Chapter Eleven: Dublin August--October 1913

In the beginning of August at a family dinner with his parents, Rory and Da drew Paddy aside and spoke with him while the women were at the washing up. Da was handing out whiskey, which made him suspicious, while Rory sat in his chair, his dark eyes speculative and engaging.
‘What?’ Paddy asked as he handed the whiskey from his father to his brother.
‘Have you heard about the union troubles, then, Paidín?’
Paddy sat down in the old chair. ‘Something of it in the papers, aye,’ he said cautiously. ‘Why?’ Rory looked at the old man.
‘They're plannin' to strike,’ he said abruptly.
Dan Leary shook a warning hand at his younger son. ‘Wisha, you, Rory, sure there's more to it than that. Amn't I knowing it?’ He asked with rhetorical darkness.
‘Da's the union liaison down to Jacobs'‘ Rory interjected.
Dan scowled. ‘Ruari Dubh, will you be letting me tell him in me own way, atall?’ he exclaimed. Rory was the worst of them in this family of hotheads. He was always the first in a row or a brawl, and among the brothers was the most vocal Fenian, far more reckless than Paddy. Mammy always said he would die young with the green flag wrapped round him, and they knocked wood when she did. Rory was proud of it, of course, the young eejit. The truth was that he was simply spoiling for a fight for any reason. With a hair--trigger temper, Fenian sympathies were a very bad thing.

In their younger days he and Rory sparred a lot, until a disastrously close call in Kerry nine years ago during a brawl with a man loosely connected with the Brotherhood had taught him to discipline his temper. Now, he would not fight unless severely provoked, as he would not drink. When he came back from Kerry with the devilish cut on his left arm -- his shooting arm -- healing painfully and well--concealed so as not to alarm Mammy, Rory jeered him for refusing to box with him until he was taken aside in the alley with the business end of a length of lead pipe and threatened within an inch of his life, brother or no. Paddy would not forget that exchange, and doubtless neither would Rory. The smell of wet brick could instantly call it up. He dragged The Dandy out in the rain by the collar and slammed his head into the wall a couple of times to get his attention before picking up a rusting piece of lead pipe that lay at his feet.

‘Look you sodding little wanker,’ he ground out in a low voice between his teeth. ‘If you ever so much as look at me cross again, I'll break your fucking head! It's no game I'm playing, and if you want to live to see a free country, you'd fucking well better listen --’ The exertion had torn the stitches open on his arm, and blood was pouring for the artery was nicked. Jaysus H. Christ! But he only winced and ground his teeth, spitting out through the searing pain --’You're a bullying little cocksure wanker, and if you love your country half as much as you fucking play at, you'll keep your mouth shut and your nose out of your arse, challenging every jackeen that happens along. Ireland doesn't need little pissers like you; it's pissers like you that asked them here, you mean little narrow--minded bully.’ He pushed the pipe against Rory's throat with both hands. His brother's eyes were enormous with fear; he knew he'd been pushed over the edge, and that he would do as he said. That was plain in his eyes.
‘Some of us are serious about the fight. If you are, I suggest you try to live long enough to see that day, which you won't do by tangling with me. The choice is yours.’
‘Aye, Paddy, aye,’ Rory croaked, his face purple with blood. Paddy shoved himself away, letting his brother fall choking in a heap, and walked straight for Jervis Street Hospital, where the surgeon there shook his head and tut--tutted before Paddy fainted from the blood lost. Since then, there had been peace between them.

The Da was saying, ‘Now, Paddy, see here, it’s true as your brother’s sayin’, the Tram company men are going to strike in the Horse Show Week if Murphy locks the rest of his men out, for I’m saying it to you that Murphy and Eason and the rest have made it plain that they’ll have no union men working for them. Murphy’s lot has said in no mean words that they’ll lock ’em out afore there’s any more agitation from Larkin and his union boys, for there’s a chance o’ what the General Worker’s Union is calling a sympathetic strike if conditions are not met. He intends to break the unions. But Larkin thinks we can break Murphy and his ilk, if we pull together. For it’s all for one, as Jim Larkin tells it. He won them decent wages and conditions in Liverpool and he says he can do it here. Jaysus haven’t we the worst wages and conditions in Europe, right here in Dublin?’

Paddy sat back in the chair, stunned, the rhetoric going past him like a close bullet. He had been watching the agitation in the papers of course, and had heard the whispers of discontent for years since Larkin arrived from Belfast. He was iron--willed, if not iron--fisted, arrogant and determined, seeing the cause of labour as the flaming sword he was decreed by God to wield, and wield it he did, to devastating effect. He was a complete teetotaller, and had been since before he learned that in Ireland men were paid their weekly wage in the pubs, with a gratuity for the foreman a requisite of payment. In his paper, The Irish Worker, he frequently ranted against the evils of drink with all the force of a Presbyterian minister.

