In 1908 he translated M. Dubois’ Contemporary Ireland, and wrote an introduction, which established his literary reputation.
At the general election in 1910 my husband increased his majority of sixteen to one of one hundred and eighteen. Mr. Shane Leslie, who gave him valuable help in this election, wrote thus—
“Kettle was the most delightful of platform speakers, and his witticisms and lyrical turns of speech made the election one long intellectual treat. He could turn over weighty questions of economics or of international policy with an ease that struck home to the peasant mind.... At one spot, I remember, he was greeted by a poverty-stricken populace, who had improvised a mountain band and crude home-made torches of turf and paraffin. Kettle immediately said: ‘Friends, you have met us with God’s two best gifts to man—fire and music.’ It was as instantaneous as graceful.” Having had such a hard fight, he loved his constituency as if it were a human thing. The issues fought in East Tyrone, as in all northern constituencies, were not the issues raised in ordinary Nationalist politics. In the North, religion is the predominant colour; it is the Catholic Green against the Protestant Orange. I say guardedly, predominant; of course there is the great issue—Home Rule v. Unionism. But the conspicuous place religion took struck a Dubliner as something quite extraordinary. I remember one amusing incident of the election, which my husband often cited as typical. Our motor-car broke down, and while repairs were in progress a small boy was an interested spectator. When all was in order again and we were about to start, the boy looked wistfully at us—at least as wistfully as a northern boy can: they are not demonstrative except on the Twelfth of July. My husband interpreting the look, invited him for a drive. He accepted, and as my husband set him down after his spin the boy lifted his cap and said: “Thank you, Mr. Kettle, I am much obliged. To hell With the Pope!” and walked sedately away. It was surely a spirited and quaint declaration of independence and incorruptibility.
Another incident, too, stands out. The night the poll was declared there was wild enthusiasm in Tyrone. As Mr. Leslie says, “there was a green rash.” My husband had promised that if he won, he would address a meeting at Cookstown. To get there it was necessary to pass through an Orange hamlet; as feeling was high and the hour late, it was deemed imprudent for us to go, but my husband insisted. We were about to start in a motor when one supporter, who had done his best to detain us, said very lugubriously: “Well, you have a terrible road before you.” “What’s the matter with it?” questioned the chauffeur anxiously. He was a Dublin man and quite ignorant of local politics. “Is it full of hills?” “No,” replied the other in a tone of grave warning; “full of Protestants.”
My husband’s opponent in this last election was Mr. Saunderson, who based his claims chiefly on the fact that he was the son of the late Colonel Saunderson. “Mr. Saunderson,” said my husband, “has protested so often that he is the son of Colonel Saunderson, that I, for my part, am inclined to believe him”—a touch of ridicule that went home with an Irish audience.
He was impatient of bigotry and narrowness and any attempt to stir up in Ulster the ashes of old hatreds and animosities. Once appealing to Ulstermen to forego their enthusiasm for William of Orange, he said with effect: “Why let us quarrel over a dead Dutchman?” His famous reply to Kipling, who by his doggerel tried to fan the flames of civil war, is worth quoting—
“The poet, for a coin,
Hands to the gabbling rout
A bucketful of Boyne
To put the sunrise out.”