Old Man carried on his indomitable campaign for justice to Ireland,
notwithstanding the unfortunate cleavage which had taken place in the
ranks of his own Party, and it does not require any special gift of
prevision to assert, nor is it any unwarrantable assumption on the
facts to say, that the alliance between the Liberal and Irish Parties
would inevitably have triumphed as soon as a General Election came had
not the appalling misunderstanding as to Gladstone's "Nullity of
Leadership" letter flung everything into chaos and irretrievably
ruined the hopes of Ireland for more than a generation.

And this brings me to what I regard as the greatest of Irish
tragedies--the deposition and the dethronement of Parnell under
circumstances which will remain for all time a sadness and a sorrow to
the Irish race.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Devoy, although banished, did turn up secretly in Mayo
when the Land League was being organised, and his orders were supreme
with the secret societies.]




CHAPTER II

A LEADER IS DETHRONED!


In the cabin, in the shieling, in the home of the "fattest" farmer, as