Then there was the tenuousness of what he was proposing. Larkin’s own position as a union leader was secure enough that he could withstand the rigours of a lockout strike, but that of the men whose cause he championed was not. Paddy was all for decent housing and wages and working conditions for the common man but -- Good Lord, what would it mean if Da, Ernie, Rory, and Dan were all out of work at once? Eason and Murphy and the Dublin Corporation could hang on forever, hire blackleg labour cheap from Liverpool or the countryside. It would be a matter of principle with them, retaining the old feudal system that had been transferred from the land to the towns.... There would be hard times aplenty with Mo and Cate’s nine shillings a week and what Mammy took in from washing. The rent was ten shillings, plus fuel, food, and clothing. They’d be out in a week unless aid came from somewhere. He knew where that somewhere was, unasked; he could not do otherwise. His salary was hardly immense, no matter what they thought, but he would gladly give it all over if needs be. Molly could take care of the household expenses the while from her allowance, which was generous. He squinted at his father.

‘So you’re a Larkinite, is it?’ He said, giving nothing away.
‘Sure Padge, what else can we do?’ Dan asked helplessly.
Paddy took his cigarette case out of his pocket, lit a fag, and murmured, ‘Well, it’s a damn good thing, though’ it will go hard, and no mistake.’ His look was sharp. ‘You know I’ll do what I can, Dada.’ His father nodded briefly.
‘You’re a good son,’ he said in gravely tones.
Rory hooted. ‘Ha! Wasn’t I saying that not this afternoon! I told you he’d come through for us!’

Molly and Cate came in with Joe and Sally, and Dan rose from custom, an old--fashioned, reflexive obeisance. His father took Sally on his lap when she came to him, kissing her auburn head, and saying to Molly,
‘I hear one of your dividends is to be shown at Ballsbridge.’
Molly smiled, coming to stand beside Paddy’s chair. ‘Yes. Major Russell’s son James is riding.’ How she loved to talk about horses! Her whole manner became engaging and animated. It was a common point between her and his father, something to still the waters when other topics were turbulent.
‘I hope you’ll be able to see him,’ Rory said. Paddy frowned at him. Molly was not the person to discuss this before. He would keep her innocent of his doings. It would be enough for her to know that he was helping his family in the event.
‘Oh,’ she said, off--hand, unaware of the silent conversation between him and his brother, ‘I have, at the Phoenix Park racecourse. A good little runner she was. But a bit skittish.’
‘I’ve heard it’s that way with thoroughbreds,’ Paddy said, smiling up at her, grateful for the leavening of pleasant conversation.

On the morning of 26 August, he stepped onto the tram in O'Connell Street at the Parnell Monument with his satchel slung over his shoulder.
‘Good day, Jack,’ he said cheerily to the conductor as he gave him his two halfpennies.
‘Aye, Professor. Off to the College is it?’
‘That's right. But I think I might like to walk a bit later. It's a fine day.’
Jack Duggan glanced at him quickly. ‘Sure that wouldn't be a bad idea at all,’ he said.
Paddy smiled and looked at his watch. ‘Half--nine. Plenty of time to walk if I want to. I think I'll get off at the Bridge.’
Jack had recovered himself, and was smiling pleasantly. ‘Aye sir, indeed.’
The tram rattled down O'Connell Street to the Nelson Pillar. There they paused to let a crowd both off and on before continuing. Paddy noticed that the tram behind them was bound for Dalkey. Well, he hoped those Dalkey--bound would not mind a bit of a walk. They came to O'Connell Bridge and the tram conductor's bell rang.

‘Your stop, Professor,’ Duggan said.
Paddy rose as the man pulled a Red Hand badge from his pocket and stuck it on his cap.
‘Right you,’ he said as if unaware. ‘Thanks.’ He stepped off the tram with the other Bridge passengers and sauntered off up D'Olier Street in amusement. It was ten minutes of ten. Everywhere at this moment, all over the vast reaches of the Dublin Municipal Railway Company, there was an utter halt. Tram workers were walking away from their posts in seeming unconcern, leaving unwitting passengers to stare in astonishment and outrage. It was perfect theatre. He passed one of the men coming back from Stephen's Green.
‘See you tonight, Charlie!’ He called, again with innocence. The man nodded, friendly and polite as ever, as if there was nothing whatever strange in the fact that he was deserting his post in the middle of the midmorning rush.

