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Collins knew he had the IRB behind him. But he literally had de Valera, Brugha and Stack in front of him, the division between the parties being brought into the open by the contestants sitting across the floor from each other. The subsequent debate calls to mind images from both Swift and Yeats. The former described a war fought over which end of an egg should be topped, the latter his hero Cuchullain being seized with madness, through the wiles of King Conchubar, so that he went out to spend his strength fighting the waves.
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