“What the fook is this?” roared a voice as it came out of the Wicklow Hotel, right next door to Weir’s. “Alert the clergy—there’s tomfoolery going on here!” It was Collins at his jeering best, and the young couple wanted to disappear into the ground. Even Róisín was silenced. “Róisín,” he said, “it’s so good to see you.” There were no taunts about “Countess O’Mahonyevicz” this time, and he seemed genuinely pleased to see her. “Eoin tells me you’re working at the Mater.”
“I am.”
“Keep your eyes open,” he said. “Can I depend on you up there?” Róisín nodded mutely, shocked at the notion of working for Collins. “I’m off to a meeting now,” he said, before adding, “but don’t you two do anything I wouldn’t do!” His hearty laugh was his goodbye, and he was soon lost in the crowd.
Eoin took Róisín’s hand and headed down Wicklow Street in silence. “Mick’s a great mate,” he finally said.
“He’s alright,” conceded Róisín.
“Alright?” said Eoin, voice rising. “He’s the best!” They were into Exchequer Street now, and Eoin pointed out number ten. “That’s where my office is.” He then walked Róisín down Dame Court until he came to the Stag’s Head. Silent Peadar Doherty, the barman who knew all and said nothing, was behind the stick, and Eoin pointed to the back room. Doherty nodded. Róisín took a seat and lit up a Woodbine, the stinkiest cigarette in Ireland. “You smoke?” a shocked Eoin asked.
“You don’t?” Róisín replied, as she blew smoke upwards towards Eoin.
“My Mammy wouldn’t allow it,” said Eoin.
“Your Mammy’s dead,” said Róisín. Eoin turned white. “Oh, Eoin, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so cruel. You’re an angel and I’m so cruel. Come here.” Eoin moved to sit next to Róisín, and she took his hand in hers.
“How about your Mammy?” he finally asked.
“She’s dead, like yours,” replied Róisín, surveying the floor.
“How?”
“I was a baby. She died of influenza.”
“Your Da?
“My father is a piece of shite!”
“Sorry,” Eoin mumbled in embarrassment.
“Don’t be,” replied Róisín, picking her shoulders up. “The lump of shite put me in an orphanage and joined the British army. Haven’t seen or heard from him since. If it wasn’t for my mother’s spinster sisters, I would have rotted in that goddamn place with those bloody nuns. My aunties got me educated, gave me a future.” They looked at each other, and neither said a word for the longest time. “God forgive me,” Róisín finally spoke, “but I hate that gobshite father of mine.”
Eoin finally smiled. “Do you check out the Tommies to see if the old man is in Dublin?”
“Every fookin’ day!” replied Róisín.
“No luck?”
“Luck! It will be his unlucky day if I spy him.” Róisín finally laughed. “He’s too old to be an active soldier by now. I’m eighteen, and he was twenty-five when I was born. So he’s in his forties. Too old for the trench.”
“But not too old to torment the Irish,” said Eoin cryptically.
Róisín looked at Eoin and realized that he was beginning to think like Collins. “You sound like a pint-sized Mick Collins.” Eoin smiled and nodded, proud of the compliment.
“Would you like a sherry?” Eoin said, coughing a bit from the smoke of Róisín’s cigarette. Eoin knew that respectable women always drank sherry.
“How about a pony of whiskey and a pint of porter?” Róisín replied, and Eoin Kavanagh knew he was falling in love.
21
EOIN’S DIARY
Mick is fond of the Jew-man.
Before going to work for Mick, the only Jew I had ever met was poor Abraham Weeks in the GPO. But Mick has two of them working for him, a merchant named Robert Briscoe and a lawyer called Michael Noyek. I asked Mick how the Jews came to Ireland. “They first came to Ireland in 1062—did you know that? Same way the Normans, the Vikings, the Celts got here—they were waylaid!” Some priests call Jews “Christ killers,” but Mick doesn’t care what a man is, just as long as he believes in one thing—removing the British from Ireland. I think Mick gets fed up with the “usual,” the monotony of the everyday. All the Irish look alike, down to the freckles. Some of the Jews, the very religious ones, are very different, with their black hats and their side-locks and their beards. I think that’s why he likes having Jews in the movement. Unlike a lot of the Irish, he is not afraid of the different or exotic.
