1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Until the next time.”

  “There may not have to be a next time. The same people who spat on you are beginning to wear tricolor ribbons and sing ‘The Soldier’s Song.’ The executions have affected them as nothing else could.”

  “I’d love to go out and see.”

  “You don’t put your head outside that door until things cool down more, Ned, and I don’t mean the smoldering rubble. You’re safe here; no one knows where you are. This place belongs to friends of mine who’re under orders not to breathe your name. I didn’t get you out of Richmond Barracks just to have the British take you.”

  “I still don’t know how you managed it.”

  Henry chuckled. “Blackmail. Intimidation. A bit of forgery. I used their own methods against them through poor Neville Grantham. It’s really him you have to thank.”

  “I will when I can.”

  “That won’t be possible. He’s already gone back to London.”

  Ned looked surprised. “Why?”

  “They’ve all gone back in disgrace—Birrell, Nathan, and a lot of their staff. The resignation of Baron Wimborne was also suggested; he refused. Then the cabinet demanded it and the viceroy gave in, though I understand he’ll stay on until his replacement arrives—if there is to be another viceroy, which looks doubtful. Asquith’s coming to Ireland personally to reorganize the entire governmental structure from the top down.”

  “We did all that?” Ned said wonderingly.

  “It’s too soon to know just what you have accomplished, but Ireland will never be the same.”

  “What about the Volunteers down the country? Did they rise with us after all?”

  “Many did, once they learned what was happening in Dublin. They fought brilliantly in Galway and actually held Wexford, but it was too late and not enough. The confusion about the orders had already done its damage. Speaking of damage, a lot of Dublin’s in ruins, several thousand men and women are being deported to internment camps and prisons…and how’s your head?”

  “It still hurts.”

  “You had a serious concussion. For a while we thought there was a bullet lodged in that thick skull of yours, but it was just a fragment.”

  Ned was quiet for a time. Henry thought he was asleep until he said, “Have you found her yet?”

  “Have you forgot what I told you yesterday? I went to the house where she’d been living but it’s locked up tight. Tom Clarke’s wife has been arrested, and no one in the neighborhood could tell me what’s become of your Síle.”

  Ned closed his eyes. “She’s all right. She has to be. I’m going to buy a cottage in Howth and she’s going to plant flowers in the garden.”

  “Don’t set your heart on it, boy. That last day was hell. People are still missing. Caught under rubble, trapped in fires—some of them may never be found. If she tried to get back to you after the G.P.O. was destroyed…well, anything could have happened to her.”

  Ned stirred restlessly on the bed. “The little girl I told you about…”

  “Lie still, you’re supposed to keep quiet. I’m sure she’s fine. When I went to the orphanage to ask for Ursula Jervis, the caretaker told me they’d evacuated the children and staff to the country temporarily. It’s going to take a while before things return to normal, though. In the meantime, you’re not the only person worried about loved ones. Many of those shipped off to internment had no time to notify their families.”

  “How many people were killed?”

  “Counting both sides, several hundred are known dead. We haven’t been given exact figures yet. Total casualties are estimated at less than three thousand countrywide, including injuries and related accidents.”

  “The Rising of 1798 killed thirty thousand,” Ned said with his eyes still closed, “and didn’t accomplish a thing.”

  “Historians won’t be able to say that about this one,” Henry assured him. “Pearse and Connolly and the others made sure of that. They got shag-all help when they needed it, but now that they’re gone, I don’t think this country’s going to be willing to go back to where it was. People from every walk of life have faced British guns for the freedom of this small nation. Men we knew, men we saw in the streets or in the classrooms or even in the pubs, have been executed for trying to give us a republic. People who didn’t give a toss one way or the other, before, are beginning to talk about them. And about independence.”

  Ned opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “Perhaps this is how it has to be, Henry. In Ireland the living are vilified while the dead are sanctified. Mr. Pearse promised me we would win, one way or the other. And we will.” His green eyes brimmed with tears. “But oh God, suppose my Síle isn’t here to see it!”

  Chapter Sixty

  ON a timeless afternoon, beneath a forgotten sky, Ned Halloran returned to Saint Enda’s. He was surprised to find it unchanged in a month that had changed his world forever.

  He was still subject to spells of dizziness. Henry had argued that Ned should stay out of sight for a while longer to be safe, but he was too restless.

  He paid off the motor cab and asked the driver to return for him in a couple of hours. Then he stood gazing at the familiar building with its embracing forecourt.

  Mrs. Pearse and Margaret were hoping to reopen the school in September.

  He could not go in, not yet. He would have to steel himself for the sight of Mrs. Pearse. If his grief was terrible, what of hers?

  Turning away from the house, Ned began to walk through the grounds.

  The fine weather that had marked Easter Week had given way to rain, and the rain to sunshine again. Saint Enda’s was lush with the promise of summer to come.

  Such beauty could inspire reams of poetry.

  He walked slowly, carrying pain like a brimming chalice.

  They had gone to their deaths, the three poets; each to a mortal termination that fitted him like the last stanza of one of his own works. For flamboyant, romantic Joseph Mary Plunkett, a heroic death was far preferable to the devastation of disease. Thomas MacDonagh, the perfectionist, had finally found the total commitment that even his beloved family had not demanded, but which his soul required.

  And Pádraic Pearse? The gentle headmaster of Scoil Eanna, who could not bear to see the smallest, weakest creature harmed, had offered in full and complete measure his own blood sacrifice.

