verybody would recognise the
appropriateness of the words about the banquet hall deserted, and the
departure of the people who had used it. For the other kind of auction,
that at which the cows of men who refuse to pay their rents are sold,
"God Save Ireland," would be suitable, and anyone who heard it would
know that though he might attend the auction he had better not bid. An
ingenious musician would have no difficulty in finding tunes which would
suggest the presentation of illuminated addresses to curates or bank
managers. Meetings convened for the purpose of expressing confidence
in the Members of Parliament, of either the Nationalist or the Unionist
parties, would naturally be announced by a performance of Handel's fine
song "Angels ever Bright and Fair." There might be a difficulty about
unusual events like the erection of statues, but a tune might be kept
for them which would at all events warn people not to expect an auction,
a presentation or a political meeting.

Nearly half the people who were doing business in the fair assembled
at three o'clock in the square outside Doyle's hotel. According to the
estimate printed afterwards in the Connacht Eagle there were more than
two thousand persons present. Of these at least twenty listened to all
the speeches that were made. The number of those who heard parts of some
of the speeches was much larger, amounting probably to sixty, for there
was a good deal of coming and going, of moving in and out of the group
round the speakers. The rest of the audience stood about in various
parts of the square. Men talked to each other on the interesting
questions of the price of cattle and the prospects of a change in the
weather. Women stood together with parcels in their hands and looked at
each other without talking at all. But everyone was so far interested
in the speeches as to join in the cheers when anything which ought to
be cheered was said. The twenty stalwart listeners who stood out all the
speeches attended to what was said and started the cheers at the proper
moments. The stragglers who, hearing only a sentence or two now and
then, were liable to miss points, took up the cheers which were
started. The mass of the men, those who were talking about cattle, very
courteously stopped their conversations and joined in whenever they
heard a cheer beginning. There was, so Gallagher said in the next issue
of the Connacht Eagle, an unmistakable and most impressive popular
enthu