Briscoe has just returned from New York, where he was living when the Uprising took place. He’s devoted to Eamon de Valera. In fact, he worships him. He’s always saying, “Dev believes this,” or “Dev believes that.”
“Puppy love,” Collins said with a laugh, and I’m not sure exactly what he meant.
Briscoe has a tailor shop over on Aston Quay, but it’s really a front for Sinn Féin business. He also has a safehouse over on Coppinger’s Row, just off Grafton Street. He was sent to Mick by de Valera, who just got out of prison this summer. “Do you belong to the IRB?” asked Collins at the first meeting. I was sitting at my desk and observed everything.
“Oh,” says Briscoe, “Mr. de Valera doesn’t believe in secret organizations.” I thought Mick would fall out of his chair, because he now runs the IRB. But he didn’t give anything away and simply sat mute.
Briscoe has shown some talent for securing guns and munitions from various sources, including the police and the British Army regulars who are stationed here. Mick will pay up to five quid for a handgun. “I am building this army one gun at a time,” he said to me as soon as Briscoe left the office. I don’t know if Mick likes Briscoe or not. I think there’s something about him he doesn’t trust.
On the other hand, you can tell Collins likes Noyek, whom he calls “Mike.” Noyek is kept busy representing our lads when they get pinched by the Crown. He’s very businesslike but friendly. He always has time to say hello to me and ask me how my family is coming along. He lives down on Clanbrassil Street, near the South Circular Road in Little Jerusalem, like a lot of the Jews.
Mike also does a lot of Mick’s real estate transactions. When he arrived at the office this morning, Collins called us into conference. “We’ll be expanding our operations soon, and we’ll need more properties to do it right.” Collins turned to me and said, “Mike has a few properties under consideration, and I want you to go with him and see if they will work for me. I’ll need an office with a view”—that meant he didn’t want to get trapped or caught by surprise—”and a storefront. Go with Mike, and report back to me.”
We came out of the office, walked to the corner of South Great Georges Street, and headed for Aungier Street, a few blocks away. We crossed over to the other side, and Noyek stopped me when we were opposite number thirty-one. “That’s it,” said Mike. “What do you think?”
“Good shop room,” I said. “Is the whole building for rent?”
“Yes,” Noyek confirmed. “I think Mick wants to put a front business on the ground floor and have room for offices upstairs.”
“I think it will work,” says I. “What’s next?”
“Bachelors Walk,” Mike said. I was ready to hike over there when Noyek stopped me. “I think we’ll take a tram. I’m not as young as you.”
We got off the tram in Sackville Street and came around to 32 Bachelors Walk. There was a bookstore on the ground floor, and we went up to see the office on the second level. It had a panoramic view of the River Liffey and O’Connell Bridge. “Mick will love this,” I said, and Noyek agreed.
“There will be no sneaking up on your man in this place,” he said. “I have to go to court. Go back to Collins, and give him the low-down on these places. Call me if he’ll go for them.” And, with that, I headed back to the office on Exchequer Street, a real estate expert after a quick lesson from Mr. Noyek.
22
The telephone rang, and Collins and Eoin sat looking at it. They were mesmerized by it because it
didn’t ring for days on end. It was still a fairly new contraption around Dublin town.
“Better answer it,” Mick finally said.
“It’s Róisín,” said the voice at the other end of the line.
“Róisín!” said Eoin, excited, and Collins went back to the work on his desk.
“I have to talk to Collins,” she said. “We have big trouble up here.”
Collins face darkened as he spoke with his favorite Mater nurse. “Alright, Róisín, I’ll be up there as soon as I can.” Eoin remained silent, dying to know what was going on. “It’s Tom Ashe,” Collins finally said.
“He still on hunger strike in Mountjoy?”
“He’s in the Mater. They force-fed him, and the food went into his lungs. Róisín thinks he’s dying. I’m going up there.”
