Once Con O'Hickie has bought the estate at Rathcarrig, the author enters into the heart of his theme. Mr. Lysaght describes with unaffected simplicity and great charm the life he knows best, life as it is lived on the land. He is not just a literary gent resting his tangled locks on the "bosom of Nature." The savour of earth and air, the ardour of intense, creative labour are in his pages—what he calls in Irish Eclogues the "joy of permanence." But as the good work of building up a rural community develops it does not proceed unhindered. There are many more than technical difficulties to be overcome, and the portrayal of local types, the delineation of political and social manners make the book a real microcosm of modern Ireland. Pressure of events slowly brings Con O'Hickie to the point where he stumbles against the obstacles, gross and subtle, which alien administration and government have contrived in Ireland for the thwarting and, if necessary, the destruction of all creative effort. With the sagacity of long experience the British government recognizes in Con O'Hickie a force which is utterly incompatible with the safety of the realm, that is, the preservation of England's economic domination in Ireland. Neglecting the opportunity for patriotic heroics, Mr. Lysaght confines himself to a careful, well-authenticated analysis of the gradual process whereby this practical idealist is turned into that now familiar bogey, a Sinn Feiner. An atrocious sentence upon one of his men leaves Con O'Hickie with "a blind rage in his heart," and a row of dots marks the breaking off of this page of life. In a sort of epilogue the author explains that the threat of conscription was the culminating point in O'Hickie's orientation, the deviation of the constructive impulse into the unavoidable political effort. He becomes the leader of "contingent rebellion," but, being a nationalist, he does not reach the British cabinet, like Carson, but finds himself in jail. His work is undone, the continuity of his effort is effectively broken. The reiterated and destructive negative of the English system in Ireland once more attains its end. The constructors are baffled, impeded, and, if needs be, destroyed. Mr. Lysaght has told the story of what Sinn Fein is doing, and he has revealed how Sinn Feiners are made. As his book appeared the Irish public learned that it was seditious to publish in Ireland the evidence now being given by various experts before a commission which is holding an inquiry into the industrial