  For Ireland’s sake they had lost their lives, those men who loved life so well.

  Not lost. Laid down willingly, almost gladly. They had accepted death as a price that must be paid for the idea of a free and sovereign nation. Yet such concepts as nationhood were man-made and could by man be unmade, while the bodies made by God were eaten by quicklime.

  How, Ned wondered, could God allow such things? But even as he asked the question, he could hear Pearse gently scolding him for demanding that God justify Himself.

  God is. No more answer was required. Or perhaps all the answers were implicit in that simple fact. God is.

  Surrounded by blossoming summer, Ned recalled the love of nature that illumined the work of his lost friends. Like most Irish poets, Pearse, Plunkett, and MacDonagh had seen the natural world as metaphor for creation, combining construction and destruction in equal measure.

  If there was an answer perhaps it lay there, more than in any human words of comfort.

  Ned followed the meandering paths where Robert Emmett once strolled with Sarah Curran. They had been young and in love. They had seen leaves wither and fall to the earth, decay and nourish strong new growth. They had lived and died and the world went on.

  Pádraic Pearse had wandered these pathways, too. Had he recalled them that last night in his dark cell? In his mind had he traveled back to the leaf-dappled woods and the clear cold lake and the meadows fragrant with golden hay? Had he listened one last time to the shouts of boys racing up and down the playing field, enjoying to the fullest the life he had worked so hard to provide?

  As Ned walked on, a kind of understanding came
to him.

  Human beings are sensory organs through which God appreciates the physical world. God is continually creating such organs, allowing them to suffer and be glad, to love and hate and fear and exult, each according to its own unique nature, then ultimately taking them back to Himself. To enrich that which we call God. To live forever in Him.

  Thus the best men that Ireland had produced in their generation were shot to death in Kilmainham yard by other men. In those terrible moments, each had a unique experience of mortality.

  Was that what God sought? The experience? “It is God’s will,” the old people said fatalistically of any tragedy. Perhaps it was. Perhaps men and women did not die for Ireland or for Britain or for any human concern, but to add to the sum total of the wisdom of a divine intelligence beyond their understanding.

  The dark sea, waiting.

  Pearse must have foreseen and accepted everything that day long ago when they spoke of the Titanic. From that moment the man had gone forward without hesitation, although he knew where it must end. Yet he had not been afraid, and his fearlessness had given the others courage.

  In 1915 Pearse had written:

  …the wise have pitied the fool that hath striven to give a life

  In the world of time and space among the bulks of actual things,

  To a dream that was dreamed in the heart, and that only the heart could hold.

  Oh wise men, riddle me this: what if the dream come true?1

  Still brimming with pain, Ned retraced his steps to the house. He was ready to face Mrs. Pearse now. He would put his arms around her and they would cry together for all they had lost.

  Halfway up the steps his head began to swim. There was a roaring in his ears like the roar of the fire in the G.P.O. Perhaps this had not been such a good idea. Perhaps he should go back to Dublin.

  But the motor cab would not return for a while yet. He waited until the dizziness passed, then opened the door.

  The entrance hall was the same as it had always been, complete to the portrait of the radiant child with arms extended.

  “Ned-Ned!” the child cried.

  Precious was locked in his embrace before he knew it.

  Then over the top of her head he saw Síle Duffy standing in the doorway of the drawing room.

  “We’ve been searching for you everywhere,” she said.

  November 22, 1916

  H. M. S. BRITANNIC, SISTER SHIP OF

  TITANIC, SINKS IN THE AEGEAN

  Rinneadh Aisling Dúinn

  I NDORCHACHT AN ÉADÓCHAIS RINNEADH AISLING DÚINN. LASAMAR SOLAS AN DÓCHAIS. AGUS NÍOR MÚCHADH É. I BHFÁSACH AN LAGMHISNIGH RINNEADH AISLING DÚINN. CHUIREAMAR CRAN NA CRÓGACHTA. AGUS ThÁINIG BLÁTH AIR.

  I NGEIMHREADH NA DAOIRSE RINNEADH AISLING DÚINN. MHEILEAMAR SNEACHTA NA TÁIMHE. AGUS RITH ABHAINN NA ATHBEOCHANA AS.

  CHUIREAMAR ÁR N-AISLING AG SNÁMH MAR EALA AR AN ABHAINN. RINNEADH FIRINNE DEN AISLING. RINNEADH SAMHRADH DEN GHEIMHREADH. RINNEADH SAOIRSE DEN DAOIRSE. AGUS D’FHÁGAMAR AGAIBHSE MAR OIDHREACHT Í.

  A GHLÚNTA NA SAOIRSE CUIMHNÍGÍ ORAINNE, GLÚNTA NA HAISLINGE…

  We Saw A Vision

  In the darkness of despair we saw a vision. We lit the light of hope. And it was not extinguished. In the desert of discouragement we saw a vision. We planted the tree of valour. And it blossomed.

  In the Winter of bondage we saw a vision. We melted the snow of lethargy. And the river of resurrection flowed from it.

  We sent our vision aswim like a swan on the river. The vision became a reality. Winter became Summer. Bondage became Freedom. And this we left to you as your inheritance.

  O Generations of Freedom remember us, the Generations of the Vision…

  Liam Mac Uistín, 1976

  Inscription in the National Garden of Remembrance

  Dublin, Republic of Ireland

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