The evanescent, political turbulence and the partial demoralisation that has followed in its train for twenty years could not stem the tide of Gaelic democracy that in 1879 began to dash up against the very doors of the rich and to thunder against the dams which wealth had reared between itself and the ills of poverty. In that year I became acquainted with PW Nally. On a Sunday afternoon we stalked leisurely across the Phoenix Park. We could not count more than a score of people in that vast expanse of public ground. We drifted into conversation bearing on the condition of life in Ireland when our fathers exulted in fetching and bounds on the hurling-fields and casting stones and throwing the sledge, or sweeping over the country with the speed of a cloud on a March day.
Great thoughts develop slowly.
The two men agreed that an effort should be made to preserve the physical strength of our race. These two men were singularily alike in temperament, in their hatred of iniquity, in their passionate love of Ireland, and in their implicit faith in the ultimate triumph of Ireland. The younger of the two was more passionate and hurried in manner and methods than his more matured friend, whose scorn and hatred flashed more through his laughter than his tears. The younger went to jail and died in Mountjoy convict prison in November, 1891. The elder dreamt along and largely helped to found the GAA, on the first of November, 1884.