Peter Doyle, forty-three years old. A journeyman. A Presbyterian. Can’t find work at home; therefore emigrates. Was employed on railway construction, county Clare. Has been turned away, the line being completed and open to travellers. Had come to Cork in the hope of getting work, but found only insignificant jobs. Packed to Melbourne.
Dennis O’Rourke, twenty-nine years old; of Enniscorthy, Wexford. An engine-maker; belongs to a class of which I had as yet met no specimen in Ireland, the workman-politician. Has already emigrated to the United States, where he spent three years. Wished to see his country again, and tried to set up a business on a small scale, first in Dublin, then at Cork; but it does not pay. Goes back to New York.
“Do you know why? I am going to tell you. (Fiercely) I am going because this country is rotten to the core! Because it has no spirit left, not even that of rebellion! I am going because I will no longer bear on my back the weight of dukes and peers, of Queen, Prince of Wales, Royal family, and the whole lot of them! I am going where you can work and be free; where a man is worth another when he has got in his pocket two dollars honestly earned. That is where I go, and why I go.”
“In short, you make England responsible for your misfortunes?”
“England be damned!”
It is O’Connell’s word. He was travelling in France, towards St. Omer, and found himself inside the mail-coach with an old officer of the first Empire who began forthwith to talk against the English. The great Irish agitator kept silent.
“Don’t you hear me?” the other said at last, insolently.
“I beg your pardon, I hear you perfectly well.”
“And you don’t mind my treating your country as I do?”
“England is not my country; I hate it more than you will ever do.”