Chapter Twenty Two: Derry, Sligo, Dublin 1923--1924

The walls of Derry were nothing to the mental and social walls that had cleaved Ireland since the formalising of the partition with the end of the civil war. In Derry now the nationalists stood alone, cut off from their counterparts in the South by an artificial border, by the repression of the republicans in the Free State, and by the outlawing of the IRA by the Northern government. Crossing the border to Donegal to speak with Joe Sweeney became a major undertaking for Paddy. Further, though the city and county of Derry were almost overwhelmingly nationalist, the districts were now gerrymandered in such a way that the nationalist votes accounted for only 23%. Voting became pointless. His discouragement amounted to a depression. Everything he had fought so long and hard for lay in ashes. They were far more entangled in the machinery of the Northern State than they ever had been before the Easter Rising. Not since the penal times had the repression of Catholics been so systematic.

After Mick Collins died and was no longer paying out to National schoolteachers, Paddy, steadfastly refusing to be paid by the Northern government, had the choice of applying to the university at Coleraine with a false address or giving up working entirely, retiring to Dublin or Kerry. Even Dublin was tempting at this point, though in his heart he longed to go home to Kerry and be left in peace, the IRB be damned. But duty won out as it had for a quarter--century: after much thought, he decided that he couldn’t abandon his men here in Derry, and stayed, living in retirement. He spent his days reading, writing, and studying. He and Molly fell into a pleasant routine during the days when the girls were at school. It was almost as when they first met. They played music on the gramophone, chatted about the everyday news; he would occasionally go fishing, which amused her. They took picnics and walked in the country, stopping the car at odd little places with a view, up in Donegal when they could manage it, which was wild enough to remind him of parts of Kerry. The IRA jobs were very few and he would have considered his life stilled to a kind of peace for which he had always longed, if he had not been ill.

From September of 1922 he began to have violent headaches at a frequency of about two or three a month, heart palpitations on exertion, and blackouts. This last happened three times before Molly came on him one day during one; she had been out shopping. He lied and said it had never happened before. He did go to the doctor. Very conscious of her sitting anxiously outside the surgery, he answered the doctor’s questions as briefly and cagily as possible, though it was evident he had been shot up more than once; the scars were unmistakable. X--rays were taken, and the diagnosis was complicated: he had several ‘old lesions’ on the brain, some from 1913, which were causing the headaches and blackouts, but his heart was very weak; old scarring from Wormwood Scrubs had caused obstructions that would only get worse with time. He was given digitalis and told to take life easy. Would that it were so simple. The doctor likely suspected the truth of whom he was dealing with, but not a word was ever spoken on it.

The diagnosis and instructions were repeated to Molly, who not unnaturally became overbearingly solicitous. She had always been motherly, but for weeks afterward she treated him like an invalid. It was only after one of their weekday picnics to Donegal, when he proved emphatically that he was still as virile as he had always been, that she let up.

They entered a wonderful period. It was as though everything they had been through had been distilled into absolute essence, evoking in them a numinous quality of mutual accord. Musing on it in his lone moments when she was out, it struck him that what had been called from them both in different ways was a spirit of sacrifice almost holy in its purity, a sensation of giving unto others that approached the sublime. They had come at it from opposing camps, as it were, from opposite ends of the Irish spectrum, but they had come to expiation and solicitude in a way that reflected their early passion. It was as though those golden days of 1909, with their long hours of sublime connection in passionate abandon, were but a foreshadowing of what they were to come to, through the agonised upheaval of the times through which they lived. Not that they were not passionate still. That had endured through every hell and shift of feeling between them. Sometimes, it was all they had.

In July, the marching season began early and went long. Last year had not been too bad, only a few houses had been set alight, but this year the rioters’ ammunition was better and they were heavily reinforced by the RUC and B Specials, who were determined to wipe out the last vestige of the IRA in the North at all costs. For a fortnight they had barricaded themselves into the Bogside and Creggan, holding off the Orange rioters for the most part, although by the end of that time they were dangerously low on ammunition. At the barricade up by the RUC barracks, where he spent a good part of the second week, Paddy joked to Tom and Shay Kilgallen that they’d have to hold them off with hurley sticks if it went on too much longer.

He had been home only twice in all that long while, both times briefly in the middle of the afternoon, and the last time on Sunday. It was with a terrible prescience that he walked into the house the last time. He knew he would not walk in the door again. After an hour, the girls went over to Annie’s to play and he went in the kitchen where Molly was standing at the sink washing up the luncheon dishes. He slid his arms around her waist, fighting the terrible feeling of poignancy that washed over him.
‘Leave them,’ he murmured into her ear. He felt her shudder and she leaned against him, murmuring wordlessly. She lifted her wet hand and touched his face, turning her head to the kiss he gave her. The kitchen door was open, and the warm summer sun poured in behind them, slanting sharply across the floor. She turned in his arms and her fervid, almost desperately aggressive response set his heart racing.
‘Not here, sweetheart,’ he smiled when he broke away for an aching moment. Her colouring was hectic and her eyes as dark as a storm. She tossed her head, with all the vivid splendour of arousal. Every breath was fire and every glance sparked with intensity.
‘Too bad,’ she murmured throatily in her low voice.

They made it as far as the parlour sofa, which was very unsafe due to the proximity of the windows all round. He left his loaded guns on the floor next to them. Had the Orange lot broken through any of their ill--defended barricades, they would have been killed had anything come through those windows. He was half--conscious of this the while, but Molly was apparently not. She was as she had ever been, a delight. Briefly, in the glorying eddies of coming off with her in the warm light of the room, he forgot everything else and soared with her to where their true meeting place had always been in that swell of ecstasy. Feeling overwhelmed him. Crying, he regarded her tumbled beauty with wonder. He had not lived until he had plunged in the tossed sea of her eyes.
‘I love you,’ he said earnestly, and kissed her. Her expression was poignant, and tears glittered in her eyes.
‘Oh Padge…’ She flung her arms around him and held him tightly.
It was the last time he ever saw her.

He stopped at Annie’s to say good--bye to the girls. He kissed them both – Sally, now tall and lovely with a young girl’s burgeoning curves; and sweet little Katie, whom he had come to love as his own.
‘Look after your mother for me,’ he charged Sally.
‘Are you goin away again Dada?’ Katie asked. He leaned over and lifted her up though she was getting too big for it now.
‘Yes, darlin, for a little,’ he said, kissing her. ‘So be a good girl and mind your mammy.’ He smoothed her shining blonde hair with regret. He looked over at Annie, who watched from the kitchen doorway with baby Niall in her arms. ‘I’ll send Tom along for a wee rest,’ he promised.
She nodded. ‘Ta.’ They regarded one another across the room. Her eyes glinted but she did not cry. Not wee Annie. ‘You mind yourself,’ she said fiercely. He smiled at her, but it came out more a grimace, and nodded. He put Katie down and went out the back, up the alley and across to the barricade.

On the Tuesday, a day fine and clear of rain, he was jolted awake at three o’clock in the morning by the shrill scream of a shell as it exploded overhead. Instantly, he grabbed the rifle beside him, and watched the red glare of the shell as it crashed into a rooftop, spreading fire.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered to Jack Meehan beside him, ‘can’t they let a fellow sleep?’ He had dozed off on the fifteen--hour watch, the catnap of maybe twenty minutes being the first sleep he’d had in two days. He had to go down to the barricade at St. Columb’s in two hours to see how things were going there before knocking off. He rubbed a hand over his face and righted his glasses. Yawning, he asked,
‘Is there any tea?’
Jack shook his head.
‘Well, I’ll make some then,’ he said, rifling through his kit for a trench lighter. ‘I’m dead.’ As they all were. He had twenty--three men holding eight positions armed with forty rounds apiece against the might of the British Army with their endless supplies and forty thousand men, of whom probably a thousand were in this area. That would put the odds at 42--1. This meant they were on seventeen--hour shifts with five hours off for sleeping and the rest as cushion time to go where they were needed in emergencies. No one had slept much and Paddy not at all since spending his precious two hours on Sunday with his family. It was like Easter Week all over again: he was too agitated to sleep unless driven past the point of complete physical exhaustion. Now he knelt and made tea in the workers’ way in a billycan, with tea and milk and sugar all stewed together. It bore little resemblance to the pallid beverage of fashionable Dublin drawing rooms, but it did in a pinch.

‘What’s the do?’ he asked.
‘Not much.’ Jack took the proffered tin cup of thick tea. ‘That shell was a real knock--up, as you know, but nothing else, like. It’s the RUC like to sleep, I guess.’
‘Somebody should, in all this,’ Paddy said, into the mug as he gulped down the restorative tea. He laced his hands around the warmth of the cup in the chill off the river as he sat in the alley with his knees up against his chest like a schoolboy. They sat together in silence for a long time and presently, the tea having revived him somewhat, he got up and rinsed out the cup in their water bucket. It was best not to see what condition the water was in. He put the cup away and looked at his watch, squinting to see the dial in the dark. It was nearly four, and would be light in an hour or so.
‘Dinny should be along soon,’ he said. ‘And Peadar.’
‘Yeah,’ Jack agreed, glancing over his shoulder. ‘I’m off to MacFarland’s after this for me sleep.’ Paddy looked around.
‘Where the hell is Matt?’ He had been here earlier, before he fell asleep.
‘He went up to the barrack, like, to fetch the mail.’ Jack said. Any messages that came down regarding their activities were transcribed by the clerk and smuggled out with the empties in the morning.
‘Ah,’ Paddy said. ‘Well, he’s good for something.’

