Dark Rosaleen

by Michael Nicholson, OBE

  Tomás, hidden in the garret, heard it all. When Kate had gone he sat still, listening for any movement by the officer below. Then he heard him unlock and open the front door. From his window, he saw him hand his pistol and sword to the sergeant. Then they marched him away.

  The horses were still tethered where he’d left them. He whipped the lead mare and cantered away, not caring if the clatter of hooves on the cobbles as he crossed John’s Square wakened the constabulary. There was no one to stop him now. Soon he would be well away from the city and deep into the country he knew so well, there to find his brother and Daniel Coburn waiting in Rathkea. It was still some hours to dawn and he knew he had done well.

  The tinker family in Rathkea brought them a jug of boiled tea and they drank it scalding hot. On the horizon, beyond the layer of heavy black clouds, a thin stream of sunlight caught the treetops that outlined the distant Bansha Woods.

  ‘Tell it again, Tomás. As you heard it.’

  ‘Mr Daniel, I’ve told you twice already.’

  ‘I want it again, word for word.’

  ‘The officer said it was called Pegasus, sailing from pier eighteen. I remember that clear enough.’

  ‘What time does the ship sail, Tomás?’

  ‘The officer didn’t say a time. Just in the evening.’

  ‘Did Kate say anything when she left?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘But you’re certain she went for the ship?’

  ‘No, Mr Daniel, how can I be sure? But the officer said it had all been arranged. He said it was well planned and the English master would look after her.’

  ‘And the officer was marched away by his own men?’

  ‘Yes! I heard him tell my mother he would surrender to his regiment and that he would be punished. I saw them march him away under guard. I saw it clearly.’

  ‘Did he say why he did it?’

  ‘He said the English had killed his brother, but I couldn’t make out what that was all about.’

  ‘Did you hear the officer’s name?’

  ‘No. My mother was making such a fuss I couldn’t listen properly.’

  ‘Tomás. Close your eyes. See the dark. Think back. Listen again.’

  Tomás did as he was told. Coburn waited.

  ‘Think, Tomás. Listen to the voices’.

  ‘I’m trying sir. But it’s all a jumble. I was scared. I thought they’d come up the stairs. I thought they’d have me.’

  ‘Ease yourself, Tomás. Slowly now. Remember. You are up the stairs, listening. The officer gives his name. Now, give me the name.’

  Tomás pressed the palms of his hands hard over his eyes, slowly rocking his head from side to side.

  Then, ‘It’s coming, Mr Daniel. I think it’s coming. I remember it sounded like … Kelly. Yes! That was it. It was Kelly.’

  ‘Tomás. No! Think again. Would an English officer have a name like Kelly?’

  ‘Well that’s what it sounded like. Or was it …?’

  ‘Shelley?’

  ‘Shelley? Christ! That’s the one, Mr Daniel. That’s the one for sure. It was Shelley. No mistaking.’

  ‘Thank you, Tomás. Now I understand. Now it makes sense. Captain Shelley joined the boys some years back and the English outlawed him as a traitor. When the boys raided the depot at Kinvara, the Redcoats were waiting. It was a trap. They killed the lot of them. It was Martineau that planned it.’

  ‘The one we hanged?’

  ‘Yes, Tomás. The one we hanged.’

  He raised himself slowly onto his elbows. ‘Declan, get me to that ship. Get me to the Pegasus.’

  ‘You dared not go to Limerick.’

  ‘I know that. Find another way. There must be another way.’

  ‘There is only one other way, Mr Daniel.’

  ‘Tell me, Declan.’

  ‘There are the hookers, the sailing boats that bring the river pilots off the ships mid-channel of the Shannon, close to Inis Cathaigh’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘The English call it Scattery Island, off the Clare coast.’

  ‘Declan, this is nonsense. Pegasus leaves Limerick this evening and Clare is days away. I’ll have bled myself dry with Kate already out in the Atlantic.’

  ‘I know that well enough, Mr Daniel. But when the sky’s as black as it is now and with a southerly wind blowing, the pilot boats will tie up on the Kerry shore. They leave their moorings a good two hours before the ships come level.’

