Wagon Train (TV Series)

The Liam Fitzmorgan Story (1958)

Cliff Robertson: Liam Fitzmorgan

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Quotes 

• Michael McDermott : Oh, the times I've had for myself in that grand city. And when I think of it now. It's just the time of the racing fair with porter flowing all about. And the wild...

  Liam Fitzmorgan : There'll no fair this year. The English shut it down. For spite.

  Michael McDermott : Well, you don't say the truth. Oh, the heathens, the swine-ish heathens. Oh, the shame of it all. But when Denny Brogan and his lads strike, they'll whistle another tune.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : Denny Brogen won't be striking again. They hung him by the neck.

• Laura Grady : Should you be up and about so soon?

  Liam Fitzmorgan : Well, I'm fine now. But there was a time there that I thought I'd never be sharing a sip of tea again. It's an odd thing about the touch of death on yer. All the things that were most important seem to blow away like dust in the sand. And a day later it's like it never happened. But I guess that's the nature of man, huh? Or else, how else would he be able to live in the world of God?

• Liam Fitzmorgan : I sometimes forget what a fair creature a woman can be.

  Laura Grady : Well, it's clear your standards aren't very high then.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : I take no credit for it at all. The merest man with eyes in his head would say the same thing. It's the beauty inside that takes the looking. There's a kind of golden pride in you. I like that.

• Liam Fitzmorgan : Seven of them you killed. To save your own filthy neck.

  Ethan Carney : I-I swear to God, I'm not the one.

  [On his knees pleading his case] 

  Ethan Carney : You've got to believe me. You've got to.

• Michael McDermott : I wish I was a braver man. I'd set off and help you with the deed myself.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : Be grateful you're free of it. It's not an easy thing to swear an oath to kill a man.

• James Grady : There's no guilt in these hands, son. The gift that was born in them is still there. Odd, it's the only part I couldn't run from.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : It doesn't change a thing.

  James Grady : I know.

• Liam Fitzmorgan : It was of a Wednesday, cold. The priest was with him. It was he that brought them the word that there'd be no chance for transport to a penal colony. Not an eye flickered, not a one. Not that they weren't afraid. When the cold smell of that final darkness is upon yer, it's almost more than a man can do to keep from gagging on the fear that comes up inside yer. But they made their minds up to it, and they vowed to see it through. The priest gave them absolution all but two that weren't of the faith. And outside you could hear them marching of the Black Watch, up and down, up and down. And not a sound as the sergeant walked down the corridor with his captain by his side and the two guards with their rifles at port arms. "It's time, lads," the captain said. Not a bad sort but only doing his duty as he saw fit. And they lashed their hands behind them and marched them off to their fate. There was only the faint glimmer of dawn and a light mist hanging over the scaffold. And the sound of the Death March. And the voice of the priest.

  Laura Grady : They didn't say anything?

  Liam Fitzmorgan : They made their vows, and they died believing in the thing they lived for with their shoulders back, not a plea or cry, not a sound but the one shout from Denny: Freedom for Ireland, and Death to the informer.

• Liam Fitzmorgan : I was looking at the roaming land. It's like a sea without an end in sight.

  Laura Grady : Aye, indeed it is.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : You know, there's something about this land. I felt it the day I landed. It's like they knocked down all the fences and left man to roam free as far as he wanted to go and be whatever he chooses. My brother used to talk about America.

  Laura Grady : Oh, did he now?

  Liam Fitzmorgan : Oh, he knew the whole American Revolution, all the battles, all the dates. He used to tell me about it when he came home from University. I think he always had it in his heart to, someday, immigrate to America.

  Laura Grady : But he didn't?

  Liam Fitzmorgan : No, he died.

  Laura Grady : Oh, for the cause.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : No, consumption. It's a green land, Ireland, but there's still many hidden fear and darkness there yet.

  Laura Grady : Aye. It won't be a happy land until there's freedom. If I were a man, I'd die for it.

  Liam Fitzmorgan : Well, it's certain you wouldn't hang. You're far too pretty for that.