He was at the barricade in Fahan Street in the afternoon when the RUC broke through. They had spent the afternoon putting out fires from incendiary shells and firing on the Orange rioters on the other side of the wall of furniture and carts. The rioters had broken through in Cooke Street earlier and had come up from the Abercorn Road; they had breached William Street also. Now there was relative silence, but they were waiting for the next hit to come. Paddy was ashen. He had been at every barricade in the last two days. He felt Tom’s eye on him as he sat with his eyes closed behind the glasses. Who was it that could fight constantly without adequate food or sleep and still think clearly enough to issue crucial orders in the heat of the moment? It was to their advantage that the men, even Tom, thought him invincible, but the truth was he was at the very end of his endurance and his nerves were badly strained. Twice in the long day he had to fight for consciousness as the world swam around him and his heart knocked hard. The men should never know how ill he really was. He had secretly given over the command to Jack Meehan.

‘Jesus Christ!’ He was jerked out of his haze by the heavy roar of an armoured lorry charging at them from the Bishop’s Gate. They would break through this time, with all the force of a blizzard; their armoured cars were mounted with machine guns and protected with wire caging to deflect grenades. With it, the Specials would come storming. They were for it now. The armoured lorry came careering down the street at top speed at their barricade.
‘Duck!’ he shouted and he and Tom lunged for the side of the street as the lorry came crashing through at full fire from the machine gun on the top. Barney and Danny Maxwell were writhing on the ground on the other side of the street. Shay was barely visible over the splintered wreck of the broken desk. Only the top of his head and the gleaming barrel of the Winchester rifle were to be seen. The heavy firing went on as the lorry moved down the street, but no soldiery followed it in. Paddy rose up, throwing up his hands though he was armed, and made for the street.
‘No!’ Tom shouted.
‘They’ll run them down!’ Paddy shouted over the noise of the lorry. The lorry was indeed coming in reverse on the return fire from Shay.
‘They’re dead men already!’ Tom shouted.
‘Not if I can help it,’ Paddy bellowed as he went out.
‘Paddy, you’re a fucking idiot!’ Tom called. ‘Keep down!’

But it was too late. He was not halfway across to the wounded men when the RUC opened fire again. He felt it before it came: he was hit in a barrage that lifted him back in a burning torrent. He hit the ground, choking, his vision seared white, and rolled over, rising to his knees. His mind was alight; electric with weird colours and the only thing he saw clearly was the lorry. He staggered to his feet, and looked over to Tom, reached out his hand. He wanted the rifle. And fell.

The chaos went on around him for a long time while he struggled, choking, for breath. The RUC were now out of the lorry, pouring into the area from side streets and buildings, infiltrating the stronghold of the Volunteers. They had been there already, waiting. After a long time Shay came to him. He was burning, feverish, in and out of consciousness, his mind all colour and weird, vivid pictures: flashes of Kerry during the Land League upheaval, Tom MacDonagh at the surrender, Molly’s face on the dock when he came back from Frongoch, his mother cleaning and binding his arm after its restitching at Jervis Street Hospital, Molly last Sunday, in Kerry when she was pregnant with Joe, Joe – Joe was waiting at the end of the street, his hands stuck in his pockets and his head cocked.

His ears were ringing loud, and through the din he heard Shay crying his name.
‘I’m all right,’ he muttered feverishly. ‘I’m all right. Just give me a minute, like.’ He heard Tom’s voice and swam back through the encroaching dimness.
‘Paddy, you’re an ass,’ Tom said, crying. ‘Why’d you want to go an be a hero for?’
‘Ha,’ he couldn’t keep his eyes on one point, and he fought the greyness that was descending. He was drowning in blood, every breath a terrific effort. This was death. It was different from what he thought it would be. It was a weight. It was the world closing in around him, growing very small. It was over. He’d done his bit, through a quarter century. It was over. Gasping now, choking on the blood that came up, filling his mouth, he fought to get the words out over the roaring, drowning tide,
‘I fought a good wee fight… for the old bitch… Tommy.’ He tried to reach Tom’s sleeve, but his arm was heavy. ‘Tell my girl… I love her….’
‘Ah, Jesus, don’t----’ Tom pleaded, raising his head up painfully in his lap. ‘Paddy don’t go on us -- ah, fuck ‘em, the bastards! Look at ye... Paddy ----’

But it was all right. The pain was lifting, and the darkness left him. Tom’s face was clear again. The whole street was clear again in his vision. It would be all right now. Joe was waiting at the end of the street. I waited for ye, Dada.
‘Tommy, it’s over,’ he said in a clear strong voice.
And so died.

The evensong bell was ringing at St. Columb’s when Tom Kilgallen ran in the door. Molly was standing in the middle of the wrecked parlour, looking round in despair. The girls were still hiding in the cupboard under the stairs. For the last four hours the police had swept through the streets with the rioting Loyalists, breaking down doors and dragging people into the streets and shooting them, wrecking buildings, shattering windows, looting. And for the last four hours she and the girls had huddled trembling in that cramped space that was hardly big enough for one person, hardly daring to breathe while the police ransacked the house. She thanked Paddy’s clever thinking to have the concealed door made to the otherwise unusable space. It had no handle and on the outside was indistinguishable from the moulding on the stairs. If they kept quiet, they were safe. They had hidden there many times before.

Across the street at Faolain’s they had dragged Dick out into the street and shot him in front of Kate and the children. Anne’s voice was upraised next door, calling out the names of her children, fetching them from their hiding places. Molly was too numb to go over to the Faolains’ yet. She stood in the parlour, just staring. Everything was wrecked. Everything. She couldn’t be glad yet that they hadn’t had the house burned over their heads. She looked up at Tom in alarm as he came in the open door. His face was white underneath the grime and blood and his hair stood on end like some ancient Gaelic warrior’s.

‘Paddy’s been shot,’ he said, gasping. ‘The men are bringing him up now. Make a place if you can find one----’ He broke off as three men came up the lane, carrying Paddy in a makeshift stretcher of their coats. Her heart thumped wildly as they came into the house. One of the men was Tom’s brother Shay; she could not remember the names of the other two. They passed her by and she looked into Paddy’s face. There was peace there, and the uncanny stillness of the dead. He was dead.

He was dead.

She could not take it in. He had been shot so many times and was covered in blood. It covered his clothes, the men’s clothes. The traces of it, wiped away but still marked, ran down his cheek on the one side. His skin was a pale shade of blue grey and his limbs heavy. It could not be. He was always such a graceful, lithe man, quick moving as he was quick thinking. How could he have bled so much?

He had bled to death in the street. After all that he had survived the Orange mob had killed him! He had been safe, retired, ill, but happy. They had been happy! How dare they take away their happiness at long last! He was dead. Oh how could he, he! be dead? When not two days ago he had been so very alive, gloriously alive making love with her on that very sofa, that now ruined sofa – How could he be dead? She watched, unable to move, as they laid him on her dining table where they had laid Joe. These same men, laying out the shot--up dead, her dead, on her table. She watched numbly as they removed his guns and tucked them away in their belts. It was the first time since 1916 that he was unarmed. He had slept with a gun or guns loaded on a chair next to his head on that side of the bed. She had grown used to it, used to his being armed at every moment, and now he was defenceless. Dead. He was dead. She felt Tom take her arm.

‘Are you all right, Molly? You’re not going to faint away?’
She looked up at him, with his narrow, high--boned face with the scar running along the cheek, and was grateful for the concern. She had never liked him, but she did now. He was kind, and had been too when Joe died.
‘I never have before,’ she lied. She looked over at Paddy’s body and started shaking. ‘Dear God,’ she murmured in a trembling voice barely recognisable as her own, ‘I must do something….’ She went over to Paddy, touched his face where the blood had run down. His glasses were lost somewhere, wherever they had been. She didn’t even know where he died. She passed a shaking hand over his chest, afraid to touch him, afraid to lay her hand on that cold. bloody mess and feel only stillness. How could he be dead? The coat he wore was a very old one from Kerry days before they met. It was soaked in blood, ravaged with bullet holes. Ruined. They had ruined him.

‘I’m sorry for your trouble, Molly,’ Shay said in a voice thick with emotion. She looked up. She had forgotten he was there.
‘Thank you.’ It was all she could muster. She looked at the other two. Who were they? She had seen them about the streets. Who were they and why were they alive when Paddy was dead?
‘I’m sorry for your trouble ma’am, ‘ they mumbled one after another, and looked at Shay. He nodded.
‘We’ll just be off,’ he said to her. ‘Tommy, I’ll be over to Abbey Street.’
‘Aye,’ Tom nodded, frowning at her. He waited until the others had cleared out before he asked again, ‘Molly, are you all right, lass?’ She heard him but the words did not register. She looked at Paddy again. What happened to you? What happened to us? Why Paidín? Why? She couldn’t go on that way. She reached out and picked up his hand from the far side of the table. She should take off his wedding ring before the rigour set in, to save it out for Sally. She tried, but she couldn’t get it past the knuckle, and the struggle undid her.
‘Damn it, come off!’

