He had begun to wonder where his own future lay. He realised he was no more than a second-class MP, a member of no recognised political party. The Irish MPs had no real power in the House of Commons. They were playing a game, clinging to the coat-tails of those who really ruled their country. Enduring scorn and insult, waiting for a weak government to come to power in order that they might bargain for a few minor concessions for Ireland in return for their support.
There was to be a general election in the summer, but Lord John Russell was assured of a sweeping victory and would need no additional support.
It was not Liam’s idea of how Ireland should be governed, or of how he should be occupying his time. He felt he could do more real good in Ireland, and so Liam returned home.
Chapter Forty-Three
Strong westerly winds in February 1847 made for a rough crossing of the Irish Sea, but they also brought a thaw to the snow-piled roads of Ireland. Upon his arrival in Dublin, Liam immediately took horse to County Kerry. During the few months he had been their MP, Liam had made a number of friends there. Among the most surprising was Harvey Gorman, the magistrate who had acted as host to Sir Richard Dudley during the Commissariat Inspector’s only visit to the west of Ireland.
Liam made the magistrate’s house his first stop in Castlemaine and expressed his surprise at seeing no one on the streets of the town.
The magistrate nodded grimly. ‘It is the famine fever, Liam. It puts an unnatural fear into the most rational of men. It has hit Castlemaine and the areas around here badly. Last week more than thirty new cases were reported here in town. In the country nobody bothers to count any more.’
‘What about food? Are the wooden boats bought by the Association still bringing in fish?’
‘The fishermen are doing their best, but they understand little about sails and rowing a boat is hard work for a man who knows all his catch will go to others at the end of the day. When the boats come in the cottiers descend upon them like starving herring gulls. As often as not they make off with everything, leaving none for salting. I don’t know where things are going to end, Liam. Our world here has become insane.’
‘Where are the boats now?’
‘They have been taken to Ventry, farther along the bay. It’s closer to the Blasket Islands; that is where the fish are to be caught.’
‘I think I will go along to see how they are getting on there,’ said Liam, stretching his aching limbs.
‘It will wait until tomorrow,’ said Harvey Gorman. ‘You’ve had a long ride in bad weather. You need a good meal and a warming drink inside you right now.’
Liam needed little persuading; the strain of his long journey from London was beginning to tell on him, and he allowed himself to be ushered into a warm dining-room.
Over a meal, Liam asked whether Sir Richard Dudley had made another visit to Castlemaine to put grain into his empty depot.
‘Sir Richard Dudley has not set foot in the west of Ireland since you last saw him here,’ declared the magistrate. ‘And the Commissariat depot is as empty as the day it was built.’
‘Then I fear I must seek out Sir Richard when I am next in Dublin. It is not a meeting which will give me any pleasure.’
‘Be careful in your dealings with him, Liam. Sir Richard Dudley has no love for you.’
When pressed for an explanation of his words, the magistrate showed considerable embarrassment. His knowledge of the baronet’s feelings toward Liam had been obtained by eavesdropping on the conversation between the Commissariat Inspector and his salesman travelling companion.
Eventually, Harvey Gorman told Liam everything he had overheard, and Liam listened in silence. Now he knew why the soldiers had been sent out in strength, in atrocious weather, to seek out a handful of outlaws. It also explained why Eoin Feehan had been with them.
Then Liam thought of something that filled him with sudden horror. The magistrate had referred to Eoin Feehan as ‘a potman from Dublin’. Liam remembered what the coachman on the Wexford-to-Dublin mail-coach had told him when they were held up by the crowds coming away from the hanging. He had said the hanged man had killed a potman and then refused to give his name to anyone, preferring an anonymous death to disgrace for his family.
If ever a man had just cause to kill, it was Dermot – and his victim would have been Eoin Feehan, a potman in a Dublin inn. Liam would know little peace of mind until news reached Kilmar that Dermot and the others had arrived in America. Liam doubted whether such news would ever come. He believed that the unknown man who had been hanged in Dublin was his own brother.
Liam heard little else that the magistrate had to tell him, and later, as he lay in bed, he thought about the baronet who had twice attempted to discredit him. There must be much hate in Sir Richard Dudley’s heart – or much love for Caroline.
Early the next morning, Liam set off for Ventry. A weak far-off sun was doing its best to bring some warmth to the land, but the strong westerly wind was still blowing, and Liam expected to find the fishermen and their boats idle in the small fishing harbour.
To his surprise, because the wind from the sea was even stronger here, he learned that the two wooden fishing boats were out. The news was given to him by one of a hundred ragged cottiers, huddled together for warmth behind a low wall which kept off much of the wind. The cottier’s clothing was totally inadequate for such weather, yet Liam knew that a wagonload of good warm coats and dresses had been sent to them by one of Lady Caroline’s charities less than a month before. When Liam questioned them he learned that every item of clothing had been pledged as soon as it was received. He could not be angry with them. The money they received had been used to buy food – a more important commodity than warm clothes. A baby could be cuddled to put some warmth back in its tiny body. If it starved, nothing could restore life itself.
