The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising

by Dermot McEvoy

  And suffer the Kavanaghs did. Christmas 1918 was to be their last holiday together as a family. Collins had headed to Cork for the holidays, and Eoin and Róisín decided to put together a Christmas dinner for the family. Da was delighted that the two of them were “courting,” as he liked to say. Mary and Dickie were brought home from their orphanages, and the barbershop at 31 Aungier Street came alive with children’s laughter, if only for a week. On Christmas Day, Róisín sent the entire family off to mass at Saints Michael and John’s down on Wood Quay, while she stayed home and cooked a fat goose. Róisín could do without the cooking, but any excuse to avoid mass was good enough for her. She had gone to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, she fibbed when they asked. Mary and Dickie were delighted that Father Christmas had brought them toys, but Frank was still his morose self. “Cheer up, grumpy,” Róisín had said to him, but he remained stale.

  The whole clan sat down around the table in the flat above Castle Barbers. Before he carved, Joseph Kavanagh said grace and thanked the Lord—and Michael Collins—for rescuing his family from desperate poverty. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “Please, Lord, protect this family in 1919,” as if he knew of a terrible foreboding.

  Johnny laughed as he wound the old pocket watch. “What’s so funny?” asked his wife.

  “Grandpa was the only man I ever knew who wore a wristwatch and carried a pocket watch. What an eccentric!”

  “He sure was a stickler for time,” said Diane. “Nothing would piss him off more than people who were late.”

  “And guess where he got that from?”

  “Mr. Collins?”

  “I’d hate to be late for the Big Fellow. You could be made permanently ‘late’ for being late.”

  Diane laughed and then turned serious. “1919 will be bad, won’t it?”

  “Diane, my love,” said Johnny, as he took his wife’s hand, “it won’t be nice.” He paused. “And what comes after that will be even worse.”

  1919

  42

  “Let’s buccaneer the hoor!”

  Michael Collins’s 1919 actually started during the last week of December, when the newly minted MP-elect traveled to London. He was there to meet with the “hoor” he wanted to buccaneer—Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America.

  There was only one problem—the president had no intention of meeting with the Irish delegation, as it would be insulting to his host, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It turned out that all the talk about the integrity of small nations was just that—talk. With the Huns out of Belgium, promises were being forgotten.

  “That constipated-faced Presbyterian,” said Collins of Wilson. “We’ll take him, hold him for an hour, and present our agenda to him. He can’t ignore us.” But ignore the Irish Wilson did. Cooler heads finally prevailed, and the young MP-who-would-never-be returned to Dublin.

  The first Dáil Éireann convened in the Mansion House on January 21, and Collins was not there. He was back in England “on business,” as he liked to say. Eoin was in the gallery when the new Republic’s first Teachtai Dála, Deputies to the Dáil, or TDs, were sworn in. Twenty-five—including the missing Collins—were “i láthair,” or “present.” Forty-three, including Eamon de Valera, were not as lucky. In their absence, they were described as being “fé ghlas ag Gallaibh,” or “imprisoned by the foreign enemy.”

  Eoin was dressed in his Sunday best, and his breast swelled with pride. The results from all the hard work he had done were now right before his eyes. From his bloody arse, to stealing the Longford election, to setting up the intelligence bureau—it had all been worth it. Eoin was so proud of his new infant nation.

  The whole session took place in Irish, and Eoin could pick out only single words or the odd phrase now and then. There was no Gaelic taught in the schools, as the English continued to try to delouse the Irish of every vestige of their culture. All the pidgin Irish Eoin knew he had picked up from his granny, Mary Anne Conway, Rosanna’s mother. She was born during the Great Famine and loved to tell the youngster tales of old Dublin. Eoin was her first grandson, and he spent many a happy Sunday afternoon in her flat over on Temple Lane. Granny Conway told him that, in the olden days, Temple Lane used to be called “Dirty Lane.” And in Eoin’s mind, until the day he died, he couldn’t think of Temple Lane as anything but his granny’s “Durty Lane.” Then suddenly, in 1909, his granny was no more. He remembered the funeral mass at Saints Michael and John’s down on Wood Quay, only blocks from Temple Lane. He knew this church well, because his mother always reminded him that she had married his father there in 1900. It seemed the church and the neighborhood were Eoin’s womb, and now an important part of that had been taken away from him. He knew, too, that his granny would take pride in this important day in Irish history.