She choked on a sob, leaning her cheek against his dead hand. How many times he had reached out at odd moments to touch her face with the back of his fingers? Long, white fingers that were forever ink--stained. They were mottled now, blue, with the nails gone dark. He would never touch her again. My husband is dead. My husband is dead! She broke into wild angry sobbing, clutching Paddy’s hand, howling. She flung herself on his chest, riddled and bloody as it was, screaming and crying so hard she could not breathe. This went on for some time before Tom came behind her and took her shoulders.
‘Here, lassie, come away now,’ he said.
‘Get away from me!’ she cried. She fought him with everything she had, wildly, but she was no match for him and he soon had her subdued, his arms wrapped tightly around her while she cried.
‘Wisha, wisha, there lassie,’ he kept murmuring, rocking back and forth with her. When she had cried herself out for the moment, he stood away. They were both filthy now, reeking and gore--covered. ‘You’re a right mess,’ he said, touching her blood--matted hair. ‘And you always so pretty.’
She stared at him.
‘Aye,’ he said to her surprise. ‘I did always think so... but don’t be telling wee Annie I said it.’ He grimaced. It was as near to a smile he could come. That he too was grieving struck her then.
‘What happened, Tom? Why did the Orange mob have to shoot him up so badly?’

Tom paled and drew an unsteady breath, shaking his head. ‘It weren’t the Lodge, Molly. The RUC had a machine gun mounted on an armoured lorry. They broke in and started shootin.’ He sniffed, and ran a hand through his hair, looking over at Paddy. ‘He went out to try and get a couple of our men who were wounded in the road. They opened fire on him. He had his hands in the air ----’ he met her incredulous look with a grimace ---- ‘and they shot him up...’ He winced, swallowing, his voice rough with admiration. ‘But he got up, Molly.’ He shook his head. ‘Jesus, I don’t know how. Twice he did, when they put enough lead in him to bleed a river. The will of the man is ---- was, something fierce.’ His voice broke and tears filled his eyes. She nodded. He coughed and scratched his head, sniffing. ‘He said ta tell ye that he loved you. It’s about the last thing he said... Shite, I dunno, he was going on half in Kerry bloody Irish, I could hardly understand him. He died well, you’ll be proud to know. He died like a Fenian, brave to the last. He wasn’t afraid. You can be proud of him. We all can be proud of him.’

The words were ash. She didn’t want to be proud of a dead Fenian. She wanted to be tender about an old grandfather who died while napping waiting for the fish to bite. Anything but the way it was. But it evidently meant a great deal to Tom to speak those words. It would mean a great deal to everyone, to Paddy’s parents, to Rory and Cate. Like it or not, she was the widow of a republican, and had to accept the condolences that went with it, however difficult to hear, however much she disagreed with them. She sighed and raised her head. She really was calmer, at least for now. She was very tired, but there were things to be done. She must ring Dan and Trina in Dublin, first thing.

‘Thank you, Tom,’ she said, practising the words for the first time. ‘I’m sure we have reason to be grateful.’ She pushed back her filthy hair with both hands and remembered the girls.
‘Oh my God, Sally and Katie!’ She took a step towards the hideaway, but Tom laid a hand on her arm.
‘I took ‘em over home. They’re with Annie. They’re fine.’
She shook her head. ‘How, when --’
He jerked his head towards Paddy. Ah. When she was crying over him.
‘Well, thank you for that.’
He shrugged. ‘What do ye need me to do?’
She sighed. ‘Oh Lord, I don’t know. Everything’s a wreck.’ She looked around. ‘Call in at the undertaker, I suppose, and have a coffin in. I need to wash him. Ring the parents, ring the church, ring the railway, ring Glasnevin...’
‘You’re takin’ him to Dublin, then?’
She looked up at him. ‘He deserves to be buried with his own people. He’d rather be in Kerry I’m sure, but that’s too far away for the girls... Oh. We probably have no clothes left at all after their rampage. Could you find a suit in the proper size?’
He nodded. ‘I can do better than that. I can find him a uniform.’
She frowned. ‘A Volunteer uniform? There isn’t one in the house.’
‘I’ll find him one.’
‘Isn’t it rather dangerous?’ She protested.
‘Sure, what more can they do to him? An it’s in Dublin and all.’ He crossed his arms. ‘He would want it.’

That was true. So this is how it was to be, even the funeral taken from her by the IRA. Well there was nothing for it, no use fighting over it. It meant so much to them and nothing to her. She would have preferred a less military equipage, but it was true that Paddy would have wanted it this way.
‘As you will,’ she sighed.
‘I’ll go straight,’ Tom said, nodding. ‘Do you want me to send wee Annie over to help wit’ him? You’ll need help.’
‘Yes, thank you.’ It would be good to have Annie here. She could cry then. ‘And Tom --thank you about the girls.’
He had moved away towards the door, but stopped and looked back at her. His eyes filled with tears again. ‘I’d do anything for him, Molly. Christ I wish it had been me instead.’ He went out then, hurriedly, and she was alone with Paddy.

Methodically, she began undoing all his buttons. It was difficult through the mess. She came to the last and pulled the tatters of shirt aside, and gasped. His chest was a mass of bullet holes but the startling thing was the small black rosary that straggled down his chest. He had been wearing it round his neck for at least the last two days. Maybe longer. They never had undressed entirely the other day. One of the beads had been shot away, and she pulled the strand up and off of him, holding it, gory and poignant, in her hand. It was the sort one received for First Communion, kept all these years without her ever knowing. The great sceptic and critic of the Church, with no patience for all that palaver as he called it; the wearing of scapulars and rosaries and holy what’s--its like the country people. He had always said he didn’t have one, saying rosaries at funerals by keeping count on his fingers. He was not superstitious, never of a mystical bent, but a thought crossed her mind: Did he know he was going to die?

‘Why would you wear such a thing, Padge?’ She asked him in wonder, shaking her head. He was an endless mystery to her. She found this one simple, dear token of faith oddly moving. Not being religious herself, she was awed and perplexed by people who were. Closing the beads in her hand, she leaned and kissed his mouth, dropping silent tears on his face for that little boy who had lived in him to the end, who cherished a small string of beads as a token of his covenant with God. She washed them off later and kept them in her jewellery box, in a necklace case with his wedding ring and his Gaelic League pin.

Annie came, with towels and soap in hand, and immediately started boiling up a kettle for washing. Molly meanwhile walked up the lane to the pub, ducking into an alleyway as a lone constable ran by. Inside, she rang the rectory, where they promised to ring Dublin and Glasnevin for her, but no one in Hogan’s in Dublin could find Rory or Dan, and she did not want to leave a message. She put up the phone as Pat Halinan came up beside her.
‘Are you all right, lass?’
‘A bit stunned.’
‘Aye.’ She realised then she was still in her mucky clothes. She had washed her face at the kitchen sink when Annie came, but her hair was still matted and gory. ‘Do you want a drink? On the house.’ Pat offered. ‘You’re white as ashes. I’ve sherry.’
‘No, thank you. I don’t know what would happen if I did.’ she laughed a little hysterically, conscious of the men staring and rose from the bar stool. ‘I’ll stop by again, if you don’t mind. I couldn’t reach his family in Dublin.’
‘The phone is always here,’ Pat said.

When she got back to the house, she found the priest had arrived. Annie came rushing over from the alcove, muttering swiftly,
‘Father Mullens is here, Molly. He wants to speak wit’ you before he gives the wee blessing and all.’
‘Oh dear.’ She squeezed Annie’s hand. ‘Thanks.’ She went into the parlour, smoothing her stiff, encrusted frock. She held out her hand boldly, with her head high.
‘Father. Thank you for coming.’
‘I’m sorry, my child. Such a terrible day for everyone it has been.’
‘Yes.’ She took a chair beside him and looked at the little case he had brought along, at Paddy’s nails gone dark. Annie had wiped away the worst of the mess from his chest and face. But the bullet holes were gaping, angry reminders of the cost of resistance. Paddy would have cared for this because it was the custom of the country. The priest folded his hands and frowned at her in thought.

‘Mrs. Kilgallen tells me that this happened up at the barricades. Mrs. Leary, I know your grief, but this is a very serious matter. You know well that there have been several men from our parish lost in this... rebellion, and you know, I am sure, the policy of the Church towards the ----’ he glanced at Paddy, ‘insurrectionists.’
‘Yes,’ she said shortly, staring at her wedding ring in her lap. ‘We lost our own son, you will recall.’ Known IRA men were excommunicant. If the local priest were not sympathetic, he often refused absolution and communion on some other pretext. Not that it would have mattered to any of them, to Tom or Shay or Paddy. Or so she had thought until today. ‘Priest--ridden’, he had once sneered of Ireland, and they agreed on that point. She looked up at Father Mullens. ‘I am aware of your constraints, Father,’ she said in her best drawing room tones. ‘But does it not count for something that he was out there defending us against the Orangemen? His family do not know,’ she lied easily, ‘and it would be killing to them if he hadn’t the blessings.’ He opened his mouth to protest further, and she went on coldly, ‘Is it so much to ask for you to do the one thing? He is being buried in Dublin. Out of your jurisdiction.’ She thought of poor young Tim Sullivan, about whom this man had been dreadful. Mary was so very upset....