  ‘How do we get on to a pilot boat?’

  ‘I’ve done it before, Mr Daniel. It’s a way of getting certain people out, people who wouldn’t dare leave under the eyes of the English in Limerick.’

  ‘How far must we go?’

  ‘Near to Ballylongford, about fifty miles from here, maybe more, and it’s rough going, sir.’

  ‘Then that’s where we go, Declan, now!’

  ‘But if your bleeding starts again, Mr Daniel, how far can you ride?’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll make it, Declan. Just get me to it.’

  ‘I will, sir. I will get you there.’

  Father Kenyon arrived with oatcakes, a fresh bundle of moss and a small bottle of laudanum.

  ‘This is goodbye then, Daniel. Did we ever think it could end like this?’

  ‘No, Father. We once dreamt of a different ending. Can you tell me why it had to be this way?’

  ‘No, I cannot. Nor can any one of us. But everything that is done is done for a reason, whether men realise it or not.’

  ‘Even the famine?’

  ‘Even the famine. There is a purpose, Daniel, somewhere there is always a purpose, though I do not pretend to know what it is. Each time I anoint a dying child, or give my blessing to a good and decent man dying, I ask God, “Why?” And He never answers. It is the greatest test of my faith.’

  ‘Faith in a God that condemns us to this. No, Father. We are abandoned people, as helpless as thistledown in the wind.’

  ‘But how is that, Daniel, since thistledown’s purpose is to carry its seed? All we can do is to wait for the seed to settle and prosper.’

  ‘You hoped it was me.’

  ‘Yes! We hoped it was you.’

  ‘Must I blame myself?’

  ‘There is no blame.’

  ‘It was the people who betrayed us.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the priest. ‘Who are you to condemn them? Shouldn’t we have known that a belly empty of food has no fight in it either?’

  ‘We came to them too late.’

  ‘Or maybe too early.’

  ‘This was not the moment to turn history and I was blind to it.’

  ‘Oh, Daniel! Why are men so severe with themselves? Like two sides of a coin, always at odds. Comfort yourself. You were not cast as the Great Patriot. You are a fighter and we know that the great men sit at the rear. You must now let others do the fighting and the dying.’

  ‘You were ever the optimist, Father.’

  ‘Yes! Daniel. Optimism and faith. They live together.‘

  ‘God grant you survive.’

  ‘We will. We shall survive the famine, we will outlive the fever and finally outrun the English. One day they’ll be gone and we will still be here and our children will live to see our land prosper. Have no fear. This is not the end by any means. The winner will always be he who refuses to lose. And remember my words, remember them when you think of us. Never regret what is gone, Daniel. The past is just a prologue.’

  ‘I will remember, Father. They are wise words’.

  Father Kenyon knelt by Coburn’s side, leant down and kissed his forehead. Then he went quickly to the door, turned and crossed himself.

  ‘God speed you to the New World, Daniel, and take the love of Ireland with you.’

  They stopped many times. A fit horseman might canter fifty miles cross-country in six hours with a stop or two. But Coburn was half drugged on laudanum, without stirrups and with only sacking as his saddle. He could not trot his mare, every step jarred his bo
nes, every stumble threatened to break open his wound. They stopped at streams for water and rest the horses but Coburn would not have them stop long, and urged Declan to go on. The wind cut his face and his wound burnt as if the bandages were on fire. But he thought only of her, knowing that every hour of pain brought her nearer.

  It was almost dark when they came to the shores of Ballylongford. A sharp wind carried a cold drizzle from the sea and, behind it, the threat of fog. A line of oil lamps lit up a long, narrow wooden jetty where half a dozen small boats were tied up. Men sat smoking pipes, huddled beneath a shelter of an old discarded sail.

  Declan shouted to them.

  ‘Which one of you is meeting the ship Pegasus tonight?’

  ‘Who is it who wants to know?’

  Declan went closer to the man who had answered.

  ‘Is it you?’

  ‘It is. What is it of yours?’

  ‘Because we’re coming with you.’

