COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1984 Ian St. James
Copyright Digital Edition © 2012 Ian St. James
The right of Ian St. James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Print Edition first published in 1987 by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd
Digital Edition first published in 2012 by Sixty Forty Publishing Ltd
ISBN Mobi 978-0-9571437-5-3
www.sixtyfortybooks.com
DEDICATION
With love and thanks to my daughter Karen, who helped type the first manuscript... and the second... the third... fourth and the fifth.
PROLOGUE
When I began to write the story of my father's life I thought it would be easy. I had access to his old business records, copies of letters, press clippings, all the material I needed. Not only that but I knew a great many of his friends. But then I discovered a side of his life which had been hidden from me. The more I delved the more I found out, until a kind of pattern emerged which linked his life to the lives of other people. I thought it was coincidence at first, but that theory died as more facts were unearthed. I spent months in London, New York, Dublin, Paris, Belfast, even Nairobi - always searching to uncover the tracks. The revelations astonished me. My father had been involved in a feud which stretched back to his boyhood - a feud which touched the lives of a great many people. It smouldered over the years - spluttered, died down and flared up again - but it never went out. It was always there, if not always apparent. It was forever the link between the Connors and the Averdales, the O'Brien's and the Riordan's - a link that endured relentlessly - until THE KILLING ANNIVERSARY.
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
Finola Connors took to her bed. She did so wearily. For weeks she had suffered a sapping loss of energy. Everything was an effort, even simple things like carrying water up from the stand pump two flights down in the street. In days past she had done that a dozen times without catching her breath ... now she counted every step and rested on every landing ... and only half filled the buckets instead of slopping them to the brim as in the old days.
The good old days, she thought, shifting her bloated body uncomfortably. Times had been hard, but weren't they always. She sighed as her mind drifted back. So much had happened in this room, this one entire room for the two of them, when families of ten and twelve lived and slept in rooms no bigger in the next street. It had troubled her once. She had felt guilty - all this space when Dublin's slums were the worst in Europe. But hadn't Michael Collins explained it, the day she and Pat had moved in nine years ago. "Tis not for you lovebirds," he had said, waving a hand at the room, "but for the whole of Ireland." How right he had been. The meetings had started the very first week - not a day passed without one of them wanting to come in. She had seen them all in this room - Padraic Pearse and James Connolly, Eamon de Valera and dozens more. Some of their talk went beyond her, but she had watched and listened, and helped Pat where she could ... guiding decisions with her sound common sense. Nine years? Had it really been that long? So many hours of excited crack with young patriots. Boys some of them, they had made her feel old. Erskine Childers always joking, Mick Mallins smiling, Dev serious, Cathal Brugha with a scowl on his face.
A sudden contraction made her cry out. She went rigid, paralysed by fear. Her eyes focused on the crucifix over the door. The agonies of childbirth were nothing new to Finola Connors - she had been six times pregnant before, only to birth a still-born child every time.
The spasm passed. She panted with relief and wiped beads of sweat from her hairline. How long, she asked, how long since the last contraction - how long until the next? Without a clock she was unable to judge. But sure there was plenty of time. Time for her sister to arrive, time even for Pat to be pacing the landing. She smiled as she remembered telling Pat that the baby was at least ten days away. Wasn't it for the best - best for a great lump like Pat to be well away at a time like this.
She cast about for fresh thoughts to keep her mind off the pain. Her gaze settled on the fireside chair. Joseph Plunkett's chair. He always sat there in the old days. Him with his long hair and rings on his fingers, and his never-ending talk. He used to say Ireland had a standing army of a hundred thousand poets. Pat would go red in the face and say it's a hundred thousand soldiers we need, soldiers not bloody poets! Her eyes shone at the memory. "This room," she said aloud, "sure wasn't Mick right. Hasn't this room played a part in birthing a new Ireland."
But another spasm struck fear into her heart and made her writhe on the bed. "Soon," she whispered, "Bridget had better come soon. Someone had better come soon." Even the sound of Pat's step on the landing would be welcome.