  But the real work on this twenty-first day of January was being done in the Soloheadbeg quarry in County Tipperary. There, Volunteers led by Seán Treacy, Séamus Robinson, Seán Hogan, and Dan Breen had hijacked a cart containing a hundredweight of gelignite, and in the process shot two RIC policemen dead.

  The next morning, the phone rang in the Bachelors Walk office. “You’ve been preempted, Deputy Collins,” said Eoin. “Have you seen the morning papers?”

  “No,” said Collins. “What happened?”

  “The big, black headline says TIPPERARY OUTRAGE!”

  There was a shout on the other end of the line. “For fook’s sake, what happened?”

  “Some of the boyos lifted a ton of gelignite from the Soloheadbeg quarry in Tipperary. Two RIC shot dead.”

  “God bless them!” said Collins, with joyful fire. “Finally,” he added, “I’ve found men who will fight!”

  “There’s a rumor on the streets that this is your job.”

  “I wish it were. I can’t be in two places at once.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “I’ll bet Seán Treacy, Dan Breen, and company,” said Collins. “Do you realize that these are the first two Brits killed in Ireland since the Rising? Great, great fookin’ work.”

  “The papers are against this kind of conduct,” said Eoin. “You should see this morning’s editorials.”

  “Fook their editorials,” said Collins. “These hoors have been lifting us, imprisoning us, harassing us, and I haven’t heard a word out of the fookin’ papers or fookin’ priests about that! Eoin, we’re at the beginning of something big. We now have our own parliament, and soon we’ll have our own army.”

  “You’ll have to find bodies,” replied Eoin. “With the Great War over, the lads are leaving. No conscription, no Volunteers. I’ve seen the reports from the countryside.”

  “Yes, we’re in trouble in the country,” Collins admitted. “But Tipperary will fight. Kerry will fight, and I know my own Cork will fight.”

  “Rebel Cork!” Eoin yelled into the phone with delight.

  “Rebel Cork, indeed!” Collins echoed back across the line. “But it all starts and stops in Dublin. Dublin is the key. We will control the city. We will control it with the only thing that the British understand—fear and blood.” Collins went quiet for a second, and Eoin thought they had lost their connection. “Are you with me, Eoin? Or will you desert me like the rest of those conscription hoors?”

  “I’m with you to the death—whoever goes first!”

  Collins laughed but then turned serious. “Don’t worry, Eoin. It won’t be you. You’ll survive. Men like me? Ireland eats them up and spits them out. All you have to do is look at our history.”

  Eoin was sorry he had even mentioned Collins’s possible death, but he knew one thing in his heart. He would never desert the Big Fellow, even if it meant following him to the grave.

  43

  EOIN’S DIARY

  Before Mick rang off on me from England, he said, “Watch the mails.”

  When the post arrived this morning, I sorted it in my usual way: Dublin, Irish Countryside, England, America. In the England pile was a bulky
package. There was no return address, but the postmark said “Manchester.” I opened it, and for a minute I didn’t know what to make of it. The note simply read: “Make two. Check with Gerry Boland. Be quick. I’ll be in touch.”

  It was Mick’s scribble. I knew Gerry because he was Harry’s brother. But the contraption in the box was, at first, a mystery to me. Finally, I figured out what it was—a key impression depressed in wax.

  I immediately got on my bike and started the ride up to Gerry’s house on St. Vincent’s Street, which is not far from the Mater Hospital. When I got there, Gerry answered the door and took me into the parlor.

  “What’s up, Eoin?” he asked.

  “You tell me, Gerry,” I replied. “I just got this from Mick in Manchester. I know he’s there with your brother, but I’m in the dark otherwise. Do you know?”

  Gerry took the key mold from my hand and shook his head. “I guess they’re going to go ahead with it.”

