The Rebels of Ireland: The Dublin Saga

by Edward Rutherfurd

  Willy turned up in a car. He was quite unchanged, but he looked well, she thought, and happy. “I thought,” he announced, “that I’d drive up to Rathconan, if you’d like to come.”

  It was a beautiful day. The road up into the Wicklow Mountains was narrow. Stone walls sometimes shut out the view. At other times she could see huge sweeps down towards the sea. He seemed delighted to be going up to his childhood home.

  “The old lady’s not there. I already checked,” he said with a smile. “But there’s someone else I’d like you to meet.”

  “Your mother?”

  “No, she died I’m afraid. But my father is still living.” He seemed to find this thought amusing for some reason.

  She was pleased to find, when they got to the long, white-walled cottage where the old man lived, that old Fintan O’Byrne was a tall, fine-looking man, with sparse grey hair and a long white moustache. He welcomed her to his cottage courteously, told her that his son had spoken of her, and offered them both a simple meal. Bacon, black pudding, potato. “I live very simply,” he said with a smile, “but I hope to live a good while yet. I think,” he added, “that the air up here must be good. People live a long time. And perhaps if you belong to a place, that helps, too. Or so I believe.”

  “My father believes that Rathconan should be his,” Willy said with a smile. “He will never rest in his grave until that mad old woman has given him his own land, at least. But you know, Father,” he said almost gleefully, “the estate was never ours at all. The rightful heir is this young lady sitting in front of you now.” He turned to Caitlin with a grin. “I have been longing for the day when the two claimants could see each other face-to-face, Caitlin. Now you’ll have to fight it out!”

  But his father only smiled at her benignly.

  “I can see you’re an O’Byrne,” he said. “No doubt of that. As to whether your branch should have had this place, or mine, that is a question too long ago to think of. Certainly it was your ancestors who were chieftains here, when mine were not. But you know,” he turned to Willy, “I’ve a piece of news for you, and for this young lady, as regards the estate. There is an heir. A Budge.” He said the name with mild disgust. “A cousin forgotten by all of us, but remembered by the old lady, it seems. He’s to have it after her, if he wants it. And I dare say he will.”

  “I didn’t know,” said Willy. “What is he called?”

  “His name is Victor Budge. He lives in England. He has been in correspondence with her. He has done some military service, but I understand he works for a brewery now. I do not know in what capacity. My impression,” Fintan O’Byrne added with faint irony, “is that he is not always employed.”

  He took them all round the place, and walked them a little way up the hillside, to where there was a magnificent view. Pointing along the slope, he indicated to Caitlin the area where you could still see the outline of the fields that had been planted with potatoes before the Famine. The more time she spent with him the more she liked him. When it was time for them to leave, she parted from him with real regret.

  Was it possible that Willy had some other motive in introducing her to his father? she wondered. If so, he gave no sign of it.

  For on their return journey, he seemed to want to talk about a very different subject.

  “You know,” he said, “that there is going to be another fight.” Indeed, small skirmishes between the British government forces, and the Irish Republican Army, as the Irish Volunteers now called themselves, had started months ago. “Unless the British and the Ulster Protestants are ready to concede something that de Valera and the Sinn Fein men in the Dail can accept, then there’s no alternative. And when that comes”—he glanced at her—“the women were very important in the rising, you know. They’ll be even more important in the future. You could have an important role.”

  “I was just a courier.”

  “A brilliant one. You have remarkable talents. And of course,” he smiled, “you can pick off any man at a hundred yards.”

  “I’m not sure I want to,” she said. “I support the cause but . . .” She hardly knew why it was—not cowardice, she was fairly sure—but she didn’t want to join the armed struggle any more. “I will consider it,” she promised him. “If I want to do anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “As you wish.” He gave her a nod which seemed to imply that he respected her decision. “You know your own mind. That’s for certain.”

  He drove her back to Fitzwilliam Square and left her at her house. When she thanked him for the day, he seemed quite pleased. But perhaps she was a little disappointed that she never heard from him again. Not for more than a year.

  He was right, of course. The fight couldn’t be avoided, because neither side could give what the other wanted. It was a grim little business at first, especially because the skirmishes tended to be between the IRA and their fellow Irishmen in the government constabulary. The pace was heated up by the young IRB man, Michael Collins, who with his daring raids and lightning strikes was making quite a name for himself. But it was very partial warfare, all the same. The British government finally struck a deal with the Ulster Protestants, giving them a separate parliament of their own up in the northern counties. But that meant that the Catholics of Ulster were once again trapped under the dominance of a Protestant caste, as they had been in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Soon there were riots up in Ulster.

  But for the rest of Ireland, there was to be one more hateful invasion. In began in January 1920.

  “If they had to send help,” Sheridan Smith complained, “could they not have found men better than these?”

