"So why submit? I know this as sure as I'm sittin' here across the roast from you. They're tryin' to bury our law and eradicate our language. And once they take your name, they'll take your freedom too." "No one's goin' anywhere with my freedom. And don't worry yourself, Owen. If I do accept myself a fine English title, I promise I won't insist that you call me by it." "That's very kind of you, you feckin' idiot." Gilleduff laughed and punched my father in the shoulder. Owen laughed too. I myself was too young to know how right my father had been, or how the English army would one day, in the not so distant future, somehow make it across those impenetrable forests and bogs of Ireland, and smash our sea defenses, all in the name of murderin' the old Gaelic order, our very way of life. But it was a warm summer night, and we were booleyin', and the bard was settling down by the fire to begin his telling of histories and generations back through the mists of time. And we soon forgot about the English and their titles and their fears of the "Wild Irish" out beyond the Pale. By"