Chapter Fourteen: Dublin July--August 1914
In November of 1913, in response to Carson’s formation of the Ulster Volunteers Patrick Pearse, Eoin MacNeill, and Sir Roger Casement formed the Irish Volunteers, for if Britain meant to allow Unionist Ulster to arm itself, thus fomenting civil war, the three remaining provinces could not fail to defend themselves. From the day of their formation in the height of the General Strike, the ranks of the Irish Volunteers swelled from the estimated 2,000 men of the IRB to 180,000 by the summer of 1914. There were 5,000 men in Dublin City alone. With their declared aim to ‘do for all Ireland what the Ulster Volunteers sought for Ulster Protestants alone’ they were a threat indeed. With their advent, the Third Home Rule Bill would go down, never to be resurrected
The afternoon of the muster Paddy rang Molly from his office.
‘Darling, I’m committed for a meeting at the Rotunda until about nine tonight,’ he said. ‘Can you keep the house open and make my apologies?’
‘I suppose...’ she answered, a thousand questions brewing in her tone. ‘Padge, what’s going on? You were out last evening as well --’
‘I’ll explain it tonight,’ he promised, for he surely owed her an explanation, particularly as they were to be openly drilling. ‘There’s nothing wrong, mo ‘gra, don’t worry.’ he assured. ‘Kiss the babbies for me.’
‘...I will,’ she said.
‘Wait up,’ he murmured softly, ‘won’t you, Mallaidh?’ His words had the intended effect, for she caught her breath.
‘Yes,’ she whispered breathlessly.
‘There’s my darling girl... I won’t be late.’ He put up the phone. If there was one thing he had learned in all these years, it was how to keep her docile. A well--laid woman was much less trouble than a neglected one. He went to his parents’ for supper, and brought Danny with him to the muster at the Small Concert Room at the Rotunda. Rory was already a member of Connolly’s Citizen Army, and Ernie refused both their overtures resolutely. He was not missed; four thousand men signed on the first night.
In spite of the crowd, it was an orderly affair, as Madame Markievicz’s armed Fianna boys served as ushers, herding men to their seats with all the courtesy and tact of soldiers. They were a fine example to this throng of men, some of whom had never held a firearm in their life, certainly never drilled or taken orders from anyone but an employer. Paddy met Tom MacDonagh up near the podium after MacNeill’s initial speech, and leaned down to say to him of the crowd,
‘Did you ever think it?’
Tom met his eye. ‘I prayed,’ he admitted. ‘But fortune is with us.’ He plucked Paddy’s arm. ‘Oh look, here’s Padraic!’ At the podium now was Pearse. Paddy had never met him, though had heard of him long from Tom and from Griffith. He had given a speech during the Strike at the foot of the Nelson Pillar that was to have rivalled Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock. He had thought this hyperbole on Tom’s part until unromantic Griffith said the same thing. Now he took note of that tall, striking figure with the noble forehead and hooded eyes. There was a quality about him, at once engaging and distant, the same quality that Parnell had. Here’s one men will follow, Paddy thought.
Pearse began to speak, outlining the necessity for an armed Volunteer force. The entire room was under his sway. Men leaned forward in their seats, not to miss a word. He invoked the hovering ghost of the yet--to--be, uttering the phrase ‘the nation of Ireland’, and there was a stir in the crowd. Pearse went on, speaking of that free and equal nation as if it were already a reality in his mind, and not merely a dream for which thousands had died in vain. He was truly a magnetic speaker, less forceful than Larkin, but equally as riveting. His daring was breath taking; even Paddy was startled by his audacity in uttering in public parts of the constitution of the IRB. No one but a fellow in the Brotherhood or a Castle spy would recognise the words. He was either brilliant or a fool. He expressed this opinion to Tom who turned to him after Pearse had turned to speaker’s post over to the Roger Casement. Tom laughed.
‘Don’t you know that Padraic always says ‘Don’t do something in private that you’d never do in public.’ It’s his kind of honour.’
‘Bally luck to him if he can get away with it. If we all can,’ Paddy said, pushing up his glasses. ‘It’s a bit of a change from the old fellows, though.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ Tom said, his eyes shining.
As for Paddy, he saw his baby brother signed up, his hand shaken by no lesser persons than Pearse and Sir Roger, and then he saw him onto the tram before starting his own walk hone. It was gone half--nine of a fine clear night and he had yet to talk with Molly.
She was in bed when he came up, throwing his coat onto the chair in the dressing room on his way in. The table lamps burned on either side of the bed, and she was reading a magazine with the pages rolled up around the spine so that he could not see the cover. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and the light from the lamp cast a golden hue over her skin. Still dressed, he leaned and kissed her.
‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ His hand sought the curve of her jaw, and he cradled her face in his hand. He sat on the bed, kissing her thoroughly. ‘Things ran longer than I expected. And I had to see Danny home.’
‘Where were you?’
‘There was a recruiting meeting for the Irish Volunteers,’ he said baldly, drawing back. This was one time when dissembling would not serve him well. He saw her expression. More Gaelic nonsense, it said.
‘What’s this?’ She asked, as she would have done Joe when she was thinking of something else and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
‘A militia,’ he took her hands. ‘In case Carson and his lot up in Belfast get any ideas that they should be the only ones.’ He regarded her intently. She hardly seemed alarmed by the news.
‘Ah. Will you be away more, then?’
‘Yes,’ he said evenly.
She took her hands away from his loose hold and began to unknot his necktie. ‘Then we shall have to manage,’ she said, focused on her work. She pulled his tie away, laid it on the stand, and looked back at him with a glance that was bold and frank. ‘Come to bed then, my Irish soldier, and let’s not waste the time we have.’ She smiled hotly. ‘I’ve waited all night for you.’ She pulled back the covers to reveal a thin silk nightgown, very beautiful but hardly suited to the weather. Her eyes were glowing and her chest rose quickly under the silk as her breath caught. He could smell desire on her, heady as perfume. She had waited and with such welcome thoughts! His game girl, as in their courting days when all she wanted was his hands and mouth and cock in a good long fuck, and didn’t care a whit for all his learnedness. It was man--woman, sensation; that was the sum of their world. His delight. His avid, bonny girl. His every nerve was suddenly alive, the excitement of the evening transmuted, as the thrill of battle transformed, to desire.
‘Wait no more, mo chailin dubh,’ he lapsed into Kerry speech, taking up the thread of their old game, ‘for it’s home from the wars I am and aching to climb into you...’ He took his glasses and then his shirt off, leaning again to kiss her while her hands came up impatiently, tugging at his vest. Her nails raked gently up his naked chest and he shivered, groaning. He let her have her head, gloried in her aggression, her woman’s hunger, every bit as forceful as his own. This was his hunting girl, who had taken dangerous fences recklessly. Bonny, bonny girl! If it were his fate to die in Ireland’s cause, he would take this with him, be glad of this as the martyr’s blood ran.
Now, in July, how things had changed between them! That idiotic episode with Mary MacWharton had ruined everything. Bloody stupid girl, not to know his wife from the housekeeper! She was cool now, Molly. Polite before visitors, the children, the servants, but otherwise with little more than a sisterly concern for his continuing headaches and lapses. It was rare that she gave herself to him in the old way. He felt the pall of it, regretted it keenly, especially as she grew heavy with the child. Gone were the love--games and fond attention drawn to her lump, as she had called Joe and Sally. She was removed from him, and nothing he did or said had any effect. With determination then, he threw himself into organising and drilling with the Volunteers. He could succeed there, if he had failed with Molly.
He ordered a tunic and kit from Mulleavy’s in Lower Baggot Street: the grey--green uniform, knee boots, and the dashing slouch hat of the Volunteers; with it was a Sam Browne belt, a holster for his long--barrelled Webley .45 revolver, and bandoliers that would hold fifty rounds of ammunition. The first time he tried it all on at home his eyes stung with tears. It was here. Now. For Ireland. The uniform of an Irish soldier. Of the nation of Ireland. It didn’t matter about MacNeill’s dissembling at the meeting: every man there had known that Pearse and the physical--force contingent would prevail; they would not be satisfied with Home Rule. Nothing less than freedom would do. Freedom!
He was in the dressing room and Joe came in yelling just then, running down the hall from the stairs. He stopped when he saw Paddy standing in the middle of the room.
‘Dada! Are you gone for a soldier?’
He smiled at the boy, who was running circles about him to see the whole picture.
‘Aye,’ he said in Irish. ‘A soldier for Ireland.’
‘Can I be a soldier too, Da?’ Joe plucked at the Webley hanging under his right elbow. Paddy knelt down, pulling off his hat, and put it on Joe’s mop of unruly curls.
‘There you are, Seosamh! A Fian!’ he declared. ‘And when you’re bigger, I’ll take you to Mr. Mellowes and he’ll teach you all the things a Fianna boy needs to know.’
‘How big must I be to be a Fian, Dada?’ Joe asked, squashing the slouch on his head. ‘An will I have a gun too, like you, Da? Are you goin’ ta kill Miss Katie’s English soldier, Da?’
That was news. He put his hand on the boy’s arm as he jumped about before him, restless as ever with his thousand questions.
‘What’s this? Miss Katie has a soldier--beau?’
‘Aye.’ Joe said, offhand, twirling before his mother’s pier glass. ‘He takes her walkin’ on Sundays. I seen him bringin her back. He kissed her in the garden. I seen em when they thought I wasn’t lookin, ‘cause I was playin wit my soldiers... Are you gonna shoot him Da? I ast Miss Katie was she gonna marry him and she said he’d go back te England where he come from. He wears a skirt. I ast her why he wears a skirt an she said it wasn’t, but it looks like one te me.’
Paddy couldn’t suppress a grin, despite the leaden feeling in his stomach at the news of a possible spy in his own house, or at least, garden. He took off the hat and ruffled Joe’s hair.
‘It’s a kilt, buachaillin,’ he smiled. ‘Such as all the Gael used to wear. You remember how I told you about Fionn?’
‘Fionn never wore a kilt!’ Joe shouted in derision. ‘He’s a hero! He never wore the like of them things.’
‘As you will.’ Paddy said, more to himself than to his son. Kate’s boyfriend was probably none other than one of His Majesty’s Own Scottish Borderers; he’d have to remember to get a look at him on the Sunday, take precautions. ‘Hey you, Joejoe --’ he said, rising. ‘Come you here to me, and I’ll show you my gun.’ His answer was a shout, and he went to sit in the chair with the boy on his lap. He was a very clever boy, Joe, and asked about all the parts of the Webley and wanted to see how they worked.
They passed a pleasant half--hour at this before Molly came in searching for the wee--an and stopped abruptly at the sight of them. They were lying on the floor together, with Joe propped up on a pile of pillows, the Webley in both his hands, one braced against the other. He had learnt the firing mechanism, and responded on the quick to Paddy’s short commands to fire. There were many in the Volunteers who could not do so well, and Joe was only four. Apparently, crack shooting was heritable. Paddy was amused at this thought, and pleased with Joe’s prowess. He was laughing to himself, and rolled over on the floor to find Molly standing in the doorway.
‘What are you doing?’
Joe turned too, the Webley in his hand, and Molly drew back in alarm, pale.
‘Don’t worry,’ Paddy said, rising. ‘It isn’t loaded.’ He could see they were in for a row.
‘I learnt to shoot Dada’s gun, Mammy!’ Joe exclaimed.
Molly said nothing, but stared at them.
‘Go on now,’ Paddy said, giving the boy a squeeze, ‘and play with your sister. I’ll be along for a story in a little.’
‘Yes sir,’ Joe said. He looked up at his mother as he passed her. ‘Are you all right, Mammy?’
