't drill under this man and especially 
 on behalf of the young men of Ballycullen. I'll 
 go so far as to say that not a man of us will drill 
 under him." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The sharply interjected question of the Com-
 
 EXODUS 251 
 
 mandant sounded clean with decision as a rifle 
 shot in the intense, dead quietness. 
 
 "We won't have this fellow, that's all! " 
 a few men shout in support of their cham- 
 pion. 
 
 " Well, you know, I, as his superior officer, have 
 no power to remove him, seeing that I have no 
 evidence that he has broken the constitution of 
 the Irish Volunteers." 
 
 "Are you going to shift him? Begod, then, if 
 you're not, I can tell you that we are! " 
 
 " Volunteers, do you dispute my authority? I 
 have been freely elected by yourselves to this posi- 
 tion of command over you. I should not have 
 taken up the position had I dreamt for a moment 
 you would not be led by me, and first, at least, 
 against the British." 
 
 Along three sides of the Hall were ranged ac- 
 cusative, unanimous Volunteers. . . . Their 
 heads were hung down and the fact that they had 
 no case nor no charges to make did not seem to 
 affect the solidity with which they sat so immov- 
 ably there. They were against him, that was all. 
 The talk of the Commandant sounded far beyond 
 them. They had come here after saying to their 
 comrades in the pubs: 
 
 "We'll run the bastard out of the Vollyunteers 
 and we'll do more than that. We'll make him
 
 252 THE CLANKING OF CHAIJNS 
 
 out such a scandalous ruffian that the priest'll, 
 mebbe, run him out of the bloody parish." 
 
 They could not very well go back to their 
 masters and say that they had not been able to 
 perform the work for which they had got the drink 
 and the money. And so they were sullenly an- 
 tagonistic if no more. . . . They punctuated 
 their smoking by spitting hard against the floor. 
 . . . God blast him anyway ! . . . Not one 
 of them had a word to say. . . . Was he going 
 to beat them? Look at the way, now, that this 
 " Commandant " fellow was taking his part. That 
 cut about the British was a hard one. 
 
 " I want a definite charge and, further, I want 
 someone to prove the charge. I want no silly 
 statements, but a statement of fact which can be 
 proved." 
 
 Still for some moments there was no reply. . . . 
 Then a man rose, frozen, as it were, by his purpose 
 into perfect rigidity. He was a paid man, hence 
 his aspect of fierce sincerity. A chorus of ap- 
 praisement and approval ran all around the room. 
 
 " Good man! Good man! ' 
 
 They were Irish faces with the stubbles brist- 
 ling upon them, their mid-week beards. They 
 were faces of men of the country for which all the 
 dead had died. Always there had been in the 
 very depths of Michael an intense hatred of the 
 soldiery of England, and after the rebellion he
 
 EXODUS 253 
 
 had thought how splendid it would have been to 
 die, as he looked down their rifle-barrels like 
 Major McBride. But the faces into which he 
 looked now seemed to hold a fearful and abysmal 
 hatred, more terrible of itself than any death 
 which lurked even in the red heart of a rifle. 
 They were upon him more horribly even than the 
 little wicked eyes of rifles fixed upon a man's 
 heart. They were the eyes of men, and, after all, 
 the rifle of a soldier had no soul. These men 
 of Ballycullen and of Ireland talked of their 
 Irish Army and of their Republic, but all seemed 
 forgotten in this moment of mad anger against 
 the man of clean sincerity who had sprung from 
 amongst them. Long ago, when he had gone 
 about Ballycullen, the lonely antagonist of Eng- 
 land, they had distrusted him and called him " a 
 mouth." He had been the prophet before his 
 time and in his own country. So there was a 
 double reason why he had not been accepted. . . . 
 Yet was it a thing of bitter cruelty in this moment 
 to feel that they thought him unfit for the con- 
 dition which had been the dream of his life. . . . 
 How the little, mean howl for his blood was be- 
 ginning to arise from these countrymen of his 
 who, in the name of the Irish Republic, were doing 
 this for the very force which still threatened to 
 sell their souls to the devil and their bodies into 
 an enduring bondage. His blindness was lifting
 
 254 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 higher now, yet still dark and lumpish, like the 
 great cloud that it was showing painfully bright 
 beneath. ... There came little, sudden in- 
 stants of intense clearness. . . . He saw Con- 
 nor Carberry getting up to address the crowd. 
 He heard him struggling with his passion to ex- 
 press himself in words. . . . 
 
