1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  No serious attempt was made to restrict any of them.

  Neville Grantham told Henry, “One of the reasons the Castle’s keeping hands off is because of John Redmond. He insists that interference with the militants would only excite more support for them. Conversely, a few of the senior civil servants agree with the viceroy that we should be taking punitive action ‘as a preventive measure.’ Birrell’s more or less leaving it up to Nathan, and Nathan blows hot and cold; he’s just not sure of himself. There’s no solid policy, I’m afraid.”

  That same month Seán MacDermott was released from prison, and he and Thomas Clarke were sworn in as members of the Military Council.3

  NEWS from the front continued to excite the Irish imagination. Since the Boer War, telegraphy, field telephones, and handheld cameras were giving battle an immediacy previous wars had lacked. Generals had learned the value of propaganda.

  THERE was great excitement at Saint Enda’s. Between gales of laughter, one of the Fianna told Ned over the telephone, “A British film company paid to use the school as a locale for some ‘war’ scenes for a historical film. I guess the headmaster forgot to tell his mother. When Mrs. Pearse looked out the window yesterday she saw a company of redcoats come marching up the avenue and the poor woman almost collapsed. She screamed, ‘Oh God, they’re coming to shoot Pat!’”

  Ned remarked, “Fair play to Mr. Pearse for finding a way to make money from the British army.”

  A letter arrived for Ned from New York. Mrs. Kearney gave it to him when he returned home from work, wet through with September rain. “Female handwriting,” she commented with no inflection at all.

  “A very good friend of mine has gone to Ireland,” Kathleen had written. “His name is Father Paul O’Shaughnessy and I believe he is staying with cousins in Dublin. He will be there for some months, so I have asked him to call on you. Please write me when he does, and let me know how he is.”

  Ned was puzzled by the letter. His sister had not mentioned the priest to him before. But as the weeks passed and no Father O’Shaughnessy appeared, he forgot about him. More pressing matters occupied his mind.

  James Connolly was growing increasingly belligerent. The Citizen Army, like the Irish Volunteers, was using the Fianna Handbook as its training manual because it was the best source available.4 The handbook gave detailed directions for various simulated battle situations.

  In October, Connolly and Constance Markievicz led members of the Citizen Army and the Fianna on a mock attack of Dublin Castle.

  “According to one of my clients, the government was scared witless,” Síle told Ned afterward. “The night was hopelessly foggy, and they had no warning. Men and even women came at the Castle from every direction, shouting. The civil servants who were still working inside thought it was a serious attack. Some of them even ran for their lives, leaving doors unlocked behind them. The army could have captured the Castle if they meant to!”

  The farce reminded Ned of a jerky black-and-white cinema image of cops and robbers, and he laughed. But he hated hearing Síle refer so casually to her “clients.”

  Pádraic Pearse was not amused by the attack on the Castle: “James Connolly is a loose cannon. If we do not forestall him, he may launch his own revolution on behalf of the workers and end up staging a riot that will destroy any hope of a successful Rising.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  NED looked down at the tearsheet a reporter had just handed him. “Cunard won’t take British bookings? What does that mean?”

  “They’ve issued notice that they won’t accept as passengers any British subjects who are fit and eligible for service in the army.”1

  “Does that include Irishmen?”

  “It will.” Henry Mooney looked up from the telephone on his desk. “I’ve just had word that four hundred emigrants headed for the United States have been refused boarding at Queenstown.”

  As December dawned the newspapers reported ever more appalling scenes from the battle front. Rumors abounded that Lord Kitchener might be sacked as war secretary. As morale continued to fall, British army recruitment declined further. So did membership in Redmond’s National Volunteers. Men continued to join the Irish Volunteers, however, particularly in the country.

  Dublin, the “foreign” city, remained more susceptible to British influence. But even there support for the Irish Volunteers increased substantially.

  On the twentieth of December, a single-sentence communiqué from the War Office in London announced that the allies were retreating from the disaster of Gallipoli.2 Stark black headlines in the Irish newspapers cast a pall over preparations for Christmas. Families with menfolk in the British army were appalled to read the casualty figures: 25,000 dead in the Dardanelles, 76,000 wounded, 13,000 missing, and 96,000 seriously ill.

  TOM and Katty Clarke went to her family home in Limerick for Christmas, taking Katty’s brother Edward Daly and Seán MacDermott with them.3 As it happened they traveled down on the same train as Henry Mooney, who confessed to Ned before he left, “Even the most rebellious son has to give in to his mother once in a while.”

  “Will you go home to Clare for Christmas?” Pádraic Pearse asked Ned when they met at Volunteer Headquarters the next day.

  “They’ve urged me to come, but I have dear friends in Dublin whom I don’t want to leave this Christmas. With all that’s going on, it just doesn’t seem a good time to be away.”

  Pearse gave him a strangely sad smile. “I understand. Why do you not come to us at Saint Enda’s for Christmas dinner and bring your friends with you? I should like all our boys to regard Saint Enda’s as home from home.”

  Ned was torn. He had asked the orphanage if he might have Precious for Christmas Day, and permission had been granted. There was no reason why he could not bring her to Saint Enda’s. Being welcomed into the loving bosom of the Pearse family would be a wonderful treat for the little girl.