That afternoon, Paddy rang the house and told Rosie to please tell Molly he would be out at a meeting, please don't wait supper for him. Rose in turn told him that herself was out at Mrs. Talbot's with the Castle people and had left word for him not to wait on her.
‘Where are the children?’
‘With her, sir,’ Rose said in surprise. ‘And Nancy.’
‘Good.’ Then there was nothing whatever to fret for, but he found it ironic nonetheless that the sides should be so clearly drawn on this occasion. He rang off and lit a cigarette while he put his lectures in order for the next day. He could get tea at his parents' and walk over to Larkin's meeting in Beresford Place with Rory and Danny and Da. Ernie would never come. He was almost settled on this idea, when he remembered that the sympathetic strike would begin today as well. Tea at home was out. Maybe he'd dash off to Kelly's or Bewley's.

He took three volumes of Wordsworth and Coleridge down from the shelf for Romantic Literature, and lamented that he still had been unsuccessful in introducing the works of Douglas Hyde or Tom MacDonagh or Patrick Pearse into his curricula. The Irish literary renaissance was passing staid Trinity by. He could not gain a foothold even with Willie Yeats! Even George Moore would have been preferable to the endless round of Swineburne and Tennyson, and he considered Moore to be little more than a gossipy old nancy. He was bored with it all. At least the Americans were different. And there was the Northern English novelist, Lawrence, whose recent work-- Sons and Lovers -- looked promising. It would scandalise the Board of Regents with its earthy language and themes, but they needed something to get their hearts started in the mornings. For his own part he liked the sensuality of the images; the manipulation of the language was superb. Ah, but the regents would only approve of such writers and the teachers capable of transmitting the work were worm fodder.

Finished with his organisation, he flung his robe over his arm and picked up the satchel. As he was going down the stairs he was blinded and dazzled by the late summer sunshine slanting low across the windows. There was a knot of anticipation in his belly. He was dying to learn the present effects of this morning's upheaval. It was that which had buoyed him through the day, when the idiotic questions of first--years would otherwise have driven him to a rage of impatience. He turned out of the building and into Great Brunswick Street heading for the Bridge and Kelly's. On the corner, a hawker was crying,
‘Tramworkers Strike! Dublin Immobilised in Horse Show Week! Company in Panic!’
He smiled to himself. Murphy and the Corporation wouldn't be in a panic if Jesus Christ himself were seen in the streets of Dublin, bearing down in wrathful judgement. But it sold papers to say so.

The city was strangely silent as he walked, void of the clang and rattle of the trams, the rumble of dray carts and lorries. At the Bridge, he looked up and down the Liffey. Nothing, not nothing, was moving on the docks. Across the Bridge crowds had gathered beside the Nelson Pillar, and were standing in confusion in the desolated streets. A queer thing, that. Dublin was never quiet. Not a single day in his memory had there been such silence. It was eerie. He walked into Kelly's and sat down at a table, signalling the girl behind the bar. She was a pretty, slender, dark--haired girl with a pale complexion. Yer man's daughter or niece.

‘Can I help you, Professor?’ she asked, eyeing his cast away robe on the empty chair.
He leaned back, eyeing her with speculative teasing. ‘You might,’ he said judiciously. ‘You could tell me what's good tonight. And you could get me a seltzer if you were so willing.’ He looked up at her with an innocent expression. She did not respond to his flirting, which was a disappointment, but rattled off the dishes in monotone rote:
‘There's sausage and chips, fried oysters, black sole with hotel butter, coddle and potato cakes. What will you be having?’
‘Well, sure,’ said a voice from behind the Bar,’ he's not after needing the oysters!’ Sean Kelly came around the bar, grinning. ‘Jaysus, Paddy Leary, I haven't seen you for an age.’
Paddy laughed. ‘Aye, I got married, so now I get my meals at home.’
‘Is that so?’ Kelly asked, not meaning marriage. ‘Mary,’ he addressed the girl,’ get the professor a pint on the house.’
Paddy shook his head. ‘No, thanks Sean. I need a clear head tonight. I have to go to a wee meeting, you see. -- I'll have the coddle if you please,’ he told the girl, ‘and the potato cakes. But tell the cook to mind the pepper.’
‘Aye, sir,’ the girl said. She went back to the kitchen and Sean leaned on the table.

‘A meeting s it?’ he murmured in an undertone.
‘I thought I might go up to Beresford Place,’ Paddy said without hesitation. ‘I hear Larkin's giving a speech.’
Kelly hooted. ‘And you a Trinity man! Well,’ he went on, more seriously, ‘if you don't mind being a few minutes late, I was thinking of going up that way meself. I'll go along with yez, but I have to see that Martin and George are on first.’
Paddy nodded. ‘I'd be glad of the company.’
‘Right you,’ Kelly said. Now, what's your poison and you not a drinking man?’
Paddy smiled. ‘Seltzer. If you have it.’
Kelly rose from the table. ‘Does the Liffey stink?’ He asked as he went to the bar.