The priest looked both relieved and chagrined. ‘Well, as you say...’ he began, colouring.
‘He was out in defence of innocents.... Let us hope no word of it reaches the Bishop, is all.’
He went to his little case and began opening vials and setting up. It occurred to her then that he had intended to do so all along, but felt it necessary to express his disapproval, exercise his power.
‘Thank you, Father.’ she said evenly. ‘ Oh and I would like a Mass said for the people here.’ He stared at her, alarmed, but it was a request he could not deny, and she knew it. She smiled, a wistful, mournful little smile. Annie told her when he’d gone that she should have been an actress. Molly glared at the closed door. ‘That bloody man!’ She sighed. ‘Well, let’s get to work. With any luck the undertaker’s men will be along presently.’ The last thing she wanted was a repetition of the awful time with Joe. Bodies in the house for long periods were not good for the children.

Together, they stripped the ruined clothing from Paddy piecemeal, dropping it onto the floor and washed him with carbolic soap in the water Anne had kept hot on the stove. It was familiar work now, and Molly could do it without flinching if she didn’t think about it. But it was embarrassing to have him naked and vulnerable in front of Anne, indecent. However, she was glad it was Anne with her and not Kate Faolain or Mary Sullivan; that would have been even more embarrassing. There were no secrets left. That lover’s body she knew so well was now an object to be manipulated with difficulty. The old scars, the bullet wounds, the way the hair grew up his belly, the moles here and there, how fit and virile he was. All these things were stark and curious now. He was still beautiful, even with the ugly wounds -- she counted those as they came upon them, there were twenty--six -- still beautiful with his white skin like a hero out of tales, and fine auburn hair that cast his legs bronze. He had nice legs.

Anne left the delicate work to her and while she washed him, mechanically as she would one of the children, refusing to let her mind stray to intimacies, they talked of Kate Faolain and Dick. How Anne should have known already, she had no idea, but Dick was only wounded and his life could possibly be saved yet. There was a blessing for someone, at least. With difficulty, she held him up while Anne washed the table under him. By the end of it all she was exhausted from moving fourteen stone of dead weight for two hours.

She found a sheet upstairs that was more or less intact to wind him in until Tom could find a suit or a uniform. When she came down and saw him lying there, clean and beautiful, his greying hair curling damply around his forehead, the impact of his death hit her again and she broke sharply into tears. It was too much to look on. He should not be dead. He was still young and virile. She wanted him, her lover, her beautiful lover. She wanted long afternoons making love and babies, and growing old, sitting in the garden watching grandchildren frolic. She forgot all the bad times. They were outweighed now, by the awful sudden ferocity of this terrible pain. She cried, turned away from him with her head against the wall, in wracking gulping sobs.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Annie when it was over. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Annie grimaced.
‘It’s all right, darlin. I’d do the same if it were me Tom,’ she said grimly.

They did not cover his face. It was unmarked, and she couldn’t bear to cover it yet. . Covering him over like a piece of furniture seemed disrespectful. It would frighten the girls. He needed to be shaved besides, and she would rather do it herself than have in a barber. Oh she could think of ten reasons not to, but the plain truth was she couldn’t bear to cover him over yet. They sat down on the floor in the parlour with whiskey and a glass brought from next door.
‘To peace,’ she said and took a sip of the awful stuff, handing the glass to Anne. It did make her feel better, more able to cope.

‘What will you do now?’ Anne asked after a little.
‘Take him to Dublin.’
‘No, I mean... after.’
She thought for a moment. ‘Notify my tenant and open up the Dublin house again, I suppose. I’ve no reason to stay here.’
‘But what ----’ Annie began, then stopped. ‘Never mind. I’ve no leave to be asking that.’
‘Asking what?’ Her ears were ringing from the whiskey.
Anne looked at her sharply. ‘Well, I was thinking, wondering like... with our Mick gone to America, that you might follow suit.’ She was blushing as Molly had never seen her blush before. She laughed and almost cried again at the painful surge of feeling the words caused.
‘I can’t think about that,’ she said shortly. The occasional friendly letters from Boston she could cope with. Details of Katie’s progress, she could cope with. Starting anything again with Mick or going abroad was beyond the Pale.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anne mumbled. ‘I should mind me own business.’ She took a drink of the whiskey.
‘Oh, no!’ Molly said quickly, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm. ‘Not you!’ She sighed. ‘I just ...can’t...’ she shook her head vehemently, ‘think about it. I know how he feels,’ she said, the words ringing staccato. ‘But I just can’t consider it. I won’t.’ She took the glass from Anne and drank some of the whiskey, for she was shaking again. ‘I may feel differently after I’ve been widowed for a while,’ she admitted, ‘but there is so much to sort out there. I just want to be left in peace.’

Later, when the girls were home again and Katie was put to bed in Molly’s room, she went up to Pat’s again, leaving Sally in charge of the house and minding her father, which she reluctantly did. She had bathed in the kitchen sink -- they had smashed her bathtub and there was a large piece of it lying in bits on the inside -- and found a frock that was whole in a box in the small attic. It was musty, but everything else was wrecked. She took Paddy’s felted winter hat and mac, which had somehow escaped the general destruction, and put them on over the frock, more for anonymity than a need for warmth, though she still ran chills off and on. The pub was full of men now and she the only woman. She pulled the hat lower against their numbers and asked Pat to use the telephone.
‘Sure, Molly, it’s all yours.’

After a long time, the trunk call was put through and someone at Hogan’s on the other end ran up the way to fetch Dan. It was nearly closing time, and he must know it was bad news for her to call him out so late. The connection was bad, and she had to shout to be heard.
‘Dan, it’s Molly.’
‘Molly darlin, sure isn’t it past your bedtime?’
‘Dan ----’ Her throat closed. How could she tell the man his son was dead? She knew the shock of those words. She struggled to breathe, coughing. ‘I’m sorry... Dan,’ the words poured out in a rush, ‘Dan, I’ve bad news. You know the Orange marches here, and how bad they are. Dan, Paddy’s been killed in it.’ She choked on the starkness of the words and started crying in front of everyone. When she had got hold of herself a little, there was still a long silence on the other end.
‘Dan?’ Perhaps the line had been disconnected or he’d had a stroke or, oh anything because of the awful news.
‘Aye, lass. I’m here.’ his voice was broken, badly shaking. He faltered, and she waited. The next thing she heard was Rory’s voice on the line.

‘Molly, what’s the do about our Paddy? What happened? Was it today?’
She was shaking again. ‘This afternoon,’ she managed haltingly. ‘At one of the barricades. The RUC came in with a lorry....’ She broke out crying again. ‘Oh, don’t make me say it!’
‘All right, it’s all right,’ Rory said. ‘I get the picture,’ he said grimly. ‘You’re all right, yourself, and the wee anes?’
‘Yes,’ she managed.
‘Just a minute... Molly?’ The line crackled badly.
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘Da wants to know was it hard going on him or what.’
‘Oh my God, I don’t know!’ she exclaimed in distress. ‘He was all shot through, Rory...
But don’t tell your father that, please!’
‘No, no of course,’ he said to pacify her. ‘Have you made arrangements?’
‘The undertaker here has been called on, and the church.’
‘Well, don't worry now,’ Rory said. ‘ Ernie and I will take care of everything at this end.
You just get here as soon as you can. But let us know straight away.’
‘I will... Thank you, Rory, you’re a brick.’ She said feelingly.
‘Sure, Molly, what else can I do? We’ll see you soon, so?’
‘Yes.... Rory?’
‘Aye?’
‘I’m so sorry it had to come this way.’
‘I know, darlin,’ Rory said roughly. ‘Get here soon.’
‘Yes.’ She rang off and put up the phone, sitting limply leaning against the bar.

‘Would you be wanting that drink now, Molly?’ Pat’s voice brought her out of herself. She looked up.
‘What? Oh, yes, thank you.’ She took the sherry he proffered.
‘On the house.’ He raised his glass of seltzer and looked around the suddenly hushed bar.
‘Here’s to Paddy Leary,’ he said thickly. ‘The best man any of us ever knew. May Ireland take him to her bosom, and may his lady find comfort in her grief.’ There were cries of ‘hear, hear!’ and ‘To Paddy!’ Molly drank the cloying sherry and it was galling. She didn’t want a dead hero.

She walked home down the deserted lane, avoiding the patrol and let herself in the house. She had never been so tired in all her life. Sally had fallen asleep at the table beside her father and she woke her and helped her upstairs to bed with her sister. On the last trip back down, after tendering bedding borrowed from Anne, she stuck her hand in the pocket of the mac, and found an extra pair of glasses there, old, bent, and dusty. Pulling them out as she came into the parlour, she heard her own voice in far ago Wicklow -- ‘They get in the way.’ Nerves and exhaustion and that bittersweet memory came crashing down on her and she fell into the ripped, sprung chair and wept. Her lover, her husband, the laughing young man of the Portmarnock races and the brute of her return from Dublin. She loved him, really loved him, but he had loved Ireland more than her, and gambled his life away with the IRA, and she was bitter. Oh, bitter.