  To be honest with himself, Ned wanted to spend Christmas with Síle, too. But how could he possibly introduce Síle Duffy to Pádraic Pearse?

  Best not to say anything to her about Christmas, then. An Irish solution for an Irish problem: pretend it does not exist.

  His life had become divided into so many parts. There were moments when he was tired and overextended and wished with all his heart for one glorious resolution that would bring everything together, make everything whole and simple and easy.

  ON Christmas Eve, Father Paul O’Shaughnessy attended Mass and then walked back alone to the cheerless little house in Ringsend. Sometimes he tilted his head and looked up at the stars. Was the same configuration over New York? he wondered.

  Christmas for Des and Ina Cahill brought no truce. They still did not speak to one another, a situation whose difficulties were compounded by the fact that Des was ill. He was running a high temperature and eating hardly anything. Ina nursed him conscientiously but offered no word of comfort, though she plumped the solitary pillow and sat on the edge of the bed, offering him spoonfuls of chicken broth.

  “Should I go for a doctor?” Paul asked.

  Ina looked up. “It’s only a cold.”

  Gazing down at the old man’s pasty, bewhiskered face, Paul was dubious. “I would be happy to pay.”

  Des growled, “Waste of money. Doctors just make you worse.” He turned his face away from the proffered spoon.

  In the distance the Christmas bells rang out over Dublin.

  IN the house on Oakley Road in Rathmines a Christmas tree had been set up in the parlor. Thomas MacDonagh carefully tied candles to the branches after little Donagh and baby Barbara were asleep.

  “Do make certain they won’t tip over,” his wife, Muriel, urged as she knelt on the floor, wrapping the last present. “So many fires are started that way.”

  Tom smiled indulgently at his pretty wife. “I’m very careful.”

  “Are you? I used to think so, but now…I didn’t like it, Tom, when you let Seán MacDermott swear you in to the IRB in Septemb
er.4 You’re in enough danger already with the Volunteers.”

  “I’m director of training for the country and I command the Second Battalion of the Dublin Brigade. That’s all. Both of those positions are honors, Muriel; neither of them is dangerous.”

  “But why do you have to do them?”

  “I thought you understood.”

  She gave him the patient, loving look women have been giving their menfolk for millennia. “I do understand, Tom; more than you know. You love me and the children very much, but that’s never been quite enough. You’ve always yearned for something…beyond, somewhere. It’s as if you’re listening to music I could never quite hear. I hoped writing poetry might satisfy you, but I was wrong. You’re the sort of man who needs a cause to which he can devote his whole soul, and you’ve found it in the Irish Volunteers.5 How can a mere woman compete with that?”

  Abandoning the tree, Thomas MacDonagh knelt on the floor beside his wife and gathered her into his arms.

  JOSEPH Mary Plunkett kept one drawer of his desk locked at all times. The success of the mock attack on Dublin Castle had not been lost on him. When he returned from the United States in November after having spent two months there working with Clan na Gael on preparations for the Rising, he had promptly begun drawing up outlines for the occupation of Dublin’s public buildings.6

  He was poring over his notes on Christmas Eve when a knock at the door summoned him back to reality. “Joe?” called a feminine voice. “Are you going to Mass with us?”

  With a start, he thrust his notebooks back in the drawer and turned the key.

  When he opened the door Grace Gifford was standing in the hall chatting with his sisters, Geraldine and Philomena, and his younger brothers, George and Jack. Grace was swathed in a heavy coat and a fur scarf; she smelled of fresh air. The sight of her brought a smile to his face. Grace Gifford was light and life.

  When she saw how pale he was, she said, “It’s very cold out, Joe. Perhaps it would be best if you stay in tonight?”

  “Not at all. I feel fine.” He was already reaching for his coat. His throat ached and every breath hurt, but he had no intention of missing Mass.

  The summons to God was the overriding imperative; his earliest, deepest love.

  SÍLE Duffy’s evening lasted very late. The house was ablaze with lights and shrill gaiety. Men who had no place else to go on Christmas Eve—or no place they wanted to go—were more in need of solace on this night than any other. Mrs. Drumgold’s reception room reeked of cigar smoke and whiskey, and there was a constant flow of men up and down the stairs. As the night progressed, the customers became soddenly, determinedly drunk.

  A man in full evening dress was sprawled at the foot of the stairs, weeping like a baby. Another was leaning against the mantelpiece in the parlor and vomiting into the coal fire in the grate. From one of the bedrooms came squeals of laughter.

  Síle accompanied her most recent client to the front door, bade him good-bye, and turned wearily to survey the crowd in the reception room. None of her regulars remained, thank God. And tomorrow the house would be closed; even the brothels observed Christmas Day. Perhaps she could slip upstairs for a few moments and—

  “Copper Clare!” Mrs. Drumgold called.

  At the sound of her “house name,” Síle stiffened. “I’m here.”

  “This nice gentleman has just been asking if we had any redheads in residence.” The madam gestured toward a doleful-looking man who stood beside her, nervously twisting his hands. “Would you care to make his acquaintance, my dear? He’s come to Dublin from Brussels on business, and Christmas is a bad time to be alone.”

