"No such item as a virtuous people."

"When that old ancient Cromwell come to Ireland he said he would leave nothing alive.  Said the Irish were vermin and devils.  Clean out the country for good people to step into.  Make a paradise.  Now we make this American paradise I guess.  Guess it be strange so many Irish boys doing this work.  Ain’t that the way of the world.  No such item as a virtuous people.  Winona the only soul not thrown on the bonfire."

     Thomas McNulty in Sebastian Barry's Days without end:  a novel (New York:  Viking, 2016), 226.