Tom Kilgallen was good to his word and found a Volunteer officer’s uniform, which he brought round the next day. With his brother and Jack Meehan, they dressed Paddy and laid him out nicely in the coffin that had arrived from the undertaker’s. On Friday at St Francis Xavier’s in Dublin there was a rosary, at which a man she did not know came up and introduced himself. He was handsome and personable, although he made Rory bristle beside her. Why she could not guess, for he wore a dark suit and tie and was perfectly decorous.

‘General Mulcahy, Mrs. Leary. I knew your husband in the old days. I’m very sorry for your trouble ma’am. He was a good man.’
She accepted his hand and bent him a welcome glance, for he was not as tall as she was.
‘Thank you, General. You are very kind. I know my husband would appreciate your sentiments.’ She had worked out the little speech on the train coming down.
‘Do you know who that was?’ Rory prodded her when he had gone.
‘No,’ she said serenely. ‘I’ve no idea. I assume it is one of your republicans, though you don’t appear to care for him very much.’
‘It’s Richard Mulcahy, the bloody Free State goon,’ Rory swore vehemently. She looked at him with weary patience.
‘Rory,’ she murmured as gently as she could, for after all he had arranged everything here in Dublin for her at considerable inconvenience. ‘I am not interested in quarrels. Anyone who is kind enough to be here deserves a decent reception.’ That shut him up. She asked Dan about the General when they arrived home, and he said, ‘Oh yes, he’s an old IRB man.’ That explained the connection. How many people from Paddy’s secret life would come out of the woodwork in the next days?

She received a condolence card from Mrs. Mahaffy, now a widow, which was very nice of her considering what transpired to be a Republican funeral with every paramilitary organisation in existence attending, followed by burial in the Republican plot in Glasnevin. Before Saturday, she didn’t even know there was such a thing. Frances wrote a lovely note enclosed, speaking of ‘fond reminiscences of that brilliant boy’. It made her cry, because the Mahaffys had loved him come what may and that meant so much.

The most surprising schism came from within the family itself. After the funeral, she went back to Ernie and Rosemary’s in Bride Street in their borrowed car. The tension could have been cut with a knife. Ernie was typically laconic, but there was a quality in his glance at her when he paused at an intersection in Church Street that set her teeth on edge. Rosemary, usually friendly -- not to say over--friendly -- had nothing at all to say. Molly exchanged glances with Sally in the back of the car, as if to say ‘what now?’ Sally shrugged, as mystified as she.

The mystery was solved when she went upstairs to change her shoes. In the bedroom opened for the ladies’ use, Maureen was already there changing her dress shoes for everyday boots. Molly took off her hat and the thick veil and laid them on the bed. She went to the mirror to see to her hair and Mo moved aside with evident disdain.
‘Pardon me,’ she said coolly.
Molly drew herself up. ‘I beg your pardon, what is the matter with everyone here? Ernie looked daggers at me in the car. My goodness, you’d think I was one of the Auxies!’
‘You may as well have been!’ Mo snapped.
She was appalled. ‘Just what is that supposed to mean?’
‘It means,’ Mo drew out the word, mocking her accent, ‘that if it hadn’t been for your encouragement he’d not have gone to Derry. He’d have stayed home, stayed out of it. He only went because you went with him!’ Her voice rose and she was at the edge of tears.

My God, she was saying that she abetted Paddy’s activities! ‘I went,’ she cried, ‘because he was ill and needed me! I went to keep my family together! I went because there was nowhere else to go after his internment! We could not stay in Dublin; he’d have been arrested! They knew his name, his face, and every organisation he belonged to because they stole everything from us! I should like to know what you think we should have done in the face of that!’ She was shouting.
‘He never was involved before you came along!’ Mo shouted back.
‘Before I --’ She was so astonished she could hardly breathe. She who had known nothing of the depth of his involvement until the British raided the house after he was interned! ‘Just a moment, Maureen! I had nothing to do with Paddy’s being in the IRB! He was in even in Kerry,’ Mo paled and she nodded strongly. ‘Yes!’ she cried, ‘even in Kerry when he was only a boy! So pin that on your frock!’ She yanked open the door, but Mo’s next words stopped her cold,
‘You’re so high and mighty, aren’t you, Molly Clennaghan? You and your bloody family. At least one of my brothers never compromised a girl then refused to marry her!’ Molly turned to stare, and Mo nodded triumphantly. ‘So the boot’s on the other foot! Ha, so much for your gentleman brother! You never troubled to wonder why he ran off, did you?’
Molly looked down her nose in disdain. ‘That’s as may be, but at least I’m enough of a lady not to admit to something like that, whoever she was.’
‘No,’ Mo countered, her face ruddy with emotion, ‘you just had a six--months’ baby everyone sniggered at!’
That was too much! ‘Well I didn’t have it all by myself!’ She shouted.

There were quick footsteps on the stairs. Rory came up behind her and shoved her unceremoniously into the room, slamming the door behind him.
‘Jaysus, will the two of you shut up! They can hear you all over the neighbourhood! If you want to row like two cats in season, do it outside. You’re upsetting Mammy and people are wondering what the hell is going on. A fine way to behave at a wake, I must say and him not cold yet! Have you no respect for the dead?’
‘Your sister started it,’ Molly said coldly. ‘Apparently some people in this family think I’ve murdered Saint Patrick.’
Rory raised an eyebrow at her. ‘I don’t care who bloody started it, it’s to end. I won’t have Mammy upset anymore. And you,’ he said to his sister, ‘ quit your picking fights. Haven’t we all been through enough? Leave the poor woman alone!’
‘Oh yes, poor Molly! Always poor Molly! I could let on a few choice things about poor Molly!’ Mo glared. What could she possibly know? Molly wondered if she was deranged.
‘She could be a damned Bolshie for all I care,’ Rory spat. ‘But if either of you breathes another uncivil word, Paidín won’t be the only one in Glasnevin yard this night.’ He opened the door and bolted down the stairs.
Maureen sneered at her. ‘Just you mind yourself!’ she muttered, and went out, leaving Molly to wonder what had just happened.

What had happened was that the day before her arrival, when Rory was making the funeral arrangements, there was a row between the Republicans in the family -- Dan, Rory, and Cate -- and the anti--Republicans -- Ernie, Rosemary, and Mo -- about the particulars, and Ernie and Mo were very upset that the others had won out on the strength of Paddy’s indisputable involvement. And then when the coffin arrived from Derry and was on view with Paddy in an officer’s uniform, Ernie and Mo had threatened to boycott the funeral until their mother intervened. Molly just happened to be unlucky enough to be caught in the middle. It was Cate who told her all this, standing in the kitchen. Tall, gaunt, lovely Cate, who had once been so diffident towards her. She had been in the Cumann na mBan since its inception, and was one of the honour guard the last two days.
‘But I only agreed to the uniform because Paddy would have wanted it,’ Molly protested.
‘It was not my idea.’
Cate smiled wanly. ‘That’s what I told Ernie, only not that nicely,’ she admitted. ‘It’s just bad luck for you, Molly. But I wouldn’t worry about it. They’ll get over it.’

While she was home, she went to see Dick Eustace in his office to write up a will and settle any pressing affairs of Paddy’s. They talked of the difficulties of selling the Derry house. She got a surprise when Dicky asked her how she wanted to allocate the remainder of his estate.
‘What estate?’ She smiled, thinking he was joking. ‘He hadn’t a penny.’
‘On the contrary, Gerry,’ Dick said, handing a paper across the desk. ‘There’s a pension from Trinity at £3000.’ There it was in black and white, signed by J.P. Mahaffy.
‘How can this be?’ She frowned. ‘He resigned....’
‘He was not sacked,’ Dick pointed out. ‘He had tenure. And there was a provision made by the Provost on account of ‘special circumstances.’ I assumed you knew of this.’
She shook her head. ‘I had no idea.’

Dick folded his hands into a little tent. He had gone very grey in the last few years, but it was not bad looking at all, though it made him look older than he was. ‘So what do you wish to do with it?’
She shook her head again. ‘I don’t want it. I don’t need it.’
‘What of the girls?’
There was only Sally to consider that way, though that little secret would not thankfully come out until she was dead. She shook her head again. ‘No. We are well provided--for, as you know....’
‘Why not set up a scholarship fund?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘For aspiring republicans?’ She smiled. She could only joke this way with Dicky. Anyone else -- Liz, George, Susanna -- would be scandalised.... A thought came to her -- ‘Wait. I do know someone who could use it.’ The Kilgallens. ‘But it must be from this office, and anonymous. They wouldn’t take it otherwise.’ It was a small way to make their lives easier, in thanks for their friendship these seven years. It would be more money than Tom could ever make, and would allow them to move into one of the housing estates in the suburbs. She knew it was the right thing to do.
‘We can arrange that,’ Dick agreed warily. He evidently couldn’t see why she should want to be so secretive. But she didn’t enlighten him. Let that stand between her and the Kilgallens. She knew Paddy would approve. It was his money, after all.