Ashe—along with de Valera—was the only surviving commandant of Easter week. He was five years older than Collins, and both were devout members of the IRB. They had first met in the months leading up to the Rising, and both had been interned at Frongoch Prison in Wales. Being Munster men, their friendship was immediate. Ashe had done a remarkable job protecting the northern flank against British reinforcements during Easter Week. His small battalion of only sixty men outmaneuvered the British and won a major battle in Ashbourne, County Meath. His death sentence commuted, he ended up in Lewes Prison in England, along with the likes of de Valera and Collins’s reluctant candidate, Joe McGuinness. He was a master at employing the hunger strike as a weapon of defiance. Collins put on his trilby hat and was out the door in a flash. Eoin went to the window and saw him set off on his trusty high nelly bicycle—called “The Clanker” by one and all because of the unique sound that emanated out of its protesting chain. His gallop indicated that he would beat any tram to the Mater.
At the Mater’s front desk, Collins asked for Nurse O’Mahony. Róisín, stunning in her white nurse’s uniform, came out. “I have to get in to see him,” he said.
“You can’t,” she said in a whisper. “They have guards from Mountjoy watching the door.”
“Get me in!” Collins insisted.
“Come on,” Róisín whispered, and Collins followed her into the doctors’ lounge. “There,” she said, pointing at a white coat hanging on a rack. Collins did not hesitate in putting it on and pulled a stethoscope out of one of the pockets. With a tip of her head, Róisín indicated that he should follow her. In front of the Mountjoy guards, she cleared her throat. “This is Dr. Collins. He’s here to examine Thomas Ashe.”
“No one is allowed in, ma’am.”
“I’m a specialist,” Collins said as he rushed by the two guards. Ashe was in a coma, and his breathing was shallow. “Tom,” said Collins. “Can you hear me?” There was no answer from Ashe. Collins looked at the nurse on duty, and she shook her head.
“What’s the meaning of this?” said a doctor in his own white coat. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mick Collins,” came the curt reply. “Tom Ashe is a colleague of mine.”
“How did you get in here?”
“I didn’t see any harm in it,” said Róisín, suddenly realizing she was in major trouble.
“I’ll have your job for this,” said the doctor to the young nurse.
Collins stepped in front of Róisín and went face-to-face with the doctor. “If you do anything to Miss O’Mahony, mister, you’ll need a doctor.” The color left the doctor’s face at the threat. “Understood?” The doctor meekly nodded his head and retreated to the door.
Then Thomas Ashe, as though he had held on just to witness Collins’s histrionics, let go of his last breath and exited this life, forever a martyr in Ireland’s fight for freedom.
The phone rang back at Exchequer Street. “Thomas is gone, Eoin. Go over to Fallon’s in Mary Street and get me a commandant’s uniform. Tell them it’s for Ashe, and they’ll know what to do. Bring it to the mortuary at the Mater.”
Eoin arrived shortly after with the uniform and its trappings, and the only two people in the room were Collins and Tom Ashe, lying naked on a slab, a towel covering his midsection. “They have to do the autopsy,” said Collins, listlessly. “Then we’ll dress him for his funeral.” Collins brushed the hair back from Ashe’s forehead, and Eoin thought he was going to break down, but he remained resolute.
The two of them retreated to a waiting room. Eoin had now known Collins for almost a year and a half, and he marveled at the man more each day. Collins paced up and down the short room, his trilby cocked over his forehead. He pulled a pack of Greencastle cigarettes from his coat pocket and shook one out of the packet. Collins now chain-smoked about two packs a day, and the only redeeming feature of the Greencastles was that they didn’t smell as bad as Róisín’s stinky Woodbines. He pointed the pack perfunctorily at Eoin, who declined. He knew Eoin didn’t smoke, but the gesture was out of habit. The strike of the match filled the room with smoke as Collins continued to pace nervously.
He was nearly six feet tall and weighed about thirteen stone, but he looked taller because his body could easily hold more weight. He had the build of an athlete, and he knew how to use it. He would often stand in front of a seated person and loom over them. He knew the power of intimidation. Energy just seemed to explode out of him.
