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

by Dermot McEvoy

  Eoin quickly looked around the room to see if Ames had any other papers and found nothing. Vinny made sure to retrieve the guns of both victims, a bonus for the Squad. “Let’s go!” Eoin said, and they headed for the front door. But before he left, he turned and hurled, in an act of exorcism, the “All-Seeing Eye” through the back window and into the yard, like it was a javelin. By this time, Katie Farrell was crying, and Byrne gave the distraught woman one final warning: “You’ve been a great help, miss. Now keep ya gob shut!”

  With that, Eoin and Vinny were out the door. Their backup team headed towards Merrion Square, while they headed in the direction of the Pepper Canister before turning right at the corner into Herbert Place. Their orders were to get out of sight for the rest of the day and sit tight. Vinny would report the results to Crow Street from the phone at Kehoe’s, the spirit-grocer public house across from his place in South Anne Street.

  As they raced towards Baggot Street, they were surprised to see Jack Lemass and Charlie Dalton hustling towards them, at a full run. “Eoin,” Lemass panted, “take these. We’ve got to get the ferry across the river.” Eoin obligingly took both guns, which were still hot from being fired. He was weighed down with artillery.

  Eoin rushed in the direction of the Grand Canal, while Vinny headed for his digs in South Anne Street. Eoin turned onto the Adelaide Road, walking as fast as he could to Róisín’s flat. As he advanced on Harrington Street, he pulled out the pocketwatch Collins had given him for Christmas a few years ago. It was exactly half-nine.

  119

  McKee and Clancy sat on a bench in the guardroom of Dublin Castle as the Tan officer interrogated them. “You might as well tell me,” he said, “because things won’t get any easier when Commissioner Gough-Coxe gets here.”

  McKee wondered what time it was. He couldn’t look at his watch because he was handcuffed from behind.

  “What time is it?” he asked his guard.

  “What?” said the Tan, confused.

  “The time?”

  “Too late for you, matey,” said the Tan, laughing. McKee stared straight at him. Finally, his guard sobered and looked at his watch. “Half-ten.”

  McKee smiled.

  “What’s so fucking funny?”

  “Nothing at ‘tal,” said McKee. “Nothing at ‘tal.”

  So far, things hadn’t been that bad for McKee and Clancy. They had been pushed around and took a couple of punches, but, overall, they had experienced worse in the past. This late on Sunday morning, they knew that the day had been saved by Seán Fitzpatrick’s adopted sister, Florrie. As the British banged vehemently on the Gloucester Street door—thanks to Shanker Ryan’s tout—Florrie’s modesty became the paramount concern. “Let me put some clothes on—I’m in me nude!” Florrie’s procrastination began. Upstairs, McKee and Clancy were burning the papers that Eoin had typed from Collins’s dictation. By the time the British gained entrance, the memorandum was ash.

  McKee and Clancy spent the night in a cell. By eleven a.m., it was apparent something was wrong. Important men, like the Sheik, couldn’t be reached. Reports were coming in from the DMP that bodies were arriving at hospitals around the city, many from the residential areas adjacent to St. Stephen’s Green. McKee and Clancy could hear the murmurings of the G-men and some of the Tans and army men. They looked at each other and nodded.

  Abruptly, the door swung open, and the kid from Clare, Conor Clune, also cuffed, was thrown into the room. “Sit down and keep your gob shut!” snapped the G-man, before leaving the room. Young Clune was clearly terrified.

  “How did they get you?” asked McKee.

  “They came into Vaughan’s and arrested the lot of us,” replied Clune. “They think I’m in the IRA. They’re adamant about it.”

  “Well,” asked Clancy, “are you?”

  “I am,” admitted Clune, “but I’m more interested in the Gaelic League.”

  McKee looked at Clancy and rolled his eyes. “Stick to your story,” Clancy advised the kid.

  As the morning wore on, the atmosphere of the Castle began to change. McKee and Clancy could see the looks of concern on the Crown personnel, and they knew the Squad and the Dublin Brigade had been successful. The stink of fear had permeated the Castle.