But Pat was in Mulligan's Bar, talking about the events of the day.
"What happened then, Pat?" someone encouraged.
Pat waited until those furthest away edged closer. Then loudly he said, "Lord Fitzalan himself was there. Lord Fitzalan - His Britannic Majesty's representative in Dublin, the last Viceroy of all Ireland."
"The last at last," shouted the crowd at the bar.
"Lord Fitzalan himself," Pat repeated, "standing there with his hand held out. 'I'm glad to see you, Mr Collins,' says he, and Michael Collins shook the hand, 'Like hell you are,' says he, with a grin a mile wide."
Hoots of laughter gave way to howls of triumph. At the end of the mahogany counter an old man tucked a fiddle under his chin and began to play the ballad of Kevin Barry. Those around him took up the song, Pat joined in too, though he would have been forgiven a sad note in his voice, for Pat had known Kevin Barry. Pat had sent the boy to his death. The summer before last. They had set up an ambush in King Street and killed a soldier. Young Barry had been captured and court-martialled. The IRA claimed he should be treated as a prisoner of war - but the British hanged him as a murderer.
The men roared the song, shouting with pride. Pat shouted too, but he wondered how many would have met death with the courage of that eighteen-year-old medical student. He pushed the thought aside. It was a sour note on a night like this. Tonight was for celebrating a new Ireland, free of the British at last. Next to him Danny Hoey was ordering up another round of drinks, while along the bar his cousin Eamon was recounting his role in the Easter Rising. "Sure now," he was saying, "wasn't it then it all started? Wasn't it then we lit the lamp of freedom for all Ireland?"
But Eamon was a poor story-teller and was shouted down - while Pat was plagued from all sides to tell the same tale - as if there was a man there who hadn't heard it before. But no man loves a story better than an Irishman, and Pat had the gifts of a shanachie. Just the sound of his voice carried men back to their boyhoods, when the arrival of a storyteller would turn a whole village upside down with excitement. Extra turf would be thrown on the fire while they settled down to hear of Robert Emmet and Daniel O'Connell ... and of the Fenian Risings and so many things. But all agreed that no man alive told the Easter Rising like Pat Connors, and for sure there was no better tale to tell in Ireland on 21 January 1922.
Pat began slowly. It was a close-run thing, he reminded them. Eoin MacNeil nearly called the whole thing off - especially when Casement was arrested - but Darlin' Padraic Pearse had insisted they go on. Pearse and Connolly had carried it through - without them the Rising would have gone the way of all others - brave talk with no
more substance than a whiff of smoke. But on that Easter Monday morning Pearse and Connolly marched their men out of Liberty Hall and down Sackville Street to the General Post Office. And moments later it was Commandant-General Pearse who stood between the massive pillars at the front of the building. "Irishmen and Irishwomen," he shouted, "Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for freedom."
And sure enough a flag appeared on the roof of the GPO - the traditional green flag with the gold harp, but "Irish Republic" had been embroidered across this one in gold silk. Then another flag was run up, a strange new flag, a tricolour of green and white and orange. Green for Ireland, orange for the Orange brothers in the north, and white for peace between the two.
Elsewhere in the city other rebels moved into position. Daly took over the Four Courts. John Connolly occupied City Hall. Sean Heuston's men marched into the Mendicity Institution ... and Eamon de Valera took a force to occupy Boland's Flour Mills, overlooking the roads from Kingstown.
In the space of two hours, Dublin, second city of the British Empire, had effectively fallen to a handful of Irish rebels - with barely a shot being fired.
Years later Irishmen would ask "Where were you in 1916?" - and Pat Connors was one of the lucky ones. "In the GPO," he would answer, "along with Pearse and Connolly and other brave men."
"Tell us about the Lancers, Pat," someone prompted, fearing Pat might miss some of the story.
