Mentioned twice briefly, Fanning is the sub-sheriff of Dublin. The party men discuss the candidate ’s suspicious closeness with Fanning and suggest that Tierney buddies up to city officers to win higher office. Fanning also reveals an ugly reality about the Church’s involvement in politics. , the story’s shady Church representative, enters the briefly, asking for Fanning; this suggests that Fanning is in cahoots with the Nationalists and that Keon (a stand-in for the Church) has an undue closeness to the two men’s scheming.