Entering from Marlboro’ Street, and viewing the tastefully decorated and furnished vestibule of the Abbey Theatre, one finds it hard to realise that here, less than thirty years ago, stood the City Morgue, as drab and as gruesome a chamber as could be found in any capital in Europe.
 Divided from the Morgue by a single wall was the Mechanics’ Theatre, one-time Mecca of all who aspired to democratic culture and progress, equipped with what were in those days the most popular reading-rooms and library in the city.
 Thither our fathers brought us on a Sunday morning and pointed out elderly men once prominent in stormy times long past; now, perhaps quietly browsing through the columns of forgotten periodicals, where once their names loomed large ... they, too, also forgotten.
 But the dawn of the new century saw the wheels of progress quickening in their revolutions, and such things as Mechanics’ Institutes and quiet elderly men had to take themselves off into the shades and make way for a mighty change in the lives and conditions of men, which was an improvement perhaps-- perhaps not. Be it so. [34]
 The Mechanics’ Institute, in the auspicious hall of which Mitchel, Meagher, Doheny and the rest debated the pros and cons of revolution away back in ’48, had deteriorated step by step, finding an inglorious finale as ‘the twopenny rendezvous of the submerged tenth where, amid the reek of cheap tobacco and ribald jokes, a lady in tawdry tinsel pathetically appealed to her grimy and not very attentive audience to join in the chorus. And in the next apartment, on slabs of stone, lay the waifs and strays of life, garnered from river and laneway, who had “ceased from troubling”, forgotten by all save God.
 Yet amid such grim and uninspiring surroundings was launched the most widely discussed and probably the most successful theatre experiment of modern times.
 Taking over of the Mechanics’ Theatre wherein to evolve a national dramatic renaissance seemed at the time to be something akin to the valiant knight who went forth tilting at windmills. Many men and women have given their genius, their time and their scanty means to make the Abbey what it is to-day; but when the history of the theatre comes to be written, the names of Frank and Willie Fay will head the roll of honour.
 These two men, with barely the means to live, but amply endowed with practical enthusiasm, brought the infant experiment through debt and danger and the stress of circumstances; contending against cynical indifference and unreasoning opposition, succeeding, ere severing their connections, in steering the fragile craft through its initial storms and anchoring it safe and sound in the harbour which gave every hope of future success and prosperity.
 They were ably assisted to an extent undreamt of by [35] Abbey admirers - by Sean Barlow, whose craftsmanship and inventive genius, called forth, by the difficulties to be surmounted, were a revelation even to those who knew him intimately for years before. A quarter of a century has elapsed and Sean is still on, the muster roll of the Abbey. Saoghal fada cuige!
 Let those who are familiar with the Abbey Theatre today try to realise it as it was for a considerable time after its inception. Where the splendid Marlboro’ Street entrance now leads into the stalls, the Morgue still functioned-, inside, an auditorium riu dreary and undecorated; a stage lacking in every essential, scanty dresslingroorn accommodation; no Green, , Rocco, Scene Dock or Paint Loft. Willie Fay making shift to paint a cloth one side of the stage, or up aloft in the improvised flies. Sean Barlow in the cramped space under the stage making papier maché shields and jabbing liquid bronze on the points of wooden spears, with which in an hour or so the heroes of the Fianna would strut the boards.
 In the forenoon a group of young men and women would be found on the stage, while out in the artificial twilight of the house the dim figure of Frank Fay would be seen, seated, book in hand, while his clear, melodious voice would be heard as he toiled patiently through the daily grind of voice production and elocution.
 Patience! If ever a human being had succeeded in acquiring that virtue it was Frank Fay. Clever as most of his pupils must have been, nevertheless they owe their position today to the painstaking labours of their first teacher.
 Out of what sort of material did Fay build his company? The stage has always had a peculiar fascination for people with money to bum - people who will gladly pay even for the privilege of “walking on,” and who, [36] need not bother whether “the ghost walks” or not. The Abbey had its share of such people who, apart from their worldly wealth, if they showed any ability got. their chance in common with many others who were obsessed with the idea that they were born to shine in the theatrical firmament.
