Now, two hours later, the battle was at its peak. Much had already been lost - the chapel was so much smoking rubble, the kitchen block completely destroyed, the conservatory no longer existed. The much treasured African Pavilion above the bake-house had gone. But much of the east wing remained - the long room, the gallery, the library, salons and rooms all extending towards the stable block - all endangered, but still standing. And while firemen battled in the great hall to hold the flames at bay, a long line of other men, coughing against the swirling smoke, worked desperately to clear the east wing of its contents.
The stable block had become store-house and operations room. O'Brien worked unceasingly, dashing from one point to another, shouting above the crackle of fire like a general at the front.
Across the lawn Dorothy emerged from the summerhouse, still shaking from her efforts to calm the gardener's niece. The girl and her uncle had been outside the conservatory when the explosion occurred. Shards of flying glass had slashed the old man to ribbons, it seemed certain he had lost the use of one eye.
Dorothy tried to collect herself with a few deep breaths - but hot, acrid air burned her lungs and made her cough. Her eyes smarted, she dabbed at them impatiently, only to smear another speck of soot across her face. She could hardly bring herself to look at the house, especially the gaunt, gutted skeleton of the west wing. Beyond that firemen bravely fought the furious blaze in the great hall, and dimly on the far side she could just make out three or four men carrying paintings. Dense, drifting smoke obscured her vision. Shock dulled her comprehension until she realised they must have reached the gallery. A great clod of a labourer was trailing two canvases behind him, bouncing the frames down the terrace steps.
She saw another man with three precious vases crunched together in his arms. Dorothy set off across the lawn for the stable block.
Minutes later she had taken charge, freeing O'Brien for work in the house. Two men set a Gainsborough down into a bed of urine-stinking straw. Dorothy draped a sack around the edges of the frame and turned to supervise the handling of a favourite Turner ...
And then it happened. Badly jolted when Duffy fell from the stable roof earlier, the crude timing mechanism of the IRA bomb had slipped by three hours. At two-thirty it exploded. The blast drove the walls of the stable block outwards with an ear-splitting roar. Masonry, roof timbers, stone lintels, slates, erupted into a suffocating mountain of pulverised mortar. Tremors of shock ran the entire length of the house - right through to the great hall, knocking the blazing staircase completely clear of the walls and halfway to the doors. The smoke-filled gallery suffered an earthquake. Shelves in the library gave way, dumping thousands of books onto a floor made sodden by water seeping under the doors. Outside, along the northern elevation, Corinthian pillars snapped like matchsticks to displace the vast curved stone pediment with a thunderous roar. The great house of Brackenburn writhed in its death throes like an enormous mythical animal racked with convulsions.
Eoin O'Brien went momentarily deaf. He saw men scream, but heard only a thundering roar in his ears. Twice his escape from the gallery was blocked by falling masonry. He slipped once and twisted his knee so badly that he cried out in pain. Somehow he dragged himself through the door and out onto the terrace.
Survivors scrambled away from the house. They ran down the lawns, casting terrified looks over their shoulders, as if expecting the house to reach out and pull them back. They shouted to each other and pointed at their ears, indicating deafness. Firemen deserted their posts and servants abandoned their master's property.
Not everyone survived. Twenty minutes later, when O'Brien rallied the group on the lawn and restored their courage, they tore at the wreckage with bare hands, desperate to release those trapped under the rubble. But the stable block yielded only victims. Corpse after corpse was revealed. Eight bodies in all, seven men and one woman ...
Black Friday. A great house destroyed, eight Protestants killed - and Ulster had claimed another Averdale. Lady Dorothy was dead.