‘Yes, dear,’ she said abstractedly. ‘Run along now and find your sister. It’s nearly tea.’ She ordinarily disliked the boy calling her Mammy, and chid him, but she let it pass, so distracted was she by their play.
When Joe had gone, she folded up her arms over the mound of her lump and said,
‘So you’re teaching my son to be a murderer?’
That got to him, precisely as she knew it would. He busied himself putting the gun away in its customary place at the bottom of the wardrobe before he spoke.
‘I am teaching my son to defend himself. It’s always good to know the use of firearms. It saves accidents for one thing. He knows now when it is safe and is not.’ He met her eye. It would sound like dissembling to her ears.
‘I have nothing to say in this?’ she enquired sarcastically.
It would be so easy to argue with her -- and he was tempted to -- to rile her by saying ‘No’, but he really hadn’t the heart for rowing at the moment. He was too buoyed up from his play with Joe, and the sheer excitement that had preceded it. He pushed up his glasses and went to her, took her arms in his hands.
‘Sweetheart, he’s a little boy, and curious. No harm was done him to know one end of a gun from another --’
‘I saw the two of you!’ she cried, her voice rising. ‘That was not grouse--hunting you were teaching him!’ Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘I won’t have him exposed to such things! Your Fenian rebels out in the bogs! He already goes on in the most embarrassing way! You heard him on Sunday! Asking my father why the men in the village took off their hats when they were out walking! His language is deplorable and you encourage him! Whatever happened to your Bachelor of Arts, professor? You seem determined to bring him up in the worst sort of Irish barbarity, when you have risen above it! I should think that having fought so hard, you would want it to go easier for him ----’ she broke off, distracted, and stood shaking before him. The tears she would not cry hovered in her eyes. He reminded himself of her condition and the uniform he wore. He would disgrace neither; but he was livid at her rant.
‘I’ll thank you to remember that when you married me, you allied yourself with that ‘Irish barbarity’,’ he scorned. ‘They are my children too, and I will have them know their country’s history. Perhaps it means nothing to you that we starved and died at English hands, but it means a great deal to me! I will not tamely trot to your tune and pretend I am not what I am. Nor will I let them forget that they owe a duty to their countrymen.’ He paced as in lecture hall, running his hand through his hair, picking his words through the great gulf that separated them, trying to find the way with her, to give voice to the concern that troubled him too. ‘Yes, they are of both of us, in the middle, neither nor, and it is our task -- ours Molly! -- to help them navigate it. But don’t you ever ask me to deny what and who I am.’ His eyes roved over her figure, and some of his anger left him. ‘I understand your horror of that too earthy world,’ he said, his voice low and hoarse with the helpless tenderness he felt for her welling up. He sought her grey eyes beseechingly. ‘Lady that you are, how could you find it otherwise? But sweetheart,’ he came nearer, but she drew away, ‘he will not be little forever. Would you cosset him and have him unprepared for life? I wouldn’t say the same of Sally. Molly darlin --’ he looked at her bleakly, wanting so much to hold her and soothe away her fear -- ‘can’t you see it’s but to make a man of him?’ He went to her and she did not move from him now, but let him take her arms in his hands. Her head was bent, and she was shaking. Aching, he put his arms about her and held her, his cheek against her fragrant hair, soothing her as if she were Sally. It was good to have her in his arms again, even this way.
‘Whisha, m’aille, mo chroi,’ he murmured. ‘Whisha.’
‘It was terrifying to see him there, with that gun,’ she cried, shaking. ‘So little! Going on and on! How can he know it so well?’ She shook her head against his chest. ‘Padge, how can I make you understand?’ she raised her head, her lashes spiky from weeping. He grimaced, for it came to him that the sight must have reminded her of her dead lover.
‘I do, sweetheart,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m sorry. I didn’t look for you to come in on that.’ She looked at him in wonder, apologising when he rarely apologised for anything he did. ‘Come you now,’ he said. ‘You look shaken. Why don’t you lie down until tea? I’ll have Rosie bring it up to you. Would you like that, Mallaidh?’
She nodded, and he released her, watching her make her way to the bedroom, cursing himself for an ass. When she had gone, he sighed and turned aside to change out of uniform before tea.
Upstairs, Sally was in the playroom with Kate, but Joe was not to be seen. He went in without knocking, into the enormous room that was filed with the golden light of a summer afternoon. The windows overlooked the garden and they were hung simply in net, Molly being a progressive type who believed in light and air and cold baths for the children. Even at her young age, Sally was well acquainted with Sandymount strand, and the safety of the garden and the square. He spied his wee girl standing by the doll’s house in her deep red frock, bending to put one of the occupants to bed, a sweet sight with her fat short--stockinged legs and masses of unruly chestnut curls. Her expression, such as he could see the way she was half--turned, was one of firm seriousness. In spite of her name, she was not given to giggles as most little girls of her age. She turned to fetch the bit of baize blanket and saw him. Immediately she dropped it and ran over.
‘Dada! Heyo Dada!’
He smiled, lifting her up. She was all the sweeter for the child’s lisp.
‘Hello sweetheart.’ He kissed her soft, wild hair. She had his own hazel eyes and tended to ruddy colour. A child of the land she was, and not of her mother’s Castle society. ‘Have you been playing with the dollies?’
‘Yes, Dada,’ she said as if it were obviously time. ‘Dere goin’ to syeep because the night time’s coming. See?’ She pointed out the window to the rosy golden colours. It would not be dark long hours yet in the lingering twilight of summer, but she knew that after tea and a bath, it was always her bedtime. He smiled, pleased at her cleverness.
‘Just so,’ he said and put her down because she was wriggling, and bent, his hands on his knees. ‘But have they had their tea? They shouldn’t go to bed without their tea. It would make them very sad and cross.’ He pushed up his glasses, waiting to hear what she would say. She looked troubled and thoughtful for a moment, just like her mother! before she looked up at him again.
‘Can they have dere tea wid me and Sho? Me an Sho are havin our wid Miss Katie. Sho wen down on the pulley!’
‘Ah.’ Joe last year had discovered the joys of the dumbwaiter, and how if he rang the bell and got in, he would be hauled down to the kitchen by Mrs. Mac, where he could ‘help’ her, which mostly consisted of pestering her for bits of whatever she was making. His antics frightened Molly to death -- she was afraid he would be trapped in it or the cables would break -- but the boy would soon be too big for the box, so Paddy was nonchalant. Each in their ways, he and Molly spoiled the children shamelessly, but they were well behaved, if boisterous, so the spoiling continued.
‘Da’s having tea with you too,’ he said, looking across at Kate, who sat in the chair. ‘Your Mummy’s resting, so I thought I’d come and have my tea with mo chailin rua.’
At that moment, Joe came in on Rose’s heels, bearing a round of soda bread before him like an offertory. Paddy rose and caught the boy as he came rushing, after putting the bread down on the table.
‘We went to the zoo, today, Da,’ Joe said. ‘Wit Mammy and Miss Katie--’
‘An we rided on a cart,’ Sally chimed in.
‘Behind a big big big red horse,’ Joe exclaimed, ‘wit a long tail--’
‘How long?’ asked Paddy, amused.
‘As big as this,’ said Joe, stretching his arms wide, so that he was leaning backward. He fell over onto the floor, grinning.
Paddy laughed. ‘So you liked the horse, did you? There’s your mother!’ He looked up at Rosie, who had waited patiently through the telling. ‘That’s all, thanks.’
‘I’m just going to bring some to herself, sir,’ Rose said. He nodded.
‘Thank you. Will you tell her I’ll be along?’
‘I will, sir.’ Rose left with a curtsey. He had tried, in early days, to rid the servants of such formality, but they held to it steadfast. Now there was nothing to mark his discomfiture at their bowing and scraping but an inward unease.
‘You make them nervous, being so chatty. It’s out of their ken.’ Molly had explained. She was right. Now he was merely polite, though it irked him. Were they not the same as he? Even with his students he was informal, except in tutorial. But, the old slave ways of thinking could not be changed overnight.
They sat down to a tea of brotchán for the children and salmon stuffed in hazelnuts and boiled in honey for him and Kate. With dulse alongside and the sodabread melting sweet with butter and buttermilk, he could dream himself away to the peace of Kerry. Nursery tea was an informal affair, and a scuffle ensued about who would get the last piece of bread. Sally clung grimly, and Joe shouted, louder still when she pinched him.
‘Hush now, aren’t you the hooligans!’ Kate chided. Sally wailed then, for Joe had got the bread in her distraction, and peace was only restored when Paddy suggested they have a story before bath and bed.
‘But what shall we hear?’ he wondered aloud, looking at Joe. Sally crept sullenly into his lap and stared balefully at her brother. He might have the last piece of bread, but she had Da, which was better.
‘Fionn!’ Shouted Joe exultantly, munching bread and butter.
‘All right, so.’ Paddy said. To Sally he pointed out the leavings of the meal. ‘What’s this here, mo rua?’
‘Fis!’ she said, brightening.
‘That’s right,’ he said, glancing in merriment at Kate. Molly had told him, just after the girl’s arrival, how she’d run on one day about how good he was with children. She had rolled her eyes with the telling, for she hadn’t missed the tone of admiration. Katie blushed, true to form whenever he caught her eye. He went on with the story.
‘And there’s a story about Fionn and a fish just like this very one.’ He paused with a flourish and said with hushed mystery, ‘The Salmon of knowledge who lived at the Brugh under the ninth wave and ate hazelnuts.’
‘Hazel nuts!’ Joe groaned. He disliked them.
‘That’s right,’ Paddy nodded, grinning, ‘and when Fionn ate the fish it made him the smartest person in Ireland, so just you listen and I’ll tell you how it happened.
‘You’re already knowing that it was Fionn was the son of Muirne, who after married the king of Kerry. And one time when he was come to a young man’s age, he went along to a poet-- Finegas -- who was living at Brugh na Boinne. Now this Finegas was a very cross fellow, for he had been waiting seven years -- longer than our Joejoe here’s been alive -- and that’s a mortal long time to wait, so it is.’ He shifted Sally more comfortably on his lap and pushed up his glasses. ‘Anyhow, so, this fellow had been waiting all those long years for the Salmon of Knowledge to come along in the Boinne. Now, sure, as I said, this wasn’t any old fish itself, but a magical fish. So the one time when Fionn was there, he caught it for himself and tossed it to Fionn and him saying,
‘Spit this for me and bring it after but --’’ Paddy glared round the table in imitation of the poet, ‘‘don’t you be after ateing of it, do you hear?’
‘Well now, Fionn goes off and does as he’s told, and the fish soon comes ready. But when he’s after taking it off the spit over the turf fire, doesn’t he lay his thumb on a bubble on the fish and burn it. So quick as a wink, he pops his thumb in his mouth, just like our Sally here,’ he winked at her, ‘and bedad doesn’t he know everything itself.
‘Well, the devil of a poet was that mad at Fionn when he learned what had happened, and flung the fish at him saying it to him, ‘Take it and bad scran to ye for your devilling ways! It’s no good to me now!’ For you see it was Finegas who was wanting the knowledge of the world, and here was Fionn with it, and him not a boy of fourteen. So Fionn himself goes off and sings this wee poem to himself,’ he lifted back his head to sing an old song from Kerry days:
‘‘It is the month of May is the pleasant time;
its face beautiful; the blackbird sings his
full song; the living wood is his holding; the
cuckoos are singing and ever singing; there is
a welcome before the brightness of summer;
‘‘Summer is lessening the rivers, the swift horses
are looking for the pool; the heath spreads out
its long hair, the weak white bogdown grows; a
wildness comes on the heart of the deer; the sad
restless sea is asleep--’’
‘As someone else is as well,’ Paddy murmured, looking down at Sally, who rested heavy on his arm.
