But in naming his boat, he showed that he had not completely forgotten about a woman who had been dazzled by him in Ireland. This Speranza gave Thomas Meagher days of lonely pleasure on the open water of the lake, gliding from imaginary Ross Castle to the island holding Innisfallen. Back in Dublin, the inspiration for the boat’s name, the poet Jane Elgee, had married Sir William Wilde, onetime oculist to Queen Victoria. They kept a strain of Irish nationalism alive, though contained within the parlor of their sumptuous home. Jane also gave birth to a boy who would become a brilliant dramatist,
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