 The fully attested results are illuminating. Not one! of those who achieved lasting fame as Abbey Players, but was of the working class. Sara Allgood, Máire O’Neill, Maire Nic Shiubhlaigh, Arthur Sinclair, J.. M. Kerrigan, Joe O’Rourke, Sydney Morgan, Fred O’Donovan and others of the original Company left workshops. and desks, risking their means of livelihood for what at the time appeared to be a forlorn hope. And the circumstances in which they made their initial effort needed the most indomnitable [sic] determination to see it through.
 It was a pet joke of Willie Fay to count the audience and volunteer the information that “the ghost may walk this week,” and the vigorous hand-clapping of an individual in an empty house would often cause the players. to miss their cues.
 In spite of many rebuffs and disappointments the movement progressed, a regular audience being built up, the players improving day by day, and the splendid repertoire of plays accumulating from unexpected sources. But in Ireland a cause never seems to succeed until’ it meets with palpable opposition, because in Ireland apathy kills and opposition supplies the necessary incentive for ultimate success.
 For the Abbey Theatre the first definite clash came when Arthur Griffith, in the columns of the United Irishman, made a fierce attack on Synge’s In The Shadow of the Glen. The origin of the attack was, and still is, obscure [37]; but it seems to point more to a personal issue between Griffith and W. B. Yeats - who had been a contributor to Griffith’s paper - than to anything else. But at that time Griffith was very popular and, through the United Irishman, wielded an immense influence over the growing number of young nationalists who in most things were prepared to accept his verdict as final.
 Anyhow, the controversy that raged round the Shadow of the Glen started a prejudice against the Abbey which came to a head when semi-organised attacks were launched against Synge’s famous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World when it was first produced there in 1907 (St. Stephen’s Day). Riots broke out in the Theatre, and pandemonium reigned supreme whilst the unfortunate actors mouthed their lines.
 On the second night of the play W. B. Yeats strode on to the stage a proud, defiant, commanding figure. He was greeted by prolonged cat-calls and derisive jeers from a howling mob lost to all sense of reason and balance; ce; Mitchel’s “bellowing slaves and genteel Bastards” incarnate, foaming at the mouth in manufactured impotent rage - the Gaelic League well represented in suits of Donegal tweed. Yeats literally stared the obstreperous audience out of countenance, hypnotised them into hushed silence, that was like a sudden calm in a tempest, a flash of lightning preceding thunder.
 “I have never been taught to bend the knee,” said the poet-dramatist, a lock of hair falling over the broad forehead, the shoulders thrown back, the strong chin jutting forward, the pugnacious mouth, the proud defiant eye. “I have never been taught to bend the knee and, please God, I never shall. As long as there are people who want to see this play, they will see it in spite of all opposition.” [38]
 Nine-tenths of the young men who thronged the Abbey Theatre for the first time in their lives to raise a shindy - a pastime dearly loved by all healthy young, men - eventually became loyal and regular supporters of the Theatre. The Playboy is now universally recognised as a masterpiece.
 Such was the necessary opposition which, combined` with the opportune financial support from Miss Horniman, definitely established the Abbey on a secure basis and started it forth on its career towards world-wide fame. [End of chap.]

Writers of history might be roughly classified as hero-worshippers, debunkers or parents of scapegots. [...] Still, when we have finished the latest thriller can turn to Macaulay’s six volumes of History and revel in the feat of a master of language proving how easy it is to bamboozle people [...] The least of Macaulay’s sins was elaborate misquotation. He went muchfurther than that: he gave page and date for documents that never existed! [...; p.74]
 Macaulay based his history on documents that did not exist. Shall the Irish historian of the future accept as contemporary evidence the stuff that has appeared as history in this country since 1916? Or, on the other hand, is it possible to tell the whole truth about contemporary events while many of the participants are still living?