Chapter Thirteen
At four o'clock that Friday afternoon - just as Mark Averdale's train pulled into Belfast, and Sean's luncheon party ended at the Shelbourne Hotel - a delivery van drew to a halt in a quiet road in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham. The van had circled the streets for such a long time that the driver might have been searching for an address - but in fact he knew the address perfectly well. He was making sure the house was not under surveillance. His passenger - a grey-haired, heavily built man of about fifty, wearing an American-made suit under his raincoat - sighed his relief. He was tired. A hunted look marked his expression, as well it might for a thousand to one chance had almost caused his arrest earlier that day. He had been recognised when he landed at Cork. He had escaped by the skin of his teeth and rendezvoused with the van - but his face was already on the front page of the evening newspapers, above the caption - "Liam Riordan, seen back in Ireland."
As the van drew away, Riordan slipped through the gate and walked briskly to the back door. Rory Quinn opened it almost immediately "Be God, get yourself in. The whole country is looking for you. There's your picture in the papers."
So "Granite" Liam Riordan returned to Ireland. It was an ironic situation. He had been an honoured guest in Germany, but in Ireland for whose freedom he had fought all of his life - he was hunted like an animal, and he was greatly relieved to reach the IRA "safe house". There were few such havens left. Dev's detectives were everywhere. The IRA had become badly fragmented, its central organisation had virtually collapsed. IRA men languished in Kilmainham Jail, and those still free fought each other for control of what was once a national movement. Much needed to be done to restore unity. Which was why Liam Riordan had come home.
His return sounded a rallying-call. Local commanders began to assemble from all over the country. Grim faced men, each with a revolver under his jacket, came from Galway, Cork, Belfast and Limerick - and they came to the house in Rathfarnham. It took them two days to congregate, and the meeting began on the third - with lookouts posted in the gardens and on every street corner for a mile around.
Liam Riordan got straight to his report. "It's hard in the States now," he confessed. "They don't know who to believe, what with Dev telling them one thing and us saying another."
Riordan had persevered, travelling the country, trying to persuade senators and congressmen to intervene with Britain over Northern Ireland. And he had raised some money for arms, never as much as he hoped for, but every man in that room had benefited as they gratefully admitted. Despite that it was a glum report - "Dev's still got a big following, especially in New York. They think he's a bloody hero."
The men chorused their disgust. Their account of Dev's wrongdoings would have gone on longer, but they were anxious to hear the rest of Riordan's news. He tried to end on a more cheerful note by recalling a Clann na Gael meeting on New York's 25th Street - "They had some idea of sending an aeroplane over to bomb the House of Commons in London. It wouldn't have the petrol to get back across the Atlantic, so the idea was to crash-land it on the French coast."
That particular idea had been abandoned, but it had led to an alternative plan - "They're dead scared we will start another civil war here in the south," Riordan told them, "so we've got to take the fight out of Ireland. The idea is for a bombing campaign in England itself. We'll explode bombs in London and Birmingham and all over - what about that?"
The idea took hold. They agreed to return to it later, after Riordan had told them about Germany. "Sure there's all the arms in the world there," he said, "the whole bloody country is one big arsenal." He reported on his meetings with Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr - "Ribbentrop is a lying bastard. To listen to him there's no chance of a war. He says that with a straight face when you can't move in Berlin for bumping into a uniform. Canaris is a professional though ... if there is a war, Canaris will help, I'm sure about that."
"How will he help?"
&n
bsp; "With arms - men too maybe, if we have a go at the north."
It was late afternoon when they finished discussing America and Germany. No one considered the news good. Clearly they would get little immediate help from the outside world in their war with the British let alone for their fight against the Irish government. And events within Ireland itself were just as gloomy. Dev had gained the upper hand in the south, and Craig's RUC was as relentless as ever north of the border. The only success in months had been the destruction of Brackenburn.
Liam Riordan was absolutely staggered by the news. Matt? His own son? Typically he had not enquired about his family - not asked for news of his mother, or his wife, or his son - everything was secondary to the fight for Ireland. Nothing could have astonished him more. But there was no mistaking his pride - especially when Jimmy Traynor confirmed that Matt had actually led the raid. "He's a chip off the old block, Liam," Traynor finished. "You wait until you see him." Liam Riordan sat shaking his head in delighted surprise.
