Читать книгу Ireland in Travail онлайн

62 страница из 68

A similar spell had fallen upon the civilian population. Most people desired nothing better than to be let go about their business in peace. They might have loyalist sympathies, they might have Sinn Fein sympathies; they kept their sympathies to themselves and such friends as they were sure of.

And nobody was sure of anybody.

Thus it was the British Government could get no support in Ireland.

The following illustrates the condition of affairs.

A stone flew through a Dublin shop window, and the shopkeeper came running out and demanded what the stone thrower meant. The man retorted he had thrown the stone because he felt like it, that he was a Sinn Feiner, and he defied the shopkeeper to touch him. He demanded for his services a cigarette, which he was given. A policeman on point duty was close by, a crowd was looking on, and nobody moved in the matter. The shopkeeper returned to his shop. The stone thrower was unlikely to have been an Irish Volunteer, probably he was a hooligan; but the announcement was sufficient to place everybody under a spell.