The Poor Mouth by Flann O’Brien, Patrick C. Power Page B

committee meeting last Wednesday. Mrs Flaherty was there. She told us all about her dear friend, Emmeline Pankhurst. Now there is a bold rossie for you if you like, but she’s absolutely perfectly right. She’ll yet do down that scoundrel, Lloyd George. I admire her.
    –She has courage, Father Fahrt agreed.
    –But wait till you hear. When we got down to our own business, discussing ways and means and ekcetera, out comes the bold Mrs Flaherty with her plan. Put a bumb under the City Hall!
    –Lord save us!
    –Blow all that bastards up. Slaughter them. Blast them limb from limb. If they refuse to do their duty to the ratepayers and to humanity. They do not deserve to live. If they were in ancient Rome they would be crucified.
    –But Collopy, I thought you were averse to violence?
    –That may be, Father, That may well be. But Mrs Flaherty isn’t. She would do all those crooked corporators in in double quick time. What she calls for is action.
    –Well, Collopy, I trust you explained the true attitude to her—your own attitude. Agitation, persistent exposure of the true facts, reprimand of the negligence of the Corporation, and the rousing of public opinion. Whatever Mrs Flaherty could do on those lines, now that she is at large, there is little she could do if she were locked up in prison.
    –She wouldn’t be the first in this country, Father, who went to prison for an ideal. It’s a habit with some people here.
    –For public agitation you must be in the middle of the public. They must see you.
    –How would the Church look on Mrs Flaherty’s scheme?
    –I have no doubt it would merit strong condemnation and censure. Such a thing would be highly sinful. I think it could be classed as murder. It is not lawful to kill to ameliorate public misrule or negligence. Assassination is never justified. One must put one’s trust in elections and the vote, not in shedding human blood.
    –I fear, Father Fahrt, that that is the gospel of chicks and goslings. My forebears were brave, strong-arm fellows. And what about the early Christian martyrs. They thought nothing of shedding their own blood in defence of a principle. Give me your glass.
    –There is no comparison, of course. Thanks.
    –Now listen here, Father. Listen carefully. This is the first part of November. In the year 1605 in England, King James the First was persecuting the Catholics, throwing them into prison and plundering their property. It was diabolical, worse than in Elizabeth’s time. The R.C.s were treated like dogs, and their priests like pigs. It would put you in mind of the Roman emperors, except that a thullabawn like Nero could at least boast that he was providing public entertainment. Well, what happened?
    –James was a very despicable monarch, Father Fahrt said slowly.
    –I will tell you what happened. A man named Robert Catesby thinks to himself that we’ve had as much of this sort of carry-on as we’re going to take. And he thought of the same plan as Mrs Flaherty. He planned to blow up the parliament house and annihilate the whole bloody lot of the bosthoons, His Majesty included. I know the thanks you’d get if you told him to busy himself with elections and votes. He’d slap your face and give you a knee in the belly. Remember, remember the Fifth of November.
    –They lived in another age, of course, Father Fahrt answered.
    –Right and wrong don’t change with the times and you know that very well, Father. Catesby got Guy Fawkes on his side, a brave man that was fighting in Flanders. And Grant and Keyes and the two Winters, any God’s amount of sound men, Romans all. Fawkes was the kingpin and the head bottlewasher of the whole outfit. He managed to get a ton and a half of gunpowder stuffed into a cellar under the House of Lords. But there were two other men lending a good hand all the time and saying God bless the work. I mean Greenway and Garnet. Know who they were, Father?
    –I think I do.
    –Of course you do. They were Jesuits.