  “With what?”

  Gerry was silent for a moment, then said, “I guess it would be alright to tell you.”

  This sounded serious, and I finally let out an exasperated, “What?”

  “Gerry and Mick are going to spring de Valera from Lincoln Gaol in Lincolnshire,” he explained. “This is the key to the gate Dev’s supposed to dance through. Looks like he made the impression from the stubs of old candles.”

  “Mick could have told me,” I told Gerry.

  “It was all hush-hush,” he replied. “I just kind of stumbled on it myself from Harry. You know what this means?”

  “Fookin’ big,” says I. “I knew something was up when Mick missed that first meeting of the Dáil. What we need is a Fenian locksmith.”

  “Dinny Doyle, down in Henry Street.”

  “What’s Doyle’s story?” I asked.

  “He’s in the Volunteers. Part-timer. Helps out when he can.”

  “Let’s go,” I said, and the two of us hopped on our bikes for the quick ride into the City Centre. We found “Henry Keys” and entered the premises.

  “Dinny,” says Gerry, “we have a job for you.”

  “Jaysus, Gerry,” says Doyle, “not today. I’m up against it.”

  I threw the mold down on the counter and said, “I need two keys made from this today.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can’t,” says I. “What do you mean ‘you can’t?’ I need those keys by this afternoon.” I slammed my hand on the counter, and I could see the dust rise.

  “Who is this bloody kid?” says Dinny.

  Gerry looked uncomfortable, but then he caught my eye. He turned to Dinny and said, “He works for Mick Collins.”

  The color left Doyle’s face. He didn’t say a word. He picked up the mold and went into the back of the shop. I followed him. “How long will it take?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  I told Gerry I could handle it from here. Dinny was good to his word, and I returned to Bachelors Walk to wrap the keys and await Collins’s instructions. The phone was quiet. I kept taking my pocket watch out and looking at it. The quiet was killing me. Finally, at half-three, the phone rang. “Mr. Kavanagh,” I answered.

  “Mr. Kavanagh,” said a voice with a West Cork accent, “did you get my bloody keys yet?”

  “Fook you, Mick!” says I. “You could have told me.”

  My insult provoked only laughter out of Collins “I take it you’re ready to go to the post office?”

  “I am. Give me that address.” I jotted the information down. “When’s the big day?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Eoin,” said Mick. “Just keep this one under your hat. Keep an eye on the newspapers. If we pull it off, the newspapers will be printing EXTRAs all over Dublin and England.”

  I addressed the package and tied it strongly with twine. Then I walked to the post office over on St. Andrew Street, clutching it to my breast like the keys were made of gold. I was thrilled to be the “key man” and helping get Dev out of jail—and embarrassing the British in the process.

  44

  “The divil pulled it off!”

  So wrote Eoin in his diary on February 5, 1919. Mick was right about the newspaper EXTRAs. Dublin was in a state of frenzied celebration. You could hear the laughter and see the delight on the faces of the citizens. De Valera was free, and the Brits were red-faced.

  On the night of February 3, Collins and Harry Boland went to Lincoln Gaol with one of the keys Eoin had made in Dublin. The other key—smuggled into the prison in the much clichéd cake—was in the hands of de Valera on the other side of the prison door. At the precise time of the rendezvous, Collins stuck his key in the door—and snapped it in half! “Jaysus, Dev, I broke the fookin’ hoor in the fookin’ keyhole,” said Collins.

  “Michael,” replied de Valera through the door, “your language!” Collins didn’t know who he wanted to kill more—the bloody key or de Valera. Dev stuck his own key in the door and, in a stroke of luck, pushed Collins’s broken key out, turned the lock, and was free.

  “I can’t believe Collins,” said Diane, after reading Eoin’s rendition of the Lincoln Gaol caper. “This guy is like James Bond—only worse!”

  “You mean ‘better,’” responded Johnny Three. “James Bond had nothing on Michael Collins, believe me.” They were sitting in the kitchen of Eoin’s house, having their morning coffee.

  “But how did he do it?” asked Diane. “Here’s this country boy going up against Lloyd George and Woodrow Wilson, and he’s not awed by it at all.”

