“Come in, Missus,” said Thady, as he looked round the headboard of the other bed. The room was filled with the dry, animal smell of bachelors, the sharp tang of fish and the hissing of wet turf. Jack, white-faced, with a head of uncombed curly black hair, started to pull on a pair of trousers he’d taken down from the line. “Don’t,” she said, “if they’re still wet.”

“We got a terrible drenching this morning,” Jack said.

“And fuck all for it,” said Thady.

“Stop where you are,” said Catherine.

She sat to the right of the hearth under a picture of the Jesse James gang, and a copy of Emmet’s speech from the dock that had yellowed with age.

“So this is home?” said Catherine.

“That’s right,” said Jack, “and this is Uncle Thady.”

“How do you do?” he said, and she took his hand.

On a further wall was a huge framed picture of a group of grey Victorian men standing one behind the other in riding boots and buckled shoes with high heels. Each man wore a bow and wig. The faces looked like they had been added on to the identical bodies afterwards. The picture looked totally out of place on the bare rounded wall.

“Who are these persons?” Catherine asked.

“‘The Illustrated Sons of Ireland’ they call themselves,” said Thady, “I picked that up in a junk shop in Longford town.”

“They look like figures in an old English cartoon.”

“That’s exactly what they were, Missus,” agreed Thady. “Lads in a cartoon. Irishmen abroad.”

“And no women,” said Catherine.

“No, the women were away that day,” laughed Thady.

“Major General Patrick Sarsfield,” Catherine read.

“A cannon ball put paid to his skull,” said Thady.

“Oliver Plunkett.”

“Drawn and quartered.”

“John Philpot Curran. Hugh O’Neill.”

“The man himself!”

“Oliver Goldsmith, Thomas Moore. Archbishop McHale. Father Matthew.”

“The less said the better.”

“Wolfe Tone.”

“A Presbyterian, wouldn’t you know. And a Republican.”

“Daniel O’Connell.”

“A Catholic.”

“Edmund Burke.”

“A relation of Conor Cruise O’Brien,” said Jack.

“Robert Emmet.”

“He should have waited.”

“Richard Lawlor Shield. Henry Grattan. Gerald Griffin.”

“A clerk.”

“William Smith O’Brien.”

“A Labour man.”

“Reverend Father Burke, O.P. John Mitchell.”

“That would be the author of A Jail Journal,” Thady said. “A mighty man. Did his time in Australia and went straight to the top in America. There you have the whole shebang.”

“And you know them all.”

“And why wouldn’t I? If there’d only been that crew alone, there’d have been no need for the rest of us.” He coughed. “When you hear it all in one breath it’s hard to take in. And then it means nothing. Nothing at all.”

“It’s cool,” said Thady, sitting up.

“Who’s Josie?” asked Catherine.