“But I smell the fresh scones in the air?”
“Well, if you’d sit down for a moment and stop your complaining, won’t we get them for you?”
Nuala departed for the kitchen, and Fiona joined us in the parlor en famile. She must have smelled cop because she gave Gene the greeting she reserved for former colleagues.
“Well, isn’t it herself and with small ones? Fiona, girl, it’s been a long time.”
She curled up at his feet, and the pups instantly began feeding.
“She wasn’t out in Maamtrasna yesterday, was she?”
“We had Nuala. That was enough.”
“And Detective Sergeant Sayers.”
“You promoted the woman, did you? Well, ’tis high time, I’d say, and herself a brilliant Garda.”
Nuala sailed into the room with Ethne in tow and platters of tea, jam, butter, clotted cream, and scones, dense with raisins. It looked like a good morning for Dermot Michael.
“I’ve been out there for two and a half hours,” Gene Keenan began after Nuala had introduced Ethne, poured the tea, and distributed the scones, an extra one to me. “You can’t imagine the dustup this has created. The media are all over the place. Tony Blair and our Taoiseach are screaming. Everyone who might have done it is denying responsibility, and the explosions have destroyed all the obvious evidence. We’ll dig out something eventually, but it will take time. Fortunately no one has told them how the warning about the bomb was delivered. The next thing would be the fairie and the leprechauns.”
“The telly is saying that the Gardai think the lads are involved, maybe one of the dissident groups,” Nuala observed. Discretely she put another scone on me plate. My plate.
“It seems to have been the kind of car bombs they might use. These days, however, everyone seems to know how to make a car bomb. I don’t think it’s the lads, but none of us can figure out why someone would blow up MacManus’s house, take some shots at you, and then try to kill the whole Howard family.”
“Did they want to kill them?” Nuala asked innocently.
“You were out there, Nuala, how could you have any doubts?”
“Whoever planted the bomb didn’t know that we’d park behind the Rolls, that the plumber’s van would park behind us, and that the Garda would appear with a fourth car. He wasn’t counting on four explosions. Nor did he expect that your man would chase poor little Ona out to move the car. He might just as well have figured on exploding the bomb by remote control at some time when no one would get hurt. The car was far enough away from the house that if it were the cause of the only explosion, no one would have been hurt.”
The Deputy Commissioner rubbed his unshaven chin. “That’s an interesting possibility, Nuala. We’ve never thought of it. Yet it might have gone off if young Ona opened the door or turned the key.”
“Suppose you knew the exact plans of the family for the day and thought that the car would not be touched. You could blow it up at night and scare everyone all the way back to Westminster and not hurt anyone.”
“That would point towards that sleepy young Englishman who’s Matt Howard’s secretary.”
“It might.”
“He took charge afterwards, I’m told, perhaps to make sure that no one died.”
“Or it could have been O’Regan the builder or anyone in the family or one of the servants,” I suggested. “Or someone on the outside who had an informant inside.”
“We noted,” the Commissioner continued, “that the bomb was probably triggered by remote control just before our cars arrived. Someone heard them coming and pushed the button so they wouldn’t be able to defuse and examine the bomb.”
“Or someone saw them on the road,” Nuala observed. “It might have been one of us or it might have been someone up at the top of the mountain where the John Joyce family lived.”
“You don’t think there’s a connection between the killings in 1882 and the present mess, do you?”
“The explosion took place right on top of the old cemetery where the Joyces were buried and many other people from the valley too.”
Gene Keenan’s frown darkened. Nuala gave him another scone, richly buttered and jellied.
“Are you telling me that the dead might have triggered the explosion?”
“Or someone who thinks that the Brits have been around the valley too long. Or someone who resents that your man’s wife has Joyce and Casey in her background and that her branches of the family were on the wrong side.”
“My headache is getting worse.” The Commissioner sighed. However, he did finish his scone. Our supply was running out.
“What’s under the ground on that hill, Commissioner Keenan?”
“Nothing, Nuala Anne, except the bones of the long dead.”
“No, I mean what kind of precious metal.”
“We’ve covered that base. There’s nothing there.”
“Could someone in the government know what’s there without your knowing?”
He pondered thoughtfully.
“Maybe, maybe. The bureaucrats are great for keeping secrets from one another.”
