He started to drink. On one level, this was not new; alcohol was the mother’s milk of Irish schoolboys, served by the Jesuits. He had quaffed ale at Stonyhurst, in tandem with blasts from his clarinet. In the heady days leading to the uprising, whiskey had united the rebels in Dublin and lubricated the first drafts of seditious speeches. The ration of English porter was a highlight of long days at sea aboard the Swift, sailing toward the bottom of the earth.