  ‘You are not. You have no authority.’

  ‘See here, friend. Is my pistol authority enough? Tell me, which is it to be?’

  Within the half hour they had lifted Coburn into the boat and tucked him under the small fo’c’sle wrapped in a blanket and sheltered him from the spray with a tarpaulin cover. His wound was seeping blood. Declan took molten candlewax from the lanterns and, rolling it in his palms until it was warm and supple, smeared it, layer upon layer, across the bandage until the dressing was tight. Soon the bleeding stopped.

  ‘You have much pain, Mr Daniel?’

  ‘I feel nothing, Declan.’

  ‘Be brave with it, sir. We are at last on our way.’

  It began to rain hard and the wind smacked at the sails as the helmsman tacked slowly out towards mid-channel.

  Declan shouted to him above the wind.

  ‘When will we sight her mast light?’

  ‘You’ll not see it yet,’ he answered. ‘Not for a while.’

  ‘How will you know it’s her?’

  ‘I’ve been ferrying pilots on this river for over forty years and I can tell a ship by the smell of her. I’ll give you warning when I sight her. And you’ll not need the pistol now. I know who it is you are carrying and I’ve much respect for him and I can see he’s very sick. The waters are rough, it’s wind against tide and it’s rising but I’ll do my best to keep it easy. Tuck that tarpaulin tighter. Keep him warm and keep the water off him.’

  Declan held the lantern higher to the man’s face.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Brennan.’

  ‘When this is all over, Brennan, people will remember you.’

  ‘It’s a small part I’m playing but I’ll have a hell of story to tell.’

  ‘How will we get him aboard the ship?’

  ‘The master will turn into wind and we’ll heave to on the lee side. The water will be steadier there for the pilot to get clear. It will not be easy but there’ll be plenty of muscle to haul him up. You must trust me.’

  ‘I trust you,’ said Declan.

  The helmsman tacked his boat deeper into the blackness that was the Shannon, without compass, without stars or river lights to guide him, sometimes running with the wind, sometimes fighting it, but all the time getting closer to his rendezvous with the great sailing ship. The rigging shrieked in the wind, the short mast bent under the blow and they stood ankle-deep in bilge water. The boat twisted with the force of the waves, rising on a crest and then plunging down into the trough in great dizzying sweeps with the white huge back breakers rising behind it. Declan spread his large body over the tarpaulin covering Coburn to protect him from the storm.

  Then he heard the helmsman shouting. He was pointing out beyond the bow and as the boat rose again, there, cutting through the rain and spray, Declan glimpsed the glistening black hull and white sails of Pegasus.

  She stood on the deck, shivering in the cold heavy sea fog. It hid the coast from her, teasing her, tormenting her, vague outlines of a land she would never to see again. The salt from the spray mixed with the salt of her tears and she turned away from the wind and wiped her eyes.

  Along the shining deck she saw the prow climbing and dipping, ploughing through the waves, torrents of water gushing through the scuppers. She knew she was looking west, towards the vast Atlantic Ocean, west to Canada and America, places that promised her safety, a new life for herself and the child she would bear in the New World. And in return, there would be emptiness, the dread of a lifetime of loneliness, praying for the tides and the winds and another ship to bring him to her.

  She heard the moan of a fog horn ahead and men shouting. Were they familiar voices she was so desperate to hear? She heard the thud as the rope ladder hit the hull’s side. The river pilot was leaving. She saw the glow of a lantern held on a pole high above the gunwales. As the bow parted the fog, she saw a small boat with a single sail and the shapes of men beneath tarpaulins.

  ‘Another’s coming aboard.’ She heard the shout above the roar of the wind. She strained to see. She might even have believed it was him. She sighed and wept at her fantasy and recited out loud yet again the words of the poem she had heard for the first time from a little boy in a land near dying.

  I could scale the blue air,

  I could plough the high hills,

  I could kneel all night in prayer

  To heal your many ills,

  My Dark Rosaleen.

  She closed her eyes and turned her head once more into the wind. When she opened them again, Ireland was already a shadow.