Paddy walked in the twilight with the short, thick publican, enveloped in the most wonderful feeling of freedom. To be sure, he had his robe and satchel with him, his Anglicised lecturer's speech habits, hallmarks of his profession, but there was between him and Kelly no sense of inequality. They were merry equals as any two Irishmen should be able to be. It was a relief from the continual social stratification of his days.

They came to the newly painted building in Beresford Place. It had once been the Northumberland Hotel, but had been empty for several years before Larkin purchased it as a home for the Transport Worker's Union. Madame Markievicz's Fianna Eireann also had rooms there. They turned now into the shelter of the building across the street, commingling with the crowd gathered --mostly union men -- and waited in the gloaming for Larkin's appearance.

He came on suddenly, as he was wont to do. An upper window was thrown open and Larkin put his head and upper body out of it, hailing the crowd with a shout. The workers gather round began cheering, and it was as if a hysteria came on them with Larkin, for the cheering grew louder and louder until it seemed that heaven itself was answering back. After the strange silence of the day, it was stunning. Larkin himself was equally so. Paddy had never seen him before and now he was startled. As a man, James Larkin was a remarkable presence. A tall, large, powerfully built man with a thick crop of black hair, a streak of which fell over his forehead. He was Liverpool Irish, with a broad, rugged face, a swarthy complexion and quick dark eyes. He had a manner about him, even now as he waited in patient silence for the adulation to subside; something volatile, something primal. Here was a charismatic leader among leaders. Whatever education, experience or credentials he possessed were immaterial. Men would follow the very dynamism of the man no matter his views or qualifications. It happened that he espoused something very close and dear to them.

As suddenly as the cheering began, it stopped, and an eerie silence --echoing the day -- replaced it before Larkin began to speak. The silence hung as heavy in the air as rain, was as electric as a storm, and Paddy felt himself drawn, walking almost unconsciously forward until he was at the back edge of the great crowd. A cold moon shone briefly, and then was veiled in a thin cloud. Larkin began to speak:

‘ Men!’ He gave a sweep of his arm to encompass not merely them, but every worker struggling for justice. ‘We have today struck a spanner into the machinery of Capitalism and British oppression of the Irish working class. But it must remain something more than a temporary blow to the productivity of both. We are engaged in a fight for our lives. Make no mistake about that! If we give them opportunity they will crush us like so much quarry stone; they have shown us that. Every conceivable combination have untied their forces against us. But we have struck the blow, and no matter what happens after this nothing they can do can alter that fact. Do not be deceived: this will be a long and bitter fight between us and them. But as they are the Titans of Capital, so are we the Titans of Labour. It has already been shown in England and in other places that a Union of men banded together can accomplish more than the self serving moguls who propose to govern our lives and keep us in wretchedness.

‘How many of you here tonight go home to your tenements and wonder they are safe over your heads through the night? How many string along week to week struggling to feed and clothe the families you cannot keep? How many of you put your good clothes in with the pawnbrokers on the Monday and take them out again for the Sunday Mass just to pay the rents? This will be no more! but to do this we must stand together. We must become disciplined, organised. Labour in its own defence must begin to train itself to act with disciplined courage and with organised and concentrated force.
‘You think to yourself, 'Jim, what do you mean? What will we do' What will we do? We will take a leaf out of the Book of Carson! If Carson has permission to train his braves in Belfast and the North to fight against the aspirations of the Irish people, then it is legitimate and fair for Labour to organise in the same militant way to preserve their rights, and to ensure that if we are attacked we at least may give a satisfactory account of ourselves.’

There was a murmur in the crowd. Larkin leaned on the windowsill like a frank, avenging god. Paddy disbelieved what he was hearing. An army, a Labour army? All these years of the politics of the IRB, the waiting, the testing, the frustrations, and Jesus God, here was this trades union leader making the proposal for their liberties and safety! It was incredible. Larkin went on, his face gleaming in the moonlight,
‘We will give you all military training. Captain White has agreed to take over this training , and I hope that every Union will urge its membership to join this Citizen's Army. Labour must be no more defenceless, but must march at the head of the van, ahead of the Gaelic Leagues, or Theatre Societies, the Gaelic Football Clubs, for the betterment of the whole people of Ireland. Captain White will tell you the plans now, but before I go I want to urge all of you not only to join in your own defence but also come to a demonstration of support to be held in O'Connell Street on the Sunday. Farewell!’