Pat sipped his stout. It began quietly, he remembered. They erected barricades in the Post Office. Then, late in the afternoon, a group of Lancers appeared at the end of the street. The setting sun glinted on spurs and brass buttons. A light breeze tugged at the Lancers' pennants as they rode down Sackville Street. Suddenly rifle fire blazed from the GPO. Four Lancers lay dead on the cobblestones. The Easter killings had started.
Some Lancers escaped, and tore off to spread the news. Military commanders were stunned. It was hours before they flashed the news to England by naval telegraph ... and gave the order for the six thousand British soldiers in Ireland to grab their arms and march upon Dublin.
On the Wednesday the British brought a gunboat up the Liffey and began to shell Liberty Hall. And the Sherwood Foresters landed at Kingstown - only for their march on the city to be stopped at Mount Street bridge by a detachment of Dev's men sent from Boland's Mill. Time and again the Foresters moved forward, to be driven back by the Volunteers.
But British strategy inside the city was unfolding. Rebel positions were encircled, and then reduced to rubble by artillery fire. The gunboat on the river switched aim to the GPO. Field cannons started pounding from the end of Sackville Street. Machine-guns added their own deadly chatter ... until the word went round ... the GPO was doomed ... it was merely a matter of time.
Shells ripped the crumbling fabric of the GPO for the rest of the day - but still the rebels held out. Thursday was the same. The boom of the gunboat's cannon, the snarl of artillery and crackle of machine-guns all met by sporadic rifle fire from the Volunteers. Their flags still flew above them, and men scrambled amid the rubble to take up fresh positions. The badly injured were carried away to some hospital by women Volunteers - flames soared high into the sky, bathing the whole city in a scarlet glow. Fire swept through Dominick Street to the north and Abbey Street to the south ... but still the guns pounded.
Finally Connolly made the decision to move. He led a group into Abbey Street, where they blasted their way into the Independent building. That done, he returned for the rest of his men. A ricochet bullet smashed through his ankle. In agony, under fire all the way, he dragged himself down the alley between Abbey Street and Princess Street, and hauled himself back into the Post Office.
The battle raged on through the hours of darkness. The gunboat boomed, the artillery never stopped. A red glare lit the sky. Great scarlet showers of sparks soared with each shell burst ... but still the rebels fought on.
When Friday dawned nobody noticed - the grey morning light was imperceptible beneath the pall of greasy smoke. The men in the GPO clung on but elsewhere the battle was turning against them. Dev's detachment on the city boundary had finally fallen to the advancing Foresters. The British were across the canal at last...
Fires swept the Post Office. The roof collapsed. Bullets whined everywhere. Connolly was carried to the front of the building, to direct operations from a stretcher. Michael Collins and Magistrate O'Rahilly were despatched to find alternative headquarters. They led a dash down Henry Street, awash with machine-gun fire. O'Rahilly fell, as did others on his heels. Collins got through almost alone. Another escape route had to be found. They tried Moore Street. Everyone made a run from the Post Office - with Connolly carried on his stretcher. They holed up in a grocer's shop, firing from every window as the British charged after them. Nearby was a pub, already in flames. The publican emerged from his door, leading his family under a white flag - a terrified huddle of people who barely reached the corner before being scythed down by bullets.
Inside the grocer's the rebels worked furiously - knocking through one wall, then another, until emerging in a fishmonger's shop in Great Britain Street. Exhausted, wounded, dazed - they erected barricades, then picked over their ammunition like misers counting gold. The British covered every movement with a blanket of fire. The fall of darkness brought little relief. The British infiltrated positions on all sides - denying the rebels chance to sleep or rest, or even tend the wounded.
They held a conference the next morning - with Connolly propped against a wall, wincing with agony. It didn't take long to accept the inevitable. They had no choice but to surrender. Elizabeth O'Farrell, a Volunteer Nurse, was sent carrying a white flag to the British ... and, at 3.30 pm on Saturday 29 April, Pearse, wearing his Volunteer uniform with its Boer War slouch hat, ceremoniously handed his sword to Brigadier General Lowe on the steps of the burnt-out Post Office. The 1916 Rising was over.
