As for Sean, 1966 was a glittering year. Everything he touched turned to gold. And with Kate at his side his world was just perfect.
Except... well there was one thing... two really, small incidents which marred his last trip to New York. His hotel was picketed by a group calling themselves "The friends of Ireland". Placards were waved below his window. One said simply - "Brits get out of Ireland" but another read - "Pat Connors was an Irish hero, Sean Connors is a British stooge."
A rival magazine had published a piece on him, based on the disastrous interview he had given in Chicago all those years earlier.
Freddie told him not to worry - "It stirred up a few cranks, that's all. Don't let it get under your skin."
But it did - then something else cropped up. Sean was at a party with an Irish-American he had met through Ambassador Kennedy. A collection was being taken up for the IRA - and when Sean refused to give even a dime he found himself criticised by everyone in the room. He had left shortly after - and of course Kate told him to forget it - but now and then it crept back into his mind.
Thankfully his life was too crowded to dwell on it. His businesses were now so far flung that the whole world was his oyster. Ireland was deep in the past, along with bad memories like Matt Riordan.
But while Matt Riordan was a fading image in the mind of Sean Connors, that was never the case in reverse. Matt's hatred lived on. He clung to it. It was his life-raft through a sea of failure. Matt's existence had never been sweetened by the taste of success. Matt knew only the bitterness of defeat, the heartache of setbacks - but he never gave up. Often down but never counted out, he always got up and fought on. Hatred bolstered his self-respect. He was forever telling himself that he would settle with Connors and all enemies of Ireland one day ... one fine day in the future.
The going was hard most of the time. Matt had initiated a propaganda campaign that was beginning to capture Irish-American interest - but the IRA still struggled to find support in the north. It sickened Matt. Catholics were protesting about injustice as never before, but few were prepared to fight for a united Ireland - "All we want is equal rights with the Prods."
Matt exploded with temper - "You're fighting the wrong bloody war. We want the Brits out of Ireland."
But not all Catholics agreed. Many had relatives on the mainland, who enjoyed a good living, free of religious discrimination. "If we could only get that," they told Matt, "we'll talk about the border some other day."
Matt groaned as the peaceful Civil Rights movement gathered momentum and the IRA languished further behind. Frustration made him angry, but he encouraged himself with the thought that the seeds were there - "It's confrontation on the streets we want. One bloody big riot and O'Neill's fine talk will go up in smoke. Then the people will turn to the IRA."
But where was the IRA? Even in the south it was in tatters again divided by arguments.
Matt was often in Dublin. IRA leaders seemed more left-wing every time he met them. He told them bitterly, "Will you stop yapping about a Marxist society, for God's sake! It sounds like another Cuba. Can you imagine the reaction to that in the States? We'll not get a penny from America that way."
A lesser man might have given up. Many Irishmen did give up. The communist atheism spouted by IRA leaders sounded discordant to Catholic ears. But Matt could no more give up than fly through the air. Liam Riordan would have been proud of his son. Prod shouts of "No Surrender!" struck an answering chord in Matt's heart - he would never surrender, he would fight all the days of his life.
So the months dragged by. He was often away for weeks at a time. His marriage suffered. When he was home conversation with Bridie withered and died. His children grew watchful of his moods. Matt was stern-faced and tight-lipped, like his father before him.
Sometimes in Dublin he took a rare hour off from IRA business to ask around the pubs for news of Sean Connors. But few people had even heard of Sean Connors - or at least not the Sean Connors Matt was seeking. Now and then he met an old feller who said the man Matt was after was living in the States - or in London - or in Australia. One thing was sure, he wasn't in Dublin.
If the news was disappointing, few would have guessed from Matt's expression. His face remained impassive. He stared through the thick lenses of his glasses, his eyes cold and unblinking. "Sure he was a watchful old devil," someone once said, "lonely. Even in a crowd with people around him, he was involved but somehow apart."