  At noon, the door flew open, and Auxiliary Captain Simon Hardy pounced into the room. McKee and Clancy immediately recognized Hardy. When he had first arrived in Dublin, the Squad had attempted to assassinate him, but they ended up only wounding him. Today, he would exact his revenge. Hardy knew the famed Secret Service had been destroyed. Many were dead, and the survivors would be of no use; they were all too frightened. Collins had rendered him—and the Crown—completely impotent.

  “Who are they?” asked Hardy.

  The Tan pointed at each of three and identified them: “Woods, Cleary, and Clune.”

  “Wrong,” corrected Hardy. “Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, how are ya?” Both sat mute. “Commandant and vice-commandant of the Dublin Brigade.”

  “The kid’s from Clare,” spoke up McKee. “He has nothing to do with us. He’s just a Gaelic Leaguer.”

  Hardy laughed. “I guess this is his unlucky day. Slán agat,” he said to the terrified Clune. McKee and Clancy knew the game was up.

  120

  Róisín’s day was horrific. By ten a.m., they’d started bringing in the first casualties from the Gresham Hotel in Sackville Street, a Captain McCormack and a fellow named Wilde. There was no rush; they were dead on arrival. The Mater was soon swarming with British soldiers, DMPs, and Tans rushing about in a near panic. Rumors began to fly about mass killings of British agents, most of whom lived in the area just east of St. Stephen’s Green—the neighborhood, Róisín thought, where the money was.

  At six p.m., as the Angelus bells lugubriously rang throughout damp, dark Dublin, Róisín mounted her bike and started heading back to her flat in Portobello. Eoin had suggested that maybe she should take this Sunday off, and now she thought she knew why. As she came down Parnell Square, she could see that the British were stopping and searching every tram, car, and cart. Traffic in Sackville Street was at a standstill. There were throngs of soldiers around the front entrance to the Gresham Hotel. Róisín didn’t like the look of things and decided to go down Parnell Street all the way to Capel, then make her way across the Liffey from there. She was stopped at the bridge by a soldier who made her open her coat and her pocketbook before waving her across to Parliament Street. She was shocked to see a panicked phalanx—they looked like families, to her—queuing up with their possessions at the front gate, trying to get into the Castle. The terrified look on their faces told Róisín that gaining access to the Castle was a matter of life and death to these people.

  Róisín was tired from the long day and winded from her bike ride, and she couldn’t wait to settle down and have a cup of tea. The flat was dark when she entered. As she lit the paraffin light in the small sitting room, she was shocked to see Eoin there, sitting quietly, his Webley in his hand, resting on his left leg. She leapt with fright. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!” she yelped.

  “How are ya, Róisín?”

  “Were you trying to frighten me to death?” Róisín looked at Eoin and immediately realized he was in shock. He had been sitting in that chair for nine solid hours. On the table before him were the guns of Lemass, Dalton, and the two dead Secret Service agents. “Are you alright?” Eoin gave a crooked smile and shrugged his shoulders indifferently. Róisín went to him and saw the blood on his jacket. She quietly removed the gun from Eoin’s hand and put it on the table with the others. “It’s over,” she said.

  Eoin shook his head, and tears began to drop one by one from his eyes, so slow you could count them. “I’m nothing but a fookin’ murderer,” he said. “A fookin’ murderer.” Róisín cupped his head to her breasts and held him tight as her own tears dropped onto his beautiful dark-brown hair. “I’m supposed to be on the side of the angels,” he said, “but how can that be?”

&nbs
p; After a long time, Róisín bought Eoin into her bedroom. “We’ve got to get those clothes off,” she said. “You’re covered in blood.”

  Eoin grunted. “Crown evidence,” he said in a small voice, not without humor. “That’s the second suit I’ve ruined with blood.”

  Eoin’s left arm, his shooting arm, was covered with the victim’s blood, right down to his French cuffs. “Off with the clothes. We’ve got to get rid of them, or you’ll be swingin’ in Mountjoy by the end of the week.” Róisín stopped in her tracks. Suddenly, her own safety popped into her mind. “Does anyone know you’re here?” Eoin shook his head.

  “How about Mick? Vinny?”

  “No one.”

  Soon he was down to his longjohns. The chill began to seep into him, and he started to shiver. “Jaysus,” Róisín said, as she headed for the fireplace. Eoin plopped down on the bed as Róisín started throwing pieces of coal into the fire. Soon there was a bit of warmth in the November room.