“Could you find out?”
He nodded slowly. “I think so.”
Nuala made a couple of more suggestions about questions for which they might seek answers. Gene Keenan removed a used index card from his inside jacket pocket and jotted notes on it.
“I’m not sure where this is going,” he said with yet another huge sigh, “but it will give our people something to do.”
“Mind you,” Nuala admonished him, “they should be very careful about how they ask the questions. We wouldn’t want anyone to know what we’re up to, would we now?”
“No, Nuala Anne, we certainly would not.”
Nuala presented our offspring, who had been shyly peeking around the door. Nelliecoyne informed the Deputy Commissioner that she had seen him on the telly. He left, shaking his head, as if he had returned to the twentieth century from, let’s say, the fifteenth.
The phone rang.
“Jack Lane here, Dermot … . You guys OK?”
“Never better.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“Me wife will figure that out.”
“Just like she figured out where the last segment of the memoir is. I’ll drop it off this afternoon. I haven’t read it. I figured she should read it first.”
In the afternoon, Gene Keenan called.
“Dermot, you can tell that lovely witch she’s right. There is a strain of gold in that hill. Not a lot. Not enough for a gold rush, not enough to affect inflation in this country, but enough to bring someone several million pounds. It’s been kept a secret because the office in charge doesn’t want another Cro Patrick scare.”
“I’ll tell her.”
Which I did.
She nodded in satisfaction.
“Think of it, Dermot, the Joyces and all those other poor souls up there have been sleeping on a bed of gold.”
Almost immediately after the phone call, Jack Lane arrived with a thin stack of foolscap.
“I want it tomorrow morning,” he said.
“You must come in for tea, An t‘Athair O’Laighne.”
“And keep you from reading how the story ends? I may not have much sense, but I have more sense than that.”
After we had read the story, it was time and long past time to go to bed. Nuala has a ritual every night in which she briskly brushes her long, shiny black hair. Perhaps I should say furiously. Her attire for the ritual varies from hardly anything to a tightly knotted terry cloth robe. I have assumed that this is a signal as to how she views the possibility of lovemaking. That night the robe had three knots instead of two.
However, after our brush with death, I wanted her desperately. Almost uncontrollably. I loved her so much. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I took the brush out of her hands, lifted her off the vanity stool, and imperiously pried open the belt of her robe.
“Dermot!” she cried and stiffened in protest.
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I discarded the robe and captured both her breasts.
She collapsed against my chest and giggled.
As I wrestled her onto the bed, she sighed. “Wasn’t I after wondering when you’d be getting around to it?”
So much for my ability to read the signs.
25
July 5, 1883
Tim Harrington has asked me to assemble a dossier of the correspondence between Bishop Kane and the Lord Lieutenant. It is a classic example of English arrogance and blindness in the administration of Ireland. I copy the exchange into this journal so in the future I will have it at hand as evidence of the strange mix of blindness and immorality that marks English rule in this country.
After Tom Casey’s confession in Letterfrack, the Bishop wrote to Earl Spencer:
13 May, 1883.
To His Excellency, Earl Spencer, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
May it please Your Excellency,
Having fully and maturely considered the statement publicly made to me on the occasion of my visitation in the parish of Letterfrack on Sunday 12th inst relative to the horrid occurrence that took place at Maamtrasna, I feel it is my duty, in the interests of justice and civil society even for promoting due respect for and confidence in the administration of the law, to lay the whole case before Your Excellency as it came before me.
On the occasion referred to, a man named Thomas Casey came forward on his own accord and publicly stated that he had been induced under pain of capital punishment to swear away the life of Myles Joyce, who had been executed in Galway. He declared that Myles Joyce was perfectly innocent, that he (Casey) offered to give information against the guilty parties and was told by the official that unless he swore against Myles Joyce, though innocent, he himself would surely be hanged, that he got thirty minutes for deliberation and then, from terror of death, swore as had been suggested to him.
Being asked why he confessed now and not before, he declared that he was waiting the visitation in his parish when he hoped to receive forgiveness and be restored by the Bishop to the Church. After having made a public confession of his guilt and as evidence of his sincerity, he declared he was ready in the interests of justice to suffer any pain, even death itself if necessary, on account of having been instrumental in taking away the life of an innocent man.
