(U84 1239-1257)

— Blatherskite says Cusack. Can you point to any other part of the wide world where the population has decreased to fifty per cent in fifty years. under a civilised government? Where are the thirty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four? Where are our potteries and textiles, the finest in the world? Look at the beds of the Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen. Where is the other civilised government would leave us as treeless as Portugal with a million acres of marsh & bog to make us all die of consumption? Not a ship to be seen in our harbours, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Killybegs, the third biggest harbour in the world. We had our trade with Spain and Europe before they were born and with the Flemings too. We had Spanish ale & wine in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway. First, they tried to slaughter us all, then to banish us, then to make us paupers and to starve us ^|1|+in the penal days^+|1|. Then to buy us as they buy everything else (when all fruit fails welcome haws) but they're as far off now as they were 700 years ago when they first came here and damnation well they know. But they'll know more than that and to their cost when the first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with the green flag at her helm.

— ^|1|+Tall talk^+|1| The cows in Connacht have long horns, Mick, says Ned.

— Long or short, says Cusack, is all one. Our history that Geoffrey Keating
{ms, 006}
wrote, in the fortresses of the Galtees is not finished yet. What did John Mitchel ^|+1says write^+|1|: The last conquest of Ireland (perhaps!)

(U84 1329-1353)

— ^|+1And But^+|1| what about the ^|+1British fighting^+|1| navy ^|1|+that keeps our foes at bay^+|1|? says ^|+1— Bob^+|1|.

— What about it? says Cusack. I'll tell you about it. Did you read the revelations that's going on

— What's that? says Hynes.

— British navy regulations, says Cusack, about flogging on the trainingships at Portsmouth. There's a chap writing to the papers calls himself Disgusted. By God, he gives chapter and verse too. The whole bloody crew ^|1|+of tars^+|1| drawn up on the ^|+1lower main^+|1| deck ^|1|+to witness punishment^+|1| and the parson with his bible and officers and admiral of the fleet. Then they lug out the young chap ^|1|+no 17^{+|1| |1|+}howling for his ma^+|1| to give him what that bloody old ruffian sir John Beresford called a rump and dozen, and tie him down over ^|+1a one of Nelson's^+|1| gun, straddled out.

— Stripped, is it?

— With a pair of duck trousers on him

— That's right, says J.J. God's Englishman distinguishes between the breech and the bare breech.

So of course O'Madden Burke put in his goo.

— 'Tis a custom more honoured in the breech than in the observance, says he.

— And then comes the master-at-arms, says Cusack, with a long cane & by the hokey poky he ^|+1flogs flays^+|1| the bloody backside off the poor chap till he yells meila murder.

— Bloody in all senses of the word, says Lenehan.

— That ^|1|+discipline^+|1| was used in ancient Sparta, says the professor. The victory of Trafalgar was won on the whipping stools of Portsmouth.

— And that's your British navy ^|1|+that bosses the earth^+|1|, says Cusack, the fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber in Europe and their land in the hands of twentyfive lords ^|1|+the gamehogs and cottonball barons^+|1|. Did we stand that in Ireland, eh? What about the land league, eh, the most wonderful organisation in the history of the universe. And they ^|+1talk boast^+|1| of the liberty of their empire of drudges & ^|1|+whipped^+|1| serfs.

— On which the sun never rises, says young Dedalus

— Ay, says Cusack, and ^|1|+the tragedy of it is^+|1| the unfortunate yahoos believe it.

They believe in Rod, the Scourger Almighty, Flayer ^|+1and Boss of the of Heaven and^+|1| Earth, and in Jacky Tar, the Son of a gun. ^|1|+|aWho was born Who was conceived^a| of Unholy Boast, and born of the Fighting Navy ^|xsufferedº under rump and dozen, ^|ahis was^a| backside flayed and ^|areddened curried^a| till he yelled like hell —: he arose again the third day from the bed, ascended steered into haven, sitteth on his beam till further orders when he shall come to drudgeº^x|+|1|

— If It's well they do, if no one else does, says JJ.

— Liars and hyrocrites, says O'Madden Burke

The soul of war heeded him not: red was his rolling ^|+1eye orb^+|1|. He seized the harp that hung on Tara's walls: and his strong hands swept the chords. Song burst from his lips: terrible was his mien.

O Ireland! Our sireland!
Once fireland! Now mireland!
No liar land shall buy our land!
A higher land is Ireland!