When they got home to Derry, Molly and the girls had a picnic for tea on the parlour floor, and afterward they took turns reading from Georgey’s Menagerie, which was about right for Katie to read, as it had large print and the words were only occasionally difficult. Paddy had given it to Joe when he was four and it was conveniently left behind at Mummy’s in Baldoyle, found when they were visiting on the Sunday. July though it was, the weather had gone thundery as they arrived at Waterside and it began to rain as they came across the bridge. They hadn’t coal for the grate, and it was too wet out even to go over to Annie’s to beg some, so they huddled under the borrowed bedding. Tomorrow when the girls were at school, she would go out shopping and begin to restock the house. She was reading, ‘With his face very serious the boy came to his mother for explanations; but she only answered by reminding him of a promise he had made her as a condition of being admitted to the room,’ when the front door, which had been bolted, crashed open against the wall and half a dozen RUC came running in with rifles and machine guns. Katie and even Sally were screaming and she was on her feet in an instant as the lieutenant stalked into the room, his boots loud on the bare floor.

‘What do you want breaking in here! We are a house in mourning!’ she cried over her hammering heart. Her knees were jelly. The Lieutenant shoved past her and she staggered.
‘We know enough about that. Your husband was Fenian scum we should have blown away long since!’ Men were rushing in with guns at the ready, swarming over the house, blocking the exits. They were trapped, dear God. She began shaking violently, and gathered up Katie, who was crying, ‘Mammy, Mammy!’
‘My husband was no Fenian!’ She lied stoutly in her best drawing room tones, but the RUC Lieutenant evidently didn’t know the distinction, or thought she was putting it on. He was tearing the shreds of drapery aside, looking for God knew what, and stalked over, looming large for he was taller and bigger than she, and she shrank from him when he grabbed her arm. Her mind filled with all the horror of the last seven years: burning, looting, rape, murder. Nothing was beyond them.

‘You’re a lying bitch,’ he muttered, and struck her. ‘We know he was hiding guns in this place, now show us where they are and no one gets hurt!’
Her face was smarting from the blow. Sally had Katie in hand and was cowering beside the grate, her face utterly white.
‘Believe me, Lieutenant,’ she stuttered in terror, ‘if what you say is true, I have no knowledge of it! My --’
‘Irish!’ he snapped, and drew the pistol he carried, grabbing her again and shoving her over by the girls. ‘You’ll come up the barracks, ya Fenian bitch, and find out what happens to those who interfere with police business.’ He kept the gun on them, loaded and cocked while his men began ripping open the walls with bayonets and smashing whatever little had not been destroyed last week. She heard the crash of rifle butts against the bathtub. The iron bed was shot up. Something went through the front windows upstairs. From the kitchen came a ferocious barrage of machine gun fire. She looked up once from bending over Katie, covering her head in her arms as she screamed and screamed, and found the lieutenant studying her with the most awful, familiar leer. He smiled nastily at her expression and yanked her chin up.
‘You know, I could let you off if you’d be nice,’ he suggested odiously. ‘You’re not a bad looker for a Fenian. Not like some of these cows.’

The words went through her and she snapped, in a white rage. They could kill her, and she would rather die, but he would never get away with it as long as she had any fight in her. She tossed her head, pulling herself from his grip.
‘You’re disgusting,’ she spat in his face. ‘Irish I may be,’ she cried, and he recognised her accent as truly British at last, ‘but I am not so desperate as that!’
‘You bitch!’ he struck her and she went flying, landing painfully on the sharp, exposed edge of the ruined sofa. But he didn’t shoot her. Her mouth and nose were bloody, and she stifled a cry, though it hurt more than anything. She wouldn’t give these savages the satisfaction. From the corner of her eye, she saw Katie kick him.
‘Don’t you hurt my Mammy!’
‘Katie!’ she cried, her voice high. She lunged for her, but the lieutenant was quicker. He picked her up bodily and, with a hand over her mouth, for she was shrieking like a wild thing, opened up the cupboard under the stairs and threw her in, slamming the door. They knew about it! It was horrifying. There was nowhere safe in this house at all! He pointed a short, fat finger at Sally.
‘The next one who tries that will be shot!’
The sergeant came in then, skidding to a halt.
‘We found it, sir, in the basement below, it must be,’ he glanced at her. ‘There’s a bank safe door inside and we can’t shoot through it. Hodges thinks we should dynamite it.’
‘Whatever gets it open!’ the lieutenant snapped. ‘So you didn’t know they were there, did you?’ he said to her. ‘That could make you a lifer for concealing information. Or maybe execution for arms possession... Get that bloody door open, sergeant!’ he shouted at the man.

The explosives rocked the house a moment later, and smoke poured into the room, choking them. Through the dim grit came a parade of men in heavy boots, carrying more arms and ammunition than she had ever seen in her life. She leaned against the wall in weak amazement, looking on the endless line with stupefaction. Running guns! He could have blown them all up and half the neighbourhood with them! How could Paddy do such an irresponsible thing and never even tell her? My God, Joe used to hide down there! Had he known, her baby boy? Is that why they killed him? My God, my God! Tom Kilgallen’s words on the day he’d come with the uniform came back to her: The less you know, the less they can get out of you. He knew! They all knew! Liars and murderers, one and all!
The sergeant came and went with a report.

Then, another officer came in through the broken front door, past the now dwindling line of men. The officer, a Major, wore the coat and brown cap of the regular army. He had a long moustache that obscured part of his face, but he was vaguely familiar. She stared at him as he spoke with the lieutenant.
‘I see your information was correct,’ he said, glancing about in distaste. He looked at her, and the nagging familiarity came again.
‘Yes, sir, although this Fenian bitch here was reluctant to comply at first. We’re about half--finished down there. Most of the rest is explosives. Gelignite.’
‘How much?’
‘About a hundred pounds, I would guess, sir.’
The Major whistled and glanced at her again. Suddenly, she knew him.

‘John!’
He looked at her closely, and the lieutenant started.
‘Madame?’ the major said coldly.
She couldn’t believe it. The last time she had seen him was in 1916. He had stopped by the parents’ house on his way to Clontarf with the emergency troops. John Whitcombe, Colonel Whitcombe’s son, her near neighbour since she was four.
‘John, it’s Mary!... Molly!’
There was no recognition.
‘Molly Clennaghan!’
He was taken visibly aback, and switched his stick to the other arm in confusion.
‘My God!’ he exclaimed.
‘Do you know this woman, sir?’ the lieutenant asked.
‘Yes.... Molls, I can’t believe it’s you! Whatever are you doing here? Vince isn’t in our Division? No, but he was Navy... That’s not right either.’

She could have laughed had the situation not been so tragic. ‘He was in the Navy,’ she said with a haughty glance for the lieutenant. ‘He worked for the G--Division after and was killed before we were married --’
‘Yes, it was in the papers...’ John said, thinking.
‘I married a university professor, Trinity College. I got rather more than I bargained for.’
‘I know,’ John said ruefully. ‘Poor Molly. Your husband was quite the genius,’ he said with a measure of admiration. He turned to the lieutenant. ‘Lieutenant Stanes, if Mrs. Leary has said she knew nothing of the matter, you may believe she is telling the truth. I will vouch for her personally--’
‘Sir!’
‘As an officer and a gentleman,’ John said, with a glance at her. ‘I owe it to an old friend.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured sincerely.
He tipped up his stick, nodding. ‘Stanes! Carry on, and see that you abuse this woman no further, or you shall have to deal with me. What a disgrace!’
‘Yes, sir.’ The Lieutenant glared at her. John was out the door.
They regarded one another with loathing.
‘Next time,’ he muttered. ‘Next time. Just you mind your back.’
She raised her head and said nothing, but drew a shuddering breath.