Involved but somehow apart summed up Matt's relationship with the IRA leadership. Clashes occurred frequently throughout 1967. Matt was sick and tired of listening to Marxist arguments. Catholic restlessness in Belfast could be channelled into an uprising. "Every week there's some incident. If we got hold of it, fanned the flames, I tell you, the Prods have never been edgier."
But Matt won little support in Dublin.
Once again he returned to Belfast. Nobody gave him a second glance as he walked down the train in search of a seat. His appearance had become even less noteworthy. Thin, gaunt-faced with large spectacles, untidily dressed, he looked too mild-mannered to be a fanatic, too frail for a terrorist. But, as Matt had learned from Ferdy Malloy years before - appearances can be deceptive.
As the train rolled north Matt read the periodicals he had bought at the station. The Irish Times and the Independent were swiftly dealt with, after which he read Seven Days from cover to cover. No more than a few paragraphs were devoted to Northern Ireland. Matt swore softly. To his mind the injustices done to Catholics deserved banner headlines all over the world. He stared at the folded magazine in his lap. The publisher's name caught his eye - "The Seven Days Corporation Inc." It meant nothing to him, some fat cat American businessman, he imagined, who cared only about profits - but then he focused on the next line "European Editor, Michael O'Hara" - and that made him angry. "A name like that," he whispered under his breath, "wouldn't you think a feller called O'Hara would take more interest in Ireland."
Yet Michael O'Hara could hardly be blamed. Seven Days was an international magazine with an international audience. Stories from all over the world competed for space - for instance, from Africa, from Kenya, where President Kenyatta was showing open contempt for Ziggy Beck's dream of a multi-racial society. Africa now belonged to Africans, which gave Kenyatta carte blanche to discriminate against non-Africans especially those of Indian origin. Kenyan Asians fled in their thousands. But those who escaped to Britain failed to find a multi-racial society there. Enoch Powell frightened people silly with his nightmarish vision of the consequences of mass immigration - so brown men were shunned by white and black men alike. Ziggy Beck would have wept.
But Ziggy might have been encouraged by other stories - people were protesting against injustice. Young people were changing the order of things. Student power was growing. Seven Days told of campus unrest from Berkeley, California, to London's LSE. Youth everywhere, it seemed, was impatient and distrustful of political leaders ... whether they be Charles de Gaulle, Lyndon Johnson or Harold Wilson. Young people took to the streets to demonstrate for change - and in that respect the young of Northern Ireland were no different - but the consequences were.
Even so, when clashes occurred in Belfast, those in power at Westminster seemed as unconcerned as ever.
"Leave it to Stormont," was Prime Minister Wilson's attitude - and Roy Jenkins echoed the theme - "Ireland has been the political graveyard of many a politician," he sighed.
Even his successor, Jim Callaghan, paid little attention to the Province. Later he said - "I had no occasion ... to look at the problems of Northern Ireland unless they forced themselves on me."
But the problems were forced on him in October.
It happened in Londonderry - the "Maiden City" as Loyalists call it. Republicans don't call it that - they still call it Derry, the name it had before the Plantation.
The clash in Derry was the answer to Matt Riordan's prayers.
It was a spark which fanned into flames.
Yet thing
s were peaceful to begin with - the Civil Rights movement were conducting an orderly march. Banners protested about poor housing, and unemployment ten times worse than on the mainland. Led by Gerry Fitt and two other Westminster MPs, two thousand people set off to walk to the centre of the city. Then, at the approach to Craigavon Bridge, they were stopped by a phalanx of RUC men. The marchers halted. Their leaders accepted the police order to go no further. They held their meeting where they stood, and were about to disperse when they realised that the police had sealed the street. RUC men were advancing from both ends - then the police unsheathed batons - and charged!
The next day every front page in Britain carried the same picture Gerry Fitt, a Westminster MP, with blood streaming down his head from a gash opened by a policeman's club.
Ninety-five people were injured.
Thirty-six were arrested.
Rioting broke out in the Bogside that night and continued the next day.
