The prisoners were all paraded in the Castle
yard next day, and I walked out amongst them. As they had been up
all night in very heavy rain, they all looked very forlorn and
miserable. The Castle gates were shut that day, for the first time
in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and they remained shut for
four days. I cannot remember the date when the prisoners were
paraded, but I am absolutely certain as to one point: it was
Shrove Tuesday, 1867, the day on which so many marriages are
celebrated amongst country-folk in Ireland. Dublin was seething
with unrest, so on that very afternoon my father and mother drove
very slowly, quite alone, without an Aide-de-Camp or escort, in a
carriage-and-four with outriders, through all the poorest quarters
in Dublin. They were well received, and there was no hostile
demonstration whatever. The idea of the slow drive through the
slums was my mother's. She wished to show that though the Castle
gates were closed, she and my father were not afraid. I saw her on
her return, when she was looking very pale and drawn, but I was
too young to realise what the strain must have been.
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