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Updated: June 25, 2025
Twice a week, he taught the rudiments of the Irish language to a mixed class of boys and girls, and every Saturday he led the Ballymartin hurley team into one of Mr. Quinn's fields.... There had been difficulty in establishing the mixed classes.
He settled his affairs with his solicitors, and then returned to Ballymartin; but before he did so, he spent an evening with John Marsh, whom he found still keenly drilling. "But why are you drilling now?" he asked. "This hardly seems the time to be playing at soldiers, John!" "I'm not playing, Henry. I am a soldier!" It was difficult to remember how many armies there were in Ireland.
It seemed impossible to persuade them to behave reasonably. Fixed and immovable in their minds was this belief that England would use them in her need ... and then betray them when her need was satisfied. He went back to Ballymartin and corrected his proofs. "I'll go over to England next week," he said to himself when he had revised the final proofs and posted them to his publishers. Mrs.
Matt Hamilton had died soon after Henry had entered Trinity, but Mrs. Hamilton still had the farm which, people understood, was to be left to Sheila when her aunt died. He had not cared to go to the farm ... a mixture of pride and shyness prevented him from doing so ... but he had hoped to meet her on the roads about Ballymartin.
Then he took his hands from her shoulders and drew her into the shelter of his arms, and kissed her, letting his lips lie long on hers. "What do you want to tell me?" she said in a whisper. Then he told her. "I wrote to you when I was at Ballymartin," he said, "but I did not post the letter. I brought it with me.
But Marsh overcame that difficulty, as he overcame most of his difficulties, by persistent attack; and in the end, the Gaelic class was established, and the Ballymartin boys and girls were set to the study of O'Growney's primer. Henry was employed as Marsh's monitor. His duty was to supervise the elementary pupils, leaving the more advanced ones to the care of Marsh.
He was more tolerant now than he had been in the days when he had tutored Henry at Ballymartin. He admitted that the Sinn Feiners were widely unpopular. There were many reasons why they should be. Dublin was full of men and women mourning for their sons who had died at Suvla Bay ... and were in no mood for rebellion. "The war's popular in the Combe," he said.
Sheila Morgan did not know any of the ancient Gaelic dances, nor did any one in Ballymartin. She knew how to waltz and she could dance the polka and the schottishe. "An' that's all you need!" she said. There were two old women in the village who danced a double reel, and Paddy Kane was a great lad at jigs.... "Perhaps later on," Marsh said, "we can get some one to teach them Gaelic dances!"
"Well, when we've made Ireland a nation," said Henry, chaffing him, "we'll make you Provost of Trinity!" and Galway, though he knew that Henry was jesting, smiled with pleasure. "When Ireland is a nation!" Marsh murmured dreamily. It was extraordinary, Henry thought, how little at home he had felt in Dublin. He had the feel of Ballymartin in his bones. He had kinship with the people in Belfast.
Quinn, too tired to continue, sent Henry and Marsh from his room. "Take him away an' talk to him, Henry!" he said. "He'll not be happy 'til he's in bother, that lad. Away on with you, John!..." It was while John Marsh was at Ballymartin, that the mutiny at the Curragh Camp took place. The soldiers had been ordered to Ulster to maintain order ... and their officers had refused to go.
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