The others in the class learned quickly and worked very hard. Stephen found it very [hard] troublesome to pronounce the gutturals but he did the best he could. The class was very serious and patriotic. The only time Stephen found it inclined to levity was at the lesson which introduced the word ‘gradh.’ The three young women laughed and the two stupid young men laughed, finding something very funny in the Irish word for ‘love’ or perhaps in the notion itself. But Mr Hughes and the other three young men and Stephen were all very grave. When the excitement of the word had passed Stephen’s attention was attracted to the younger of the stupid young men who was still blushing violently. His blush continued for such a long time that Stephen began to feel nervous. « The young man grew more and more confused and what was worst was that he was making all this confusion for himself for no-one in the class but Stephen seemed to have noticed him. He continued so till the end of the hour never once daring to raise his eyes from his book and when he had occasion to use his handkerchief he did so stealthily with his left hand. »

The meetings on Friday nights were public and were largely patronised by priests. The organisers brought in reports from different districts and the priests made speeches of exhortation. Two young men would then be called on for songs in Irish and when it was time for the whole company to break up all would rise and sing the Rallying-Song. The young women would then begin to chatter while their cavaliers helped them into their jackets. A very stout black-bearded citizen who always wore a wideawake hat and a long bright green muffler was a constant figure at these meetings.* When the company was going home he was usually to be seen surrounded by a circle of young men who looked very meagre about his bulk. He had the voice of an ox and he could be heard at a great distance, criticising, denouncing and scoffing. His circle was the separatist centre and in it reigned the irreconcilable temper. It had its headquarters in Cooney’s tobacco-shop where the members sat every evening in the ‘Divan’ talking Irish loudly and smoking churchwardens. To this circle Madden who was the captain of a club of hurley-players reported the muscular condition of the young irreconcilables under his charge and the editor of the weekly journal of the irreconcilable party † reported any signs of Philocelticism which he had observed in the Paris newspapers.

By all this society liberty was held to be the chief desirable; the members of it were fierce democrats. The liberty they desired for themselves was mainly a liberty of costume and vocabulary: and Stephen could hardly understand how such a poor scarecrow of liberty could bring [to their] serious human beings to their knees in worship. As in the Daniels’ household he had seen people playing at being important so here he saw people playing at being free. He saw that many political absurdities arose from the lack of a just sense of comparison in public men. The orators of this patriotic party were not ashamed to cite the precedents of Switzerland and France. The intelligent centres of the movement were so scantily supplied that the analogies they gave out as exact and potent were really analogies built haphazard upon very inexact knowledge. The cry of a solitary Frenchman (A bas l’Angleterre!) at a Celtic re-union in Paris would be made by these enthusiasts the subject of a leading article in which would be shown the imminence of aid for Ireland from the French Government. A glowing example was to be found for Ireland in the case of Hungary, an example, as these patriots imagined, of a long-suffering minority, entitled by every right of race and justice to a separate freedom, finally emancipating itself. In emulation of that achievement bodies of young Gaels conflicted murderously in the Phoenix Park with whacking hurley-sticks, thrice armed in their just quarrel since their revolution had been blessed for them by the Anointed, and the same bodies were set aflame with indignation [at] by the unwelcome presence of any young sceptic who was aware of the capable aggressions of the Magyars upon the Latin and Slav and Teutonic populations, greater than themselves in number, which are politically allied to them, and of the potency of a single regiment of infantry to hold in check a town of twenty thousand inhabitants.

Stephen said one day to Madden:

— I suppose these hurley-matches and walking tours are preparations for the great event.

— There is more going on in Ireland at present than you are aware of.

— But what use are camàns? *

— Well, you see, we want to raise the physique of the country.

Stephen meditated for a moment and then he said:

— It seems to me that the English Government is very good to you in this matter.

— How is that may I ask?

— The English Government will take you every summer in batches to different militia camps, train you to the use of modern weapons, drill you, feed you and pay you and then send you home again when the manoeuvres are over.

— Well?

— Wouldn’t that be better for your young men than hurley-practice in the Park?

— Do you mean to say you want young Gaelic Leaguers to wear the redcoat and take an oath of allegiance to the Queen and take her shilling too?

— Look at your friend, Hughes.

— What about him?

— One of these days he will be a barrister, a Q.C., perhaps a judge — and yet he sneers at the Parliamentary Party because they take an oath of allegiance.

— Law is law all the world over — there must be someone to administer it, particularly here, where the people have no friends in Court.

— Bullets are bullets, too. I do not quite follow the distinction you make between administering English law and administering English bullets: there is the same oath of allegiance for both professions.

— Anyhow it is better for a man to follow a line of life which civilisation regards as humane. Better be a barrister than a redcoat.

— You consider the profession of arms a disreputable one. Why then have you Sarsfield Clubs, Hugh O’Neill Clubs, Red Hugh Clubs? *

— O, fighting for freedom is different. But it is quite another matter to take service meanly under your tyrant, to make yourself his slave.

—And, tell me, how many of your Gaelic Leaguers are studying for the Second Division and looking for advancement in the Civil Service?

— That’s different. They are only civil servants: they’re not …

— Civil be damned! They are pledged to the Government, and paid by the Government.

— O, well, of course if you like to look at it that way …

— And how many relatives of Gaelic Leaguers are in the police and the constabulary? Even I know nearly ten of your friends [that] who are sons of Police inspectors.

— It is unfair to accuse a man because his father was so-and-so.