 The play Hamlet would be a poor affair without the Prince of Denmark. Now, as the Dane is to the play the Irish Republican Brotherhood has been to the Irish National Movement from the hour of its foundation in Denzille Street (now Fenian Street) on St. Patrick’s Day, 1859, until it ceased to exist, so far as the writer knows, early in 1922. [...; 77]
 Writers - and there have been many - who described the Land War as having been waged by men and women “converted to, Parliamentary methods” are either fools or knaves. There was always the higher, older objective. In the midst of the turmoil a handful of Fenians came together in Thanes and, with the vision of alien rule in their hearts, founded the Gaelic Athletic Association - the strongest, amateur sports organisation in the world.
 John Morley tells us in his Life of Gladstone how perturbed that saintly old spider and his colleagues were for a time by the implications of that simple gathering - more, so than by all the operations of the Land League.
 The end of the ’eighties saw the close of the physical struggle for the land. Whether the outcome has been “the land for the people” or the apotheosis of a rancher and grazier need not be discussed here. But it is a curious fact that, within the memory of living men, there were almost as many cabins levelled and small farms “consolidated” as a result of the challenge to landlord [77] rule as there were a generation before under the Encumbered Estates Act.
 1890 found the Irish Land Question forced into the foreground of British politics, but it also found the Irish Republican Brotherhood shattered and frittered away —almost save for:

 No “Union of Hearts” about that! But, if some of the old men looked askance at the new movement for the revival of the language, who can blame them? A certain type of writer while stressing this attitude omits to point out that the young men and women who gave necessary impetus to what was to become a race movement were wholly and solely inspired by republican principles. Such names as Ethna Carberry [sic], Alice Milligan and William Rooney are few amongst many to attest the fact.
 Preparations to celebrate the Centenary of 1798 and the celebrations themselves saw a considerable revival of national enthusiasm. Then far-seeing men, realising the inevitable reaction when the band-playing and flag-waving were over, seized the opportunity to gather the broken threads of the I.R.B. and initiate a second reorganisation.
 While doing this they were forced to contemplate, in bitter inactivity, the old enemy sending every available man to the South African War, leaving Ireland denuded of troops and the long watched-for opportunity pass w.thout a blow by an unarmed and unorganised people.
What a depth of bitterness there was in John Francis Taylor’s remark to Arthur Griffith: “We are the first generation since the landing of Strongbow to pass away without an armed denial of England’s right to rule us”
 There was one redeeming gleam when John Mac-Bride and a few I.R.B. comrades formed the Irish Brigade to help the Boers and to remind England that “the Irish still remained”
 Recruiting for the resurgent Fenian Organisation went ahead slowly and cautiously. The movement for the saving of the Language, the promotion of nation-building and the fostering of self-reliance were generally arousing the sympathy and imagination of the young and giving a new life to many splendid survivors of the old organisation.
[...] (pp.77-79.)

Railway Street, formerly Tyrone Street, formerly Mecklenburgh Street, was, as we have said earlier, once the centre of the most infamous district in Dublin. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition) it is described as the most notorious street in Europe! It was a district of brothels, brawls, robberies and murder. Only one writer has wholly succeeded in recapturing the milieu, and that only at a particular period: James Joyce in Ulysses.
 Here in the seventies, eighties and nineties of the last century in the flashy Georgian houses, behind exquisite Limerick lace hangings, sat madam in her typically Victorian parlour, ponderous of posterior, ample of bosom, malodorous of perfume, and retailing tobacco and neat whiskey at five shillings a glass to her customers (it was threepence in the pub!).
 She belched with over-eating and was forever bothered with heartburn; her corrugated neck was cemented and repaired with cheap powder, her button-like nose was dilated like a dog in rut; and her small beady eyes shone in the gloom, creating the illusion that she had the faculty of seeing in the dark.
 She cackled like a hen when she was pleased, but her anger could be devastating. She controlled her customers [151] and her girls with facile yet (when the need arose) ruthless efficiency.
