1916
Page 53
We … my people … could do all those things! How thrilling!
The adults were walking with the sedate, gliding gait that characterised our race but I began to skip uncontrollably. Prompted by something the Dagda recently said to me – “Live your life in the expectation of sudden joy, Joss” – I turned handsprings, I laughed aloud. No butterfly dancing on the air could be more giddy.
My people cherished childhood and usually made no effort to curtail it. Why should they, when we lived so long? A Danann childhood could last for more than twenty sunseasons, followed by the responsibilities of adulthood for another eighty sunseasons. Only then could one become an elder; a person whose acquired wisdom was counted as part of the tribe’s treasure.
Unfortunately my childish behaviour on the morning of the Being Together brought a stern rebuke from my father. “Calm yourself, Joss! When we reach the Gathering Place you must be sedate and well-behaved. Listen instead of talking. Be mindful that you have nothing to contribute yet; it is enough for you to be there.”
I promised; I would have promised anything on that bright morning. The future was a splendid Unknown and I was eager for it.
I would approach it differently now.
At high sun we came to a pathway beaten by the passage of countless feet over countless seasons. The grass on either side of the path was so thick it tempted my bare feet to stray. The air was a heady perfume. We were immersed in life; leafy woodlands and lush grasslands and fern-fringed pools where predator and prey drank together.
Before us lay a meadow thickly starred with flowers. At home my mother could fashion almost anything from stems and leaves and blossoms. A flick of her fingers could create a wreath for the brow or a platter to hold bread.
I was stooping to pluck an armful of colour and fragrance when she stayed my hand. “You must take nothing away from this place, Joss. Not ever.” Her rebuke was gentler than my father’s but it went deeper.
The Dagda added, “Do no damage here, young man. Anyone who does is destined to die roaring in pain.”
I swallowed hard and kept my hands at my sides.
The green land rolled before us in waves like the sea that embraced our island. I had not yet been taken to the coast to see the white-crested waves which were the manes of Manannan Mac Lir’s horses, but someday I would. I would see and do many, many wonderful things. It was part of my heritage.
I was Danann.
The path we were following began to slope toward a distant hill. Our small group soon was enlarged by a trickle, then a stream, then a river of people dressed, as we were, in their brightest clothes, with more flowers in their hair. Cheerful strangers surrounded and enfolded us. Kinfolk I had never met called out my names, my many impressive names, and told me theirs.
My parents were congratulated on the simple fact of my being.
I thought myself a very fine fellow indeed.
When we reached the hill it did not appear very high; it was a long, grassy ridge crowned with timber columns, outlining halls. The halls were roofed with thatch but open on all sides to light and air. Instead of climbing up to them the Dagda led us around to the sunrise slope, where we sat down on springy grass and warm earth. A vast crowd – or what looked like a crowd to me, who had never seen one before – was spreading out along the flank of the ridge.
All were careful to sit down without crushing the flowers.
So was I.
While we waited for the ceremony to begin the Dananns sang. Mindful of my father’s admonition, I stayed quiet and listened. It was just as well; I did not recognize any of the words. Rippling, floating words like a trill of birdsong or a stream burbling over pebbles. My mother leaned over to murmur in my ear, “We are singing in the old language, Joss. This is a song of welcome.”
I didn’t even know we had an old language. Yet when I listened closely I observed that every unfamiliar word found its allotted place in the music. One could not be separated from the other.
Like the Dananns from their land.
Was that an adult thought? I must ask my father.
The singing ended abruptly, rising into one pure note of aching sweetness that took me by surprise.
How did they all know to stop at the same time? I must ask him about that too.
Before I could voice my questions, several splendidly attired men and women stood up in front of the crowd and began to make speeches of welcome. My father whispered their names to me, identifying them as members of the ruling family – who were related to our own clan. The audience warmly applauded each one in turn. “They are much loved,” my mother said proudly.
At that moment I began to love them too. My kinship to these radiant beings did not have to be explained, I could feel it welling up in me. As if responding to a silent command, the assembled Dananns broke into song again. The music celebrated what we were all feeling; even me who didn’t know the words. I wanted to stay there and feel that way forever.
The joyous atmosphere was short-lived. It faded when one of the princes – a man whom my mother identified as her uncle Aengus – made a sobering announcement. “I regret to say that the tribes which our ancestors subdued are no longer content with the peace imposed upon them.”
I had only the vaguest idea what he meant. I knew that great battles had been won by our race long ago, led by a hero called Nuada of the Silver Hand, but I had never paid much attention when the Dagda was relating the details of history. The stories were not about me.
“Men of the Iverni recently tried to assault a child on the brink of adulthood,” Aengus continued, “the girl who is called Shinann.” This provoked expressions of shock from some of his listeners and angry muttering from others. Shinann herself was not present but many of her kin were. Aengus raised a hand for silence. “She is unharmed, I assure you, but it was not the only such incident. One of our craftsmen seeking copper ore in the mountains was threatened by a party of the Velabri. He tells us they were carrying weapons that were not shaped for hunting animals. To make matters worse, the dark-spirited Fír Bolga are now openly skirmishing with our shepherds in the borderlands.”