‘I’ll take her, sir,’ Katie said softly, rising. ‘And you can finish the tale with wee Joe.’
‘There’s no more of that,’ he said, and to quiet Joe’s disappointment as Katie took Sally off to bed, ‘but there are plenty of others, sure.’ Good it was to tell the old tales to the children. give them their culture as he had been given it. It cheered him from the row with Molly. He rose.
‘Come you, Joejoe. You and I can take all this truck down in the pulley.’
‘Aye!’ Joe exclaimed, scrambling to clear away the dishes.
Molly was asleep when he came to her, so he picked up the book he had left on the table before the windows and went downstairs in the evening quiet.
At seven in the morning of the 26th of July he was waiting in the Fianna’s rooms in D’Olier Street for the massage from MacDonagh to start the march out to Howth where the Volunteers would unload a shipment of ten thousand Lee--Enfield rifles, smuggled into the country by Erskine Childers on his yacht, Asgard. It was an early hour for a Sunday to call the men out, but there were two hundred Volunteers, milling about, a fine testament to their dedication. They had already mustered and drilled briefly at six, and fallen out ten minutes ago. Paddy said to Dick Mitchell, his fellow squad captain, beside him,
‘It’ll be hard going on them when they learn they’re not carrying live rounds back.’ That was the decision of the Military council, in case they met with opposition by the garrison. It was better to be fired on unarmed, at least for publicity’s sake.
Mitchell was a dark--haired fellow of the middle height, with a large moustache and high forehead. He was a tobacconist by trade and mild--mannered.
‘It’ll go harder on them if there’s a bollix--up and Childers can’t land at all. He’s supposed to go to Kerry then.’ Dick smiled, crossing his arms. ‘Can you see the fits they’d throw if all that steel went to Kerry?’
Paddy lit a cigarette. ‘As a Keryyman, I should take exception to that, but I’ll let yez off this time.’ He grinned and blew out smoke sharply. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘it’s a long road to Howth, and we could miss him.’
‘We’ll not miss him,’ Dick said. He squinted across the room. ‘There’s my brother. I wonder if he has news.’
John Mitchell did have the news they were waiting for.
‘I’ve just come from HQ. Someone at Howth telegraphed to say they’d been spotted at five this morning. We’re to begin.’
Paddy and Dick looked at each other.
‘Right,’ Paddy said, throwing down his cigarette. ‘Shall I?’
‘You’re the man,’ Dick agreed. Paddy went to tell Commandant Ned Daly John’s news. His pale and gentle face lit up, and his blue eyes sparkled beneath his service cap.
‘In broad daylight,’ he nodded. He clapped Paddy on the arm.
‘Let’s away!’
‘Aye sir,’ Paddy grinned.
John Mitchell blew his whistle.
‘Company fall in!’
The men assembled and their orders were given both in English and Irish. John Mitchell called the order to march, and so began the first gun--running of the southern Volunteers since Carson’s UVF had landed arms at Larne three months before in defiance of the 1913 update of the Defence of the Realm Act, which had been allowed to lapse previously. From 1898 until that date, the importation of arms into Ireland had been perfectly legal. Now it was not, and they were following Carson’s lead -- in broad daylight in full sight of the constabulary. It was an altogether grand birthday present, for tomorrow he would be thirty--two years old. Paddy was exultant: he had lived to see it. Open rebellion! He said to Dick as they were crossing O’Connell Bridge,
‘The ould wans would have paid to see this.’ Dick regarded him askance.
‘They did,’ he said shortly.
It was true. All those who had gone before, adding their strength to the numbers of men who stood for an Irish Ireland, had paid hard or ultimate prices that they might walk here, arms swinging free in the warm summer sun.
Their march today did not go unnoticed. The DMP stood by in twos and threes as they passed Eden Quay, batons in hand; a brutal reminder of Bloody Sunday. By rights they could do nothing, as the Volunteers were a perfectly legal organisation. But that had not stopped the police before. Even Dublin Castle did not openly harass them, even the known IRB men, though they were all readily accessible any day of the week. This was due to a certain caginess, for the Castle were none too eager to show their hand before time.
This morning, as most, the Volunteers were trailed by bands of small boys as they turned left into Beresford Place and made their way up past Monto. These ragged hooligans, the rats of the quayside neighbourhoods, ran after them, lobbing a stone now and again, but mostly offering jeers in language that would have blistered a sailor’s ears,
‘There go the go--byes!’
‘Ya buggerly lot of toy soldiers!’
‘Eh, why don’t yez go home te yer focin mammies!’
‘It’s the Brits’ll shoot yer shaggin arses, just ya wait! Ye’ll never be so high up then!’
Every man kept in line, eyes front, through this barrage, until the boys tired of their sport as they came to the juncture of Amiens Street and Portland Row. They were like dogs, defending their turf from all comers, dogs who would not go beyond those bounds. At last, when the company had reached the Annesley Bridge Commandant Daly called for a song. It was ten miles to Howth, and the singing would make the time go quickly.
So they began to sing the old rebel songs. After four, Paddy did his bit and started one himself. After the first line, men near him began to join in, and soon the whole company were singing ‘The men of the West.’ Ned Daly himself joined in next from the head of the line with ‘The Memory of the Dead’. They were on the far side of Raheny when from the back came a new song in Gaelic, ‘The Soldiers Song’, born with the Volunteers. The songs became ragged after that and halted as they came around the curve of the road to Howth, for the men were tired now; it was the longest march they had yet made and they would have to make it again later this afternoon. In the silence, Paddy fell to musing.
Oh it was a fine thing to be out in the air! Countryman that he was, he could have marched twice as far without difficulty. But not his men. How innocent they were! It was their innocence that drew him to them, these rank and file of the Volunteers. Clean lived and good--hearted, every man jack with a rosary in his pocket and a doff of the hat for a woman. Simple good manners were bred into them. Simple patriotism moved them. He had listened to their talk in halls and meeting rooms for better than six months now. They had no idea what would await them when the fighting came. This was not a matter of coming whistling home after a day at the gasworks, going out, ambushing a troop of constabulary so that they would not catch your mates farther on making off with the arms at the RIC post, then going home to tea. Whatever the fight was, it would come. Soon. England would go to war. It was only a question of when.
For him the question was whether civil war would come first, as Carson promised if Home Rule passed. And if it was a civil war they would fight, were these dear innocent men prepared for their homes invaded by their own countrymen, to be shot in the street or on their own doorstep for no further provocation than being for an Irish Ireland? Were they prepared to see their wives and children suffer similarly? For there was little doubt that the UVF would descend to such brutalities. The fracas up in the North this last Orange Day was proof of that. Twelve people had been killed. Including two children... boys. Paddy looked on his men, impassively, but his heart was aching. They were so good and true, they would stand and stand.... and fall as corn before the scythe, with nothing but a whisper to mark their passing. His eye fell on Stephen Sears, the young man whose voice had rung out in a clear beautiful tenor the haunting melody of ‘The Croppy Boy’. He would fall in the first bloom of youth. The boy was only eighteen, newly moved up in the ranks from the Fianna. His mother would lament and his picture would be enshrined in the house for generations to come.
Paddy looked up towards the gentle hills of Howth, quashing the terrible ache that came to his throat. Howth Castle was a knob on the far hill. Below, between the Castle and the village, were the hotels where he and Molly had once played word--games in far off days. Himself, he would die and gladly if that was the way it went, but he preferred to live for Ireland than die for it. He had not spent half his life working for that end to come a cropper at the first fence, as Molly would say. He smiled to himself. He liked her hunting metaphors. What a pity they were not getting on better. He missed their old playfulness....She would be out by now, taking the children to Mass and then to a party at the Talbots for their son James, who was only two weeks older than Sally. By the time she returned he would be back with any luck.... They were not likely to encounter interference from the RIC, as it was their day off over the whole country. No crime was expected in Ireland on Sundays. The garrison might be a problem, though they had found none in Dublin itself. If they did give trouble, it would be met with service revolvers from the officers, as the men would not be carrying ammunition; that would go back by car. It did not occur to him that they might be troubled beforehand, close as they were to their destination.
They arrived on the strand at half--twelve, and the men fell out, tucking into their kits for water and tack after their long march. They didn’t loll for long. The whistle call went up at 12.45. The Asgard was docked. Scrambling now, they poured over the hill and down to the water, where Childers and a small crew were unloading boxes, bundles, and individual rifles to a company of about twenty Volunteers. Up the hill before the hotel were three Dublin cabs waiting, ‘conveniently’ just having arrived with six couples out on a Sunday jaunt. Paddy stood for a moment in the hurly--burly and marvelled at the organisation. The old fellows thought of every little detail. They didn’t trust in God, like Pearse. Much as Paddy admired Padraic’s audacity, he left too much to fate, chance, or whatever he called it. Himself, he didn’t trust God that far, not after 800 years of England on their necks.
He came to himself again, and took his place near the yacht; they would need big strong men to help with the unloading. He was at the water’s edge, up to the knees in seawater, soaking his puttees. He was glad he hadn’t worn boots.
‘Do you need a hand?’ He shouted to the man in front of him, struggling with a mass of rifles in sacking, which had just developed a will of its own and decided to move in twelve directions.
‘I do not!’ the man answered in rough Gaelic, with a broad Kerry accent. He turned. It was no one but The O’Rahilly
‘Ha--ha! Micheàl!’ Paddy shouted in delight. ‘Will you never give over them guns itself to a fellow Kerryman? The lads are waiting!’
The O’Rahilly, dressed in his own spruce version of the Volunteer uniform, looked in surprise at him. ‘I will,’ he grinned when he had recognised him, handing the rifles over and clapping Paddy on the arm, nearly toppling him in the incoming wave. ‘Padge Leary, how the devil are you?’
‘Out for a fine stroll this summer’s day,’ Paddy said, handing the rifles over to the next man. He turned back to Michael for another go, and grinned.
‘Ah, Trinity swank you’re not,’ The O’Rahilly said, heaving over another bundle.
‘No, bedad,’ Paddy agreed, wincing. His hands were already raw from the rough sacking and the cold salt water.
‘Sure, it’ll do you good,’ Michael said, handing over another load.
It was miserable, cold work. He nearly lost his glasses in the wet, and so put them in his pocket; then everything was a blur around him. Several of the men fell into the waves and though the water was not deep there was a treacherous undertow. He was soaked to the skin in the layers of woollen uniform; it would all be ruined. His hands were blistered, raw and bleeding, stinging painfully in the salt water and so bloody cold he could hardly use his fingers but in a mass. But by god, what work it was! The harbour patrol came by and, faced with a multitude of armed Volunteers, turned tail. In an hour they had unloaded a thousand Lee--Enfield rifles and thirty thousand rounds of ammunition. The latter were loaded into the waiting cars and taken to Dublin. The rifles would be carried back by the men, who were by now weary but elated. In broad daylight, they had done it! Cheers went up when Childers weighed anchor and drew up the lines; the Asgard floated free, veteran of the first act of an Irish Ireland.
Such elation was short--lived. The harbour patrol had alerted Dublin Castle, the RIC, and the DMP, and when the Volunteers had advanced only so far as Clontarf, they found a roadblock of a mixed company of King’s Own Borderers and police, a couple of hundred men, most of whom were armed. Paddy was in the middle of the sea of Volunteers, with his own company. Far ahead, he heard the command in Gaelic, ‘To the right, march!’ To their right was the Malahide road, leading north. The only thing it could mean is that they would separate and go overland to Dublin, an uncertain business, but their sheer numbers were in their favour that way. He repeated the order to his own men, and on it went down the line.