Some of the cottiers recognised Liam and they quickly crowded about him, demanding to know what was being done for them. Others, in the belief that the movement toward this warmly clad stranger meant food, or money, pressed forward with the others, pleading their extreme hunger and begging loudly. They startled his horse, and when the prancing animal had cleared a space about him Liam asked one of the cottiers if he knew the whereabouts of the fishermen.
Wordlessly the cottier pointed farther westward, beyond the towering cliffs of Slea Head, and Liam frowned. Out there were the Blasket Islands and beyond them the wide expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. It was not a good place to be on a windy day like today. Even here, in the lee of the hill, the wind was strong enough to stagger a weakened cottier.
Quick to realise that Liam was not distributing food or money, the cottiers hurried back to the shelter of the wall and Liam kneed his horse away from them.
He followed a track that curved around the base of the hill, close to the edge of the high cliffs. Once clear of the protection of the hill, the strength of the cold wind drew tears from his eyes and occasionally a wild gust caused his horse to throw back its head and snort in frightened protest.
At the top of a steep path that wound down the cliffside to a narrow strip of sand, Liam pulled his horse to a halt and scanned the rough waters anxiously. To his relief he soon saw one of the wooden fishing boats bucking the waves halfway between Great Blasket Island and the mainland, heading shoreward. There were four men rowing and one at the helm, and the boat was making good headway toward the calmer waters of Dingle Bay.
Liam looked for the second boat and at first could see nothing, but then, as he scanned the wind-blown waters, he saw it nose tentatively out into the open sea from the lee of a small island. As the boat drew clear Liam saw the boat had a net out and he silently cursed the men on board for fools. An attempt to fish in open waters in such a wind was suicidal.
It seemed the men on the fishing boat realised the danger they were in and they all began to heave on the net in an attempt to bring it into the boat as quickly as possible.
They were too slow and already too far from the shelt
er of the island. A long wave, roaring in from the Atlantic, bore down upon the boat and carried it onward. The net was well filled with fish; acting as a badly positioned sea-anchor, it dragged the boat sideways-on to the running sea. The boat slid over the crest of the giant wave and tilted to one side with a suddenness that threw three of the five unprepared fishermen into the water.
The two remaining men realised their own danger too late, and Liam could see them sawing frantically at the ropes holding the net to the boat. They succeeded in their desperate efforts as the next wave struck the fishing boat. The boat seemed to be actually swallowed up by the wave and for almost a minute it disappeared from Liam’s view. When he saw it again it was floating upside down, with no trace of its former occupants.
By now the first fishing boat was almost level with Liam, and sliding from his horse he hurried as fast as he dared down the treacherous cliff path, shouting and waving to attract the attention of the fishermen. It was a few minutes before any of them saw him and then the man holding the tiller did no more than raise a hand in a desultory greeting.
Liam redoubled his efforts, gesticulating wildly, and futilely shouting against the noise of wind and sea.
As Liam reached the narrow beach, one of the oarsman recognised him and called to the helmsman. The fishing boat turned to nose in toward the shore, and a few minutes later Liam plunged knee-deep into the shallow water and clambered over the side of the tossing boat as it bottomed on the shingle.
Pointing out toward the Blasket Islands, Liam shouted news of what he had seen to the others. ‘I’ll take the tiller,’ he bawled at the helmsman. ‘You get for’ard and keep a look out when we get close to the islands.’
One of the fishermen began to protest that they were tired and could not possibly row back to the islands. Liam cut his words short.
‘There is no time for argument. Get out of the boat and push us off.’
To the helmsman he said, ‘Take his place and we’ll be on our way.’
The reluctant fisherman jumped out of the boat, pushed it clear of the beach – and then swung himself inboard again. In answer to Liam’s questioning look, he growled, ‘I changed my mind.’
‘Good man.’ Liam knew that the man was not frightened, but genuinely tired. ‘Get for’ard and be prepared to hold us off the rocks if we get in too close.’
It was a rough pull against the combined opposition of sea and wind, but by steering wide of his eventual destination Liam was able to put the bulk of Great Blasket Island between the wind and the boat, making things a little easier for the straining oarsmen.
When they drew close to the upturned fishing boat, the man in the bow called excitedly to Liam that there was a man clinging to it. The news put new vigour into the oarsmen, and they gasped noisily as they heaved back on the oars. Soon Liam was manoeuvring the boat skilfully alongside the man in the sea. He had held tenaciously to his grip on the upturned boat, against the pull of the sea and the effort of each successive wave to dislodge him.
The two boats bumped together, gently at first, then with a frightening crash as the man in the bow, assisted by one of the oarsmen, took a grip on the half-drowned survivor and pulled him, gasping, into the boat.
He lay in the bottom of the boat among tangled ropes and dead fish, grey-faced and fighting for breath as Liam steered the boat around in a wide circle. The rescued man had won his battle with death with only minutes to spare. Numbed with the cold, his mind had already begun to call on his protesting body to give up the hopeless fight. Only an inborn stubbornness had kept his fingers hooked on to the upturned keel.