 "Love is blind!" 
 
 This was a futile expression from a girl's novel 
 and seemed greatly frivolous indeed to Michael 
 as it occurred to his mind in this moment. Yet 
 is there an immense sad truth in all poor, common 
 things. . . . Why was Connor Carberry now 
 striving to quiet the rabble? He, too, had been 
 blind. His love for Ireland had blinded him to 
 that quality in his countrymen which made real 
 Nationality an impossibility. . . . There was 
 this old man now going down so emptily to the 
 grave and yet these countrymen of his were un- 
 able in this moment to think well of him or do 
 one decent action to atone for themselves at his 
 bidding, he who might have been a prophet 
 amongst a more chosen people. . . . Yet in 
 the great brightness which came rushing in rich 
 waves across the darkness of this moment's agony, 
 it seemed good, indeed, that this ending had come, 
 for he might have grown old in his foolishness, 
 and it was better, maybe, after all to be snatched 
 a brand still a little bright from the burning. H&
 
 EXODUS 255 
 
 had been worsted in the game for sake of Ireland, 
 but his loss had been well spent in purchase of 
 this fulness of vision which was bursting upon 
 him. The part of his life which had gone to the 
 making of this moment had gone more fully to 
 the making of him. Above the howling could 
 now be heard the word " informer " being mut- 
 tered with vehemence. . . . And this was how 
 the intention now darting through his mind with 
 the pain of fire must finally fix him. ... He 
 would have turned his coat, anyway, when he did 
 what was his purpose now and behind the turn- 
 coat there always lingers the suggestion of the 
 traitor. It was thus that he would be fixed in 
 the memory of Ballycullen down the years to be, 
 he who had great ambitions to be very different, 
 indeed, for sake of them. But his countrymen 
 did not want him. He could never be of the sort 
 that they still wished to gather to their breasts. 
 . . . . And now the miracle had happened that 
 he had no longer any desire to be beloved by them. 
 His mind was galloping wildly over every 
 thought he had had through the long days and 
 nights of his dreaming. . . . And what had 
 England ever done to him? Why, nothing at all 
 for all he had cried out with those who cried out 
 of ancient rages. Had he been an Englishman 
 whose only desire was to expend himself in the 
 service of his country, he could hardly have come
 
 256 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 to this moment. There could be no meanness in 
 a thought merely because it was true. And it was 
 Ireland that had done this to him now. 
 
 There rushed upon him even with this thought 
 a sadness that brought him almost instantly to 
 tears. . . . But what of the thing they would 
 say in Ballycullen after he had gone from it for- 
 ever? The world was the place in which he 
 would be living from henceforth. It was very 
 painful to remember that it was the certain traitor- 
 ous element in Ireland itself that was about to 
 make him appear as a traitor, yet it stood for his 
 emancipation also, for it was about to drive him 
 into exile. With what amazing suddenness his 
 decision had come to him? It is only over the 
 things which end in nothingness and futility that 
 one dreams and dallies. . . . To-morrow he 
 would leave Ireland. It was Mirandolina Con- 
 way and not Kathleen-ni-Houlihan who had 
 finally gathered him to herself. Yet even now, 
 in the moment of his great decision, was his mind 
 curiously torn. He desired to think of Ireland 
 still, of all that was olden and beautiful in Ire- 
 land, as a rich memory, in whatever place he 
 might happen to be. But there must be an end 
 to all the waste and wandering of his mind. 
 There was something more in a man's life but his 
 country. . . . There would be Mirandolina 
 now, his wife, his good comrade, the grander part
 
