Domestic fiction; Ireland -- Fiction; Land tenure -- Fiction; Landlord and tenant -- Fiction; Landowners -- Fiction
It was on the eleventh morning of the proceedings, on the day on which
the defence of the traversers was to be commenced, that two young men,
who had been standing for a couple of hours in front of the doors of
the Court, were still waiting there, with what patience was left to
them, after having been pressed and jostled for so long a time. Richard
Lalor Sheil, however, was to address the jury on behalf of Mr John
O’Connell—and every one in Dublin knew that that was a treat not to be
lost. The two young men, too, were violent Repealers. The elder of them
was a three-year-old denizen of Dublin, who knew the names of the
contributors to the “Nation”, who had constantly listened to the
indignation and enthusiasm of O’Connell, Smith O’Brien, and O’Neill
Daunt, in their addresses from the rostrum of the Conciliation Hall
[7]; who had drank much porter at Jude’s, who had eaten many oysters at
Burton Bindon’s, who had seen and contributed to many rows in the Abbey
Street Theatre; who, during his life in Dublin, had done many things
which he ought not to have done, and had probably made as many
omissions of things which it had behoved him to do. He had that
knowledge of the persons of his fellow-citizens, which appears to be so
much more general in Dublin than in any other large town; he could tell
you the name and trade of every one he met in the streets, and was a
judge of the character and talents of all whose employments partook, in
any degree, of a public nature. His name was Kelly; and, as his calling
was that of an attorney’s clerk, his knowledge of character would be
peculiarly valuable in the scene at which he and his companion were so
anxious to be present.
The younger of the two brothers, for such they were, was a somewhat
different character. Though perhaps a more enthusiastic Repealer than
his brother, he was not so well versed in the details of Repeal
tactics, or in the strength and weakness of the Repeal ranks. He was a
young farmer, of the better class, from the County Mayo, where he held
three or four hundred wretchedly bad acres under Lord Ballindine, and
one or two other small farms, under different landlords. He was a
good-looking young fellow, about twenty-five years of age, with that
mixture of cunning and frankness in his bright eye, which is so common
among those of his class in Ireland, but more especially so in
Connaught.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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