"I wish I might die with your singing in my ears, but do you know what makes Ireland what it is?
Look at it now.

Years ago, just when the cotton-mills and the linen-mills were doing well, they came over with their English legislation, and made it hard going.

When we begin to get something, over the English come and take the something away.

What have we done, we Irish people, that we shouldn't have a chance in our own country?
Lord knows, we deserve a chance, for it's hard paying the duties these days.
What with France in revolution and reaching out her hand to Ireland to coax her into rebellion; what with defeat in America and drink in Scotland; what with Fox and Pitt at each other's throats, and the lord-lieutenant a danger to the peace; what with poverty, and the cow and children and father and mother living all in one room, with the chickens roosting in the rafters; what with pointing the potato at the dried fish and gulping it down as if it was fish itself; what with the smell and the dirt and the poverty of Dublin and Derry, Limerick and Cork--ah, well!" He threw his eyes up again.
"Ah, well, my little love, sing on! You're a blessing among a lot of curses; but never mind, it's a fine world, and Ireland's the best part of it.

Heaven knows it--and on this hill, how beautiful it is!" He was now on the top of a hill where he could look out towards the bog and in towards the mellow, waving hills.