John Henchy and Richard Tierney

John Henchy and Richard Tierney are joined by an election campaign that Henchy works on Tierney’s behalf, but the relationship is less a bond of political loyalty than a tense exchange of canvassing for money. Henchy can sell Tierney as a respectable public figure to voters, yet among fellow canvassers he calls him “Tricky Dicky” and resents his failure to pay. Their arrangement exposes the gap between the campaign’s polished appeals to national interest and the immediate financial need of the men doing its work.

Campaign Work and the Candidate’s Image

Henchy describes himself as doing a good day’s work and says that he and Crofton secured several “sure things” in Dawson Street. He distinguishes their roles: Crofton, whom he calls decent, is a poor canvasser who stands silently while Henchy does the talking. Henchy’s account makes persuasion his practical contribution to Tierney’s campaign, not merely an expression of shared political conviction.

His pitch to Ward, an old Conservative, shows how readily that work adapts to its audience. Henchy emphasized Tierney’s respectability, his position as a prominent citizen and Poor Law Guardian, and his extensive property and businesses. He argued that Tierney had a direct interest in keeping rates down and would support whatever benefited the country. The candidate could thus be presented as a Nationalist to the campaign while being sold to a Conservative voter through property, business, and local standing.

The campaign also faces the question of whether Tierney will support an address of welcome to Edward Rex. Mr O’Connor says Tierney is on the Nationalist ticket and will not vote for the address; Joe Hynes challenges that confidence, suggesting that Tierney may act otherwise. Henchy does not resolve the political disagreement. His immediate response is to wish that Tierney would appear with the money. For him, the candidate’s reliability is tested as much by payment as by the public position he may take.

The Unpaid Canvassers

Henchy’s anger sharpens when he recounts asking for payment. Tierney’s response, delivered through a shoeboy, is that Henchy should not forget him when work is going properly. Henchy treats this promise as an evasion: he wants Tierney to pay rather than direct him to speak to Mr Fanning or complain that he has already spent a lot of money. The campaign’s labor has been done, but the reward remains deferred.

The dispute is not abstract for Henchy. He says he expects to find the bailiffs in the hall when he gets home, making the unpaid campaign work a matter of immediate financial danger. Mr O’Connor likewise asks how the men are meant to work for Tierney if he will not pay. Their complaint reveals the material dependence beneath political service: canvassers are spending time and effort in the hope of money they need, not simply performing an unpaid act of party allegiance.

Henchy’s description of Tierney as “as tricky as they make 'em” turns the candidate’s nickname into a verdict on his conduct. He recalls Tierney’s father keeping a hand-me-down shop in Mary’s Lane, where men went early on Sunday to buy waistcoats or trousers, and claims the father kept a little black bottle in a corner. The anecdote is offered as an account of the candidate’s origins, but in the argument it also serves as a personal attack, dragging family background into the quarrel over payment. Mr O’Connor asks whether the story is true; Henchy insists that it is.

Suspicion and Distrust

The campaign’s financial uncertainty also shapes how Henchy reads other political relationships. After Hynes leaves, Henchy asks what brought him to the room and what he wanted. Mr O’Connor says Hynes is hard up, like the others. Henchy instead suspects that Hynes may be a spy for Colgan, sent from the other political camp to discover how the campaign is going. The suspicion is not presented as established fact; it shows how competition, poverty, and unpaid work make even a visitor’s motives seem uncertain.

That distrust throws Henchy’s attitude toward Tierney into relief. He condemns the candidate for “sponging” on the workers and questions whether he has any manhood, yet his own campaign labor continues to be organized around securing votes for him. His practical cooperation survives his contempt because the election offers a possible source of payment, even as the failure to pay leaves Henchy exposed. Political service and personal resentment coexist without resolving into either loyalty or a clean break.

Political Bargaining and Irony

Henchy’s argument for welcoming the King further complicates any simple picture of the campaign as ideological commitment. In his account to Ward, the visit would bring money into the country and benefit Dublin’s citizens; idle factories, mills, and ship-building yards would need capital and renewed work. The appeal is economic, tailored to a voter’s interests rather than framed as a defense of the monarchy. Against Hynes’s ivy leaf and his invocation of the dead Parnell, Henchy’s emphasis on investment presents politics as a choice between symbolic national allegiance and anticipated material benefit.

The relationship’s irony lies in the contrast between these large public claims and the small, immediate sum Henchy cannot collect. He argues that the country needs capital while privately waiting for his candidate to stump up; he persuades voters that Tierney is respectable while privately treating him as a trickster. The campaign thus links national rhetoric, electoral calculation, and household precarity. Henchy’s work helps maintain Tierney’s public standing, but the candidate’s delayed payment makes the laborers’ dependence—and the limits of political solidarity—visible.