The Board of Erin now began to march south of the Boyne and to usurp the functions of the United Irish League wherever it got a footing.  It was frankly out for jobs, preferments and patronage of all kinds, so that even the dirty crew of place-hunting lawyers which Dublin Castle had plentifully spoon-fed for over a century became its leaders and gospellers, seeing that through it alone could they carve their way to those goodly plums that maketh easy the path of the unctuous crawlers in life—­the creed of the Mollies, and it gained them followers galore, being that nobody who was not a member of “the Ancient Order” was eligible for even the meanest public office in the gift of the Government or the elected of the people.  Even a Crown Prosecutor, one of the Castle “Cawtholic” tribe whose record of life-long antipathy to the vital creed of Irish Nationality was notorious, now became a pious follower of the new Order and was in due course “saved” by receiving an exalted position in the judicial establishment of the country, which owed nothing to his honour or his honesty.  Under the auspices of the Board of Erin “the shoneen”—­the most contemptible of all our Irish types—­began to flourish amain.  It was a great thing to be a “Jay Pay” in the Irish country-side.  It added inches to one’s girth and one’s stature, and to the importance of one’s “lady.”  It was greatly coveted by the thousands who always pine to swagger in a little brief authority, and thus the Board of Erin drew its adherents from every low fellow who had an interest to serve, a dirty ambition to satisfy, an office to gain or probably even a petty score to pay off.  No doubt there were many sincere and honest and enthusiastic young men attracted to it by the charm of the secret sign and password, and others who believed that its Catholic pomp and parade made for the religious uplift of the people.  But taken all in all, it was unquestionably an evil influence in the lives of the people and it degraded the fine inspiration of Nationality to a base sectarian scramble for place and power.

Gone were the glorious ideals of a nobler day wherever it pushed out its pernicious grip.  Surrendered were the sterner principles which instructed and enacted that the man who sought office or preferment from a British Minister unfitted himself as a standard-bearer or even a raw recruit in the ranks of Irish Nationality.  The Irish birth-right was bartered for a mess of pottage and, worst of all, the fine instincts of Ireland’s glorious youth were being corrupted and perverted.  The cry of “Up the Mollies!” became the watchword of the new movement and the creed of selfishness and sectarianism supplanted the evangel of self-denial and self-sacrifice.  It was a time when clear-sighted and earnest men almost lost hope, if they did not lose faith.  To be held in subjection by the tyranny of a stronger power was a calamity of destiny to be resisted, but that the people should themselves bind the chains of a more sordid tyranny of selfishness around their spirits was wholly damnable and heart-breaking.