In Mulligan's Bar, Pat Connors took a long swig of his beer. Nobody had spoken since he started, for nobody interrupts a shanachie. Even now the bar remained silent. They watched and waited for the rest of the story. Finally Pat burped softly and resumed his tale, lowering his voice to an undertone of reverence.
The executions began four days later. Pearse was the first. At his court-martial he said, "When I was a child I went down on my knees and promised God I would devote my life to free my country. I have kept my promise."
Then the British shot him.
Thomas MacDonagh told his court-martial, "Tis sweet and glorious to die for one's country. I am proud to die for Ireland, my glorious Fatherland."
Then the British shot him.
A priest took a beautiful girl into Joseph Plunkett's cell and performed a marriage ceremony by the light of a candle. The girl was allowed ten minutes alone with Plunkett - then the British shot him.
Daly and Michael O'Hanrahan were executed at the same time. Poor Willie Pearse was court-martialled seemingly for no other reason than being Padraic's brother. Then the British shot him too.
James MacBride was executed on the fifth of May. Ceant was shot on the eighth - along with Mallin, Heuston and Colbert.
James Connolly was court-martialled in a chair, unable to stand on his shattered ankle. Earlier a surgeon had shared a few words with him while applying a splint to his broken bones. "I'm wasting my time," he told Connolly, "they will shoot you for sure."
"Oh, you think so?"
"I'm sure of it."
"Why?"
"Can they buy you?"
"No."
"Can they frighten you?"
"No."
"Will you promise to be a good boy in future?"
"No."
"Then they can do nothing but shoot you."
"Oh, sure don't I recognise that," said Connolly cheerfully. And minutes later he was joking with his wife and daughter. "Do you know, Lily, a man came into the Post Office to buy a stamp. 'Go away,' says we, 'we're fighting the British.' 'Oh,' says he. 'Is that the case
? Sure it's a fine bloody revolution when a man can't even buy a stamp at the Post Office'."
Then the British shot him, sitting in his chair because he was unable to stand. Sean MacDermott was executed along with him. Fifteen brave men were executed in ten days. Later an Irishwoman wrote, "It was like watching a stream of blood coming from under a closed door."
And so it was, Pat remembered - but Ireland would never be the same. The centre of Dublin lay in ruins. More than thirteen hundred people were killed or wounded during Easter week. The Rising had been put down, but Padraic Pearse had been right - a blood sacrifice had been needed and one had been given. So that now, on 21 January 1922, the British had sounded the last retreat from Dublin Castle - the British were going at last!
Three miles from Mulligan's Bar, in the cluttered room on Ammet Street, close to the Quays in Dublin's dockland, Finola Connors cried out with pain. Contractions racked her body. She jerked convulsively on the bed. Beads of sweat rose on her forehead to break into rivulets on the sodden pillow. Strength drained from her like sand through an hourglass.
The spasm passed. Her lips moved in prayer as she turned towards the window. The night blackness glinted back from a gap in the curtains. She imagined the brooding bulk of the Guinness Brewery at the end of the street, with its chimneys that never stopped churning, and the all pervading smell of yeast and malt which came with the soot. How many times had she stood at that window waiting for Pat? How many hours, weeks, months of her life had been spent looking down into that mean little street? She knew its scenes by heart - men selling potatoes from handcarts; ragged children with white, pinched faces, soldiers searching for hidden arms - and sometimes Pat himself, striding along with his shoulders back, as if he owned Dublin itself.
Her eyes brightened. They always did when she thought of Pat - even now, even during the last year when she had watched him change and been frightened by his new ways and adopted harshness. He was still her Pat underneath, still the same strong, gentle boy who had courted her. But her eyes darkened as she remembered his coldness at times, his callousness when he spoke of killing informers. "We're at war, Finola," he would say, "and wars are won by killing people - it's the way things are."
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 80