  Róisín went to the kitchen and poured a glass of Jameson’s into a tumbler. “Here,” she thrust it into his hand, “drink this.” Eoin did as he was told and downed the whiskey in one gulp. Róisín, fully dressed, slid into the bed and pulled the eiderdown up over them. Sleep soon overtook Eoin, but Róisín remained awake for a time. It wasn’t long before Eoin shot up in the bed, eyes wild, shouting, “Don’t miss him, Vinny!”

  Róisín soothed him in a calm voice: “It’s alright, Eoin. It’s over. Vinny got him.”

  “Thank God,” said Eoin, as he slid back, calm and relieved, into a deep sleep.

  “Yes,” repeated Róisín, “thank God.”

  When Eoin awoke later that evening, he was alone in the bed and momentarily didn’t know where he was. Then Róisín entered the room, fresh from her bath, with a towel wrapped around her body as she dried her hair with another towel.

  “How are ya?” she asked, as if it were any Sunday of the year. “I just had a grand wash. It seems I can never get that hospital antiseptic smell off me.”

  “It was awful,” was all Eoin could muster.

  As Róisín dried her hair, her towel dropped to the floor. Eoin’s eyes grew as hot as the burning coals in the fireplace. Róisín looked at him and could only laugh. “It’s a hairy ould oyster, isn’t it, Eoin dear,” she said, without embarrassment.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Know what? The hair? Did you think I had a cauliflower down there?”

  “Could I see . . .”

  “See what?”

  “Your bottom.”

  “My derriere!” Róisín laughed, turned around, bent over, and stuck her rump out. “Best arse in Dublin City!” she called over her shoulder.

  “I know,” said Eoin.

  Collins was wrong. In the GPO, he said Róisín had an arse on her like “that of a skinny thirteen-year-old boy,” but it wasn’t small and boney at all. In fact, it was very shapely, with plenty of buoyancy to it. Eoin’s willie approved. “Come here,” he said, the staccato of his voice showing his nervousness. “My Mammy always said, ‘Modesty is the best policy.’”

  “Your Mammy was wrong,” she replied, and, this time, Eoin agreed. “When I’m naked,” continued Róisín, “it’s the only time I really feel free.” She stood there, in her glorious nude, her arms defiantly on her hips. “Everyone on this terrible planet deserves one special person they can be naked with.” She then went to Eoin and pulled his willie free of his longjohns. “Ah,” she exclaimed, “the elusive Parnell! Little Big Fellow! Or is it Big Little Fellow?”

  “For once,” replied Eoin, “leave Collins out of it.” This elicited a laugh from Róisín. She moved in and kissed Eoin full on the lips. “You’re my Big Fellow now, and you always will be.” Then Róisín was on top of Eoin, passionately kissing him. “I’ve wanted your shoes under me bed for a long time now.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “The time had to be right.”

  “Is this a sin?” asked Eoin, uncomfortably.

  Róisín was about to say, “Believe me, this is the least offensive sin you’ve committed today,” but this time, she caught herself. The boy had been through enough. “Only if you don’t get me off!” she laughed. Eoin gave a feeble grin as his newly christened Parnell stood at attention, climbing over his belly button, waiting for her. “Now, I want you to sin like you mean it,” whispered Róisín, as she prepared to end Eoin Kavanagh’s day in love, so far removed from the hate in which it had begun.

  121

  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1920

  Eoin dressed in the dark as quietly as he could, all the time keeping his eyes on the sleeping Róisín. Amidst all the chaos that his life had become, he was calmed by her love and her beauty. When everything seemed hopeless, the mere thought of Róisín kept him moving for another day.

  “Come back to bed,” she said.

  “Got to get going,” Eoin replied quietly, as he leaned down to give Róisín a kiss. “I’ve got to see what’s going on in Crow Street. I’ve kept my head low long enough.” Róisín pushed herself up in the bed with her elbow and exposed her breasts. The biggest surprise to Eoin was how full and round they were. Róisín had done a neat job of keeping them tucked in. Another surprise was how brown and big her nipples were. He began to feel his Parnell move and repeated, “I’ve got to go.” Róisín sighed, turned over, and went back to sleep for another hour.