It was a cheering interlude in a catalogue of setbacks - but when the story had been celebrated it was time to get back to business. Liam Riordan picked up the idea of a bombing campaign in England. "The average Englishman doesn't give a damn about Ireland. But he'll take notice when we start blowing bloody great holes in Birmingham and Manchester and the like. There'll be such a public outcry that Parliament will have to do something."
The plan was deadly in its simplicity. Groups of men would be trained in the use of explosives and sent to different towns in England. By December they would be ready to launch a co-ordinated bombing attack on prime targets. The British government would be told - "Get out of Northern Ireland - or else ..."
Training centres were designated - two in the south, Killiney Castle, just outside Dublin, and a hall in St Stephen's Green - and in the north Jimmy Traynor suggested some disused farm cottages near Keady in County Armagh. "Less than a mile from the border."
"Why not somewhere in Belfast?"
"Are you kidding? That Brackenburn business has stirred up a real hornets' nest. You can't move without being searched by B Specials."
So by eight o'clock the bombing campaign was agreed upon, and the meeting was over. The men began to disperse, leaving the house in ones and twos, until finally only Liam Riordan and Rory Quinn remained. They opened a back window to let in some fresh air. Riordan was tired but satisfied. December would bring a badly needed IRA initiative. Headlines for the cause would be captured around the world - and all without endangering Irish lives. It was a very good plan indeed.
When the plan was explained to Matt Riordan two days later in Belfast, he thought it was brilliant - "Wouldn't you think someone would have come up with this before?"
Traynor laughed. "I told your Da you'd be in charge of things at Keady. That pleased him nearly as much as Brackenburn."
Matt blushed. He gave Traynor a quick, sly look - "He really was pleased then?"
Traynor told him again. "Some of the men in that room have known Liam Riordan for twenty years without seeing him smile. But he grinned and grinned about Brackenburn. He was too proud to hide it."
Matt felt giddy with elation. His father was proud of him! It was a wonderful feeling. "When is he coming north?" he asked eagerly.
"When everything is set up in Dublin. He'll have to tread carefully though, the place is alive with Dev's detectives, all looking for him."
Matt was struck by a sudden thought - "He's not going after Connors is he? I want to be there -"
"Don't worry about that - he'll have no time for Connors just yet, he'll have his work cut out training men for this bombing campaign. Connors will have to wait until later."
Matt was reassured. He was excited about the bombing campaign he saw himself blowing up bridges and BBC transmitter masts at dead of night all over England. But he could never forget leaning out of that carriage that day to spit in the face of Sean Connors. One day, he vowed, the Riordans and the Connors will have a reckoning - and now that his father was back in Ireland that day would be soon.
"You're to get down to Keady in the morning," Traynor said. "You'll be safer out of Belfast anyway. Besides, everything must be organised for your Da when he gets up here -"
"So when will he be here?"
"When he can," Traynor said sharply, "the end of the month most likely. It won't be easy - he is being hunted from pillar to post."
They stared at each other, then Matt grinned. "He'll be all right. Everything will be all right. I can feel it in my bones. Don't worry, they'll never catch him in Dublin."
But Liam Riordan nearly was caught in Dublin just a few days later when Gardai raided the house in Rathfarnham. He would have been caught had he been there, but as luck had it he had been delayed overnight at Killiney Castle, so the dawn raid trapped only Rory Quinn in bed with his wife. Both were arrested and although neither would talk, a search of the house revealed some damning evidence. The makings of explosives were found in the basement - potassium chloride, iron oxide, and a half gallon drum of sulphuric acid. Then came another discovery - a grey jacket with a New York tailor's label, and a notebook in one pocket listing Irish-Americans living in Boston - and, most damning of all, an envelope addressed to Liam Riordan.
"He's been staying there all right," detectives told Pat Connors later. "Quinn won't talk, nor will his wife - but we think Riordan is still somewhere in Dublin."