When he finished speaking the elders took turns addressing the issue, then invited comments. Most people agreed that while none of these incidents posed a serious threat by itself, taken as a whole they were disquieting.
The Dagda pointed out that any unusual disturbance, such as a vortex in a normally quiet pool or a sudden leaping of birds into windless air, could be a dark portent. “This behaviour among the formerly pacified tribes might signal the first twitch of rebellion,” he warned. “Their numbers are greatly diminished but their primitive instincts remain.”
A rebellion! In a vague way I knew what that meant: a chance for real excitement. I had been quiet for long enough this morning. Youth and sun and strength were coursing through me. I was eager for action.
Sitting cross-legged beside me, my father placed his hand on top of my head as if to hold me down. “Stop fidgeting, Joss, we are not playing games now.”
But my mother gave me a tiny wink. Lerys was younger than my father; she and I often were confederates in small acts of naughtiness.
I winked back at her.
The discussion was becoming heated. One of the younger men jumped to his feet and shouted, “Unbury the Earthkillers!” Another promptly cried, “We need the Sword of Light and the Invincible Spear! They will remind the savage Fír Bolga where the real power lies!” A third added, “We must strike before they attack us and try to seize our treasures.”
Earthkillers? Sword of Light? What were those? I had never heard of them before, but the very names made my heart race.
My father lifted his hand from my head and stood up. “You all know me,” he announced in a ringing voice unlike any he used at home. “I am Mongan na Manannan Mac Lir, heir to the wisdom of my forebears. Their experience as leaders – and yes, as warriors too – is part of me. Therefore I warn you: the treasures we possess were not acquired through war,
but war could destroy them.”
“Impossible!” shouted a voice from the crowd.
Others hotly contradicted him. The argument grew more passionate. Every person present seemed to have an opinion about the Earthkillers – whatever they were – and was determined to express it without listening to anyone else. Tempers flared. Men and women who had been laughing and singing together only moments before shouted furiously at each other.
I sat small between my parents, hardly daring to breathe. An event which had begun as a celebration had turned into … what?
Something dangerous had been set loose in the Gathering Place.
By Morgan Llywelyn from Tom Doherty Associates
Bard
Brian Boru
The Elementals
Finn Mac Cool
Lion of Ireland
Pride of Lions
Strongbow
1916
Notes
Chapter One
1. Cocoanut: This is the spelling actually used on the Titanic menu. A Night to Remember, p. 29.
Chapter Two
1. These My Friends and Forebears, p. 132.
Chapter Three
1. A Night to Remember, p. 159.
Chapter Seven
1. The Liffey in Dublin, p. 230.
Chapter Eight
1. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 24.
2. Prospectus: Scoil Eanna.
3. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 116.
Chapter Nine
1. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 47.
2. Saint Enda’s Museum collection.
Chapter Eleven
1. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 14.
2. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 14.
3. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 132.
4. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 119; also The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: The Man Called Pearse, p. 215.
5. The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: St. Enda’s and Its Founder, p. 55.
6. The Easter Rebellion, p. 41.
7. From “I Have Not Gathered Gold,” by Pádraic Pearse.
8. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 119.
9. “Dear, Dirty Dublin,” p. 152.
10. The Story of Monto, p. 2.
11. The Story of Monto, p. 6.
12. The Damnable Question, p. 142.
13. The Newspaper Book, p. 107.
Chapter Twelve
1. In the Footsteps of Big Jim, p. 32.
2. “Dear, Dirty Dublin,” p. 149.
3. Ireland: A Cultural Encyclopedia.
4. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 195.
5. From Of My Poems, by Thomas MacDonagh.
6. An Barr Buadh (The Trumpet of Victory).
7. Terrible Beauty: A Life of Constance Markievicz, p. 23.
Chapter Fourteen
1. Terrible Beauty, p. 118.
2. Family papers, Jim Larkin IV.
3. The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: The Man Called Pearse, p. 242.
4. The Irish Republic, p. 75.
5. The Irish Republic, p. 75.
6. Excerpt from Uniforms of the 1916 Period, by F. Glenn Thompson.
7. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 119.
8. The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: The Man Called Pearse, p. 186.
9. The Newspaper Book, p. 122.
10. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 127.
11. Terrible Beauty, p. 98.
12. The Irish Republic, p. 95.
13. Dublin Views in Colour, plate 16.
14. The Irish Republic, p. 96.
15. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 118.
16. The Irish Republic, p. 96.
17. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 1.