 Madam’s card was sent discreetly to the various city barracks on the arrival of a new regiment. Young British Army officers experienced the thrill of riding the crazy jaunting-car provided by her, clinging two aside, precariously, to the rails whilst they sped down Talbot Street. The ancient jarvey, as impassive as a sphinx, sat on his seat aloft and aloof. Pedestrians looked askance or ignored the cavalcade.
 Punchestown or Fairyhouse Races Week brought a spate of jovial summer visitors in Derby and boater, and they drove to the brothels in open carriages. Country business men and gentlemen farmers, tipsy and jealous of their “good name,” came in closed cabs when darkness had fallen. Soldiers strolled into the district in twos, three and droves to seek their fleeting pleasures.
 The half-circular fanlights of the flashy houses on one side of the street bore the names of the various madams: May Oblong, Mrs. Hayes, Mrs. Sheppard, Mrs. Mack. The gilded lilies of the “village” issued forth to take the air, brazenly bedecked with feathered hats, rouged lips and cheeks, boas and parasols, and puffing cigarettes. But no one dared offend the strict proprieties of the district - the unwritten law that no contact, social or otherwise, must be made with those living in the respectable residences on the opposite side of the street.
 At the period of which Joyce wrote, “The Digs” had lost its glamour and was in decline. At the beginning of this century the gilded ladies, many of them as beautiful as music-hall actresses and as elegantly dressed, lolled outside the halldoors and studiously ignored their neighbours.
 But soon the flashy houses were gone and stood forbiddingly [152] forlorn and apart. And later when the Corporation flats were built whole streets were swept away. The prostitutes were driven into the back rooms and alleys. A bad odour still clung to the district, and the now furtive bad girls continued to be protected and bullied by the pimp and harassed by the police.
 Stories were told in hushed voices of plunder and robbery with and without violence, of drunken orgies in shebeens, of quarrelling and even murder. And the, strange thing about this fabulous district is that the true story of it is even more fantastic than what rumour had ascribed to it.
 Phil Shanahan’s pub was located in the district, at No.. 134 Foley (formerly Montgomery) Street; it is now a dairy. Little has been written about the area due, no doubt, to feelings of delicacy because of its notorious reputation. But this silence has meant that scant justice had been done to an untiring, unselfish patriot: Phil Shanahan from the Tipperary of Charles J. Kirkham and the redoubtable heroes of the Anglo-Irish War, Sean Treacy and Dan Breen - Tipperary that gave us Matt the Thresher and Phil Lahy and the homes of Knocknagow.
 Shanahan’s pub was the rendezvous of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Republican Army. In the drawingroom over the shop important military decisions were made. Phil subscribed generously to the national movement and, out of his own pocket, bought arms and ammunition; his premises, too, were a receiving depot and a sanctuary for men on the run. ’Breen and Treacy stopped here occasionally. Michael Collins and other high-ranking officers were his friends and confidants. Peadar Kearney and Pádraic Ó Conaire, the Gaelic [153] writer, were among his friends and acquaintances.
 Phil was elected as a Sinn Féin candidate in the General Election of 1918. He scored a decisive victory over Alfred Byrne; this was the only electoral defeat the latter sustained in his long political career. [...]

[De Burca goes on to narrate a Black and Tan raid; also Kearney’s feat in carrying a rifle and ammunition rolled up in wallpaper through Auxiliary checkpoints from the premisses where he worked at Bolands’ Printing Works, Upr. Dorset St., to Shanahan’s pub; also further narratives of Dan Breen and Sean Tracy - in honour of whom Kearney wrote a poem in Ballykinlar in 1921; the intervention of Cosgrave in the matter of his confiscated licence, Ó Cearnaigh having remained a Republican after the Treaty; the rescue of Shanahan from starvation by Martin Walton of the Frederick Street music shop; events of Bloody Sunday; arrests and deaths in Dublin Castle.]