  Sebec Lake

  Maine County

  So ends their story as told to me. It was Ireland that first called them together, Ireland that forged them into one and delivered them to the New World, where they lived long and happily, as I can vouch. Daniel and Kate Coburn are buried here in Maine, side by side in the foothills of the Appalachians. Forever in America and I thank God for it.

  – THE END –

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  Daniel Coburn is based on John Mitchel, an attorney and journalist, founder of the nationalist newspaper Young Ireland.

  He was an early follower of Daniel O’Connell, and the leader of the Repealers. Coburn rejected O’Connell’s policy of non-violence and founded the Young Irelanders, campaigning for direct action against the landlords and insurrection against English rule. ‘Irish soil for the Irish.’

  After the failed uprising in 1848, he was charged with sedition and treason, convicted and sent to the penal colony in Bermuda. He was later transferred to a prison on Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania).

  Coburn escaped to America and founded the Irish-American newspaper The Citizen.

  He supported the South in the American Civil War, based in Richmond Virginia. Three of his sons fought for the Confederates.

  He returned to Ireland in 1875, and was elected Member of Parliament, but this was invalidated because he was a convicted felon.

  Mitchel County, Iowa, is named in his honour.

  He died in 1875, aged 60.

  William Smith O’Brien was born of an aristocratic family in Dromoland in 1803, a descendant of Brian Boru, an eleventh-century king of Ireland. He was a Protestant and an MP, and also an ardent Irish nationalist, co-founder, with Mitchel, of the Young Irelanders.

  Convicted of treason after the failed uprising of 1848, he was sentenced to be hanged but this was later commuted to life imprisonment and he was sent to Van Diemen’s Land, where he met Mitchel again.

  He was released in 1856 on condition that he would never returned to Ireland.

  After a stay in Brussels, he was allowed to return to Ireland.

  O’Brien never involved himself in politics again and died in 1864, aged 61.

  Thomas Meagher was born in 1823, the son of the mayor of Waterford.

  A member of the Younger Irelanders, he was convicted of sedition following the failed 1848 uprising. He was sentenced to be hanged but this was commuted to transportation for life to the penal colony in Van Diemen
’s Land.

  In 1852, he escaped to America, and lived and worked in New York as a journalist.

  During the American Civil War he supported the Union, and recruited and led the Irish Brigade, where he was promoted to brigadier general.

  After the war he was appointed acting governor of Montana Territory.

  Meagher drowned in 1867, after falling from a steamboat in the Missouri at Fort Benton, aged 44. His body was never recovered.

  Gavan Duffy, son of a grocer, was born in Monaghan in 1816.

  Journalist and later attorney, he founded The Nation, an Irish nationalist newspaper. He was a follower of Daniel O’Connell and the Repeal Association, but he left along with Mitchel, O’Brien and Meagher to form the Young Irelanders.

  Charged with sedition, he was convicted and sentenced, but won on appeal to the House of Lords. Despairing of the continuing famine and negative prospects for Irish independence, he emigrated to Australia and became Premier of Victoria in 1871.

  He was knighted in 1873, retired from politics and lived in France. He died in Nice in 1903, aged 86.

  Sir William Macaulay, is based on Sir Randolph Routh, born in Poole, Dorset, in 1782.

  He did military service in Jamaica, the Netherlands in the Welcheren Campaign, the Peninsular War, the Battle of Waterloo. He was promoted to Commissariat General of the British Army in 1826. He spent seventeen years as Colonial Administrator in Canada and was knighted in 1843. In 1845 Prime Minster Peel appointed him Chairman of the Irish Relief Commission. He was frequently at odds with Sir Charles Trevelyan.

  Routh died in 1858, aged 76.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael Nicholson is one of the world’s most travelled and decorated foreign correspondents. In a forty-year career in television he has reported from eighteen war zones and was three times Royal Television Society’s Journalist of the Year. He was twice ‘Emmy’ finalist at the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for documentaries and received a BAFTA award for his reports from the Falklands War. He was also awarded the Falklands and Gulf Campaign Medals and an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in 1991 for services to television.