Their time in Exchequer Street had made them close. Eoin viewed Collins as the big brother he never had. Although they worked long hours, Collins always had time for some horseplay. Out of nowhere, he would leap up, grab Eoin, and commence a wrestling match. “No fair!” Eoin would scream. “You’re twice my size.”
“Too bad,” would come the reply.
Collins shared all with Eoin; his contacts, his plans, his fears. He made sure he knew as many people in the organization as possible, from de Valera and the other ministers to Dick McKee and Richard Mulcahy, the guys who ran the brigades. It was only after Collins died that Eoin realized that he probably knew more about the operations of Collins and the IRA than anyone in British intelligence. It made him shiver with trepidation.
“They’re done,” said Róisín, breaking the silence.
“Will you help us?” asked Collins.
“I will indeed,” replied Nurse O’Mahony, and the three of them went to the mortuary to dress Thomas Ashe for his funeral.
23
EOIN’S
DIARY FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1917
Igot to wear my Volunteer uniform for the first time today. It was for Tom Ashe’s funeral. Collins has taken care of all the arrangements. Ashe is lying in state at the City Hall just down the lane. Collins has planned every detail of the day. “If a Fenian has to die,” he said, rather coldly, “he might as well be used as a recruiting tool.”
After a pause, Collins muttered, “Syncope.”
“What?”
“Tom died of syncope,” he said, reading from the newspaper.
“What’s that?”
“According to Professor McMeeney, ‘death was due to syncope, arising partly from heart trouble and partly from an intense congestion of the lungs.’”
“Congested by porridge,” says I.
Mick shot me a look. “God, you can be blunt.”
“He’s Number Seventeen,” I noted.
“Seventeen?”
“Seventeen. Sir Roger was Number Sixteen.”
“I never thought of that,” admitted Collins. “The seventeenth rebel ‘executed.’ The Brits took thirteen months after hanging Casement. There will be more.” He became pensive. “We’re going to have to step up. Our intelligence is pitiful. We have to start targeting the ones who are crippling us, the RIC, the G-Division of the DMP, their touts.” I didn’t say anything, and Mick was again quiet for a minute. “It’s going to be brutal,” he finally said.
We left for the City Hall and escorted the coffin to the Pro-Cathedral for the funeral mass. After the mass, we marched behind the box all the way to Glasnevin. It seems I’ve spent more time in Glasnevin in the last year than I have in the Phoenix Park. It’s always a sad jour
ney for me because I’m thinking of me Mammy and Charlie, who I miss a lot. Me brother and I were only two years apart in age.
The crowds were amazing. Some were saying it was the biggest funeral since Parnell’s. Others agreed it was even bigger than Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral in August 1915, where Padraig Pearse gave his famous speech: “The fools, the fools, the fools, they have left us our Fenian dead.”
After the priest blessed the remains, three shots were fired over the grave by Volunteers. Mick stepped forward, resplendent in his new Vice-Commandant’s uniform, with its smart Sam Browne belt. As Mick was getting set to speak, I saw that there was a movie camera to record the event. All we need is Mick’s face in every cinema in Ireland for the next couple of weeks, making the G-men’s job easier. I left the grave and walked over to where the cameraman was. It said “British Pathé News” on the equipment. Your man was cranking the camera away at a furious pace as Mick stepped up to the grave. The camera was resting on a tripod. Mick was just about ready to speak when I grabbed one of the tripod legs and gave it a merry heave, sending camera and operator to the ground.
“Nothing additional remains to be said,” Mick began. “That volley which we have just heard is the only speech that is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian.” As we headed back to the city centre, I watched Mick weep for the first time.
Yes, Mick is right. It’s going to be brutal.
24
As Michael Collins crossed Golden Lane with Eoin, he saw the dank Piles Building. Inside, Joseph Kavanagh was happy for the company. “Good to see you, Mick. I just wet some tay. Would you like some?”
“I would, indeed,” said Collins, pulling up a chair at the small kitchen table. “How’s the family?” he asked, although he already knew the answers from Eoin.
“I had to put the babies, Mary and Dickie, in orphanages. They’re too young, and I couldn’t handle them.”
The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising Page 9