  “A bad time to be alone,” Síle echoed. Then she pasted a smile on her face and held out her hand to the Belgian.

  ON Christmas morning Mrs. Kearney intercepted Ned as he was leaving his room. “Before Mr. Mooney caught the train for Limerick yesterday he asked me to give you this present,” she said, holding out a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.

  Ned opened the package carefully so the wrappings could be saved. Inside he found the copy of The Golden Joy that Henry had purchased on Bloody Sunday. He turned to the page Thomas MacDonagh had signed and smiled down at the familiar handwriting. “A treasure,” he murmured to himself.

  Tucking the book into his pocket, he set out for the Orphan House for Destitute Females. Precious, freshly scrubbed and with a rather bedraggled pink ribbon in her hair, was waiting for him.

  “Where are we going, Ned-Ned?”

  “Would you like to go to the country?”

  The little girl slipped her hand into his. “Will Miss Síle be there?”

  “I’m afraid not, pet.”

  “Can we bring her with us?”

  Ned hesitated. “I imagine she has her own plans.”

  Precious sighed. “Everybody has plans. Everybody but me. When I’m big, will I have plans?”

  “I expect you will. There are things you may want beyond mere subsistence, so you’ll need to make plans for them.”

  “Sub…sistence? What does that mean, Ned-Ned?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  The little girl wrinkled her forehead in a laughable imitation of a frown. “I s’pose…it’s what you eat and what you wear?”

  Ned shook his head. “You continue to astonish me.”

  “I know what astonish means! It’s surprise!”

  Ned was grinning. “It is indeed.”

  But as they boarded the Rathfarnham tram, his good mood was replaced by a sense of guilt. Síle should be with them. He had betrayed her by being afraid of what other people might think.

  Coward, he thought. Coward, coward!

  In Rathfarnham, Ned engaged the one horse-drawn cab he found waiting at the tram station. “Saint Enda’s, please,” he told the driver.

  The man nodded and tipped his cap to Precious, then handed her aboard as if she were a great lady. His horse had a sprig of holly tucked into the headband of its bridle.

  Precious was silent as they turned in at the front gates of the school and proceeded up the drive, but when she saw the house she gasped. “Is this where you live?”

  “This is where I went to school.”

  Her eyes were enormous. “I’m almost old enough to go to school. Can I come here…I mean, may I come here?”

  Ned hugged her. “You’ll attend a school very like this, I hope. If all goes well.”

  He felt her small body press against the book in his pocket.

  When Mrs. Pearse opened the front door to them, Precious peered past her. She seemed afraid to go in. Then she saw the painting of the joyous child above the fireplace and gave a cry of delight. “Look, Ned-Ned! It’s me!”

  January 6, 1916

  HOUSE OF COMMONS VOTES FOR CONSCRIPTION

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  IN the offices of the Independent men exchanged glances as the news was relayed to them over the telephone. Once the bill received royal assent it would become the law of the land. One reporter asked the question the others were thinking: “Is Ireland included in the conscription order?”

  “Not yet,” said their editor, putting down the telephone receiver, “but we bloody well will be. This war began as a European family squabble but it’s gone beyond that now; the empire’s taking a beating. No man will have the luxury of being allowed to volunteer. We’ll all be dragged in by the scruff of the neck if necessary.”

  That day Ned performed his duties perfunctorily. He had the strange sensation that the earth was shifting under him, and he wondered what Pádraic Pearse was feeling.

  Away from the seductive influence of Saint Enda’s, Ned realized that Pearse’s vision of resurrecting the noble Gael was a romantic dream. In the newspaper business, Ned was constantly confronted with reality.

  Some of the Irish were every bit as stupid or as feckless as the English claimed. Others simply did whatever they must in order to survive, even if it meant breaking the law.

&nbs
p; And some of the most flawed individuals were also truly great men and women.

  No, Ireland’s children were not perfect and never would be. But they were human. They deserved to be accorded human dignity. Perhaps they deserved it more than people who had the perceived advantages of wealth and social position, yet treated those at their mercy with the utmost contempt.

  For centuries Ireland had paid, in blood, the price of a place in the sun.

  The time had come to collect.

  ONE of the most ardent enemies of conscription was James Connolly, who had been holding anticonscription rallies for months. He wanted to see Irish manpower put to another use, that of socialist revolution. In the Workers’ Republic he wrote, “Are we not waiting too long? The time for Ireland’s battle is NOW, the place for Ireland’s battle is HERE.”1

  On the night of January 18, Tom Clarke told Ned, “A date’s been tentatively fixed for the Rising. The Supreme Council’s chosen Easter Sunday, the twenty-third of April.2 In light of this the Military Council think it’s imperative we meet with James Connolly to discuss our plans before he goes any further with his own.”3

  The next day Ned went to Liberty Hall.

  The hall was a handsomely proportioned building on Beresford Place, facing the quays. It possessed two full storeys and a basement, and once had housed prosperous commercial firms. Changing tenantry had brought about a decline, however. As home for Dublin’s labor movement, the hall was decidedly shabby.