s and scoffers was
being created, and even if the idealists, who are always to be found in
large number in Ireland, still remained unconquerable in their faith
that a resurgent and regenerated Ireland must arise some time, and
somehow, they were remarkably silent in the expression of their
convictions. Mr William O'Brien thus describes the unspeakable depths to
which the Party had fallen in those days:

"The invariable last word to all our consultations was the pathetic
one, 'Give me a fund and I see my way to doing anything.' And so we
had travelled drearily for years in the vicious circle that there
could be no creative energy in the Party without funds, and that there
could be no possibility for funds for a party thus ingloriously
inactive. Although myself removed from Parliament my aid had been
constantly invoked by Mr Dillon on the eve of any important meeting of
the Party in London, or of the Council of the National Federation in
Dublin, for there was not one of them that was not haunted by the
anticipation of some surprise from Mr Healy's fertile ingenuity. There
is an unutterable discomfort in the recollections of the invariable
course of procedure on these occasions--first, the dozens of
beseeching letters to be written to our friends, imploring their
attendance at meetings at which, if Mr Healy found us in full
strength, all was uneventful and they had an expensive journey for
their pains; next, the consultations far into the night preceding
every trial of strength; the painful ticking off, man by man, of the
friends, foes, and doubtfuls on the Party list, the careful collection
of information as to the latest frame of mind of this or that man of
the four or five waverers who might turn the scale; the resolution,
after endless debates, to take strong action to force the Party to a
manful choice at long last between Mr Dillon and his tormentors, and
to give somebody or anybody authority enough to effect something; and
then almost invariably the next day the discovery that all the labour
had been wasted and the strong action resolved upon had been dropped
in deference to some drivelling hesitation of some of the four or five
doubtfuls who had become _de facto_ the real leaders of the
Party."

I venture to say that a confession of more amazing impotency,
indecision and inefficiency it would be impossible to make. It brings
before the mind as nothing else could the utter degradation of a Party
which only a few