river, rowing boats prepared for the journey to the island in the middle where, by long
tradition, the family had their picnic lunch during the summer in some style with three sorts of wine and a bottle of port that could solve the problem for the more elderly among the Butlers of
what to do in the afternoon. Powerscourt walked down to the library and stared out of the great windows, the air very clear this morning, the Shannon bright and close, the line of the trees where
the forest began sharp in the light.
Powerscourt was looking at the books now, column after column of them marching silently towards the ceiling. Many of his favourites were here, Thucydides and Tacitus, gloomy chroniclers of the
failings of their great powers, George Eliot, Tolstoy. But it wasn’t the contents of the leather volumes that interested him. It was words, the words that made up the books, the words the
authors used to tell their stories. Words, he thought, words were very dangerous in Ireland. Theobald Wolfe Tone, a not very successful barrister in the Dublin of the 1790s, became intoxicated with
words that had crossed the seas from France. Liberty. Freedom. Equality. They featured large in the thinking of the United Irishmen, formed to unite Catholic and Protestant and set Ireland free
from English rule. Some men made their living by cutting cloth or growing corn or selling provisions or dealing in livestock. Lawyers looked at words on a page and invested them with meaning.
Illiterate peasants in the west of Ireland swore the Oath of Tone’s United Irishmen, not understanding what most of the words meant. ‘I will persevere in endeavouring to form a
brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of all persuasions.’ Freedom or Equality meant little when you lived in a mud cabin and had scarcely enough food to feed your family. Freedom meant
little when a man with a different religion whose ancestors came from England to take your land, a man who lived in a great stone house with lakes and tall windows and libraries with portraits of
his family, could throw you out of your tiny patch of earth and pull down your stinking hovel. Liberty. Equality. Fraternity. Words. Words written on a page by lawyers. Words that took those Mayo
peasants far from their homes in the rebellion of 1798 to fight their last battle at Ballinamuck in County Longford, slaughtered by the English dragoons on the hillside or butchered in the bog.
Words had killed them. And those who were taken prisoner by the English that day? Words killed them too. A word called treason saw them hanged. Powerscourt wondered what might have happened if
Theobald Wolfe Tone had been more successful as a lawyer. Or, indeed, that other lawyer associated with freedom, liberty, equality, Maximilien Robespierre, a man so drunk with words that he tried
to abolish religion and replace it with rituals and celebrations in honour of reason. Reason, another word. God wasn’t dead yet. Not that time anyway. He was soon back, if he had ever really
gone away. It was Robespierre who perished instead, consumed on the guillotine by his own words.
Words were dangerous in Ireland. Catholic. Protestant. Mass. The Virgin Mary. Fenian. Informer. All had been dangerous in their time. Some still were. Now new words were coming, boycott already
officially entered in the dictionaries. Captain Charles Boycott was a land agent in the west of Ireland who refused to grant a reduction in rents to his tenants in 1880 after two years of bad
harvests. Powerscourt strolled over to one of the bookshelves and pulled out a biography of the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell which included his description of what boycott meant
at a huge meeting in Ennis in County Clare. This was what was to happen to a landlord who refused to reduce rents or a man who took over the farm of an evicted tenant: ‘You must show what you
think of him on the roadside when you meet him, you must show him on the streets of
tradition, the family had their picnic lunch during the summer in some style with three sorts of wine and a bottle of port that could solve the problem for the more elderly among the Butlers of
what to do in the afternoon. Powerscourt walked down to the library and stared out of the great windows, the air very clear this morning, the Shannon bright and close, the line of the trees where
the forest began sharp in the light.
Powerscourt was looking at the books now, column after column of them marching silently towards the ceiling. Many of his favourites were here, Thucydides and Tacitus, gloomy chroniclers of the
failings of their great powers, George Eliot, Tolstoy. But it wasn’t the contents of the leather volumes that interested him. It was words, the words that made up the books, the words the
authors used to tell their stories. Words, he thought, words were very dangerous in Ireland. Theobald Wolfe Tone, a not very successful barrister in the Dublin of the 1790s, became intoxicated with
words that had crossed the seas from France. Liberty. Freedom. Equality. They featured large in the thinking of the United Irishmen, formed to unite Catholic and Protestant and set Ireland free
from English rule. Some men made their living by cutting cloth or growing corn or selling provisions or dealing in livestock. Lawyers looked at words on a page and invested them with meaning.
Illiterate peasants in the west of Ireland swore the Oath of Tone’s United Irishmen, not understanding what most of the words meant. ‘I will persevere in endeavouring to form a
brotherhood of affection among Irishmen of all persuasions.’ Freedom or Equality meant little when you lived in a mud cabin and had scarcely enough food to feed your family. Freedom meant
little when a man with a different religion whose ancestors came from England to take your land, a man who lived in a great stone house with lakes and tall windows and libraries with portraits of
his family, could throw you out of your tiny patch of earth and pull down your stinking hovel. Liberty. Equality. Fraternity. Words. Words written on a page by lawyers. Words that took those Mayo
peasants far from their homes in the rebellion of 1798 to fight their last battle at Ballinamuck in County Longford, slaughtered by the English dragoons on the hillside or butchered in the bog.
Words had killed them. And those who were taken prisoner by the English that day? Words killed them too. A word called treason saw them hanged. Powerscourt wondered what might have happened if
Theobald Wolfe Tone had been more successful as a lawyer. Or, indeed, that other lawyer associated with freedom, liberty, equality, Maximilien Robespierre, a man so drunk with words that he tried
to abolish religion and replace it with rituals and celebrations in honour of reason. Reason, another word. God wasn’t dead yet. Not that time anyway. He was soon back, if he had ever really
gone away. It was Robespierre who perished instead, consumed on the guillotine by his own words.
Words were dangerous in Ireland. Catholic. Protestant. Mass. The Virgin Mary. Fenian. Informer. All had been dangerous in their time. Some still were. Now new words were coming, boycott already
officially entered in the dictionaries. Captain Charles Boycott was a land agent in the west of Ireland who refused to grant a reduction in rents to his tenants in 1880 after two years of bad
harvests. Powerscourt strolled over to one of the bookshelves and pulled out a biography of the Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell which included his description of what boycott meant
at a huge meeting in Ennis in County Clare. This was what was to happen to a landlord who refused to reduce rents or a man who took over the farm of an evicted tenant: ‘You must show what you
think of him on the roadside when you meet him, you must show him on the streets of
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