But the DMP and a company of Borderers were before them, with bayonets fixed. In the twenty feet between them and the barricade, they could see the sheen start on the faces of the Borderer recruits. The DMP, ringing the garrison forces, were impassive as ever. The order rang out to seize arms. Most of the Borderers, young men on their first assignment, did nothing. Those who did were rushed by the Volunteers at the head of the ranks and smashed by empty rifle--butts. The DMP retaliated with a baton charge. Paddy pulled out his revolver and took aim. On the far side of the road, shots rang out. Two, three... one from his side. Daly himself.... Tom MacDonagh, firing into the air. He hadn’t seen Tom before... He was in uniform, clean and dry. He must have driven from Dublin.
Behind him, Dick Mitchell was herding his men towards the side of the road. Tom’s hired car was braked just beyond on the Dublin road. Four men were taking rifles from the Volunteers and loading them into the boot and the back and front seats. One of the men was Old Tom Clarke. Bedad. It was dangerous for Tom to be out in the thick of this; he was the most wanted man in Ireland.
‘Men!’ Paddy called to his company in Irish, ‘Surrender arms!’ They followed his wave to the back of the crowd, followed the order when they saw the car. Then they dispersed, as they had arranged to do if there was trouble, over the hillock and down by way of the strand to Clontarf; up the hill and over the ridge towards Drumcondra. One way or another, they would get back to Dublin. Paddy went with the Mitchells up by Drumcondra, through fields and over hedges. No singing now, but a steeplechase and every moment looking over their shoulders for the garrison. But they were not followed.
When they reached Drumcondra Station it was half--four. There they parted company and Paddy walked the short distance home. He had taken a bath and was nonchalantly drinking tea in the back parlour, nursing his sore and oozing hands when Molly arrived home with the children at half--five. It wasn’t until dinner that she looked at his hands, asking in dismay,
‘What on earth happened to you?’
Conscious of the children staring, he managed to look sheepish and cleared his throat, ‘We did a rope drill today. I suppose I’m softer than I thought.’
Molly shook her head, rolling her eyes. ‘You and your boy scouts, Padge!’ She looked across at Joe. ‘Mind that the next time you go climbing trees, won’t you?’ She said, for Joe had climbed the arbutus in the garden in the last week and come away scraped and bleeding. Thank god she was no sailor, no frequenter of regattas, to know that ropes could not cause such abrasions. They were in the wrong places entirely.
The telephone rang just before seven. It was Daly.
‘Paddy, I’m down at the Mater. I’ve just come from Tom and Katty’s --’ Katty was his sister ‘-- There’s been a set--to with the King’s Own in Bachelor’s Walk----’
‘Jesus!’ Paddy exclaimed, running his hand through his hair. He winced.
‘Not with the family,’ Ned assured quickly, in their code. ‘A bunch of the King’s Own got a wee bit nervous with the crowds, don’t you know. There’re three people dead. So far. The row is like to be fierce. Can you come to the house tomorrow?’ The house. Tom’s.
‘Sure and I will.’ Paddy said. ‘Ned! Do you need me to ring anywhere for you?’
‘If you could get to MacDonagh that would help. He’s gone home out to Merrion. He’s not on the phone.’
‘No,’ Paddy said. ‘But I’ll ring the Giffords. They’ll get word to him.’ Tom’s wife Muriel’s sisters were engaged to several of the Volunteers. Society beauties all, the Gifford sisters to a one had turned their backs on their easy life and thrown their lot with the Cumann na mBan.
‘Good man,’ Ned said. ‘The old fellow said you’d come through.’
It was bitter to be praised under the circumstances. ‘Yeah, thanks Ned.’ He was about to ring off when Daly said,
‘O and Paddy, stay off the streets tonight.’
‘I will, so.’ He said, and rang off. After phoning the Giffords, he walked back down the hall to the back parlour where in the glow of the lamp Molly still sat writing a letter to her cousin in Cavan. She looked up.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Mmm?’ he asked, frowning distractedly. His aching hands hung heavily at his sides. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘There’s been some trouble in Bachelor’s Walk. The bloody green troops they send over us have fired on a lot of civilians.’
‘That’s dreadful!’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ he said wryly, sitting down. ‘You didn’t have any trouble this afternoon, did you?’
‘Not at all,’ she answered, laying the pen carefully aside. ‘This isn’t because of those guns, is it?’
He stared at her. ‘How did you hear about that?’
She shrugged. ‘At Lizzie’s. The word came just after we arrived.... I say, are you all right?’ She began to rise from her chair, bracing her hands on the table. She was great now with her child, and beginning to be awkward.
‘Yes, yes,’ he waved her alarm away, rubbing his forehead. ‘I mislaid my glasses before the march so spent the better part of the day without them. It’s nothing, just a headache. I’m fine.’ He did indeed have a headache, come with blinding suddenness at her question. She paid more attention to the goings on in the world than he thought. He’d have to be careful. ‘Go back to your letter, Mallaidh, I won’t disturb you.’ But she was already across the room, leaning over him with a worried frown as if he were Joe. He felt the child turning, disturbed by her unrest.
‘I’ll get you a powder,’ she said decisively. Before he could stop her, and he didn’t really want to, she had retrieved a packet of headache powder from the urn on the mantel and poured it into a glass of water from the drinks cabinet. ‘There now,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘You’ll be right as rain in a little.’ She crossed her arms. ‘Ought you to go to bed?’
He smiled at her fussing. There was nothing more he could do tonight. Worrying would aid no one. He put the empty glass on the table beside him.
‘That’s a transparent invitation,’ he murmured, getting up. But it was only a joke, relic of their old days. He was tired. He kissed her briefly. ‘Good night.’ He was halfway up the stairs before he noticed that she hadn’t scorned his remark at all.
The next day when the word of the Howth gunrunning broke in America, funds began pouring into Volunteer and IRB headquarters from the Clan--na--Gael and its subsidiary Irish--American organisations. £1000 sterling came in the first day. The next day it was five times that much. Two days later, by the time of the funerals for the victims of the ‘Bachelor’s Walk Massacre’ as Bulmer Hobson called it in Irish Freedom there was £100,000. Soon, the Volunteers would have the equal of Carson’s 40,000 Howth Mausers, and then some.
The funeral for the four Bachelor’s Walk dead was a propaganda coup. Ten thousand people, excluding the Volunteers, were on the march through Dublin to Glasnevin behind the coffins. It was the greatest event in Dublin since Bloody Sunday. The Fianna carried banners that read: ‘The King’s Own Scottish Murderers’. One of those young men, a mourning band decorating his uniform, walked weeping behind the coffin of his mother, who had been shot and bayoneted. The Volunteers were out in their numbers with their new rifles carried muzzle up as the Dead March droned. Every officer was present, and as the coffins were lowered thirty--two armed Volunteers fired a volley over the heads of the crowd, into the summer sky. This honour guard had stood for hours the last two days before the coffins as they lay in state in the Pro--Cathedral; these deaths were but a trickle next to what was to become a raging tide:
Six days later, on the 4th of August at 11.00 p.m., after three days of agonising public uncertainty, Britain declared war on Germany.
Ten minutes later, all over Dublin solemn bells rang out from every church and chapel, sending masses of people into the streets. It was left to the priests and those on the telephone and wireless telegraph to break the news of the war. Some cried, some cheered, many were confused, but few in those first hours and days were anxious. In the minds of the Redmondites there was anxiety: what would this do to the Home Rule Bill, just signed by the PM? But in the cells of the IRB and the brigades of the Volunteers, there was rejoicing; now a Rising could take place, when England was elsewise occupied.
Paddy came home from the college on Monday the 10th, and found Molly in the back parlour, sitting before the window with a letter in hand. Her face was pale, and she looked startled when he entered. Something had happened.
‘Oh Padge,’ she said, frowning. ‘I’ve just received a letter from Liam today. He’s joined up!’
He went to her, skirting the chairs and the sofa. ‘Are you sure?’
She held the letter out in her hand, and when he had taken it, picked up a photograph from the desk of the young bugger in the uniform of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Jaysus, and he had. Paddy ran his hand through his hair.
‘Is there tea?’
‘No,’ she said distractedly, ‘I’ve only just got home --’
‘No,’ he said, when she made to rise, and he went over and yanked the bellpull on the wall. He stood in the middle of the floor, squinting to decipher the brother’s spidery scrawl. There was little enough to decode:
‘6 August 1914
Molls--
I suppose you can tell from the pic that I’ve joined up. How could
I not when it’s boring as hell here? Had the photo taken this morning,
obligatory don’t you know. I have a lot of them collecting dust. I guess
they’ll ship off with me to give to French birds. Erik’s in my battalion
as well and sends his regards --’
‘Who’s Erik?’ he asked.
She frowned in surprise that he didn’t remember. ‘Hobbles’ brother James! You met him at the wedding I should think.’
Paddy scratched his head. ‘I could have met the Pope and not remembered, that day.’ He went on reading,
‘Don’t tell the parents about this please. Let them think I’m lost
in India in the foreign service or pushing up daises like George. I don’t want
the trouble.
‘Don’t mind all the Empire Saves Poor Little Belgium nonsense.
I’m not doing it for King and country. England is a frightful hole. And
unless you think I’ve gone mental, I’ll tell you I know the Germans aim
to make mine a short sweet life. But I’ll take a few with me first.
‘Love to you and the little ones. Liam.’
He looked up. ‘He’ll be in France by now.’ He folded up the letter and handed it back to her. ‘Not much to be done, I’m afraid. He is over age.’
‘He’s a bloody fool!’ Molly cried vehemently, crushing the letter in one hand. She was shaking.
‘Hey,’ he said softly, coming over. ‘Hey.’ He put his arms around her. ‘He’s only doing what he feels he must,’ though he didn’t believe that for a moment of the brother; he was an adventurer. He had admitted as much: he was bored and it was something to do.
Molly raised her head. ‘Would you? Would you go and fight the Germans?’ She accused. He tried to humour her,
‘Fight for the Empire?’ He grinned. ‘You know me better than that!’
‘Then why did he?’ She railed.
‘Why has he ever done anything?’ Paddy asked, looking out the window at the spire of St. George’s beyond. It was an entirely rhetorical question; she knew as well as he her brother’s temperament. He was rootless, restless, with a wanderlust. Easily bored, he rode as a distraction, drank as a distraction. The only thing he had cared about was horses and that not enough to keep him in Ireland. Paddy felt the child roiling between them and looked down at Molly.
‘I shall have to tell the parents,’ she sighed. And then she burst out again, ‘O damn him! Damn him for leaving me with this!’
‘Whisha,’ Paddy murmured. ‘Easy now, m’aille.’ She leaned against him in despair and it felt so good to have her melting and soft in his arms again. He said with his cheek against her forehead, ‘Do you want me to come with you when you tell them?’
She started. ‘No!...No.’ she murmured again, softer. She moved away to look at him. ‘But thank you.’
Anything, mo ‘gra.
She smirked in rueful black humour. ‘Even Mummy wouldn’t set on a pregnant woman....’ She moved from him and went to her calendar, leaning on the desk. ‘I’ll go on Sunday.’ She waved her hand. ‘You’ll be at your meeting anyway. Kate won’t mind missing the Charlie Chaplin for once.’ She rose again and met his eye apprehensively, all her fear in her face. Odds on, that ‘poor Willie’ would go down as pointlessly as the other brother. He could see in her eyes that she knew it. She was a realist, Molly. But how would she face the death of this most beloved of brothers, however undeserving he might be? How would she face death in the hundreds of thousands this war promised? For Paddy did not believe the rhetoric; it would not be over by Christmas. Molly was an innocent. Long ago he had seen her as Ireland; it raised a shiver in him for the fate of the country.
