midnight
`` The sexes mix freely everywhere in western Europe ; only in Ireland and Turkey is there any attempt made to separate them . '' Later in the evening Father Tom insisted that the measure of responsibility was always the same . `` I should be sorry , '' said his uncle , `` to say that those who inherit drunkenness bear the same burden of responsibility as those who come of parents who are quite sane -- '' `` You can not deny , uncle John , that free will and predestination -- '' `` My dear Tom , I really must go to bed . It is after midnight . '' As he walked home , Father Maguire thought of the great change he perceived in his uncle . Father Stafford liked to go to bed at eleven , the very name of St. Thomas seemed to bore him ; fifteen years ago he would sit up till morning . Father Maguire remembered the theological debates , sometimes prolonged till after three o'clock , and the passionate scholiast of Maynooth seemed to him unrecognisable in the esurient Vicar-General , only occasionally interested in theology , at certain hours and when he felt particularly well .