The Kingstown Railway was also interesting in another respect, as illustrating the opposition which confronted railways in those early days. There was a Mr. Thomas Michael Gresham, who was the owner of the well-known Gresham Hotel in Dublin, and largely interested in house property in Kingstown--Gresham Terrace there is called after him. He organised a successful opposition to the Dublin and Kingstown Railway being allowed--though authorised by Parliament--to go into Kingstown, and its terminus was for some years Salthill Station (Monkstown) a mile away. Mr. Gresham's action was so highly appreciated--incredible as it now appears--that he was presented with a testimonial and a piece of plate for his "_spirited and patriotic action_." I have adorned this book with a photograph of the salver which, with the inscription it bears, will I think, in these days, be not uninteresting. The year 1911 was darkened for me by the shadow of death. During its course I lost my wife, who succumbed to an illness which had lasted for several years, an illness accompanied with much pain and suffering borne with great courage and endurance. CHAPTER XXX. FROM MANAGER TO DIRECTOR I had long cherished the hope that when, in the course of time, I sought to retire from the active duties of railway management, I might, perhaps, be promoted to a seat on the Board of the Company. Presumptuous though the thought may have been, I had the justification that it was not discouraged by some of my Directors, to whom, in the intimacy of after dinner talk, I sometimes broached the subject. But I little imagined the change would come as soon as it did. I had fancied that my managerial activities would continue until I attained the usual age for retirement--three score years and five. On this I had more or less reckoned, but "_There's a divinity that shapes our ends_ _Rough hew them how we will_,"