Captain White then appeared to give them particulars about a meeting in Croyden Park the next day. Paddy heard little beyond that, but stood stunned while the crowd surged around him. He felt numb, tingling, as though a limb had gone to sleep and come back to life again suddenly. All his life he had hoped for something like this, looked for something like this, and now it was upon him from a most unexpected source. Socialism. He had read of Keir Hardie and Marx when an undergraduate, but not enough to especially convert him to their ideas. Now he saw that in the context of his own country this was precisely his view. The moon came out again from the clouds and shone on his face, bright and cold and clear. His bemusement ended and, looking up, he saw a star shoot across the sky. If he had been religious he'd have called it a revelation.

‘Paidín!’
He turned at the sound of his name, and saw Rory striding toward him.
‘Jaysus, Paìdin, I was hoping to see you here!’ His brother exclaimed. He gestured toward the north end of the crowd. ‘Da and Danny are over there. We tried to get Earnan to come, but he wouldn't. Ha! See what he thinks in the morning, when he finds himself locked out of a job!’
Paddy looked at his younger brother.
‘Is Ernie in the Union?’ He asked.
‘Yeah,’ Rory said, offhand. ‘Say you, what are you thinking of this Citizen's Army business, then? Are you for joining up?’
Paddy squinted up at Liberty Hall in the moonlight darkness. ‘You know I can't,’ he said.
‘Ah why not --’ Rory began. Paddy looked at him directly.
‘You know I am committed elsewhere.’ He sighed. ‘But it doesn't mean that my heart isn't with you.’
‘So come out to Croyden Park tomorrow with me and sign up!’ Rory insisted.
‘It would conflict with long--standing commitments,’ Paddy said.
‘Ah!’ Rory waved his hand in disgust. ‘What good will a free country do us if it's still in the hands of the landlords and the Corporation?’ It was a question Paddy could not answer. It showed him the depths of his brother's republicanism, anyway.
‘Will you come out wit' us for a drink at least?’ Rory asked askance. ‘It may be the last time we do for a long while.’ Paddy smiled at last.
‘Aye, I'll come out with yez, y' wee bugger.’
Rory punched his arm good--naturedly.

Jim Larkin, for his speech on the night of the beginning of the strike was arrested by the Metropolitan police and held for two days before being released. The charge was an illegal public meeting. On Friday, 29 August, he appeared from the window again in Beresford Place, promising to keep his appearance on the Sunday in O'Connell Street ‘dead or alive’.

On Sunday, Paddy went with Molly, Nancy and the children to the usual Mass at half ten at St. Francis Xavier's. Once they were home again, he told Molly he was going to the College for some papers in his office and would be back for tea, to which her parents were invited. He strolled with apparent leisure to O'Connell Street. He passed the Parnell Monument, where several of the burly DMP were standing in a knot, armed with batons, which they swung about idly as boys with hurley sticks. He paid them no mind. The noon Mass was due to let out soon at the Pro--Cathedral. If he didn't find himself a reasonable place to loiter until Larkin appeared he might miss him altogether in the crowds. He walked slowly past Eason's with a sneer. Eason's had been one of the first to hire blackleg labour against the strike. But it was hardly surprising; between them, he and Martin Murphy owned most of the Dublin companies.

He walked on, breathing in the fine autumn day, the slight crispness in the air. The leaves on the trees that flanked the side streets were bloodred in their annual death. The sight of them brought home the comfortable smell of turf fires in the harvest fields. Nobody burned turf in the cities. It was all coal and wood. He was just across from the Imperial Hotel when an old man appeared on one of the balconies. He was bent, but obviously once tall, with clothes of a fine, foreign cut. Paddy felt a queer sense of magnetism, such as he had experienced in Beresford Place with Larkin. Suddenly, the old man on the balcony rose and threw off the enveloping shawl and began shouting at the mingling passers--by, noticeably now more than usual for this hour on a Sunday, that he had kept his promise and was here. Paddy stood stock--still in the middle of the street, completely taken in by the ruse. My god! It was Larkin!

He watched in astonishment while a crowd of police rushed into the hotel. Larkin was shouting something, he couldn't hear it very well in the roaring crowd. A moment later the police dragged Larkin out of the balcony and out of the hotel. He went willingly, and none of the people about made any move to interfere with the police. Paddy couldn't believe it was all over so quickly. A few brief words, and then nothing.

Countess Markievicz, whose Polish husband's coat Larkin was wearing, went over to Larkin and shook his hand. One of the police gave her a shove out of the way. She was not a fragile woman, but was a Countess for all that and the act was outrageous. The stunned feeling left him as he watched this scene, to be replaced by cold terror as near and far came the cry from the police,
‘Baton Charge!’

