Page:The ways of war - Kettle - 1917.pdf/38

 Ireland, and wrote an introduction, which established his literary reputation.

At the general election in 1910 my husband increased his majority of sixteen to one of one hundred and eighteen. Mr. Shane Leslie, who gave him valuable help in this election, wrote thus—

"Kettle was the most delightful of platform speakers, and his witticisms and lyrical turns of speech made the election one long intellectual treat. He could turn over weighty questions of economics or of international policy with an ease that struck home to the peasant mind.... At one spot, I remember, he was greeted by a poverty-stricken populace, who had improvised a mountain band and crude home-made torches of turf and paraffin. Kettle immediately said: 'Friends, you have met us with God's two best gifts to man—fire and music.' It was as instantaneous as graceful." Having had such a hard fight, he loved his constituency as if it were a human thing. The issues fought in East Tyrone, as in all northern constituencies, were not the issues raised in ordinary Nationalist politics. In the North, religion is the predominant colour; it is the Catholic Green against the Protestant Orange. I say guardedly, predominant; of course there is the great issue—Home Rule v. Unionism. But the conspicuous place religion took struck a Dubliner as something quite extraordinary. I remember one amusing incident of the election, which my husband often cited as