folks
pointed out that while Clew Bay, and particularly the nook of it
called Mulranney Bay, was literally alive with fish, the starving
peasants of the neighbourhood could do nothing for want of a pier. The
brutal Saxon built one at once--a fine handsome structure, at once a
pier, a breakwater, and a harbour, with boat-slips and three stages
with steps, so that boats could be used at any tide. I stepped this
massive and costly piece of masonry, and judged it to be a hundred
yards long. There were six great mooring posts, but not a boat in
sight, nor any trace of fishing operations. A broad new road to the
pier was cut and metalled, but no one uses it. The fishing village of
Mulranney, with its perfect appointments, would not in twelve months
furnish you with one poor herring. The pier of Killybegs would
probably be just as useful to the neighbourhood.

The Dublin Nationalist prints make some show of fight, but the people
heed them not. They know too well that their inward conviction that
Home Rule is for the present defunct is founded on rock. In vain the
party writers use the whip. Your Irishman is cute enough to know when
he is beaten. The new-born regard of the Irish press for Parliamentary
purity is comical enough. Obstruction is the thing they hate.
Ungentlemanly conduct in the House stinks in their nostrils. Fair play
is their delight, and underhand dealing they particularly abhor. Mr.
Gladstone is too lenient, and although his failings lean to virtue's
side, his action is too oily altogether. He is old and weak, and
lubricates too much. They in effect accuse him of fatty degeneration
of the brain. Something heroic must be done. Those low-bred ruffians,
the Unionists, must be swept from the path of Erin, while her eloquent
sons, actuated by patriotism and six pounds a week, and spurred on by
the hope of even a larger salary, obtain after seven centuries some
show of justice to Ireland. The Irish wire-pullers demand decisive
action. They declare that they will no longer submit to the
"happy-go-lucky policy of the gentlemen who survey life from the
Ministerial benches." They must "put themselves in fighting form and
show their supporters that they mean business." "Unless the Ministry
mean to throw up the sponge they had better begin the fighting at
once." The Irish party "are looking for the action of the Government
which is to make it evident to the Opposition that the majority mean
to rule in the House of Commo