  Eoin came out into Walworth Street and made his way to Camden Street. He stopped in a tobacconist shop and picked up the newspapers from both Dublin and London. “Terrible, terrible day,” the newsagent commented.

  “Yes,” said Eoin, absently. He knew all about it.

  “Terrible carnage in Croke Park,” continued the man. “Fourteen dead, including a footballer.”

  “What?”

  “The murders in Croke Park.”

  “Croke Park?” Eoin was befuddled.

  “Look at the headline.”

  DEADLY HAIL

  THOUSANDS OF FOOTBALL

  SPECTATORS UNDER FIRE

  FOURTEEN KILLED

  INDESCRIBABLE SCENES OF

  PANIC AT CROKE PARK

  MICHAEL HOGAN, TIPPERARY PLAYED, KILLED

  The British had enacted their always-inarticulate revenge on Dublin for the elimination of their Secret Service. All the papers were crying out about the twenty-eight deaths in Dublin on what they were now calling “Bloody Sunday.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Eoin, paying up. He came out of the shop and began a steady jog for Crow Street. It was still dark out when he arrived. When he entered the office, Liam Tobin was already at work. “What the fuck is going on?” he asked Tobin. Liam looked at Eoin and shook his head. “Where’s Mick?”

  “McKee and Clancy are missing,” he said, not answering the question. “Mick has Boynton and Broy searching Dublin Castle for them. They were lifted late Saturday night.”

  “Mick?”

  “He’s gone mad,” said Tobin. “I just got off the phone with him. He’s beside himself over McKee and Clancy.”

  “But you don’t know where he is?”

  “I only have a phone number.”

  “Let me see it,” said Eoin. It was Collins’s number at the secret office in Mespil Road. “I’ve got to go see Mick,” was the last thing Eoin said before he bolted out the door.

  Years later, Eoin said the date he hated the most in the calendar year was November 22nd.

  In 1963, he was on the floor of the House of Representatives, bullshitting with Republican Congressman Gerry Ford of Michigan and Congressman Tip O’Neill from Boston, when he heard the warning bell of the AP ticker go crazy in the Democratic Cloak Room. Something big had happened.

  PRESIDENT KENNEDY SHOT. STOP.

  Eoin ripped the paper out of the machine. “Good Jesus,” he said to his fellow congressmen.

  The bell on the UPI machine, sitting side-by-side with its AP mate, rang up ten bells, signaling a “flash” message.

  THREE SHOTS WE
RE FIRED AT PRESIDENT KENNEDY’S MOTORCADE IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS. STOP.

  The AP bell began manically ringing again, as if in competition with its UPI rival.

  DALLAS-AP-PRESIDENT KENNEDY WAS SHOT TO/DAY JUST AS HIS MOTORCADE LEFT DOWNTOWN DALLAS. STOP.

  A small crowd began to form, and all eyes were glued to the teletype machine.

  The bell rang yet again.

  AP PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES W. ALTGENS SAID HE SAW/BLOOD ON THE PRESIDENT’S HEAD. STOP.

  Eoin knew all about head wounds, and his heart sank into his gut. He was haunted, as if God were never going to let him forget the Dublin of 1920, now being recreated in Dallas in 1963.

  The bell on the teletype machine rang once more, and this time it didn’t stop.

  DALLAS-AP-KENNEDY 46 LIVED ABOUT AN HOUR/AFTER SNIPER CUT HIM DOWN AS HIS LIMOUSINE/LEFT DOWNTOWN DALLAS. AUTOMATICALLY THE MANTLE OF THE PRESIDENCY/FELL TO VICE PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON . . .

  “God help Lyndon,” Eoin murmured as he quietly broke off from the crowd around the teletype machines and went back to his office. He closed the door and called Róisín in New York. “Have you heard the news?”

  “Walter Cronkite is on the TV, crying,” she said.

  “I’ve known Jack Kennedy since 1947, when he was just a skinny kid with a bad back and a brand new congressional seat brought for him by his rich daddy. He couldn’t even give a speech properly. He was awful on the stump.” Eoin laughed for a minute, the way the Irish laugh when one of their own dies. “I got to get the fuck out of here,” he told her over the phone.