She sent the girls to Mary Sullivan’s for breakfast the next day and while they were gone she sat on a straight chair in the parlour, the only intact one left in the house, and tried to think of what to do first. She had a crashing headache, and her arm and shoulder were purple where the lieutenant had grabbed her. Sally told her she had a ‘big bruise’ on her back when she was washing at the kitchen sink earlier. They had slept in their clothes on the floor. She had only the dress she stood in. Even their cases had been ripped open. It was one way of unpacking, she supposed. After calming Katie down, sleep had been impossible, worrying that they would come back. Now she was exhausted. She hadn’t sent the girls to school because they weren’t fit to be seen. The sooner she got out of here the better. Mummy had given them the run of the Baldoyle house until January when the lease was up in Gardiner Street. They could all use some time in the country.
Annie’s blonde head appeared in the kitchen doorway before she hurried inside.
‘I came as soon as I could. Mary Mother of God, did they do that to you at all?’ She exclaimed. ‘You look like three rounds under.’
‘Yes,’ she said dully, rubbing her forehead. ‘Annie, why didn’t you tell me Paidín was running guns?’ She demanded. She waved her arm toward the barrack and winced. ‘They thought I was lying! Thank goodness for John Whitcombe or I’m sure we’d all be dead or worse this minute! How could you not tell me, Annie! I was wild when they came in, and then all those guns, and explosives---- Explosives! Sweet Christ, I married the stupidest man alive! He could have blown us all to hell and back! Why didn’t you tell me?’
Annie’s blue eyes were enormous and guilty as she stood in the middle of the room. By her expression she had known all along. ‘He made us not tell you,’ she said at last, in a slow, small voice. ‘Sure, wasn’t it out of concern for you, Molly? He knew you’d fret. I told em both it were a bad idea, from the start, but they’d never listen. Stubborn, the pair of them. I’m sorry Molly, you must believe me, really I am. I never liked deceiving you.’
She thought of everything they had been through. Surely, that much must be true. Annie was incapable of outright lying. It always showed on her face. What she had done, she had done with good intent and unwillingly.
‘I believe you,’ she said, because she wanted to so very much, and fought sudden tears. She was so tired, and this had been the absolute last she could endure. Nothing in her life had been what it seemed.
There was a noise at the back door, heavy boots, and they froze. But it was only Tom.
‘Hey you, wee Annie, is there not a woman to be found in the house, then?’ He looked across at Molly. ‘Jaysus, what happened to you at all?’ Evidently he hadn’t slept at home.
‘Our neighbours up at the barracks,’ she managed coolly. ‘You saw the basement, I take it.’
‘Aye, aye,’ he agreed, without a trace of guilt. ‘Are you all right, like, and the wanes?’
She thought of the day he had brought Paddy home, and the strength of him when he held her in his arms. He had said the same thing them. She didn’t understand him at all.
‘Yes,’ she said simply. They were alive and relatively unhurt. That was enough for the moment.
‘I’ll fetch your breakfast,’ Annie began, but he put an arm around her.
‘No, have your wee chat up. I’ll fetch it meself.’ He leaned to kiss Annie briefly, and went out again. She and Anne stood looking at one another. They were turning a corner now. Seven years would fall or stand depending on her response. The scales were heavily weighted: Anne had been there unfailingly at every moment from births to deaths, tireless, uncomplaining, the best of friends; but her complicity to Tom and Paddy’s activity had also contributed to those deaths, to the endless raids.... Molly felt grossly betrayed, but the truth was that no amount of histrionics on her part would bring Joe and Paddy back. Then, Annie had her losses too, just as hard. They could only go on from here.
‘Do you have a broom?’ Molly asked. ‘That’s a start.’
Annie sighed, her eyes brimming tears. ‘I do,’ she murmured, her mouth working.
‘I’ll just fetch it.’ She ran out and was back in a little with her cleaning things, as she had done long ago. They had swept out the dining alcove and the parlour and were beginning on the hall when there was the noise of a heavy lorry coming down their street. They looked at each other and ran to the parlour window. There before them were six or eight men pouring out of the vehicle, running down the alley, breaking in both doors at once.
‘Tom!’ Annie shrieked and ran stumbling towards the back door. Molly caught her skirt on a lunge and dragged her back.
‘No!’ she cried.
‘But they’ll kill him!’ Annie shrilled at her. She was dead white and her eyes were hard as sapphire. ‘And my baby. My baby’s in there! Molly--’ The tears came pouring and she wrenched herself loose. ‘Molly, let me go, let me go -- I can’t let them kill him!’ They both stooped paralysed by the sounds of gunfire from next door.
‘Tom!’
Molly grabbed her again, as Tom’s lithe figure went sprinting past the alley windows towards the front of the house to tear away. He was a big man, but she never saw anyone move faster than he did in those seconds, it must have been though it seemed like hours. Out the door and down they alley. Finding himself pursued, he sprang back trying to shoot his way out, but he was trapped between the two barricades of men -- reinforcements who had arrived. He whirled as they began firing, the world exploding in the crackling thunder of revolvers and machine--gun fire. It was sickening, and Molly struggled with Anne that she would not see, but she wrenched herself out of the stranglehold and went tearing through the house and was in the alley hardly before the firing had ceased.
‘Tom!’ she screamed, and was wailing hysterically by the time Molly reached her. She saw why. She retched at the sight. It was worse than Joe, a hundred times worse. He had been hit so many times that the head above the bloody mess of his chest was completely destroyed. There was no way to even tell if he had been fair or dark. Anne was screaming hysterically, and kept running her hands over that poor destroyed man. It was more awful than anything Molly could ever have imagined. She leaned against the wall and retched, even when there was nothing left to come up. The RUC by this time had disappeared as if they had never been. Niall was screaming upstairs and the children were all crying at the windows.
‘Mammy, Mammy!’ Sean came skidding round her front door. ‘Oh my God, Da1 Oh, Jesus, Da, they’ve murdered my Da!’ He flung himself on the body with his mother, joining in the terrible orgy of grief. Sean lifted up his head then, swearing blue and incoherent, dark with his father’s blood.
‘You filthy murdering bastards!’ He shouted at the departed police. ‘You’ve murdered me own Da! Bejaysus, just you look out, just you look out! It’s the IRA will kill you all in your murderers beds some night! Dirty fucking murderers! Limey scum! We’ll beat yez, we’ll kill yez all! Ah, Jesus, Daddy, Daddy, me own Da ----’ He fell into weeping again, retching and cursing. Molly sat down on the filthy cobbles, never mind the dark blood spreading everywhere, because her legs would no longer support her. She covered her head in her hands, shaking violently, and wished for once to faint, to escape the terrible scene. It did not occur to her that the madman there flung over the mangled body with his distraught mother was only a fourteen--year--old boy.

In September she discovered she was pregnant.
She had been sick since coming back from Dublin, but she thought it from the shock alone, with everything that had happened. She had missed periods after Joe died too, but she now could keep nothing down at all and was afraid it was her old consumption so went to the doctor in the city. When he told her in his consulting rooms that she was pregnant she became hysterical and they gave her a sedative and made her lie down until she was better. She would never be better. She had wanted babies, but not like this. This was too awful. War widows had sometimes had posthumous babies, but this was different. This was too awful. She went home and cried for a fortnight and hardly could drag herself out of bed.

On Guy Fawkes Day she went shopping with Annie up in the second--hand stalls by the Butcher’s Gate, more for the outing than anything else. She would never buy anything there. Annie did, though; a couple of dresses for the girls and one for Niall. She wouldn’t use but sparingly the money that had begun coming in last month, although she could have gone to any of the shops in town and bought new things; more money arrived in a fortnight than Tom as made in a year, if he worked at all. The last two years he had not, and the family had been supported by the Sinn Fein fund, which was not huge.
When the first draught arrived at the Post Office, Annie came tearing home and knocked up her door in a hurry, bursting into the room. Molly was lying on the sofa sleeping and was jolted awake.
‘Dear god!’ She exclaimed. ‘I thought you were the Specials!’
‘Did you do this?’ Annie demanded, waving the receipt. ‘You did this, didn’t you?’ She started crying because it was thirteen pounds. Molly yawned and sat up, pushing her frock down to her knees.
‘It was Paddy, actually,’ she admitted. ‘It’s his pension.’
‘I can’t take it,’ Annie said, though her face was glowing.
‘I’d like to know what else you intend to do, with the eleven of you without an income,’ Molly said frankly. ‘Take it for Paddy. He would have wanted you to have it. But don’t spend it all in one place; it only goes for twenty years.’ She smiled at Anne’s confusion and gratitude. Normally undemonstrative, Anne came and hugged her.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured fiercely, ‘thank you.’
They were walking along the Wall after the shopping and had just passed the RUC barracks and were about to round the corner to their street when shots rang out from the tower. Molly knew to go down on the pavement now and wait until it was clear. There was not a word from Annie, who usually would have been muttering under her breath about the inconvenience. Molly raised her head after several silent minutes and saw why: her packages were sprawled on the pavement and she was facedown, her limbs at weird angles; she had been shot in the back.
‘Oh no,’ Molly moaned. She scrambled up and hurried over, pulling Annie into her lap. But she was dead. Molly looked around wildly. There was no one in the street, only the wind howling off the river.
‘Somebody help me!’ she screamed. After a long time, while she sat shaking and crying, Pat Halinan came out of his pub.
‘Oh Jesus!’ he cried, and dashed back inside for help. He brought Shay Kilgallen and Dinny Seaver with him and they helped her home with poor wee Annie.