At last, the Catholic minority was fighting back - and Matt Riordan's prayers had been answered.
The Seven Days office discussed the theory of a gathering storm. Especially when Prime Minister O'Neill was summoned to Downing Street. Lips were sealed after the meeting, but the message was clear. Outraged back-benchers and a horrified British public had finally goaded Wilson into action - O'Neill had been told to accelerate reforms.
Michael O'Hara's men said - "O'Neill is between a rock and a hard place. The Unionists won't let him go forward, now Wilson won't let him go back."
This time Michael thought they were right. Northern Ireland was building up into a major story. He would have liked to discuss it with Sean - but Sean was in America again, involved with his television interests.
Michael made his decision the next morning. He sent James Cross to Belfast - the same James Cross who had reported the death of the Averdales in Kenya and who, since then, had covered many other trouble spots around the world.
In a way, by sending Jimmy Cross to Belfast, Michael O'Hara acknowledged the inevitability of an explosion, but Michael's decision was much more than that. It triggered off a chain of events which was to lead to another strand in the Irish tragedy, but no one was to know that at the time. Besides, when Sean telephoned from New York he approved - "That's a good move, Michael. Ulster is getting a lot of headlines over here right now."
To begin with it was just another story. But as the months passed and Jimmy Cross wrote of one violent incident after the other - the whole thing began to play on Sean's mind. Ireland came into conversation more, wherever he was in the world. "Say Sean, just what the hell is going on in Ulster?'
Of course nothing happened overnight. Christmas found him in Switzerland with Kate - and Pat came over from school to join them for the holiday. Sean was too happy to worry about a miserable subject like Ireland. "Besides it's a complicated issue," as he once told a friend, "especially for someone like me. Well look at my life. I've never been back since I left. Most of my friends are English or American. Deep in my heart I believe in a united Ireland, but the truth is London has been kind to me. I've nothing against anyone in England, in fact I've a lot of people to thank."
Yet the subject nagged away at the back of his mind.
It played on Kate's mind too, for quite different reasons. For instance she was in Paris the following April, when Terence O'Neill was forced to resign as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Yvette had been taken ill and Kate spent a worrying fortnight hurrying back and forth between her hotel and the nursing home. Business had called Sean to New York.
Thankfully Yvette responded to treatment and began to recover. One afternoon she smiled up from her pillow - "You know, I was wrong to worry about Sean. He makes you very happy, anyone with half an eye can see that."
"I haven't a worry in the world, except making sure you get better."
That was not entirely true and Kate knew it. She was increasingly worried about Sean. This Irish thing was beginning to get to him. Even the night he left for New York he had been fretting about it.
"Did I ever tell you," he said, "the Da always wanted me to go into politics. He wanted me to be Taoiseach, can you imagine? I think I wanted it too for a time. Then I got this bee in my bonnet about getting some assets together, and after that, well -"
"You made your fortune, got married ... and then you met me."
She was bright and jokey in a deliberate attempt to change the subject. But his mood persisted, "He had such high hopes of me ... the Da I mean ...he-"
"Darling, you make yourself sound like a failure! Good heavens, look at all you've done. What did Fortune magazine say - 'Sean Connors, a new breed of businessman -' "
"The Da wouldn't have been impressed."
"Well everyone else is. I'm impressed out of my mind. I think you're quite, quite wonderful."
At least he smiled then - and kissed her - but later in bed he said, "I ought to do something, Kate. For Ireland I mean. God knows what, but take Freddie during the war. He threw up his career to go stomping across the States telling them they should be in the war. It wasn't popular ... it took guts ... but Freddie did what he believed was right."
He fell asleep shortly after, but Kate was awake for hours. She hated Ireland, despite the Scots-Irish blood in her veins. To her mind it was a cruel place where cruel things happened. She had not been back since Mark's funeral. Her parents had been murdered in Ireland, or at least Tim said so ... and so had Sean's father, she knew that without knowing the details. She had not asked. That all belonged in the past. She had the future to look forward to - with Sean. She snuggled into his side. "Please God," she prayed, "let our happiness last forever - and make the Troubles in Ireland go away."
