He felt the warm blood against his lips and tasted the salt on his tongue.

It maddened him.

He staggered up and rushed with all his force against O'Connell, who stepped aside and caught Quinlan, as he stumbled past, full behind the ear.

He pitched forward on his face and did not move.

The battle was over.
"And I'll serve just the same any that sez a word against me father!" Not a boy said a word.
"Fighting O'Connell" he was nicknamed that day, and "Fighting O'Connell" he was known years afterwards to Dublin Castle.
When he showed his mother his bruised knuckles that night and told her how he came by them, she cried again as she did two years before.