The afternoon of the muster Paddy rang Molly from his office.
‘Darling, I’m committed for a meeting at the Rotunda until about nine tonight,’ he said. ‘Can you keep the house open and make my apologies?’
‘I suppose...’ she answered, a thousand questions brewing in her tone. ‘Padge, what’s going on? You were out last evening as well --’
‘I’ll explain it tonight,’ he promised, for he surely owed her an explanation, particularly as they were to be openly drilling. ‘There’s nothing wrong, mo ‘gra, don’t worry.’ he assured. ‘Kiss the babbies for me.’
‘...I will,’ she said.
‘Wait up,’ he murmured softly, ‘won’t you, Mallaidh?’ His words had the intended effect, for she caught her breath.
‘Yes,’ she whispered breathlessly.
‘There’s my darling girl... I won’t be late.’ He put up the phone. If there was one thing he had learned in all these years, it was how to keep her docile. A well--laid woman was much less trouble than a neglected one. He went to his parents’ for supper, and brought Danny with him to the muster at the Small Concert Room at the Rotunda. Rory was already a member of Connolly’s Citizen Army, and Ernie refused both their overtures resolutely. He was not missed; four thousand men signed on the first night.
In spite of the crowd, it was an orderly affair, as Madame Markievicz’s armed Fianna boys served as ushers, herding men to their seats with all the courtesy and tact of soldiers. They were a fine example to this throng of men, some of whom had never held a firearm in their life, certainly never drilled or taken orders from anyone but an employer. Paddy met Tom MacDonagh up near the podium after MacNeill’s initial speech, and leaned down to say to him of the crowd,
‘Did you ever think it?’
Tom met his eye. ‘I prayed,’ he admitted. ‘But fortune is with us.’ He plucked Paddy’s arm. ‘Oh look, here’s Padraic!’ At the podium now was Pearse. Paddy had never met him, though had heard of him long from Tom and from Griffith. He had given a speech during the Strike at the foot of the Nelson Pillar that was to have rivalled Robert Emmet’s speech from the dock. He had thought this hyperbole on Tom’s part until unromantic Griffith said the same thing. Now he took note of that tall, striking figure with the noble forehead and hooded eyes. There was a quality about him, at once engaging and distant, the same quality that Parnell had. Here’s one men will follow, Paddy thought.
Pearse began to speak, outlining the necessity for an armed Volunteer force. The entire room was under his sway. Men leaned forward in their seats, not to miss a word. He invoked the hovering ghost of the yet--to--be, uttering the phrase ‘the nation of Ireland’, and there was a stir in the crowd. Pearse went on, speaking of that free and equal nation as if it were already a reality in his mind, and not merely a dream for which thousands had died in vain. He was truly a magnetic speaker, less forceful than Larkin, but equally as riveting. His daring was breath taking; even Paddy was startled by his audacity in uttering in public parts of the constitution of the IRB. No one but a fellow in the Brotherhood or a Castle spy would recognise the words. He was either brilliant or a fool. He expressed this opinion to Tom who turned to him after Pearse had turned to speaker’s post over to the Roger Casement. Tom laughed.
‘Don’t you know that Padraic always says ‘Don’t do something in private that you’d never do in public.’ It’s his kind of honour.’
‘Bally luck to him if he can get away with it. If we all can,’ Paddy said, pushing up his glasses. ‘It’s a bit of a change from the old fellows, though.’
‘Isn’t it just?’ Tom said, his eyes shining.
As for Paddy, he saw his baby brother signed up, his hand shaken by no lesser persons than Pearse and Sir Roger, and then he saw him onto the tram before starting his own walk hone. It was gone half--nine of a fine clear night and he had yet to talk with Molly.
She was in bed when he came up, throwing his coat onto the chair in the dressing room on his way in. The table lamps burned on either side of the bed, and she was reading a magazine with the pages rolled up around the spine so that he could not see the cover. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and the light from the lamp cast a golden hue over her skin. Still dressed, he leaned and kissed her.
‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ His hand sought the curve of her jaw, and he cradled her face in his hand. He sat on the bed, kissing her thoroughly. ‘Things ran longer than I expected. And I had to see Danny home.’
‘Where were you?’
‘There was a recruiting meeting for the Irish Volunteers,’ he said baldly, drawing back. This was one time when dissembling would not serve him well. He saw her expression. More Gaelic nonsense, it said.
‘What’s this?’ She asked, as she would have done Joe when she was thinking of something else and didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
‘A militia,’ he took her hands. ‘In case Carson and his lot up in Belfast get any ideas that they should be the only ones.’ He regarded her intently. She hardly seemed alarmed by the news.
‘Ah. Will you be away more, then?’
‘Yes,’ he said evenly.
She took her hands away from his loose hold and began to unknot his necktie. ‘Then we shall have to manage,’ she said, focused on her work. She pulled his tie away, laid it on the stand, and looked back at him with a glance that was bold and frank. ‘Come to bed then, my Irish soldier, and let’s not waste the time we have.’ She smiled hotly. ‘I’ve waited all night for you.’ She pulled back the covers to reveal a thin silk nightgown, very beautiful but hardly suited to the weather. Her eyes were glowing and her chest rose quickly under the silk as her breath caught. He could smell desire on her, heady as perfume. She had waited and with such welcome thoughts! His game girl, as in their courting days when all she wanted was his hands and mouth and cock in a good long fuck, and didn’t care a whit for all his learnedness. It was man--woman, sensation; that was the sum of their world. His delight. His avid, bonny girl. His every nerve was suddenly alive, the excitement of the evening transmuted, as the thrill of battle transformed, to desire.
‘Wait no more, mo chailin dubh,’ he lapsed into Kerry speech, taking up the thread of their old game, ‘for it’s home from the wars I am and aching to climb into you...’ He took his glasses and then his shirt off, leaning again to kiss her while her hands came up impatiently, tugging at his vest. Her nails raked gently up his naked chest and he shivered, groaning. He let her have her head, gloried in her aggression, her woman’s hunger, every bit as forceful as his own. This was his hunting girl, who had taken dangerous fences recklessly. Bonny, bonny girl! If it were his fate to die in Ireland’s cause, he would take this with him, be glad of this as the martyr’s blood ran.
Now, in July, how things had changed between them! That idiotic episode with Mary MacWharton had ruined everything. Bloody stupid girl, not to know his wife from the housekeeper! She was cool now, Molly. Polite before visitors, the children, the servants, but otherwise with little more than a sisterly concern for his continuing headaches and lapses. It was rare that she gave herself to him in the old way. He felt the pall of it, regretted it keenly, especially as she grew heavy with the child. Gone were the love--games and fond attention drawn to her lump, as she had called Joe and Sally. She was removed from him, and nothing he did or said had any effect. With determination then, he threw himself into organising and drilling with the Volunteers. He could succeed there, if he had failed with Molly.
He ordered a tunic and kit from Mulleavy’s in Lower Baggot Street: the grey--green uniform, knee boots, and the dashing slouch hat of the Volunteers; with it was a Sam Browne belt, a holster for his long--barrelled Webley .45 revolver, and bandoliers that would hold fifty rounds of ammunition. The first time he tried it all on at home his eyes stung with tears. It was here. Now. For Ireland. The uniform of an Irish soldier. Of the nation of Ireland. It didn’t matter about MacNeill’s dissembling at the meeting: every man there had known that Pearse and the physical--force contingent would prevail; they would not be satisfied with Home Rule. Nothing less than freedom would do. Freedom!
He was in the dressing room and Joe came in yelling just then, running down the hall from the stairs. He stopped when he saw Paddy standing in the middle of the room.
‘Dada! Are you gone for a soldier?’
He smiled at the boy, who was running circles about him to see the whole picture.
‘Aye,’ he said in Irish. ‘A soldier for Ireland.’
‘Can I be a soldier too, Da?’ Joe plucked at the Webley hanging under his right elbow. Paddy knelt down, pulling off his hat, and put it on Joe’s mop of unruly curls.
‘There you are, Seosamh! A Fian!’ he declared. ‘And when you’re bigger, I’ll take you to Mr. Mellowes and he’ll teach you all the things a Fianna boy needs to know.’
‘How big must I be to be a Fian, Dada?’ Joe asked, squashing the slouch on his head. ‘An will I have a gun too, like you, Da? Are you goin’ ta kill Miss Katie’s English soldier, Da?’
That was news. He put his hand on the boy’s arm as he jumped about before him, restless as ever with his thousand questions.
‘What’s this? Miss Katie has a soldier--beau?’
‘Aye.’ Joe said, offhand, twirling before his mother’s pier glass. ‘He takes her walkin’ on Sundays. I seen him bringin her back. He kissed her in the garden. I seen em when they thought I wasn’t lookin, ‘cause I was playin wit my soldiers... Are you gonna shoot him Da? I ast Miss Katie was she gonna marry him and she said he’d go back te England where he come from. He wears a skirt. I ast her why he wears a skirt an she said it wasn’t, but it looks like one te me.’
Paddy couldn’t suppress a grin, despite the leaden feeling in his stomach at the news of a possible spy in his own house, or at least, garden. He took off the hat and ruffled Joe’s hair.
‘It’s a kilt, buachaillin,’ he smiled. ‘Such as all the Gael used to wear. You remember how I told you about Fionn?’
‘Fionn never wore a kilt!’ Joe shouted in derision. ‘He’s a hero! He never wore the like of them things.’
‘As you will.’ Paddy said, more to himself than to his son. Kate’s boyfriend was probably none other than one of His Majesty’s Own Scottish Borderers; he’d have to remember to get a look at him on the Sunday, take precautions. ‘Hey you, Joejoe --’ he said, rising. ‘Come you here to me, and I’ll show you my gun.’ His answer was a shout, and he went to sit in the chair with the boy on his lap. He was a very clever boy, Joe, and asked about all the parts of the Webley and wanted to see how they worked.
They passed a pleasant half--hour at this before Molly came in searching for the wee--an and stopped abruptly at the sight of them. They were lying on the floor together, with Joe propped up on a pile of pillows, the Webley in both his hands, one braced against the other. He had learnt the firing mechanism, and responded on the quick to Paddy’s short commands to fire. There were many in the Volunteers who could not do so well, and Joe was only four. Apparently, crack shooting was heritable. Paddy was amused at this thought, and pleased with Joe’s prowess. He was laughing to himself, and rolled over on the floor to find Molly standing in the doorway.
‘What are you doing?’
Joe turned too, the Webley in his hand, and Molly drew back in alarm, pale.
‘Don’t worry,’ Paddy said, rising. ‘It isn’t loaded.’ He could see they were in for a row.
‘I learnt to shoot Dada’s gun, Mammy!’ Joe exclaimed.
Molly said nothing, but stared at them.
‘Go on now,’ Paddy said, giving the boy a squeeze, ‘and play with your sister. I’ll be along for a story in a little.’
‘Yes sir,’ Joe said. He looked up at his mother as he passed her. ‘Are you all right, Mammy?’
‘Yes, dear,’ she said abstractedly. ‘Run along now and find your sister. It’s nearly tea.’ She ordinarily disliked the boy calling her Mammy, and chid him, but she let it pass, so distracted was she by their play.
When Joe had gone, she folded up her arms over the mound of her lump and said,
‘So you’re teaching my son to be a murderer?’