  “I think,” said Johnny, “that was his big advantage. The British underestimated him. You know their attitude: ‘The Irish wouldn’t dare do such and such.’ Well, this Irishman said, ‘Fuck them, I’m doing it!’”

  “What would have happened if he didn’t get de Valera out?” Diane asked as Johnny poured another cup of coffee for himself.

  “A very interesting supposition,” said Johnny, laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You know what Dev did when he got out of jail?”

  “What?”

  “He went to America for a year and a half.”

  “You’re kidding!” Diane exclaimed, and Johnny let out an amused, knowing laugh. “You mean Collins—and Grandpa—went to all that trouble, and he up and left them high and dry?”

  “Dev was difficult.”

  “No wonder Mick called him the ‘Long Hoor,’” Diane said, showing agitation for the first time. “Why, that’s like George Washington crossing the Delaware and heading off to France for a two-year vacation!”

  “Not a bad analogy, my sweet,” said Johnny.

  The conversation was interrupted by the ringing of Diane’s telephone. “Hi Róisín,” Diane said to her eldest daughter, named after her great-grandmother. “We’re both fine. We’re planning on being home for Thanksgiving. The house is on the market, and we’re trying to get rid of it ASAP.” Johnny gestured for the telephone, and Diane handed it over.

  “How’s our number-one daughter?” Johnny asked.

  “Oh, Daddy,” said Róisín, “you’re such a sweet talker!”

  “I am, indeed,” said Johnny. “You keeping up on your studies? I want you out of that college next June. You’re costing me a fortune!”

  “You sound just like Great-Grandpapa. Always worried about money.”

  “On trees . . .” began Johnny.

  “ . . . It does not grow!” shouted Róisín into the telephone, and Johnny could see the personality of both his grandmother and his wife in the spunky child.

  “Alright,” said Johnny, “you still going with that creep Dylan you brought home last summer?” Johnny was firmly of the belief that most of the problems in the modern world were caused by old hippies naming their progeny “Dylan.”

  “We might be in love,” said Róisín.

  “Well,” admonished Johnny, “keep your knickers on!”

  “Too late for that, Daddy!”

 
Johnny was about to blow a gasket when Diane said, “Give me that” and pulled the phone out of Johnny’s hand, leaving him with his mouth agape.

  After the call ended, Johnny said, “She’s still going with that Dylan bastard.”

  “He’s a nice young man,” said Diane.

  “He just wants to get into her knickers.”

  “So unlike what you were up to with me thirty years ago!”

  “That was different,” protested Johnny.

  “Sure it was,” said Diane, and Johnny knew he had lost another battle with his wife and daughter.

  “I wish they would call more.”

  “They text me all the time,” said Diane.

  “I don’t do texting.”

  “They’re lucky you answer the phone,” Diane said, exposing the true Luddite inside her husband. Johnny was quiet. “Are you sorry we never had a son?”

  “Never,” said Johnny. “I much prefer the girls. I couldn’t stand some son of mine repeating the same stupid testosterone mistakes I made in my life.” Johnny shook his head. “I can’t believe the way men treat women sometimes. If I were a woman, I’d become a lesbian because of all the macho nonsense.”

  “Oh, thank you, Alice B. Toklas!” added Diane with a hearty laugh.

  “I’ll smoke to that, Gertrude,” was Johnny’s reply.

  “Alice B. Kavanagh, I love you!” laughed Diane, as she kissed her Johnny on the top of his head.

  Johnny was being truthful, for he loved all three of his girls. After being married for seven years, working hard on their careers, and having fun drinking at the Lion’s Head at night, Diane had drunkenly demanded of Johnny, “I want babies, and I want them now!” So Johnny fucked her on the kitchen floor in the family apartment at 45 Christopher Street, and, nine months later, Diane got her wish. Róisín was the first, and Aoife and Ashling were his “Irish twins”—Aoife born in January and Ashling born in December of the same year. All three were born within a two-year period. “You damn near fucked me to death those two years,” Diane used to kid her husband.