As fast as we finished them, the huts we were building were occupied by
the military, and, whether regulars or militia, I found among them,
driven to wear the uniform by stress of circumstances, as good Irishmen
as I ever met. Coming home from work one evening, I met on the road to
the Curragh a party of them, carrying, for want of a better banner, a
big green bush, and singing "The Green Flag." Then, as they came in
sight of the famous plain itself, a man struck up:--

Where will they have their camp?
Says the _Shan Van Voct_

When, as if moved by one impulse, all joined in:--

On the Curragh of Kildare,
And the boys will all be there,
With their pikes in good repair--
Says the _Shan Van Voct_!

"Igoe's porter!" a cynic might say. True, there may have been a glass or
two and a little harmless rejoicing, but this was too spontaneous to be
anything but the outpouring of the good, honest warm hearts of the poor
fellows, burning with love for the land that bore them.

Peter Maughan, who, like myself, was a house joiner, working at the
Curragh, had similar experiences. Indeed, you might say that he was then
qualifying himself for the part he very efficiently filled some years
later in the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as recruiting officer
among the soldiery of Britain. Of course, he found scoundrels amongst
them too, for, as the history of the Fenian movement shows, he was