18. The Irish Republic, p. 909.
19. The Irish Republic, p. 98.
Chapter Fifteen
1. Elegant Times, p. 28.
Chapter Seventeen
1. From The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: Political Writings and Speeches, p. 206.
Chapter Twenty
1. Family papers, Jim Larkin IV.
2. The Irish Republic, p. 98.
3. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 113.
4. Irish Freedom, July 14, 1914.
5. From “On the Strand of Howth,” by Pádraic Pearse.
Chapter Twenty-One
1. Dublin Pub Life & Lore, p. 38.
2. Enchanted by Dreams, p. 47.
3. Arthur Griffith and Non-Violent Sinn Féin, p. 9.
Chapter Twenty-Two
1. Terrible Beauty, p. 111.
2. Eamon de Valera, p. 6.
3. The Irish Republic, p. 113.
Chapter Twenty-Five
1. Thoms Official Directory, p. 1415.
2. Terrible Beauty, p. 109.
Chapter Twenty-Six
1. The Irish Republic, p. 115.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
1. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 224.
2. The Irish Republic, p. 123.
3. The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 360.
4. The Easter Rebellion, p. 32.
5. Uniforms of the 1916 Period.
6. Where They Lived in Dublin, p. 138.
7. The Easter Rebellion, p. 38.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
1. The Irish Republic, p. 133.
2. Modern Ireland, p. 472.
3. The Story of the Irish Race, p. 610.
Chapter Thirty
1. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, pp. 104, 246.
2. The Rising, p. 66.
3. From 1916 Poets, “New Love.”
4. Survivors: Nora Connolly-O’Brien, p. 197.
5. The Newspaper Book, p. 114.
6. A History of Irish Flags, p. 204.
7. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 157.
8. The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: The Man Called Pearse, p. 142.
9. Roger Casement, pp. 271–273.
10. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 170.
11. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 168.
Chapter Thirty-Three
1. Revolutionary Woman, p. 54.
2. Revolutionary Woman, p. 53.
3. Revolutionary Woman, p. 55.
4. The Irish Republic, p. 134.
5. The Irish Republic, p. 133.
6. The Irish Republic, p. 134.
7. The Rising, p. 61.
8. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 195.
9. The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 394.
10. Roger Casement, p. 307.
11. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 245.
12. From “Barbara,” by Thomas MacDonagh, written in June 1915.
Chapter Thirty-Four
1. Revolutionary Woman, p. 56.
2. Revolutionary Woman, p. 56.
3. Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 11.
Chapter Thirty-Five
1. The Irish Republic, p. 135; and Revolutionary Woman, p. 57.
2. Portrait of a Rebel Father, p. 243.
3. Rossa souvenir program, National Library of Ireland, p. 19.
4. Dublin 1916, photograph on p. 65.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
1. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 239.
2. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 240.
3. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 196.
4. Terrible Beauty, p. 114.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
1. Ireland This Century, p. 53.
2. Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, p. 210.
3. Revolutionary Woman, p. 61.
4. The Damnable Question, p. 143.
5. The Damnable Question, p. 143.
6. Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising, p. 196.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
1. The Irish Republic, p. 143 (erroneously calls paper the Irish Worker); Patri
ck Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 246.
2. The Irish Republic, p. 146.
3. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 246.
4. Terrible Beauty, p. 125.
5. The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 369.
6. The Rising, p. 268 (Appendix VII).
7. The Rising, p. 47; The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 387; Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 247.
8. Survivors, p. 197.
9. Terrible Beauty, p. 23.
10. Terrible Beauty, p. 122.
11. The Liffey in Dublin, p. 59.
12. The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 388.
13. Terrible Beauty, pp. 123–124.
14. Portrait of a Rebel Father, pp. 249–252.
Chapter Forty
1. The Irish Republic, p. 139.
2. Revolutionary Woman, p. 67.
3. Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, p. 212.
4. Revolutionary Woman, p. 88.
Chapter Forty-One
1. The Life and Times of James Connolly, p. 396.
2. Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 66.
3. Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 66.
4. Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, p. 212.
5. Survivors: Nora Connolly-O’Brien, p. 196.
6. Dublin Pub Life & Lore, p. 53.
7. From a letter from Pádraic Pearse to John Devoy, held in the Carmelite Order’s archives in St. Albert’s Priory, Middletown, New York.
8. Chronicle of the Twentieth Century, p. 213.
9. The Irish Republic, p. 148.
Chapter Forty-Two
1. Michael Collins, p. 37.
2. The Irish Republic, p. 147.
3. The Modernisation of Irish Society, p. 154.
4. Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising, p. 70.
5. The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse: St. Enda’s and Its Founder, p. 98.
6. Dublin 1916, p. 356.
Chapter Forty-Three
1. Roger Casement, p. 310.
2. The Irish Republic, p. 153.
3. The Rising, p. 73.
4. Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure, p. 287.
5. The Rising, pp. 64–70; also Leaders and Men of the Easter Rising and Dublin Castle & the 1916 Rising.
6. The Rising, p. 67.