 EXODUS 257 
 
 of himself, as well as his mother and sister still. 
 He would have to be a realist, dealing only with 
 facts, in whatever country he was going to and it 
 was part of the irony of things that he could not 
 be this same realist in his own country. Because 
 to be such as he had vaguely seen it through his 
 own experience, stood almost as a blasphemy of 
 the very soul which his mother Ireland had given 
 him. To be an idealist to the full, his head en- 
 circled by a crown of stars against a mist of 
 dreaming, as he had seen that condition mirrored 
 in the mind of Connor Carberry. . . . Ah, no, 
 ah, no, indeed. . . . Had he not already drunk 
 himself almost to destruction out of that pool of 
 sadness ? Perhaps, after all, his very defeat rep- 
 resented the most enduring triumph that could 
 have come. ... It seemed to promise the perfect 
 realisation of himself as Mirandolina saw him, 
 or as she hoped to make him when she had res- 
 cued him finally from his dreaming. . . . 
 There could be no mistake about his salvation 
 any more, for now they were howling madly. . . . 
 He hardly realised that he had stumbled away 
 from the Hall and was now some distance down 
 the road from Ballycullen, still pursued by de- 
 risive cries. Now he was passing the house of 
 Connor Carberry. It was the house which had 
 queerly inspired him towards the madness of sin- 
 cerity and sacrifice that had brought him to
 
 258 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 what had happened this night. It seemed very 
 strange for a moment that Connor Carberry could 
 have no further influence over his mind. All Con- 
 nor's wild raving crushed into one epic night would 
 not make the slightest difference in the outlook of 
 Michael, although now probably, at this very mo- 
 ment, he was raising his poor old broken voice for 
 the sake of the man who was his friend. . . . 
 The people of Ballycullen, in their anger, had 
 come between them, thus preventing the saying of 
 a last good-bye. But he felt now, as he passed 
 the place around which the shadows were gather- 
 ing in, that he must go up to the window and 
 see once more the place, the very stool, in fact, 
 where he had once sat listening . . . listen- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 He drew back from the window in surprise, for 
 there upon what had been " his " stool sat Kevin 
 Shanaghan, who of late, since the pubs had begun 
 to close earlier, was in the habit of coming out 
 here to talk with Connor Carberry. It must be 
 the strange evenings they were having together 
 here. Michael smiled as he thought of the clash 
 of their two minds, and further at thought of the 
 talks it must lead them to here by the quenching 
 fire until far on in the night. . . . This very 
 night the thing that was himself must lead them 
 to a queer, great talk. . . . He laughed almost 
 as Kevin Shanaghan might laugh, and moved
 
 EXODUS 259 
 
 back on the road towards Ballycullen. . . . 
 In the gathering darkness he seemed to 
 lose himself and to wander around and around 
 for a great while in a circle of blindness and 
 of the pain of a heart that had been wounded by 
 itself. . . . Gradually he heard the cries that 
 he had raised up in his people dying away down 
 all the roads from the Hall. Even towards re- 
 mote quarters of the parish, Volunteers were now 
 speeding with the tidings of what had been done 
 to Michael Dempsey this night in Ballycullen. 
 . . . In the sharp pang of his thought it was 
 thus that he became fixed before his own mind. 
 This was exactly all that he meant to Ballycullen 
 now, he who had striven to uplift it, he who had 
 thought of it with noble insistence and with such 
 dear intimacy in his dream of Ireland, the 
 brighter microcosm of that brighter macrocosm. 
 . . . Oh, God, would they ever see that, in 
 loving Ireland, he had loved, too, his native vil- 
 lage and the place where he was born? His eyes 
 were blinded and his soul was scalded by his 
 tears, but his feet were turned again, although 
 for the last time, towards Ballycullen. . . . 
 