But the Troubles did not go away - they multiplied with bewildering speed.
In August rioting broke out all across Northern Ireland. Protestant mobs stormed the Falls Road determined to burn every house to the ground - and might have succeeded but for the courage of one man. Armed with a tommy-gun and moving like a cat across the rooftops, Matt Riordan held the crowd at bay while barricades were raised. Three hundred houses went up in flames. Six people were killed. But without Matt Riordan the slaughter would have been wholesale.
Matt was hailed as a saviour, but Catholics elsewhere were less lucky. There was no Matt Riordan in Derry - no IRA at the moment of peril. Graffiti on the walls said it plainly - "IRA means I Ran Away". Catholics could only hope that help would come from south of the border.
And help did come. In Dublin, Taoiseach Jack Lynch, appalled by the violence, announced that units of the Irish army had moved up to the border and were opening field hospitals to treat Catholic wounded.
Lynch's televised speech struck terror into Ulster's Protestants. Rumour spread that Irish troops had crossed the border. In London Home Secretary Callaghan feared that "within twenty-four hours we might face civil war in the north and an invasion from the south."
The order was given - and British troops poured into Northern Ireland.
But the Seven Days team was convinced that further strife was inevitable. "The only chance of peace," they told Michael O'Hara, "is for Stormont to be suspended, which Callaghan either won't or can't do."
Instead Callaghan flew to Northern Ireland and told jubilant Catholics that social reforms would be granted in full.
"It won't happen," Jim Cross insisted on the phone from Belfast, "Stormont will resist every inch of the way."
And so they did - even though Chichester-Clark, O'Neill's successor, struggled to find a middle path between Westminster's insistence on reform and the Unionist battle cry of "No Surrender!"
"He's between a rock and a hard place," the Seven Days team continued to tell Michael O'Hara. "All he can do is hang on and hope Wilson loses the general election. If the Tories get back they might not push so hard."
And the Tories did get back. Ted Heath was the new Prime Minister in London, Reginald Maudling was Home Secretary. Maudling spent a day in the troubled Province, at the en
d of which, baffled by conflicting arguments, he climbed back on board his aircraft - "Give me a large scotch," he groaned, "God, what a bloody awful country."
"That sums up Westminster opinion," Michael O'Hara said when the remark was reported to him, "Heath's crowd won't do anything. They'll put Northern Ireland on the back burner and hope the Troubles die down."
But the Troubles did not die down.
In Belfast Matt Riordan was raising an army. This was to be his finest hour and he knew it. All the days of his life seemed to have been leading to this. Some Catholics still clung to the Civil Rights cry of non-violence, but others were ready to fight. And Matt was ready to lead. He travelled to Dublin in search of money and arms. He got more help from the Dail than the IRA. Matt fumed and raged, but the IRA seemed more anxious to talk Marxist theory than Irish reality.
"To hell with you," Matt roared, "we'll fight on our own, without your help."
Back in Belfast Matt formed a Northern Command, which renamed itself the Provisional IRA within weeks. Soon they were training recruits as never before. Matt seemed everywhere ... organising, encouraging, planning. His American connection began to pay off - the supply of money and guns reaching Belfast from the United States reached record proportions.
For Matt it was the realisation of a lifelong dream.
But Matt's dream was Tim O'Brien's nightmare. Tim cursed Terence O'Neill - "That man wrecked the Unionist Party." And so it seemed. The once monolithic Unionist Party burst apart under the strain of the times. Like the IRA it split in half. Ian Paisley formed the Democratic Unionist Party and took much Protestant support with him - including the backing of Tim O'Brien - "Nine generations of Averdales built an empire in Ulster. It's my inheritance. By God, I'll defend it to the last drop of my blood."
No Surrender!
Tim O'Brien was not the only Protestant ready to shed blood. As the Provos grew in strength, so did the opposing Ulster Volunteer Force.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 159