Terror made the blood sink away from him, galvanised him into action. He made a dashing headlong dive for Henry Street behind him, but found a line of DMP rushing at him.
‘Jaysus!’ he exclaimed, skidding on his heel. He slipped, colliding with a policeman reeking of rye whiskey, who quickly took up his baton. He kept shouting, ‘No, Stop! For the love of God!’ while he was batoned about the head and shoulders. He was as tall as the policeman, but on the ground it was impossible to get away from that baton. Another came up and joined in the melee against him, using both hobnailed boots and baton. Vainly did Paddy try to protect himself, for they were everywhere, devilling him. He could hardly breathe he had been kicked so, and his right shoulder wrenched from the socket as he was dragged several feet to the kerb. Finally, he received a crack on the forehead that sent blood pouring and shattered glass from his eyeglasses cutting into his brow. He groaned and the last thought before he was struck into insensibility was that he would be blinded now for certain.

He came to himself again slowly. Before him was a blank white wall devoid of any softening decoration. His ribcage was agonised by the shallow breath he drew, and his head pounded worse than any hangover. His lifted his hand, slowly, heavily, to examine the aching place in his head, but could hardly lift his arm off the bed. His shoulder was murdering. He grimaced, hissing. By the weight on him he was covered in bandages and splints.
‘Here, don't do that!’ Molly's voice said. She rose from her chair to the right of the bed, taking his hand in one of hers, which was remarkably cold, and laid it down again. He looked up at her, the movement excruciating. She was blurred in his vision, but she usually was without his glasses. Pain made him sick, and he was confused.
‘What happened? How did you --’ he could not go on. The effort was too much.
‘Hush!’ She exclaimed softly, and touched his face below the bandage on the left side. ‘But thank God you can speak!’ Her face was white and tense
‘Where am I?’ he asked, trying to lift his head enough to look around, but the pain was shooting. The view out the narrow curtainless window was black and told him nothing.
‘The Mater,’ she said shortly, looking out at the room. ‘Some publican who knows you rang up to say you were beaten to death by the police. Paìdin!’ her voice was as agonised as his battered body. ‘What were you doing in the middle of a baton charge!’ He could not remember it, though plainly he had been. The last thing he remembered was passing the DMP at the Parnell Monument on his way to Trinity. He had been going to get papers. And something else ---- but he couldn't remember what. He raised his eyes to her beautiful face and found tears glittering in her eyes.

‘Ah, M'aille,’ he managed. It was a croak. She did love him, after all. ‘Don't cry, a stòr. They... haven't ------’ the words came at a long pause---- ‘killed me.’ That set her crying in earnest against his aching head, shaking in silent sobs that were too painful in his state to endure.
‘I'm sorry,’ she murmured presently, straightening. She shook her head, wiping her eyes with the back of one ungloved hand. ‘When we heard -- Mummy and Fa were there, and the children, and I couldn't --’ She stopped and willed herself to calm, sitting down in the chair again. ‘Padge, I couldn't bear the thought you might be dead! When I arrived, they had already taken you into the operating theatre --’ the words flowed over him, meaningless. All he knew was the blur of her tear--streaked face, and her struggle for calm. It was an anchor in his confusion and pain. She loved him.

The doctor came in just then, with a white coat over his regular tweed, followed by one of the nursing sisters in a pale blue and white habit. He had frizzy brown hair and a van dyke beard, and blinked frequently from behind his eyeglasses.
‘Ah, professor, you are awake!’ he said. ‘Well, let's have a look at you.’
Molly moved the chair back as the doctor bent over him, but leaned forward to watch the examination. Jameson looked all about his eyes and ears, asked him to follow a finger's path through the air. He looked at Molly.
‘He seems all right in the head,’ he said. The doctor shook his osculate at Paddy.
‘You had us badly worried when you came in sir!’ he chided. ‘You are lucky that your skull was not more than cracked, and that your spectacles didn't shatter in the eye, or you would have been in a very queer street!’ He turned to Molly, ‘We have set the shoulder and bound the ribs, but there is not much more that we can do than that. He will be in some pain but he is very lucky.’
‘Tell me how lucky I am to my ribs,’ Paddy complained wearily. Every breath was torture.

‘I shouldn't be surprised,’ Jameson said soberly. ‘There are three fractured, in addition to the dislocated shoulder. You will not be doing much physical exercise for a while! You were in a very unlucky place. We have thirty others here in the ward who suffered much the same fate. They were returning from Mass I believe.’ He looked at the sister, who shook her head. ‘Do you know why you are here, professor?’ He shook his head minutely. Jameson addressed Molly again,
‘We will keep him the night and tomorrow. The rest and medication will do him good.’
‘Yes,’ Paddy heard Molly's voice as through water. He was fading again into the haze of pain, exhausted and sick. He wanted nothing more than to disappear into oblivion where the red--black pain could not reach him. Jameson's voice floated to him,
‘Are you feeling well enough, Professor, for a bit of supper? Not artichokes and underdone beef, I'm afraid, but it will do you good.’

