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saved Ireland, he was the one. And you didn't meet him?`
    `No.` The word came sharp, definite.
    Òh, then you never heard him speak, which is a great pity. He was a great orator; he kept your men in London on their toes. Great many stupid men up there. And your Gladstone is a ditherer, a ditherer. You have nothing like the Land League here, have you?`
    The answer to this came sharply: `No, thank God, else they would be out to destroy us as they are destroying Ireland.`
    `Destroying Ireland? Listen to him!Ìt was Brian shouting now. `Just listen to him, destroying Ireland.
    You can't destroy a thing twice, man. You've already killed it, or nearly. You do know, don't you, that you did away with half a 39 million? Starved them to death. Aye, starved them to death with your bloody corn laws.`
    `Nonsense! Nonsense! Even the child knows it was the potato famine.`
    Àye, but what followed the potato famine? Migration to America. And what happened when they got there? They were so depleted they died by the hundreds.`
    `Look, Brian, this is not a political meeting. It is a get-together prior to a wedding. Isn't that so, dear?`
    Hector had turned to Moira.
    For once Moira did not make a laughing reply but she said somewhat quietly, `Yes, that was the idea, Hector, and I must apologise for my lot.`
    `Begod! you'll not apologise for me, our Moira. And what's come over you, anyway? there was nobody stauncher than yourself. It was you that boycotted Jimmy Bradley first, wasn't it, following Parnell's advice to every decent Catholic.` He now turned his gaze on Hector, saying, `The bloody landlord turned Davey Sheenan and his family out of his farm, on
    to the road he put them. And there was Jimmy Bradley ready to go in. But we fixed him: the cattle got no water and he couldn't buy in the market, nor sell. He's going to emigrate now an' all, God's curse on him.`
    `There was a law made, I understood, that eviction had to stop. I mean--` said Hector stiffly, only to be interrupted by the old man letting out a great, `Huh!òf a laugh, saying, Àh, Hector, boy, there's one law for the English and one for the Irish, that is the Irish farmers and peasants. But there's another law for the Irish Protestants; always has been. But their time's running out: the door of Home Rule is ajar and one of these days it'll be thrust open, blown open in places, oh aye, blown open, literally I mean, if you get my meaning.`
    `Dada! Dada! Be quiet. You know that's only talk. Been talk for a long time.`
    `Talk, daughter? You haven't been here in this land but days, and you're telling your Dada to be quiet, and that it's only talk. And you whose belly has gone hungry like the rest of us. You live in a castle, people say. My God! I'd change it for a good cow byre any day.`
    `That isn't true, Sean.` 41
    `Perhaps not, Kathleen.` The old man's voice was soft now and he nodded at his wife, saying, `We're all at sixes and sevens. I never wanted to come; you know that`--he turned from her and now looked straight at Hector, who was standing stiffly before the fireplace--`because this is a kind of wedding that's never been in our family. Not in my time or my father's or our fathers' before him, but, Protestant that you are, you're still of our line. Why wouldn't you talk to the priest?`
    Òh, we've been through all this over and over. And what difference would it make, anyway?`
    `None to you, seemingly, but, to her--she knows she should be married in church.`
    `Well, what was to stop her marrying me in a Protestant church? but you wouldn't have that, would you?
    So it's the registry office. Anyway--` Hector shook his head vigorously now and his voice was loud as he said, `We've been through all this. When I was with you last I told you what I had decided and I left it to her. It was up to her.`
    `No good'll come of it.Ìt was Brian's wife speaking again in her thin high voice. Ànd as I said, before we put foot on that boat ...`
    Her voice was cut by the old woman now turning