The hunt had been going on for more than a week. Informers had been visited, addresses were being watched - but Riordan had slipped through the net.
Sean was as worried as his father - but not just about Liam Riordan.
Sean's first week as owner of the Gazette had turned sour. Dinny had acted strangely - not on the day of the deal - he had been overjoyed then. Champagne in one hand and his service contract in the other, he had given speech after speech - "Be God, I remember the first day I met Sean - him standing in front of my desk ... 'No' says he, 'I don't want your job Mr Macaffety, I think I'd like to own the paper!'"
Sean would never forget that marvellous meal ... surrounded by friends ... Jim Tully laughing, the Widow O'Flynn misty with tears, Michael choked up about the five hundred pounds ... and the Da choking on one of Jim Tully's cigars. It had been a wonderful day.
But problems had arisen the next morning.
Sean had arrived at the office early, flushed with excitement. The gloomy atmosphere which had enveloped the Gazette would be dispelled. They all had a future again. He went straight to the notice-board in the general office to find out which assignments had been allocated to him by O'Toole, the night editor. The place felt like home again more than ever when he heard Dinny bellowing from the editor's office. Then Dinny appeared in the newsroom, hopping from desk to desk, swinging his plastered leg like a balance - "Morning, Mr Connors could you step into my office for a minute."
Sean was surprised - the duty roster said he was to go directly to the RDS to cover the agricultural show. But he did as he was told and as he waited in the editor's office he overheard Dinny outside, rearranging work schedules - "Mac, you can take the Rotary. And Jimmy old son, there's dinner for you at the Gresham tonight, Dev is singing for his supper at the Wolfe Tone dinner."
A moment later Dinny was back, slamming the door behind him "Wouldn't you think they'd laugh themselves sick on The Times. There's the new owner of the Gazette, running around like a junior reporter. And what the hell would I be doing when you creep back after missing a story? Could I kick your arse like the old days? How in God's name could I do that?"
Dinny went on like that for another half hour - by the end of which time Sean's bewilderment had turned to shock. He began to realise that he no longer had a job on the Gazette.
Dinny threw up his hands in exasperation - "You are no longer a humble reporter. You're the owner Sean. I was wondering... would you care to take over the editorial? After all, it is the proprietor's right."
Sean went white. Dinny's editorials were famous. His fierce br
oadsides were read out in the Dail. Dinny's no-holds-barred tub thumping had given the Gazette its circulation.
"I couldn't do that, Mr Macaffety, I haven't the experience ... besides you write the best editorials in Ireland."
The more they talked, the plainer the issue became. There was no avoiding it. What was Sean going to do with the paper, now that he owned it? In the excitement of creating the deal he had not thought of that. He had imagined things as before. But the changed circumstances gradually registered as Dinny emphasised point after point.
Finally Sean drew a deep breath and asked - "Do you think you could teach me to be a newspaper proprietor, Mr Macaffety?"
Macaffety's head went back in a roar of laughter. "Do you know, that's the one thing I can't. Isn't it the only thing I've never been - a newspaper proprietor. But it is a very good life, Sean. Days at the races, travel around Europe. You go to the opera in London and cross the Atlantic on the Queen Mary. By God, it's the life of Old Riley, you'll love every minute."
Their laughter eased the awkwardness, but the problem was still there to be resolved. Dinny scratched his chin. "You know," he said after a while, "this needs thinking about. Isn't that the trouble? You set the world on its arse and nobody's had chance to catch their breath. Would you do me a favour? Would you take a week off? That's what Lord Bowley would do, so maybe taking a leaf out of his book will help. He was a grand man, Sean. He had a rule. Every day he spent an hour by himself, just thinking. He told me about it, wanted me to do it. I never caught the habit, but for an hour a day he sat quietly thinking ... about his life, what he wanted for himself and his son ... what his friends might do, and his enemies ... things like that. And I never saw him caught out, not once. He was always ready, no matter what."
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 109