  The Black and Tans. Ex-soldiers and sailors, mostly, quickly recruited. Mercenaries really, to fight the Irish guerrilla tactics of Collins’s IRA. When they joined, or arrived in Ireland, they were given standard issue army trousers, which were khaki, and green police uniform jackets. This ugly mixture of khaki and green soon earned them their descriptive nickname: Black and Tans. By the latter part of the year, there were ten thousand of them in Ireland. And their game was very simple: strike and retaliate. Shoot first and ask questions afterwards. Suspicion is proof, especially if the suspect is dead. In many ways, they ignored law and justice entirely. When Collins and a hit squad caught and killed a group if British intelligence officers one Sunday morning in November, the Black and Tans didn’t bother to go looking for Collins. They just went round to the big football game in Dublin’s Croke Park and opened fire on the crowd. Twelve innocent spectators were killed in that affair.

  If they were meant to frighten, they did. If they were intended to impress, they did not, for they were despised. But if they had your identity as a “Sinn Feiner,” they were after you like a pack of wild dogs.

  It was five days after the Croke Park incident that early one afternoon, Caitlin heard a knocking at the front door of he house. As she happened to be in the hall, she opened the door herself, and was rather surprised when Willy O’Byrne stepped into the hall, closed the door quickly behind him, and said:

  “Would you like to save my life?”

  “If you tell me why.”

  “I’ve not much time. I got one of the Croke Park Black and Tans. His best friend is after me. I was trying to kill him as well, but he has reinforcements. I gave them the slip only a moment ago, in the lane. But they’ll go house to house I’m sure. They know me, unfortunately.”

  “By name?”

  “And by face.” He glanced out of the window. “Better get out of sight. Unless you want me to go out and face them.”

  “This way.” She indicated the drawing room, which was at the back of the house and gave onto the garden.

  “The irony is, you’ll never guess the name of the man that’s after me. God I should have shot him first, before the other one.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Victor Budge. The old woman’s heir. Out-of-work army man. He’s a devil. I’ll see him dead yet.”

  The knocker on the front
door sounded. Caitlin had to think fast. “If you go out through the garden, there’s a lane at the back. But . . .”

  “Exactly. They’ll have a man waiting there.”

  She looked at the window that gave out onto the back. It had long, heavy curtains that fell to the floor and, in the best manner, swept the carpet like a long train on a dress. It was so obvious, it would do.

  “Get behind it and don’t move,” she said. She would have to think very fast indeed.

  A moment later, the maid announced that some soldiers wanted to come in. Caitlin sat down on an upright chair near the centre of the room.

  “Show them in.”

  “There were half a dozen of them. The officer was a big man with a brutal face. She smiled at him.

  “We are searching for a fugitive. Has anyone come into this house?”

  “Only yourselves. But what sort of fugitive is it? Am I in danger?”

  The idea that she might be in danger did not seem to interest them.

  “Dark-haired man.” The officer was looking round the room.

  “I am Countess Caitlin Birne. And you, Sir?”

  “Beg pardon. Captain Budge.”

  “Budge?” Her face lit up as if she’d hoped to meet him all her life.

  “You are not connected with Mrs. Budge of Rathconan? But you must be.”

  “She is a kinswoman.” His manner altered, softened a little.

  “I cannot help you with any fugitive, Captain Budge, but I do hope you will stop and take a little tea with me.” She looked at his men. “I know the Captain’s family,” she explained, unnecessarily, with a beaming smile. “Do sit down. I will call for tea.”

  “Really can’t,” said Budge.

  “Your aunt is one of our greatest characters. You know, of course, that she says she’s coming back to Rathconan in her next life, as a bird? Don’t you think it wonderful?” Budge looked awkward. “They say she has worn the same turban and never taken it off in thirty years,” she rattled on happily. “You have seen her drawings of the naked Indian dancers, of course.”

  By now Budge was growing red. His men were looking as if they’d be glad to hear more.

  “Do you also, Captain, believe in the transmigration of souls?” she ventured.

  “Certainly not. Church of England. Eccentric old lady. Must go.”

  “I do wish,” she said wistfully, “that you’d stay.”

  But the little group of Black and Tans were already being led out of the room. After the front door had closed behind them, there was a long pause. Then Willy’s voice came from behind the curtain.

  “If I’d laughed, that would have been the end of me.”

  “I suppose,” she said, “you’d better stay here for a bit.”

  It was that evening after they had dined together, and they were sitting alone in the drawing room, with the curtains carefully drawn, when she found herself looking at him thoughtfully. He was a handsome man. He was capable of warmth, but never, she felt sure, as much as his old father was. Well, she thought, he has proved right about most things, all the same. If that makes him cold, it is his destiny.

  He was looking at her.

  “Have you ever had a lover?” he asked.

  “No.” She paused. “I assume there have been many women in your life.”

  “A few. Of course.” He nodded, then smiled. “Do you think it’s time?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I think it is.”

  It was certainly time. For him, God knows, she thought, as for any other. He stayed in hiding in her house for ten days.

  If the affair was not continued, she was not greatly hurt. She had known, she supposed, that it would not be. He had made another journey to America. And after that he was away again.

