"Well, Michael, would home rule mean Rome rule?"
"Sure it would. Isn't the pope the head of the church?"
Ireland seems to be a house divided against itself.
I like the father of the family very much. We'll say he comes from the south of Ireland and is a Catholic. He's a witty man, a hospitable man, a cheery man, but won't speak to his oldest son, because he's a Belfast Unionist and believes in letting well enough alone.
Lost in His Lunch, Mallow, County Kerry
Now the eldest son is a delightful fellow. A little more reserved than his southern father, but just as hospitable, just as cheery—almost as witty. The mother is a Sinn Feiner, an idealist of the idealists. She believes that Irishmen ought to withdraw from Parliament. She urges her son, who is in Parliament, to resign, to boycott England, to get his brother members of Parliament to come home and form a National Council in Dublin. She doesn't believe in war, but she hates England with an animosity that is positively amusing to one whose forbears fought England and had done with the fight long ago. She won't speak to her daughter, who believes in working for home rule in season and out of season in London.
The mother is witty and cheery, and, oh, so hospitable, but when I visit the daughter I don't mention the old lady to her, for in spite of the ingrained love for parents that is almost as strong in an Irishman as it is in a Chinaman, she says very sharp things about her unpractical mother. But when we leave politics alone, she is cheery and witty, and always as hospitable as she can be.
Now, if by means of arousing a truly national spirit (and the Gaelic League is going about it in the right way) this family of witty and cheery and hospitable people can be induced to sink minor differences and act together they'll get what they want—whatever that is. And then won't they be the happy family?
And I'm sure I do hope with all my heart that they'll get it.