Paddy shook his head imperceptibly, eyes closed. ‘No, please,’ he managed, drifting. Molly's voice caught his attention,
‘You needn't, dear.’ His angel, whose throaty voice allayed the sickness he felt.
‘Very well,’ the doctor said. He ordered morphia from the nurse and told Molly in a kindly tone,
‘Mrs. Leary, there is no reason for you to stay any longer. Go home to your children and have something to eat and a rest. He will not know whether you are present or not. It cannot be comfortable for you sitting here since this afternoon.’
‘No, thank you, Doctor,’ he heard Molly say, ‘I will stay.’ Bless her. It was the last thing he heard before he sank away into the blackness again.

The hospital toll of wounded that weekend came to four hundred and thirty--three. The Freeman's Journal estimated that perhaps half again as many as that had sustained injuries not requiring hospitalisation. Three people were known to have died from the attack, on the weekend or after it. The number of police injured was forty--five. For the next week, Dublin was in a state of great unrest. Meetings of workers were held around the city, especially at Liberty Hall. It went on without Larkin, for he was held since his arrest in O’Connell Street in Mountjoy Jail. In his stead, Keir Hardie came over from England and urged the locked out men to stand fast, declaring that the British trade unions would support their Irish brothers. It was the hope of every working man in the face of an agreement they were forced to sign or be locked out whatever their occupation:

‘I hereby undertake to carry out all instructions
given me by or on behalf of my employers, and fur--
ther, I agree immediately to resign my membership
of the Irish Transport and General Worker’s Union
(if a member) and I further undertake that I will
not join or in any way support this union.’

The lock--out was complete throughout the city and county of Dublin, nothing came in or went out that was not overseen by police. The newspapers hired blackleg labour from Liverpool. In the streets, men, unused to idleness, sat in the doorways playing cards, smoking, talking. Hundreds were out in the streets, at first optimistic, buoyed by the public funerals, meetings, and pledges of support from workers unions in England, but as the weeks passed, increasingly despondent, querulous, violent. Riots broke out, and looting of shops. By the end of September it was necessary to send to England for relief for the starving in Dublin’s slums. The first ship arrived on the 28th, a Saturday, and brought back bad memories to many of the Great Famine. Once again, it would be said that the Irish could not govern themselves.

Dublin society, outraged that the workers should have the bad taste to strike during the Horse Show Week was also despondent, but for entirely different reasons. Molly was put out that a house party given by Lord and Lady Talbot at Malahide Castle was cancelled on account of the difficulties with food importation or drayage from the countryside. To Castle society the Strike was nothing more than an annoying nuisance. In the middle of September, she read out to Paddy at teatime from Irish Life that ‘the social barometer has fallen to zero. Dublin is plumbing the lowest depths of the dead season... and the next few weeks do not offer any exciting engagements... No flag flutters above the Vice--Regal Lodge, which is closed for the present, the Lord Lieutenant and the Countess Aberdeen having gone to Scotland.’ She was petulant when he was less than sympathetic, saying that maybe a week in their own houses would do the toffs some good, instead of gadding about the country while working people starved.

But he had been sitting in the chair with the teacup idle in his lap, trying to keep sickness at bay from an excruciating headache; Joe and Sally were running around the room screeching, and his temper was short. He had heard much the same diatribe from the Mahaffys the day before, and was fed up with the gentry. As long as a problem did not directly and profoundly affect them, they were hands--off. Nothing had changed since the days of the Land League in Kerry, or even the Famine. Bloody nothing. Every time he went to his parents’ house the situation was worse. His twenty pounds did not go far for eleven people in two households. What was more, the morphine did not help his headaches, only made him disoriented and stupid, so that tutorials became a nightmare. He had to rely heavily on notes, which he abhorred.

In the middle of October on a dreary wet day, he came home in the evening with a pile of work stuffed into his satchel and another headache eating away at his endurance. He was in a black mood, made no better by the quietness of the house.
‘Molly!’ he called down the long narrow passage of the hall. ‘Rose! Mac! Jesus is anybody here?’
Molly, her hair in a frilly boudoir cap, poked her head out the parlour door at the end of the hall.
‘Oh’ she said pleasantly, ‘you’re home. I’ll tell Mrs. Mac to bring you some tea. Dinner will be late. Is it still raining?’
‘Yes,’ he said scowling. He shouldered his way past her in the doorway and threw his satchel on the floor. The floor was already littered with her infernal scrapbooks and society magazines and the Irish Times foretelling dread and the doom of Irish society as they knew it if the strike did not end soon. Molly wore a loose housedress and carpet slippers. Evidently, she had not been out all day. He flung himself into the chair and sat brooding, watching her as she went to ring the bellpull on the wall. Somehow, in spite of that dress and silly cap, she managed to look elegant as a fashion plate. A less beautiful woman could not have carried it off. She went back to sitting on the floor, cutting and sticking bits of paper with the bottle of mucilage. He wondered where the children were, or if since dinner would be late anyway he could persuade her to lock the door. Probably not. Her mind was on the mass of papers before her.