That got to him, precisely as she knew it would. He busied himself putting the gun away in its customary place at the bottom of the wardrobe before he spoke.
‘I am teaching my son to defend himself. It’s always good to know the use of firearms. It saves accidents for one thing. He knows now when it is safe and is not.’ He met her eye. It would sound like dissembling to her ears.
‘I have nothing to say in this?’ she enquired sarcastically.
It would be so easy to argue with her -- and he was tempted to -- to rile her by saying ‘No’, but he really hadn’t the heart for rowing at the moment. He was too buoyed up from his play with Joe, and the sheer excitement that had preceded it. He pushed up his glasses and went to her, took her arms in his hands.
‘Sweetheart, he’s a little boy, and curious. No harm was done him to know one end of a gun from another --’
‘I saw the two of you!’ she cried, her voice rising. ‘That was not grouse--hunting you were teaching him!’ Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘I won’t have him exposed to such things! Your Fenian rebels out in the bogs! He already goes on in the most embarrassing way! You heard him on Sunday! Asking my father why the men in the village took off their hats when they were out walking! His language is deplorable and you encourage him! Whatever happened to your Bachelor of Arts, professor? You seem determined to bring him up in the worst sort of Irish barbarity, when you have risen above it! I should think that having fought so hard, you would want it to go easier for him ----’ she broke off, distracted, and stood shaking before him. The tears she would not cry hovered in her eyes. He reminded himself of her condition and the uniform he wore. He would disgrace neither; but he was livid at her rant.
‘I’ll thank you to remember that when you married me, you allied yourself with that ‘Irish barbarity’,’ he scorned. ‘They are my children too, and I will have them know their country’s history. Perhaps it means nothing to you that we starved and died at English hands, but it means a great deal to me! I will not tamely trot to your tune and pretend I am not what I am. Nor will I let them forget that they owe a duty to their countrymen.’ He paced as in lecture hall, running his hand through his hair, picking his words through the great gulf that separated them, trying to find the way with her, to give voice to the concern that troubled him too. ‘Yes, they are of both of us, in the middle, neither nor, and it is our task -- ours Molly! -- to help them navigate it. But don’t you ever ask me to deny what and who I am.’ His eyes roved over her figure, and some of his anger left him. ‘I understand your horror of that too earthy world,’ he said, his voice low and hoarse with the helpless tenderness he felt for her welling up. He sought her grey eyes beseechingly. ‘Lady that you are, how could you find it otherwise? But sweetheart,’ he came nearer, but she drew away, ‘he will not be little forever. Would you cosset him and have him unprepared for life? I wouldn’t say the same of Sally. Molly darlin --’ he looked at her bleakly, wanting so much to hold her and soothe away her fear -- ‘can’t you see it’s but to make a man of him?’ He went to her and she did not move from him now, but let him take her arms in his hands. Her head was bent, and she was shaking. Aching, he put his arms about her and held her, his cheek against her fragrant hair, soothing her as if she were Sally. It was good to have her in his arms again, even this way.
‘Whisha, m’aille, mo chroi,’ he murmured. ‘Whisha.’
‘It was terrifying to see him there, with that gun,’ she cried, shaking. ‘So little! Going on and on! How can he know it so well?’ She shook her head against his chest. ‘Padge, how can I make you understand?’ she raised her head, her lashes spiky from weeping. He grimaced, for it came to him that the sight must have reminded her of her dead lover.
‘I do, sweetheart,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m sorry. I didn’t look for you to come in on that.’ She looked at him in wonder, apologising when he rarely apologised for anything he did. ‘Come you now,’ he said. ‘You look shaken. Why don’t you lie down until tea? I’ll have Rosie bring it up to you. Would you like that, Mallaidh?’
She nodded, and he released her, watching her make her way to the bedroom, cursing himself for an ass. When she had gone, he sighed and turned aside to change out of uniform before tea.
Upstairs, Sally was in the playroom with Kate, but Joe was not to be seen. He went in without knocking, into the enormous room that was filed with the golden light of a summer afternoon. The windows overlooked the garden and they were hung simply in net, Molly being a progressive type who believed in light and air and cold baths for the children. Even at her young age, Sally was well acquainted with Sandymount strand, and the safety of the garden and the square. He spied his wee girl standing by the doll’s house in her deep red frock, bending to put one of the occupants to bed, a sweet sight with her fat short--stockinged legs and masses of unruly chestnut curls. Her expression, such as he could see the way she was half--turned, was one of firm seriousness. In spite of her name, she was not given to giggles as most little girls of her age. She turned to fetch the bit of baize blanket and saw him. Immediately she dropped it and ran over.
‘Dada! Heyo Dada!’
He smiled, lifting her up. She was all the sweeter for the child’s lisp.
‘Hello sweetheart.’ He kissed her soft, wild hair. She had his own hazel eyes and tended to ruddy colour. A child of the land she was, and not of her mother’s Castle society. ‘Have you been playing with the dollies?’
‘Yes, Dada,’ she said as if it were obviously time. ‘Dere goin’ to syeep because the night time’s coming. See?’ She pointed out the window to the rosy golden colours. It would not be dark long hours yet in the lingering twilight of summer, but she knew that after tea and a bath, it was always her bedtime. He smiled, pleased at her cleverness.
‘Just so,’ he said and put her down because she was wriggling, and bent, his hands on his knees. ‘But have they had their tea? They shouldn’t go to bed without their tea. It would make them very sad and cross.’ He pushed up his glasses, waiting to hear what she would say. She looked troubled and thoughtful for a moment, just like her mother! before she looked up at him again.
‘Can they have dere tea wid me and Sho? Me an Sho are havin our wid Miss Katie. Sho wen down on the pulley!’
‘Ah.’ Joe last year had discovered the joys of the dumbwaiter, and how if he rang the bell and got in, he would be hauled down to the kitchen by Mrs. Mac, where he could ‘help’ her, which mostly consisted of pestering her for bits of whatever she was making. His antics frightened Molly to death -- she was afraid he would be trapped in it or the cables would break -- but the boy would soon be too big for the box, so Paddy was nonchalant. Each in their ways, he and Molly spoiled the children shamelessly, but they were well behaved, if boisterous, so the spoiling continued.
‘Da’s having tea with you too,’ he said, looking across at Kate, who sat in the chair. ‘Your Mummy’s resting, so I thought I’d come and have my tea with mo chailin rua.’
At that moment, Joe came in on Rose’s heels, bearing a round of soda bread before him like an offertory. Paddy rose and caught the boy as he came rushing, after putting the bread down on the table.
‘We went to the zoo, today, Da,’ Joe said. ‘Wit Mammy and Miss Katie--’
‘An we rided on a cart,’ Sally chimed in.
‘Behind a big big big red horse,’ Joe exclaimed, ‘wit a long tail--’
‘How long?’ asked Paddy, amused.
‘As big as this,’ said Joe, stretching his arms wide, so that he was leaning backward. He fell over onto the floor, grinning.
Paddy laughed. ‘So you liked the horse, did you? There’s your mother!’ He looked up at Rosie, who had waited patiently through the telling. ‘That’s all, thanks.’
‘I’m just going to bring some to herself, sir,’ Rose said. He nodded.
‘Thank you. Will you tell her I’ll be along?’
‘I will, sir.’ Rose left with a curtsey. He had tried, in early days, to rid the servants of such formality, but they held to it steadfast. Now there was nothing to mark his discomfiture at their bowing and scraping but an inward unease.
‘You make them nervous, being so chatty. It’s out of their ken.’ Molly had explained. She was right. Now he was merely polite, though it irked him. Were they not the same as he? Even with his students he was informal, except in tutorial. But, the old slave ways of thinking could not be changed overnight.
They sat down to a tea of brotchán for the children and salmon stuffed in hazelnuts and boiled in honey for him and Kate. With dulse alongside and the sodabread melting sweet with butter and buttermilk, he could dream himself away to the peace of Kerry. Nursery tea was an informal affair, and a scuffle ensued about who would get the last piece of bread. Sally clung grimly, and Joe shouted, louder still when she pinched him.
‘Hush now, aren’t you the hooligans!’ Kate chided. Sally wailed then, for Joe had got the bread in her distraction, and peace was only restored when Paddy suggested they have a story before bath and bed.
‘But what shall we hear?’ he wondered aloud, looking at Joe. Sally crept sullenly into his lap and stared balefully at her brother. He might have the last piece of bread, but she had Da, which was better.
‘Fionn!’ Shouted Joe exultantly, munching bread and butter.
‘All right, so.’ Paddy said. To Sally he pointed out the leavings of the meal. ‘What’s this here, mo rua?’
‘Fis!’ she said, brightening.
‘That’s right,’ he said, glancing in merriment at Kate. Molly had told him, just after the girl’s arrival, how she’d run on one day about how good he was with children. She had rolled her eyes with the telling, for she hadn’t missed the tone of admiration. Katie blushed, true to form whenever he caught her eye. He went on with the story.
‘And there’s a story about Fionn and a fish just like this very one.’ He paused with a flourish and said with hushed mystery, ‘The Salmon of knowledge who lived at the Brugh under the ninth wave and ate hazelnuts.’
‘Hazel nuts!’ Joe groaned. He disliked them.
‘That’s right,’ Paddy nodded, grinning, ‘and when Fionn ate the fish it made him the smartest person in Ireland, so just you listen and I’ll tell you how it happened.
‘You’re already knowing that it was Fionn was the son of Muirne, who after married the king of Kerry. And one time when he was come to a young man’s age, he went along to a poet-- Finegas -- who was living at Brugh na Boinne. Now this Finegas was a very cross fellow, for he had been waiting seven years -- longer than our Joejoe here’s been alive -- and that’s a mortal long time to wait, so it is.’ He shifted Sally more comfortably on his lap and pushed up his glasses. ‘Anyhow, so, this fellow had been waiting all those long years for the Salmon of Knowledge to come along in the Boinne. Now, sure, as I said, this wasn’t any old fish itself, but a magical fish. So the one time when Fionn was there, he caught it for himself and tossed it to Fionn and him saying,
‘Spit this for me and bring it after but --’’ Paddy glared round the table in imitation of the poet, ‘‘don’t you be after ateing of it, do you hear?’
‘Well now, Fionn goes off and does as he’s told, and the fish soon comes ready. But when he’s after taking it off the spit over the turf fire, doesn’t he lay his thumb on a bubble on the fish and burn it. So quick as a wink, he pops his thumb in his mouth, just like our Sally here,’ he winked at her, ‘and bedad doesn’t he know everything itself.
‘Well, the devil of a poet was that mad at Fionn when he learned what had happened, and flung the fish at him saying it to him, ‘Take it and bad scran to ye for your devilling ways! It’s no good to me now!’ For you see it was Finegas who was wanting the knowledge of the world, and here was Fionn with it, and him not a boy of fourteen. So Fionn himself goes off and sings this wee poem to himself,’ he lifted back his head to sing an old song from Kerry days:
‘‘It is the month of May is the pleasant time;
its face beautiful; the blackbird sings his
full song; the living wood is his holding; the
cuckoos are singing and ever singing; there is
a welcome before the brightness of summer;
‘‘Summer is lessening the rivers, the swift horses
are looking for the pool; the heath spreads out
its long hair, the weak white bogdown grows; a
wildness comes on the heart of the deer; the sad
restless sea is asleep--’’
‘As someone else is as well,’ Paddy murmured, looking down at Sally, who rested heavy on his arm.
‘I’ll take her, sir,’ Katie said softly, rising. ‘And you can finish the tale with wee Joe.’