 His native village looked such a quiet, decent 
 place now that it was so late in the night and there 
 was no one to be seen. In the darkness, too, it 
 always appeared to have hidden away much of its 
 cruelty and baseness, and nearly all its great
 
 260 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 uncharitableness. ... As soon as he came 
 past the Hall, that place which had made itself 
 so dismally significant in his life, he saw the 
 only light still remaining in Ballycullen, and, 
 as a curious contradictory symbol, it was in an 
 upper window of Thomas Cooney's . . . But 
 it was Mirandolina who was in there now by 
 that last lit lamp he might ever see in Ballycullen, 
 preparing herself to leave Ballycullen with him, 
 for already was it the morrow of the night that 
 had passed. ... It was but a few paces now 
 to the little cottage where he had lived so long 
 with his mother and sister. What he was going 
 to do now would be a lonely kind of thing for 
 them, falling down another darkness, the last, per- 
 haps, to blind them with a full, final sorrow on 
 their sad, quiet lives. They would be even more 
 fearful of Ballycullen when he was gone, and 
 they would live still more remote from it with the 
 memories, as they would fancy, of two grand men 
 that Ireland and Ballycullen between them had 
 broken, a husband and a father, a son and a 
 brother. . . . But he would not be broken and 
 he would be a good son to them still. He might 
 have been better, but all the love of his heart was 
 a real thing now. . . . 
 
 He went into his room quietly and was soon 
 making preparations for the journey. Continu- 
 ally was he coming upon some book or paper or
 
 EXODUS 261 
 
 manuscript which touched him with some mem- 
 ory of the life out of which he was passing. . . . 
 All the seditious literature he had gathered into 
 this place seemed so meaningless now. It did 
 not appear even worth burning as a precaution 
 against a search of the place for " stuff " by the 
 Sergeant after he was gone. But there was some- 
 thing which, to cleanse his conscience, he must 
 burn, just as he had burned his plans for a rising 
 here in this very room. It was the manuscript of 
 the scheme he had sketched out so recently of 
 uniting the country in the grip and consistence of 
 a powerful and sensible plan. How futile the 
 very thought of this seemed now? His plan for 
 a rebellion had been justified to some extent by 
 the rising of Easter, 1916. But this! Lord God 
 Almighty ! And to think that the mad conversa- 
 tion between Connor Carberry and Kevin Shan- 
 aghan was going on even now in the little house 
 from which he had drawn a portion of his in- 
 spiration, wild thing that it all must have been 
 to result only in this. ... A madman and a 
 fool, as they called them in Ballycullen, were still 
 fighting out the puzzle of Ballycullen between 
 them. ... In a moment of stark conscious- 
 ness he stopped in his thought to picture them 
 together, almost to listen. . . . In the poignant 
 calm of the summer night he seemed to hear, 
 borne on the rich wonder of the stillness, the glad-
 
 262 THE CLANKING OF CHAINS 
 
 some ring of the fool's wise laughter; he almost 
 saw the sane sincerity of the madman's noble, 
 burning eyes. . . . 
 
 And why were they wasting wnat strength of 
 mind and body still remained from their broken 
 years in talking of what had just befallen him, 
 and then of Ireland, until almost the early dawn 
 of the summer morning ? Why, only because they 
 must still be a fool and a madman to Ballycullen, 
 for it was thus, it seemed, that the place of their 
 birth would fix them eternally. ... He was 
 breaking away and they would remember him as 
 an informer. . . . Ah, well, who knew? But 
 he must burn the manuscript anyhow. Did this 
 remain it might come through chance to prove his 
 sincerity. And he did not want that ; he did not 
 want anything from them now. . . . 
 
 As the torn pages flickered into ashes in the 
 grate he felt somehow that this was no doleful 
 act of renunciation and that none of the ashes of 
 his soul commingled with the dust of all his 
 dreaming for love of Ireland. . . . 
 
 Mirandolina would be ready now . . . and 
 it was a wide, wide world. . . . 
 
