blin Castle
had plentifully spoon-fed for over a century became its leaders and
gospellers, seeing that through it alone could they carve their way to
those goodly plums that maketh easy the path of the unctuous crawlers
in life--the creed of the Mollies, and it gained them followers
galore, being that nobody who was not a member of "the Ancient Order"
was eligible for even the meanest public office in the gift of the
Government or the elected of the people. Even a Crown Prosecutor, one
of the Castle "Cawtholic" tribe whose record of life-long antipathy to
the vital creed of Irish Nationality was notorious, now became a pious
follower of the new Order and was in due course "saved" by receiving
an exalted position in the judicial establishment of the country,
which owed nothing to his honour or his honesty. Under the auspices of
the Board of Erin "the shoneen"--the most contemptible of all our
Irish types--began to flourish amain. It was a great thing to be a
"Jay Pay" in the Irish country-side. It added inches to one's girth
and one's stature, and to the importance of one's "lady." It was
greatly coveted by the thousands who always pine to swagger in a
little brief authority, and thus the Board of Erin drew its adherents
from every low fellow who had an interest to serve, a dirty ambition
to satisfy, an office to gain or probably even a petty score to pay
off. No doubt there were many sincere and honest and enthusiastic
young men attracted to it by the charm of the secret sign and
password, and others who believed that its Catholic pomp and parade
made for the religious uplift of the people. But taken all in all, it
was unquestionably an evil influence in the lives of the people and it
degraded the fine inspiration of Nationality to a base sectarian
scramble for place and power.

Gone were the glorious ideals of a nobler day wherever it pushed out
its pernicious grip. Surrendered were the sterner principles which
instructed and enacted that the man who sought office or preferment
from a British Minister unfitted himself as a standard-bearer or even
a raw recruit in the ranks of Irish Nationality. The Irish birth-right
was bartered for a mess of pottage and, worst of all, the fine
instincts of Ireland's glorious youth were being corrupted and
perverted. The cry of "Up the Mollies!" became the watchword of the
new movement and the creed of selfishness and sectarianism supplanted
the evangel of self-denial and self-sacrif