‘There’s no more of that,’ he said, and to quiet Joe’s disappointment as Katie took Sally off to bed, ‘but there are plenty of others, sure.’ Good it was to tell the old tales to the children. give them their culture as he had been given it. It cheered him from the row with Molly. He rose.
‘Come you, Joejoe. You and I can take all this truck down in the pulley.’
‘Aye!’ Joe exclaimed, scrambling to clear away the dishes.
Molly was asleep when he came to her, so he picked up the book he had left on the table before the windows and went downstairs in the evening quiet.
At seven in the morning of the 26th of July he was waiting in the Fianna’s rooms in D’Olier Street for the massage from MacDonagh to start the march out to Howth where the Volunteers would unload a shipment of ten thousand Lee--Enfield rifles, smuggled into the country by Erskine Childers on his yacht, Asgard. It was an early hour for a Sunday to call the men out, but there were two hundred Volunteers, milling about, a fine testament to their dedication. They had already mustered and drilled briefly at six, and fallen out ten minutes ago. Paddy said to Dick Mitchell, his fellow squad captain, beside him,
‘It’ll be hard going on them when they learn they’re not carrying live rounds back.’ That was the decision of the Military council, in case they met with opposition by the garrison. It was better to be fired on unarmed, at least for publicity’s sake.
Mitchell was a dark--haired fellow of the middle height, with a large moustache and high forehead. He was a tobacconist by trade and mild--mannered.
‘It’ll go harder on them if there’s a bollix--up and Childers can’t land at all. He’s supposed to go to Kerry then.’ Dick smiled, crossing his arms. ‘Can you see the fits they’d throw if all that steel went to Kerry?’
Paddy lit a cigarette. ‘As a Keryyman, I should take exception to that, but I’ll let yez off this time.’ He grinned and blew out smoke sharply. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘it’s a long road to Howth, and we could miss him.’
‘We’ll not miss him,’ Dick said. He squinted across the room. ‘There’s my brother. I wonder if he has news.’
John Mitchell did have the news they were waiting for.
‘I’ve just come from HQ. Someone at Howth telegraphed to say they’d been spotted at five this morning. We’re to begin.’
Paddy and Dick looked at each other.
‘Right,’ Paddy said, throwing down his cigarette. ‘Shall I?’
‘You’re the man,’ Dick agreed. Paddy went to tell Commandant Ned Daly John’s news. His pale and gentle face lit up, and his blue eyes sparkled beneath his service cap.
‘In broad daylight,’ he nodded. He clapped Paddy on the arm.
‘Let’s away!’
‘Aye sir,’ Paddy grinned.
John Mitchell blew his whistle.
‘Company fall in!’
The men assembled and their orders were given both in English and Irish. John Mitchell called the order to march, and so began the first gun--running of the southern Volunteers since Carson’s UVF had landed arms at Larne three months before in defiance of the 1913 update of the Defence of the Realm Act, which had been allowed to lapse previously. From 1898 until that date, the importation of arms into Ireland had been perfectly legal. Now it was not, and they were following Carson’s lead -- in broad daylight in full sight of the constabulary. It was an altogether grand birthday present, for tomorrow he would be thirty--two years old. Paddy was exultant: he had lived to see it. Open rebellion! He said to Dick as they were crossing O’Connell Bridge,
‘The ould wans would have paid to see this.’ Dick regarded him askance.
‘They did,’ he said shortly.
It was true. All those who had gone before, adding their strength to the numbers of men who stood for an Irish Ireland, had paid hard or ultimate prices that they might walk here, arms swinging free in the warm summer sun.
Their march today did not go unnoticed. The DMP stood by in twos and threes as they passed Eden Quay, batons in hand; a brutal reminder of Bloody Sunday. By rights they could do nothing, as the Volunteers were a perfectly legal organisation. But that had not stopped the police before. Even Dublin Castle did not openly harass them, even the known IRB men, though they were all readily accessible any day of the week. This was due to a certain caginess, for the Castle were none too eager to show their hand before time.
This morning, as most, the Volunteers were trailed by bands of small boys as they turned left into Beresford Place and made their way up past Monto. These ragged hooligans, the rats of the quayside neighbourhoods, ran after them, lobbing a stone now and again, but mostly offering jeers in language that would have blistered a sailor’s ears,
‘There go the go--byes!’
‘Ya buggerly lot of toy soldiers!’
‘Eh, why don’t yez go home te yer focin mammies!’
‘It’s the Brits’ll shoot yer shaggin arses, just ya wait! Ye’ll never be so high up then!’
Every man kept in line, eyes front, through this barrage, until the boys tired of their sport as they came to the juncture of Amiens Street and Portland Row. They were like dogs, defending their turf from all comers, dogs who would not go beyond those bounds. At last, when the company had reached the Annesley Bridge Commandant Daly called for a song. It was ten miles to Howth, and the singing would make the time go quickly.
So they began to sing the old rebel songs. After four, Paddy did his bit and started one himself. After the first line, men near him began to join in, and soon the whole company were singing ‘The men of the West.’ Ned Daly himself joined in next from the head of the line with ‘The Memory of the Dead’. They were on the far side of Raheny when from the back came a new song in Gaelic, ‘The Soldiers Song’, born with the Volunteers. The songs became ragged after that and halted as they came around the curve of the road to Howth, for the men were tired now; it was the longest march they had yet made and they would have to make it again later this afternoon. In the silence, Paddy fell to musing.
Oh it was a fine thing to be out in the air! Countryman that he was, he could have marched twice as far without difficulty. But not his men. How innocent they were! It was their innocence that drew him to them, these rank and file of the Volunteers. Clean lived and good--hearted, every man jack with a rosary in his pocket and a doff of the hat for a woman. Simple good manners were bred into them. Simple patriotism moved them. He had listened to their talk in halls and meeting rooms for better than six months now. They had no idea what would await them when the fighting came. This was not a matter of coming whistling home after a day at the gasworks, going out, ambushing a troop of constabulary so that they would not catch your mates farther on making off with the arms at the RIC post, then going home to tea. Whatever the fight was, it would come. Soon. England would go to war. It was only a question of when.
For him the question was whether civil war would come first, as Carson promised if Home Rule passed. And if it was a civil war they would fight, were these dear innocent men prepared for their homes invaded by their own countrymen, to be shot in the street or on their own doorstep for no further provocation than being for an Irish Ireland? Were they prepared to see their wives and children suffer similarly? For there was little doubt that the UVF would descend to such brutalities. The fracas up in the North this last Orange Day was proof of that. Twelve people had been killed. Including two children... boys. Paddy looked on his men, impassively, but his heart was aching. They were so good and true, they would stand and stand.... and fall as corn before the scythe, with nothing but a whisper to mark their passing. His eye fell on Stephen Sears, the young man whose voice had rung out in a clear beautiful tenor the haunting melody of ‘The Croppy Boy’. He would fall in the first bloom of youth. The boy was only eighteen, newly moved up in the ranks from the Fianna. His mother would lament and his picture would be enshrined in the house for generations to come.
Paddy looked up towards the gentle hills of Howth, quashing the terrible ache that came to his throat. Howth Castle was a knob on the far hill. Below, between the Castle and the village, were the hotels where he and Molly had once played word--games in far off days. Himself, he would die and gladly if that was the way it went, but he preferred to live for Ireland than die for it. He had not spent half his life working for that end to come a cropper at the first fence, as Molly would say. He smiled to himself. He liked her hunting metaphors. What a pity they were not getting on better. He missed their old playfulness....She would be out by now, taking the children to Mass and then to a party at the Talbots for their son James, who was only two weeks older than Sally. By the time she returned he would be back with any luck.... They were not likely to encounter interference from the RIC, as it was their day off over the whole country. No crime was expected in Ireland on Sundays. The garrison might be a problem, though they had found none in Dublin itself. If they did give trouble, it would be met with service revolvers from the officers, as the men would not be carrying ammunition; that would go back by car. It did not occur to him that they might be troubled beforehand, close as they were to their destination.
They arrived on the strand at half--twelve, and the men fell out, tucking into their kits for water and tack after their long march. They didn’t loll for long. The whistle call went up at 12.45. The Asgard was docked. Scrambling now, they poured over the hill and down to the water, where Childers and a small crew were unloading boxes, bundles, and individual rifles to a company of about twenty Volunteers. Up the hill before the hotel were three Dublin cabs waiting, ‘conveniently’ just having arrived with six couples out on a Sunday jaunt. Paddy stood for a moment in the hurly--burly and marvelled at the organisation. The old fellows thought of every little detail. They didn’t trust in God, like Pearse. Much as Paddy admired Padraic’s audacity, he left too much to fate, chance, or whatever he called it. Himself, he didn’t trust God that far, not after 800 years of England on their necks.
He came to himself again, and took his place near the yacht; they would need big strong men to help with the unloading. He was at the water’s edge, up to the knees in seawater, soaking his puttees. He was glad he hadn’t worn boots.
‘Do you need a hand?’ He shouted to the man in front of him, struggling with a mass of rifles in sacking, which had just developed a will of its own and decided to move in twelve directions.
‘I do not!’ the man answered in rough Gaelic, with a broad Kerry accent. He turned. It was no one but The O’Rahilly
‘Ha--ha! Micheàl!’ Paddy shouted in delight. ‘Will you never give over them guns itself to a fellow Kerryman? The lads are waiting!’
The O’Rahilly, dressed in his own spruce version of the Volunteer uniform, looked in surprise at him. ‘I will,’ he grinned when he had recognised him, handing the rifles over and clapping Paddy on the arm, nearly toppling him in the incoming wave. ‘Padge Leary, how the devil are you?’
‘Out for a fine stroll this summer’s day,’ Paddy said, handing the rifles over to the next man. He turned back to Michael for another go, and grinned.
‘Ah, Trinity swank you’re not,’ The O’Rahilly said, heaving over another bundle.
‘No, bedad,’ Paddy agreed, wincing. His hands were already raw from the rough sacking and the cold salt water.
‘Sure, it’ll do you good,’ Michael said, handing over another load.
It was miserable, cold work. He nearly lost his glasses in the wet, and so put them in his pocket; then everything was a blur around him. Several of the men fell into the waves and though the water was not deep there was a treacherous undertow. He was soaked to the skin in the layers of woollen uniform; it would all be ruined. His hands were blistered, raw and bleeding, stinging painfully in the salt water and so bloody cold he could hardly use his fingers but in a mass. But by god, what work it was! The harbour patrol came by and, faced with a multitude of armed Volunteers, turned tail. In an hour they had unloaded a thousand Lee--Enfield rifles and thirty thousand rounds of ammunition. The latter were loaded into the waiting cars and taken to Dublin. The rifles would be carried back by the men, who were by now weary but elated. In broad daylight, they had done it! Cheers went up when Childers weighed anchor and drew up the lines; the Asgard floated free, veteran of the first act of an Irish Ireland.
Such elation was short--lived. The harbour patrol had alerted Dublin Castle, the RIC, and the DMP, and when the Volunteers had advanced only so far as Clontarf, they found a roadblock of a mixed company of King’s Own Borderers and police, a couple of hundred men, most of whom were armed. Paddy was in the middle of the sea of Volunteers, with his own company. Far ahead, he heard the command in Gaelic, ‘To the right, march!’ To their right was the Malahide road, leading north. The only thing it could mean is that they would separate and go overland to Dublin, an uncertain business, but their sheer numbers were in their favour that way. He repeated the order to his own men, and on it went down the line.
