three o’clock
An ingenious musician would have no difficulty in finding tunes which would suggest the presentation of illuminated addresses to curates or bank managers . Meetings convened for the purpose of expressing confidence in the Members of Parliament , of either the Nationalist or the Unionist parties , would naturally be announced by a performance of Handel 's fine song `` Angels ever Bright and Fair . '' There might be a difficulty about unusual events like the erection of statues , but a tune might be kept for them which would at all events warn people not to expect an auction , a presentation or a political meeting . Nearly half the people who were doing business in the fair assembled at three o'clock in the square outside Doyle 's hotel . According to the estimate printed afterwards in the Connacht Eagle there were more than two thousand persons present . Of these at least twenty listened to all the speeches that were made . The number of those who heard parts of some of the speeches was much larger , amounting probably to sixty , for there was a good deal of coming and going , of moving in and out of the group round the speakers .