She took the Kilgallen children to Sligo on the train. Shay had intended to come, but two days before he got a job and so she went alone. Seanin stayed behind in Derry with his uncle. He refused to go to Sligo and she had no authority to compel him, especially with Shay willing to take him in. Blood was thicker than water, even when the near relation was an IRA man; or especially, in Sean’s case. She was afraid the boy wouldn’t live long if left in Derry, but he had told her rudely that it was none of her business.
It was a ghastly journey. She was sick and Niall was sick and the little Kilgallens were as boisterous as ever in the first--class compartment. She was relieved when the train finally stopped in Sligo town and she saw three men with a cart standing outside the station waiting for them. One was so evidently Mickey’s father that she didn’t have to ask. He was a tall thin man with stooped shoulders and a gentle, weary face. He had a shock of white hair, and the familiar blue eyes. The other two must be Kilgallen’s brothers. She gave Niall to Sally, for he was squirming, and held out her hand, saying in her uncertain Irish,
‘Mr. Rafferty, I am Mrs. Leary, sir.’ She faltered, not knowing what else to say to him. But he smiled and took her hand warmly.
‘Welcome, my dear,’ he returned in Irish, and she saw his pleasure that she knew the language. ‘Welcome to Sligo.’ He looked around at all the children with tears in his eyes and greeted them all in turn with a kiss or a pat on the head. He took Niall in his frail arms and bounced him, staring significantly at her Katie. So he knew. She coloured and put her arm around this child.
‘These are my daughters Katie and Sally,’ she said.
‘How do you do?’ They asked one after another. Katie hid her face in Molly’s coat.
‘Where’s Seanin?’ Mr. Rafferty asked at last.
She coloured again, coughing. How to tell the man his namesake was off following his father’s cause with just as much hatred? She remembered that the other brother, Sean, had met his end in the rebel cause, too.
‘In Derry,’ she managed at last. ‘With Shay…’
The old man shook his head. ‘It’s a terrible thing, this rebel business...’ She thought of Mick, who would have said the same. She had left writing the news of Anne’s death to Shay; he had been livid enough about Paddy. She didn’t want to hear anymore of his diatribe against her remaining in Ireland. She had the genuine excuse of illness not to answer his letters. Heaven knew what he would say when he heard about her lump. She debated if she had reason to tell him. What did it have to do with him, after all?
On the ten or twelve miles to Mr. Rafferty’s small holding, the children jostled about in the back of the cart, glad to be out of the train and in the sunshine, even if it was cold. She had no idea of what to say to the old man so she looked about at the scenery and tried not to mind the uncomfortable seat. After years of motorcars, the jolting was unbearable. Her gaze wandered to the heath--covered Slieve Gamph Mountains that Mickey and Anne had spoken of so fondly. The land was wild and hilly, but not so much as Kerry, with a softness to the hills that Kerry did not have. They came to Colloony town. Mick had not been exaggerating to say it was two pubs, an all--in--one and not much else. They turned up the road before an unused train station.
‘The train used to be coming here,’ Sean Rafferty said. ‘But that was years ago itself, when our Mick first went off to Dublin town.’
She nodded silently. They went under the trees and up another road before pausing before a little four--room cottage with a new ugly slate roof and a couple of small outbuildings. There had plainly been additions to the house. She remembered that the old man had been a carpenter by trade. Coffins. She was glad she had made plans to stay in the village rather than incommoding him.
‘Here it is, sure,’ he said, climbing down after the two Kilgallens who had been stuffed in the back with the children. They took the cases into the house three at a time.
‘Brennan, Rourke,’ he nodded to them. ‘Ta.’ They were scrawny, dispirited men, unlike their brothers as could be. When the cases were unloaded they made their awkward good--byes.
‘We’re just up the road, so,’ Rourke told her. ‘Yez can send Jim along when you’re ready to go into Colloony.’
She looked at Mr. Rafferty.
‘My son Jim,’ he said. The only one left, apart from Mick. The poor old gent.
Inside, they sat down at the table and she wrote out her address in Dublin, and Dick Eustace’s office as well. She didn’t bother with the exchange numbers as he wasn’t on the phone. He was proud about the pension money, as proud as Anne or Mick would be. She saw where they got it.
‘But sir,’ she entreated, ‘it’s not right that you should be burdened in your age with the financial responsibility for nine children! It’s only that they have no other relative that I thrust them on you at all. I couldn’t leave them to the Union. But you should not be burdened by them’
His blue eyes were steely. ‘Aye, but it’s not right for me to be taking money from a woman, and a widow at that.’
She grimaced. ‘That sounds like Mick,’ she complained.
‘He was well brought up,’ Sean said, ‘if poor. I do all right, Mrs. And too, does our boy send me the fiver every month, so I’m not wanting for aught.’ Five pounds a month from the twelve dollars a week he earned; no wonder Mick could never save anything. Not that she grudged his father the money, but it made the transference doubly important. It would take a burden off Mick, into whom such chivalry had been bred. She had a crashing headache and the close room with the smoke from the turf fire made her sick after the jolting of the cart and the noise of the train. It made concentration difficult. She wanted to go into town and have a lie down. But not before business was settled here.
‘But with all these children!’ she exclaimed. She shook her head. ‘It’s not my money. It was my husband’s, his university pension. It should be put to good use. Please, sir, ignore the garrison you see in me. It’s not from charity that I offer this! If you can’t take it now, then let it be put aside for them! Please sir! My husband and I loved Annie. It’s such a small thing.’ She turned her head away and coughed miserably, fumbling for a handkerchief. She had been warned to avoid emotional upsets. How one was supposed to do that in the midst of such desolation was a mystery. Sally was over in an instant, standing sentinel beside her chair while she struggled.
‘Mammy,’ she said gently. Molly held her hand on her shoulder, grateful for her presence. When she could breathe again she sat back in the chair, shoving the ruined handkerchief into her pocket.
‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped.
He was frowning. ‘You are very ill, Mrs. Leary,’ he said in distress. ‘And in your condition’ He had heard the unmistakable rattle in her chest that was only too plain when she drew a breath.
She shook her head. She didn’t want his sympathy, it was too unbearable. He would be concerned for Katie, tell Mick, and then what? Then what? Would he come back? She didn’t know that she could live with the intensity if he did.
‘I’ll be all right,’ she insisted. ‘… Will you take the money, sir?’
‘All right lass, all right, as it means so much,’ he consented. ‘I wouldn’t like our Mick to say I was the death of you.’
She stared at him, her heart pounding in horror that he had actually said it, acknowledged that he knew who she was, had been, to Mick. ‘Thank you,’ she managed to choke, and bolted some of the tea before her, rattling the cup in the saucer.
Before they left, he took her aside into his tiny neat room with a cheap gilt--framed picture of the Scared Heart hanging above the chest. On the chest were a votive candle, a set of rosary beads, three photographs and his pipe. He picked up one of the pictures and showed it to her, saying,
‘That was my Kathleen. That was taken back in ’85 when she and me were wed. Sixteen she was then and the prettiest girl clear to Mayo.’
She looked at the photograph. As a young man Sean had been as gangly and awkward--looking as Mick on the first day she saw him; they must have been about the same age. He smiled at her a little.
‘So I knew the truth when I saw your little Katie. Mick told us years ago, sure, but you doubt. You doubt.’ He opened the top drawer and removed a tiny box of mementoes. From inside it, he withdrew a small holy medal of St. Michael the Archangel and pressed it into her hand. His own hand trembled then, and there were tears in his eyes. ‘This is for the child,’ he said, ‘it were our Mick’s. He’d want her to have it.’ Mick’s christening medal. She looked up at him, too moved to speak. The poor old man. ‘God bless you, daughter,’ he said in the country manner, but it carried here a deeper meaning: he accepted her into the family, however irregularly.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she said sincerely. He nodded and blinked, and her heart broke for him. If Mick was to come home, it should be here with his old father and not to Dublin with her. The old man loved him and needed him, much more than Mick might perceive she did.

When they got home to Derry, she was sick with the winter weather. Sally did nearly everything about the house, minded Katie and looked after her as well. They had planned to be back in Dublin for Christmas, but she couldn’t travel at all so they stayed on.
Two days before Christmas she had a miscarriage and bled so much that she had to be taken to hospital. Worst of all news, the child was a boy, a boy to carry on the name. He could never have replaced Joe or Eamonn, but it would have been some comfort. She was devastated. The staff told her, to give her some answer to her endless moaning ‘why?’ that she’d miscarried because of her TB. But that was not the terrible question she wanted answered; she did not want clinical reasons for what had happened to her. She wanted to know why everyone she had ever loved had been taken from her violently and they could not answer that. After nearly six months, she missed Paddy more than she could have imagined when he died. She cried from morning ‘til night for three days until they gave her laudanum. Doctor Morrisey tried to encourage her by saying that it was efficacious for her TB as well. That was no encouragement. She might get well; but things would never be better. It wouldn’t bring the child back, bring Joe back, bring Paddy back. Things would never be better now, not after what she had endured. How could she ever forget? She did nothing but cry for the fortnight she was ordered to bed.

They had to move after the New Year. She complained to her mother that she was incapable of packing and moving house and so Mummy made phone calls and soon her cousin Dorothy arrived from Cavan and did everything for her, shepherding them to Dublin in the frigid second week of January 1924. She stayed for a fortnight, until she was sure they were properly settled. Mummy said later that Dodo told her she thought they shouldn’t be alone in the Gardiner Street house because it might upset her and delay her getting well.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Molly said dully in response. ‘Nothing matters.’ None of Grace’s exhortations about the girls could move her. She listened to it all dully. Grace only left off when she went into a coughing fit that ended in a spectacular haemorrhage. Mummy frantically rang for Dr. Powers at the Mater.
In an hour she was in hospital again. She was quickly transferred to the sanatorium in Wicklow, the National Hospital for Consumption at Newcastle, where she endured radium treatments and an operation wherein they scraped her right lung, hoping to arrest the lesions. The surgery Fa had never allowed when she was a girl. It left her very weak and the x--rays made her violently ill, but it was successful by the doctors’ terms and she slowly recovered. At the beginning of June, she was home again. She had been ill for nearly a year.