 The End.
 
 BY BRINSLEY MACNAMARA. 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SQUINTING 
 WINDOWS. A Novel. 12mo. Cloth. 
 
 $1.75 net. 
 
 SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 " We are introduced to a talent that almost at once stamps 
 itself upon our minds as a new force to be reckoned with. 
 . . . ' The Valley of the Squinting Windows ' is a notable 
 piece of fiction, all the more so for its being a maiden effort. 
 On the strength of this performance it will be worth while 
 to watch for the name of Brinsley MacNamara upon forth- 
 coming novels. One has the feeling that he will accomplish 
 things of more than passing value. Boston Transcript. 
 
 "The story inevitably reminds one of Hardy." New York 
 Literary Digest. 
 
 " Watch Brinsley MacNamara. A man who can produce 
 a first novel of such power and depth . . . has it in him to 
 attain rank. The volume is no more at bottom an attack upon 
 Ireland than it is upon the Fiji Islands. It exposes the cor- 
 roding gossip of a small village. The beauty of the book 
 lies in its study of gossip. Therein it is universal. And 
 therein it commands the attention of all who are devoted to 
 the better type of novel." The Stratford Journal. 
 
 " An unusual and unusually fine novel of Irish peasant life, 
 very much like what Synge might have written had he created 
 a novel, or such a book as George Birmingham might have 
 achieved had George a mind above buffoonery." Chicago 
 
 News. 
 
 "... The story is as strong, in its way, as some of the 
 Synge plays themselves, and will haunt everyone who reads 
 it as long as ' Riders to the Sea.' " New York Sun.
 
 PRESS OPINIONS ON "THE VALLEY OF THE 
 SQUINTING WINDOWS" (continued). 
 
 ' The Valley of the Squinting Windows ' is essentially 
 Irish in tone and typically Irish in setting. Only in the Green 
 Island could this strange drama, with its uncanny atmosphere 
 of the supernatural, be appropriately placed." Philadelphia 
 Press. 
 
 " This book is at the other end of literature from Birming- 
 ham or James Stephens or Yeats, but it is literature sincere 
 and faithful to its point of view, and it deserves a reading 
 by those who would understand the perplexing Irish question." 
 ^-Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 
 
 " Good novels, combining both dramatic interest and literary 
 excellence, are not so common that anyone can afford to miss 
 ' The Valley of the Squinting Windows.' New York Globe. 
 
 " It is a true work of art." St. Louis Mirror. 
 
 " Neither verbose nor exaggerated. Evokes by its incisive- 
 ness an emphasis that cannot be escaped. As a contribution 
 to this new Irish literary movement, which promises to rival 
 the Russian school, Mr. MacNamara's book will enjoy high 
 place." Pittsburg Dispatch. 
 
 "A novel of undeniable power." San Francisco Argonaut. 
 
 "The style is good, the descriptions are many of them well 
 done, the dialogue is natural, and the characters real people, 
 albeit extremely objectionable ones. The effect of the malig- 
 nant power of the valley, a power as pervasive and insidious 
 as some vile maisma, is excellently depicted." N. Y. Times. 
 
 " ' The Valley of the Squinting Windows ' is a peculiarly 
 unpleasant story, though admirably well told." Baltimore 
 Sun. 
 
 " ' The Valley of the Squinting Windows ' is an epic of 
 meaning, an interesting piece of pessimistic realism, Hardy- 
 esque in effect." The Dial. 
 
 "No one can afford to miss 'The Valley of the Squinting 
 Windows.' It is the best novel of Irish life since Patrick 
 McGill's ' The Rat-Pit.' "New York Evening Globe. 
 
 " ' The Valley of the Squinting Windows ' approaches the 
 work of Synge in its haunting artistry of matter. It is a 
 gray, hard book in matter ^which is curiously warm and colorful 
 in manner." Chicago Tribune.
 
 
 ,.liS.f?. U ..lRN__REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 746 057 9