Liam intended returning to the other boat and towing it back to the mainland. Its loss would be a disaster to both the fishing and cottier communities. As he circled around the upturned craft, waiting for a calmer moment before going in closer, the fisherman in the bow began shouting and pointing towards a small rocky islet, perilously close by.
Liam stood up to take a closer look and saw the outstretched body of a man lying face downward on a tiny shingle beach.
Liam thought the man must be dead, but then as the tide ran up the beach about him his arms and legs moved in an instinctive attempt to crawl away from the advancing water. There was no place for him to go. Another arm’s length away the fragment of beach ended in a sheer wall of burnished black stone.
Once again the fishermen strained at their oars as Liam headed for a gap in the rocks scarcely wider than the boat. He successfully guided the fishing boat through, but one of the weary fishermen was slow in raising his oar clear of the rocks and the stout oar was snapped off as easily as though it were no more than a piece of kindling wood.
Minutes later, with the second rescued fisherman lying alongside his companion in the bottom of the boat, Liam steered out into open water once again.
After searching unsuccessfully for the other three members of the upturned boat’s crew, Liam took the fishing boat in tow and beached it on the lee side of Great Blasket Island. Here he was able to right the boat and put a man aboard to steer the craft during the tow back to the mainland.
It was a long hard pull across the Blasket Sound, and by the time Liam guided the boat into Ventry harbour the fishermen were on the verge of collapse – but they arrived to a hero’s welcome.
Word of the disaster and rescue had gone around with uncanny speed, many of the Ventry fishermen actually witnessing the final stages of the rescue from Slea Head. Even the cottiers, who had long been given little cause for celebration, heaped their congratulations upon Liam.
Whatever Liam’s political future might be, he had earned himself a reputation as a great seaman, and the story would grow with every telling in this corner of County Kerry.
Chapter Forty-Four
Liam remained at Ventry for a few days, instructing the fishermen on how best to use the sails of the wooden fishing boats. He was on the quayside on the third day when a troop of twenty blue-uniformed light dragoons rode into the village and headed straight for the harbour.
The soldiers had to pick their way through a huge crowd of cottiers, for it was a fine day and the hungry families knew Liam would be taking the boats out to fish when he had completed his period of instruction.
‘Are the owners of these boats here?’ The young dragoons officer waved a gauntlet-clad hand toward the two wooden fishing boats.
‘They belong to the community,’ replied Liam. ‘Bought from the funds of the All-Ireland Association.’ He felt uneasy in the presence of the soldiers; they were not in the habit of visiting a village with good news.
The officer recognised that he was not talking to a simple west-coast fisherman, and his voice lost some of its arrogance.
‘I regret to inform you that I have orders to destroy all wooden boats along this part of the coast.’
‘Destroy them?’ Liam repeated in disbelief. It was like the nightmare of Kilmar all over again. ‘You can’t do such a thing. These people rely on them for the only food they can get. Destroy the boats and you starve fisherman and cottier alike. What nonsense is this?’
‘I am sorry. It does seem hard … but I have my orders.’
‘Orders from whom?’ Liam demanded.
Instead of giving Liam a direct answer, the dragoons officer went into an explanation.
‘A grain-ship standing well off the coast was recently raided by men in boats. Sir Richard Dudley says it must have been carried out by men using wooden boats as curraghs could never put out that far. As a result, I have been ordered to destroy all the wooden boats along this section of the coast.’
‘Sir Richard Dudley knows no more of boats than he does of filling Commissariat depots,’ Liam declared angrily. ‘I have heard about this incident of piracy. It occurred fifty miles to the north of here and everyone on the west coast knows it was carried out by desperately hungry men – using curraghs.’
The dragoons officer was relatively inexperienced in leading men, but he came from a good yeoman family and he was not prepared
to allow this man dressed as a fisherman to insult the titled Commissariat Inspector.
‘You would seem to know more about the attack on the ship than you should. Who are you?’
‘My name is McCabe and I am the Member of Parliament for this area. Furthermore, I and five of these fishermen risked our lives to save one of these boats from the sea only a few days ago. We’ll not stand by and see you smash them now.’
The young officer was impressed by Liam’s status. Although only an Irish MP, he had a seat in the House of Commons and helped to govern the land. He thought it would be wise to proceed with caution.
‘Those are my instructions, sir. I am sorry.’
‘You’ll not lay a finger on these boats if you value the lives of your men. Try to carry out your orders and you will all be torn to pieces.’
The young officer looked at the sullen crowd surrounding them and hoped his nervousness was not apparent to anyone else.
‘As a Member of Parliament and a responsible citizen it is your duty to prevent any disorder, sir.’
Liam shook his head. ‘I could do nothing to prevent bloodshed if you went ahead with your folly. These people rely upon the boats for their very existence. Destroy them and they will die as surely as if you had run a sword through them. There are many here who would prefer to die as men rather than wait for starvation.’
An angry murmuring had begun in the crowd, which was at least five hundred strong, and as though to confirm Liam’s words the women and children were pushed to the rear and the cottier men moved toward the dragoons.
As the officer eyed the crowd, Liam said, ‘Unless you wish to be held responsible for the bloodiest incident to occur since the uprising you will go away and leave our boats alone.’
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