His work was essentially that of an agent of Ireland carrying on Ireland’s affairs in a strange capital.  He spent more of his time in London than in Ireland, but he was never part of the life of London, never in any sense a Londoner.  He was part of the life of the House of Commons, for that was his place of work; and when he left it he went to Aughavanagh as a man returns from the City to his home.  This home of his was in no sense connected with his active occupations.  He was no lover of gardening or of farming; he had none of the Irishman’s taste for the overseeing of stock or land; he enjoyed shooting, but he was not a passionate sportsman.  What was a passion with him—–­ for he sacrificed much to it—­was rest in the place of his choice.

It was not a lonely habitation.  He was no recluse, and when there he was always surrounded by his friends.  I do not know precisely how one could constitute a list of them—­but half a dozen men at least came and went there as they chose.  Mr. Mooney, Mr. Hayden, “Long John” O’Connor, Dr. Kenny—­these, and above all, Paddy O’Brien, the party’s chief acting whip—­were constant there.  Some came to shoot, and Willie Redmond used to come over from his house at Delgany, where the Glen of the Downs debouches seaward; walking generally, for he was the fastest and most untiring of mountaineers:  very few cared to keep beside him on the hills.  Others were content to share the daily bathes, morning and afternoon, in a long deep pool where the little stream tumbling down a series of cascades makes a place to dive and swim in.  These were the friends of Redmond’s own generation, and they were also his son’s friends; but the two daughters had their allies, and one way or another the party was apt to be a big one—­very simply provided for.  When I went there first (in 1907) you climbed a narrow stone stair to the first floor; on the left was a dining-room, beyond that a billiard-room; on the right, Redmond’s study, and beyond that his bedroom.  Another flight took you to the upper regions, where were two dormitories—­the girls to the right, the men to the left.  Later, he made some alterations, and the upstair rooms were subdivided off; the garden was developed; it became more of a house and less of a barrack; but the character of the life did not change.  It was most simple, most hospitable, most unconventional and most remote.

Certainly a great part of Aughavanagh’s charm for him lay in its remoteness.  It was seven Irish miles up a hilly road from the nearest railway station, post office or telegraph station.  Aughrim was three hours’ train journey from Dublin, on a tiny branch line, and trains were few.  Until motors brought him (to his intense resentment) within reach, he was as inaccessible as if he had lived in Clare or Mayo.

So it came to pass that though he knew to the very core one typical district of Ireland, and was far more closely in touch with a few score of Irish peasants through their daily life than any of his leading associates, he was yet cut off by his own choice from much that is Ireland—­and perhaps from much that was most important to him.  Political opinion is created in the towns, and he knew the Irish townsfolk, so far as he could manage it, only through his correspondence, and through those business visits to Dublin which he made as few as possible.