G. A. Birmingham

“ I felt that I wanted to know something more of these neighbours, the boys who worked early and worked late to save the widow's hay for her and bring home the widow's turf.
"Who are they?" I asked.
"It's the Careys," she said. "Who else would it be? They're the only neighbours I have, for this is a backward place and lonely."
"Is it Peter Carey?" I asked, "and his brother Affie?"
"It is. Sorra the better boys than them you'd find anywhere and it's often I do be thanking God that I have them. There's many a one wouldn't do the half what they do; and, what's more, they don't begrudge it. ”

“ Politicians have done that, done it till nobody wants it done again half of them eloquently insisting upon its extreme troublesomeness, the other half with equal eloquence maintaining that "trouble" is far too strong a word to apply to innocent amusement. The Careys, Peter and Affie, a pair of brothers and both young, are in the thick of the trouble whatever it is. All the authorities give them a bad character. ”

“ I imagine that it is sound when there is question of privy conspiracy, rebellion, battle, murder, and sudden death. The original Carey, the Fenian, would hardly have kept the arms buried as long as he did if he had been given to whisky. Men babble in their cups. However, the Careys are no business of mine, neither the bygone generations of them nor the present Peter and Affie. ”