Mrs. Mac came in and brought him tea and sandwiches before long, and he sat indolently, eating them and watching Molly and listening to the rain. It wasn't cold enough for a fire. Christ his head ached....
‘Oh, I bought you some paper today,’ Molly said, without looking up. ‘It’s on the desk.’ Desultorily, he rose and went to inspect them. Before he was hallway across the room, he stopped and said,
‘Take it back. Don’t exchange it for anything. Just take it back. I won’t have anything else.’
She turned to look at him. ‘Why?’ she asked innocently. ‘Is there something wrong with it?’
He glared at the covermark. Eason’s Double--Bond. ‘There bloodywell is!’ he snapped. She turned around fully now, scowling. Before she could speak he went on, savagely,
‘You bought this at Eason’s did you not? Are you not aware that Eason’s is hiring blackleg labour in favour of the locked--out men? Does it mean nothing to you that entire families are dining sumptuously on rats while the scab you bought this from is living comfortably? Damn you, don’t you care that for two months I’ve given over my salary so my family could get by, and it’s still not enough? Ow!’ He broke off at a searing pain in the place where his skull had been fractured, holding his head in his hands. Tears ran down his face on the one side. Molly jumped up, and came to put her hands on his arms.

‘Padge?’
He threw her off with a sweep of one hand, knocked her staggering. ‘Leave me alone. I’m fine, I’ll be fine --’ the pain was stabbing. ‘Christ!’ he muttered. ‘Just take that lot back,’ he told her, ‘and don’t buy anything else there. I won’t use it.’ He went and with a shaking hand drank some tea.
‘Well, for heaven's sake,’ she exclaimed, ‘how was I to know? You needn't bite my head off.’ He glared at her as she rubbed her temple. She said, ‘I'll take it back, really Paddy, since I can't use it and you won't. Here,’ she acceded sarcastically, picking up a scrap of paper from the floor, ‘why don't you write me out where I may and may not shop for you.’
‘Go to hell,’ he told her, and stalked out of the room, locking himself in the study, where he lay on the miserable old Victorian sofa in the dark until bedtime. His headache was manageable now, and gone was the nervous irritability that came with it.

When he came into their dressing room after looking in on the children he found Molly with a reddish--purple bruise above her left eye. He leaned and kissed it as she brushed her hair.
‘Did I do this?’ He murmured into her ear. She regarded him warily in the mirror. ‘I'm sorry, a stor.’ He rose and ran a hand through his hair. ‘I don't know what's happening to me.’ He looked at the neat arrangement of goods on her dressing table in despair. She put the brush down.
‘You should see the doctor,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘This can't be normal.’
‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Nothing is, anymore.’ He felt terrible, agitated and restless. Nothing helped. She turned and looked up at him.
‘That's not like you,’ she said.
He smiled ruefully. ‘Damned if I know what is, at the moment.’
She rose, her hand on his arm, her eyes luminous. ‘Come to bed,’ she said kindly. He couldn't think of a better answer to what ailed him.

Food kitchens were set up in Liberty Hall, at the Rotunda Hall and at various other sites in the city, for the relief of the poor. The children of the striking workers were starving visibly in the streets. Lady Aberdeen, Lady Fingal and some others proposed a scheme which they called ‘Save the Kiddies’, whereby the children would be sent to homes in England to be cared for during the strike. Larkin even approved it, and leant his support. The first packet boat was due to sail from Kingstown on the 25th of October, but rioting prevented the children from being boarded. The Church was against the venture, and Archbishop Walsh himself had written a letter to the Times protesting

‘The Dublin women now subjected to this cruel temptation to part with their helpless offspring are, in the majority, Catholics... they should need no words of mine to remind them of the plain duty of every Catholic mother in such a case....’

It was too much like the days of the Famine, with well--meaning Protestant ladies luring starving children from their mothers, only to convert them to Anglicanism. Paddy's sister--in--law Rosemary had been on the point of sending her three children abroad, over and above Ernie's objections, but the riots on the docks made her turn back. Who could blame the poor woman, with three children under the age of seven and another on the way? The family was pretty much evenly divided: all the women were for it and all the men against. In the end the ‘save the kiddies’ campaign sparked more riots and sectarian violence than any other episode during the long season of unrest leading up to and encompassing the strike.