ue headquarters in Dublin were, without
rhyme or reason, returning the affiliation fees of branches which were
known to be friendly to me, and that a Divisional Conference of my
enemies was summoned for the purpose of "organising" me out of
Mid-Cork. I immediately resolved that if the issue were to be knit at
all the sooner the better, and I took my own steps to circumvent the
machinations of those who were out, so to speak, for my blood. Hence
when the bogus delegates were brought together in Macroom one Saturday
afternoon a little surprise awaited them, for as they proceeded to the
Town Hall to deliberate their plans for my overthrow, another and a
more determined militant body, with myself at their head, also marched
on the same venue. There was a short and sharp encounter for
possession of the hall: the plotters put up a sorry fight; they were
soon routed, and my friends and myself held our meeting on the chosen
ground of our opponents. Moreover, Mr Denis Johnston, the Chief
Organiser of the League, who had come down from Dublin with all his
plans for my extermination cut and dried, dared not take the train
that evening in the ordinary course from the Macroom station, but,
like a thief in the night, stole out of the town in a covered car and
drove to a station farther on.

Thus began the foul attempt to exterminate Mr O'Brien's friends, who,
be it noted, were still members of the Irish Party, against whom no
crime was alleged or any charge of Party disloyalty preferred. The
funds of the League, its organisers and its executive machinery,
instead of being used for the advancement of the Irish movement along
constitutional lines, were brutally directed to the political
execution of Mr O'Brien's friends, who, now that he had gone for good,
and was reported to be in that state of physical breakdown which would
prevent him from ever again taking an active part in Irish affairs,
were supposed to be at the mercy of the big "pots" and their big
battalions.

Mr Maurice Healy, who had been elected for Cork City by an
overwhelming majority over the nominee of "the leaders" after Mr
O'Brien's retirement, was unconstitutionally and improperly refused
admission to the Party, although he was quite prepared to sign the
pledge to sit, act, and vote with it. There was scarcely a thing wrong
they could do which these blind leaders of the blind did not clumsily
attempt at this juncture. They might have shown us, whose only crime
was