It was the death of Parnell that convinced me that the moment had
come for work in Ireland, for I knew that for a time the
imagination of young men would turn from politics. There was a
little Irish patriotic society of young people, clerks, shop-boys,
shop-girls, and the like, called the Southwark Irish Literary
Society. It had ceased to meet because each member of the
committee had lectured so many times that the girls got the
giggles whenever he stood up. I invited the committee to my
father's house at Bedford Park and there proposed a new
organisation. After a few months spent in founding, with the help
of T. W. Rolleston, who came to that first meeting and had a
knowledge of committee work I lacked, the Irish Literary Society,
which soon included every London Irish author
