When these evoked the usual enthusiasm he waxed bolder, and shot out some almost original epigrams directed against the Government, working up to a really new gibe about officials who sat like spiders spinning murderous webs in Dublin Castle.

The audience were delighted with this, but their joy reached its height when someone shouted: 'You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard on Wednesday.' Mr.O'Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to sharpen his wit upon the landlords.

He described them as 'ill-omened tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.' Mr.O'Rourke was not a man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles as the unpleasantness which would ensue if anyone who had been sucking blood were to repent and disgorge it.

'Where,' he went on to ask, 'do they spend their immense revenues?
Is it in Ireland ?' Here he made one of those dramatic pauses for which his oratory was famous.

The audience waited breathlessly for the denunciation which was to follow.