  And she was glad that she had taken no further part in the fighting, for the painful choices that followed would have been impossible for her. When, a year later, the Sinn Fein negotiators, including ruthless Collins himself, had signed a treaty with Britain to bring the conflict to an end, it had been an imperfect thing. Ireland was to become a Free State, a dominion of the British Empire like Canada. Six of the northern counties were to be grouped together in a safe haven for Protestants and an oppression for the Catholics still living there. Even the border was unclear. She could see why de Valera refused to go along with it.

  But she herself, like the majority of Irish people, could live with even an imperfect treaty, perhaps not forever, but for a generation. And when de Valera and his followers started a second conflict, at war with their own colleagues now, she found herself asking not why, but when—when will it ever end? The Civil War was full of anomalies. Collins, the IRB firebrand, was now defending the compromise treaty, quite ruthlessly, against a new republican army known as the Irregulars. Old comrades in arms were killing each other. Collins himself was assassinated before it was over. Strangely, most of the women she had trained with in Cumann na mBan, had chosen to go with de Valera. Even kindly, funny Rita had done so. Caitlin could not have gone that way herself. And when, in 1923, the conflict had finally wound down, she had been relieved only that the Irish Free State, however imperfect, could now live in peace.

  Only once was she called into action. Late in July, in 1922, she received an unexpected letter. It was delivered by hand by a boy on a bicycle who would not stay.

  When she had read the letter, she did not hesitate. She went to the bank and made a withdrawal. She packed a number of items carefully, including one or two that she might need herself. She owned a car, nowadays, which she liked to drive herself. She carefully put everything in it, told the housekeeper that she might be away for a few days, and drove southwards towards the western side of the Wicklow Mountains.

  She found the farmhouse quite easily. It was near the village of Blessington.

  He was remarkably little changed. It was obvious that he had suffered a good deal, and having examined his leg, she told him: “It’s not a break, but it’s a very bad sprain. You’ll have to rest it if you want to walk.”

  “It’s good of you to come,” Willy said. “I knew you would.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  The story was not a long one. She hadn’t been entirely surprised when she’d heard that Willy O’Byrne had joined the anti-Treaty republican forces in the Civil War. And things were going badly with them. He’d gone out to rendezvous with republican forces gathering from several parts of the island at Blessington. They had been badly mauled by the Provisional Government men and had to fall back. From Blessington, they had had to disperse. But he couldn’t walk, and as he’d quarrelled with the leader of the men who’d gone up into the hills, he’d thought it best to wait down there alone. “It’s over for me, I think,” he told her. “The struggle isn’t worth it any more.” But he couldn’t just wait for the Provisional government men to find him. The Civil War was proving a far bloodier business than the old conflict with the British had been. “If they find me, I’m a dead man,” he told her calmly.

  “I can hide you in Dublin if you want,” she said.

  “No. It’s Rathconan I’d like to get to,” he replied. “I think my father could look after me. If not . . .”

  “I brought you two hundred pounds,” she said. “That would take you to France, if you need.”

  “My only worry,” he said, “is those fellows who went up into the mountains ahead of me. They were an undisciplined rabble, and they had no love for me.”

  “I’ll drive you up there,” she reassured him, “and I brought the Webley.”

  It was a small, winding road. Now and then, looking back, one could see the huge panorama of the Liffey Plain spreading out all the way to Kildare. Willy sat in the front with her. He seemed more interested in looking ahead. Once passing a cattle man, he asked if a party of troops from Blessington had come up that way the day before. Yes, the man said, but they’d taken the road southwards. They hadn’t gone across the mountain road towards Rathconan. This seemed to please Willy consi
derably. “We shall be there soon,” he remarked. “You’ll see my father again.” Going over the top of the mountain pass and starting to descend again, the little road was hardly more than a track. And as at last they came towards Rathconan, a little group of children by the roadside turned to stare, and ran to spread the news; for a motor car was a rarity indeed up there. As they approached, she smiled as she caught sight of the long, lovely vista down towards the Irish Sea. The car backfired with a loud bang as they passed the gates of the big house. She laughed. If old Rosa Budge was there, she’d probably think it was a message from the spirit world.

  Fintan O”Byrne’s cottage seemed to be deserted. She looked inside. No sign of him.

  “Do you want me to help you in?” she called.

  “No. I’ll sit here in the sun,” Willy said. “I’ll stay where I am. If you walk down the lane to the Brennans, they’ll probably know where he is.”

  “You’ll be all right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be, at my father’s house at Rathconan?”

  “I’ll be back,” she said.

  The feel of the afternoon sun on his face was really very pleasant. It seemed to Willy that when the business of war was over, he could do worse than return up here. He might find a wife. It was time he married. What should she be like? Like Caitlin, perhaps, but not like Caitlin. Money was a terrible thing, when you came down to it. The ten days he’d spent in her fine house on Fitzwilliam Square had taught him that. Comfortable, splendid even. But suffocating. By the end of it, he could scarcely breathe. He hadn’t told her that, though. No point. Apart from that, he’d loved her. Should he ever tell her so? he wondered. He closed his eyes.