But the DMP and a company of Borderers were before them, with bayonets fixed. In the twenty feet between them and the barricade, they could see the sheen start on the faces of the Borderer recruits. The DMP, ringing the garrison forces, were impassive as ever. The order rang out to seize arms. Most of the Borderers, young men on their first assignment, did nothing. Those who did were rushed by the Volunteers at the head of the ranks and smashed by empty rifle--butts. The DMP retaliated with a baton charge. Paddy pulled out his revolver and took aim. On the far side of the road, shots rang out. Two, three... one from his side. Daly himself.... Tom MacDonagh, firing into the air. He hadn’t seen Tom before... He was in uniform, clean and dry. He must have driven from Dublin.
Behind him, Dick Mitchell was herding his men towards the side of the road. Tom’s hired car was braked just beyond on the Dublin road. Four men were taking rifles from the Volunteers and loading them into the boot and the back and front seats. One of the men was Old Tom Clarke. Bedad. It was dangerous for Tom to be out in the thick of this; he was the most wanted man in Ireland.
‘Men!’ Paddy called to his company in Irish, ‘Surrender arms!’ They followed his wave to the back of the crowd, followed the order when they saw the car. Then they dispersed, as they had arranged to do if there was trouble, over the hillock and down by way of the strand to Clontarf; up the hill and over the ridge towards Drumcondra. One way or another, they would get back to Dublin. Paddy went with the Mitchells up by Drumcondra, through fields and over hedges. No singing now, but a steeplechase and every moment looking over their shoulders for the garrison. But they were not followed.
When they reached Drumcondra Station it was half--four. There they parted company and Paddy walked the short distance home. He had taken a bath and was nonchalantly drinking tea in the back parlour, nursing his sore and oozing hands when Molly arrived home with the children at half--five. It wasn’t until dinner that she looked at his hands, asking in dismay,
‘What on earth happened to you?’
Conscious of the children staring, he managed to look sheepish and cleared his throat, ‘We did a rope drill today. I suppose I’m softer than I thought.’
Molly shook her head, rolling her eyes. ‘You and your boy scouts, Padge!’ She looked across at Joe. ‘Mind that the next time you go climbing trees, won’t you?’ She said, for Joe had climbed the arbutus in the garden in the last week and come away scraped and bleeding. Thank god she was no sailor, no frequenter of regattas, to know that ropes could not cause such abrasions. They were in the wrong places entirely.
The telephone rang just before seven. It was Daly.
‘Paddy, I’m down at the Mater. I’ve just come from Tom and Katty’s --’ Katty was his sister ‘-- There’s been a set--to with the King’s Own in Bachelor’s Walk----’
‘Jesus!’ Paddy exclaimed, running his hand through his hair. He winced.
‘Not with the family,’ Ned assured quickly, in their code. ‘A bunch of the King’s Own got a wee bit nervous with the crowds, don’t you know. There’re three people dead. So far. The row is like to be fierce. Can you come to the house tomorrow?’ The house. Tom’s.
‘Sure and I will.’ Paddy said. ‘Ned! Do you need me to ring anywhere for you?’
‘If you could get to MacDonagh that would help. He’s gone home out to Merrion. He’s not on the phone.’
‘No,’ Paddy said. ‘But I’ll ring the Giffords. They’ll get word to him.’ Tom’s wife Muriel’s sisters were engaged to several of the Volunteers. Society beauties all, the Gifford sisters to a one had turned their backs on their easy life and thrown their lot with the Cumann na mBan.
‘Good man,’ Ned said. ‘The old fellow said you’d come through.’
It was bitter to be praised under the circumstances. ‘Yeah, thanks Ned.’ He was about to ring off when Daly said,
‘O and Paddy, stay off the streets tonight.’
‘I will, so.’ He said, and rang off. After phoning the Giffords, he walked back down the hall to the back parlour where in the glow of the lamp Molly still sat writing a letter to her cousin in Cavan. She looked up.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Mmm?’ he asked, frowning distractedly. His aching hands hung heavily at his sides. ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘There’s been some trouble in Bachelor’s Walk. The bloody green troops they send over us have fired on a lot of civilians.’
‘That’s dreadful!’
‘I’m glad you think so,’ he said wryly, sitting down. ‘You didn’t have any trouble this afternoon, did you?’
‘Not at all,’ she answered, laying the pen carefully aside. ‘This isn’t because of those guns, is it?’
He stared at her. ‘How did you hear about that?’
She shrugged. ‘At Lizzie’s. The word came just after we arrived.... I say, are you all right?’ She began to rise from her chair, bracing her hands on the table. She was great now with her child, and beginning to be awkward.
‘Yes, yes,’ he waved her alarm away, rubbing his forehead. ‘I mislaid my glasses before the march so spent the better part of the day without them. It’s nothing, just a headache. I’m fine.’ He did indeed have a headache, come with blinding suddenness at her question. She paid more attention to the goings on in the world than he thought. He’d have to be careful. ‘Go back to your letter, Mallaidh, I won’t disturb you.’ But she was already across the room, leaning over him with a worried frown as if he were Joe. He felt the child turning, disturbed by her unrest.
‘I’ll get you a powder,’ she said decisively. Before he could stop her, and he didn’t really want to, she had retrieved a packet of headache powder from the urn on the mantel and poured it into a glass of water from the drinks cabinet. ‘There now,’ she said, handing it to him. ‘You’ll be right as rain in a little.’ She crossed her arms. ‘Ought you to go to bed?’
He smiled at her fussing. There was nothing more he could do tonight. Worrying would aid no one. He put the empty glass on the table beside him.
‘That’s a transparent invitation,’ he murmured, getting up. But it was only a joke, relic of their old days. He was tired. He kissed her briefly. ‘Good night.’ He was halfway up the stairs before he noticed that she hadn’t scorned his remark at all.
The next day when the word of the Howth gunrunning broke in America, funds began pouring into Volunteer and IRB headquarters from the Clan--na--Gael and its subsidiary Irish--American organisations. £1000 sterling came in the first day. The next day it was five times that much. Two days later, by the time of the funerals for the victims of the ‘Bachelor’s Walk Massacre’ as Bulmer Hobson called it in Irish Freedom there was £100,000. Soon, the Volunteers would have the equal of Carson’s 40,000 Howth Mausers, and then some.
The funeral for the four Bachelor’s Walk dead was a propaganda coup. Ten thousand people, excluding the Volunteers, were on the march through Dublin to Glasnevin behind the coffins. It was the greatest event in Dublin since Bloody Sunday. The Fianna carried banners that read: ‘The King’s Own Scottish Murderers’. One of those young men, a mourning band decorating his uniform, walked weeping behind the coffin of his mother, who had been shot and bayoneted. The Volunteers were out in their numbers with their new rifles carried muzzle up as the Dead March droned. Every officer was present, and as the coffins were lowered thirty--two armed Volunteers fired a volley over the heads of the crowd, into the summer sky. This honour guard had stood for hours the last two days before the coffins as they lay in state in the Pro--Cathedral; these deaths were but a trickle next to what was to become a raging tide:
Six days later, on the 4th of August at 11.00 p.m., after three days of agonising public uncertainty, Britain declared war on Germany.
Ten minutes later, all over Dublin solemn bells rang out from every church and chapel, sending masses of people into the streets. It was left to the priests and those on the telephone and wireless telegraph to break the news of the war. Some cried, some cheered, many were confused, but few in those first hours and days were anxious. In the minds of the Redmondites there was anxiety: what would this do to the Home Rule Bill, just signed by the PM? But in the cells of the IRB and the brigades of the Volunteers, there was rejoicing; now a Rising could take place, when England was elsewise occupied.
Paddy came home from the college on Monday the 10th, and found Molly in the back parlour, sitting before the window with a letter in hand. Her face was pale, and she looked startled when he entered. Something had happened.
‘Oh Padge,’ she said, frowning. ‘I’ve just received a letter from Liam today. He’s joined up!’
He went to her, skirting the chairs and the sofa. ‘Are you sure?’
She held the letter out in her hand, and when he had taken it, picked up a photograph from the desk of the young bugger in the uniform of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Jaysus, and he had. Paddy ran his hand through his hair.
‘Is there tea?’
‘No,’ she said distractedly, ‘I’ve only just got home --’
‘No,’ he said, when she made to rise, and he went over and yanked the bellpull on the wall. He stood in the middle of the floor, squinting to decipher the brother’s spidery scrawl. There was little enough to decode:
‘6 August 1914
Molls--
I suppose you can tell from the pic that I’ve joined up. How could
I not when it’s boring as hell here? Had the photo taken this morning,
obligatory don’t you know. I have a lot of them collecting dust. I guess
they’ll ship off with me to give to French birds. Erik’s in my battalion
as well and sends his regards --’
‘Who’s Erik?’ he asked.
She frowned in surprise that he didn’t remember. ‘Hobbles’ brother James! You met him at the wedding I should think.’
Paddy scratched his head. ‘I could have met the Pope and not remembered, that day.’ He went on reading,
‘Don’t tell the parents about this please. Let them think I’m lost
in India in the foreign service or pushing up daises like George. I don’t want
the trouble.
‘Don’t mind all the Empire Saves Poor Little Belgium nonsense.
I’m not doing it for King and country. England is a frightful hole. And
unless you think I’ve gone mental, I’ll tell you I know the Germans aim
to make mine a short sweet life. But I’ll take a few with me first.
‘Love to you and the little ones. Liam.’
He looked up. ‘He’ll be in France by now.’ He folded up the letter and handed it back to her. ‘Not much to be done, I’m afraid. He is over age.’
‘He’s a bloody fool!’ Molly cried vehemently, crushing the letter in one hand. She was shaking.
‘Hey,’ he said softly, coming over. ‘Hey.’ He put his arms around her. ‘He’s only doing what he feels he must,’ though he didn’t believe that for a moment of the brother; he was an adventurer. He had admitted as much: he was bored and it was something to do.
Molly raised her head. ‘Would you? Would you go and fight the Germans?’ She accused. He tried to humour her,
‘Fight for the Empire?’ He grinned. ‘You know me better than that!’
‘Then why did he?’ She railed.
‘Why has he ever done anything?’ Paddy asked, looking out the window at the spire of St. George’s beyond. It was an entirely rhetorical question; she knew as well as he her brother’s temperament. He was rootless, restless, with a wanderlust. Easily bored, he rode as a distraction, drank as a distraction. The only thing he had cared about was horses and that not enough to keep him in Ireland. Paddy felt the child roiling between them and looked down at Molly.
‘I shall have to tell the parents,’ she sighed. And then she burst out again, ‘O damn him! Damn him for leaving me with this!’
‘Whisha,’ Paddy murmured. ‘Easy now, m’aille.’ She leaned against him in despair and it felt so good to have her melting and soft in his arms again. He said with his cheek against her forehead, ‘Do you want me to come with you when you tell them?’
She started. ‘No!...No.’ she murmured again, softer. She moved away to look at him. ‘But thank you.’
Anything, mo ‘gra.
She smirked in rueful black humour. ‘Even Mummy wouldn’t set on a pregnant woman....’ She moved from him and went to her calendar, leaning on the desk. ‘I’ll go on Sunday.’ She waved her hand. ‘You’ll be at your meeting anyway. Kate won’t mind missing the Charlie Chaplin for once.’ She rose again and met his eye apprehensively, all her fear in her face. Odds on, that ‘poor Willie’ would go down as pointlessly as the other brother. He could see in her eyes that she knew it. She was a realist, Molly. But how would she face the death of this most beloved of brothers, however undeserving he might be? How would she face death in the hundreds of thousands this war promised? For Paddy did not believe the rhetoric; it would not be over by Christmas. Molly was an innocent. Long ago he had seen her as Ireland; it raised a shiver in him for the fate of the country.
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