“From alleyways the benisons of beggars came, from lanes they waved their precatory hands. Grafton Street sailed like a galleon between.”

“They entered Stephen’s Green and the withdrawn world of laid-out gardens fell upon them. Voluminous ladies frou-frou’d past, titanics warded by tender husbands, each click of whose canes proclaimed, Behold the woman I fuck.”

“The Shelbourne was the stately cream and orange building that towered upon the left.”

“He was acting as a kind of rebel policeman, standing in the street, waving the groups to cross to the Surgeons – no wait a minute, halt, yes quickly now, safely now, don’t trip.”

“There had been a traffic accident at the end of the street which closer inspection proved a barricade.”

“The great wide splendid thoroughfare — O’Connell Street was you a Catholic, Sackville Street was you at all in the Protestant way (was it any wonder if a man went astray in this town?)”

“They marched that night on Dublin Castle. ‘We’ll be back,’ said Connolly to the startled peeler on point behind the gates.”

“The pride he felt that day near pained him. Near pained him still. There was a lump in his throat he thought he’d never have it swallowed. These were his people. He was a Citizen soldier.”

“And MacMurrough had wondered could there truly be something to this business – that stooping so utterly low one should rise again to gain all.”