Furthermore, he declared that he was also induced to swear falsely against four men now suffering penal servitude. Taking all the circumstances into account, my own conviction is that this later statement of the wretched man is truthful and sincere and, I may add, that since then has been fully corroborated by another man, named Philbin, one of the leading approvers in the case, and who is, I am informed, prepared to make similar public declaration.
In conclusion, I would ask Your Excellency, in order to allay public feeling so much excited in this neighborhood, to direct a sworn inquiry into the case.
I have the honor to remain, Your Excellency’s faithful servant,
John Joseph Kane, Bishop of Galway and Killmacduff
The Castle, Dublin, May 24, 1883.
My Lord Bishop,
I am directed by the Lord Lieutenant to inform Your Grace that your letter of the 13th inst, the receipt of which was acknowledged by His Excellency the following day, has received his most careful consideration.
Before the receipt of Your Grace’s letter, attention had been drawn in the House of Commons to the allegation that Thomas Casey, one of the murderers of the Joyce family at Maamstrasna on the 17th August, 1882, who had been accepted as an informer and had given evidence on the trial, had made a statement to the effect that the evidence he had given on that occasion was false. Immediately thereupon, His Excellency gave instructions that the truth of this statement should be tested in connection with the whole circumstances of the trial and the subsequent history of the witness himself.
It is not usual for His Excellency to enter into details in communicating his decisions on criminal cases, but the present instance is one of such gravity and the statements alleged to have been made attracted so much attention from Your Grace’s letter that he was determined to depart from his usual custom and to put the circumstances of the case fully before you.
He has, as Your Grace has requested, inquired fully into the allegations now made by the informers. He forwards to Your Grace a memorandum prepared under his immediate directions and which has his entire approval, setting forth the results of that inquiry. From this memorandum, Your Grace will perceive that there was ample evidence at this trial given by three unimpeached and independent witnesses to convict all the prisoners without the evidence of Thomas Casey or Anthony Philbin and that their recent statements do not shake that testimony that plainly established that Myles Joyce, and the prisoners now undergoing penal servitude, were themselves members of the party who participated in or actually committed the murders of the Joyce family.
With regard to the actual commission of the murders, His Excellency would observe that an idea seems to prevail in the minds of some persons that the guilt of murder is only attached to those who actually fire the shot or strike the blow that causes death. Such an erroneous idea on the part of some of the participators in this horrible tragedy may account for their assertion of the innocence of those members of the party who, although they aided and countenanced the murders by their presence and were, therefore, morally and legally guilty of the crime, may not, with their own hands, have inflicted the wounds that caused the death of their victims.
I now come to the other point in Your Grace’s letter. A court of law can only act on the evidence placed before it and, deplorable as it would have been had it been shown that it had in this case been misled by the false swearing of perjured witnesses, the matter becomes far more serious when it is alleged that the course of justice was perverted by the action of officers of the Crown. The statement that Your Grace says Thomas Casey made amounts to this, that he was told by the official that unless he swore against Myles Joyce, though innocent, he himself would surely be hanged, that he got thirty minutes for deliberation and then from terror of death swore as had been suggested to him.
This is so serious a charge, striking at the root of all confidence in the administration of the law, that the Lord Lieutenant has strictly inquired into the matter to see if the allegation has any color or foundation—an allegation that no man should lightly entertain on the unsupported assertion of witnesses who aver themselves to have been perjured.
The communications that took place with Thomas Casey when he volunteered to give evidence and was accepted as an informer, are fully detailed in the memorandum that accompanies this letter. His Excellency has no doubt after the careful examination that has been made of the three officials with whom the communications took place that none of them used any improper means of approaching the prisoners and that the statement above reported by Your Grace by Thomas Casey is absolutely false.
His Excellency feels as strongly as Your Grace, the calamity which would be involved if innocent men were punished for an offense they had not committed, but after the fullest inquiry of which the case admits, he has arrived at a clear conclusion that the verdict and the sentence were right and just. I have the honor to be, My Lord Bishop, Your Grace’s obedient servant, R. G. C. Hamilton
The Irish Members of Parliament were infuriated by this exchange both because Spencer himself did not reply to the Bishop but delegated the task to an underling and because the testimony of Thomas Casey was simply dismissed.
They screamed that Spencer had deliberately insulted the Bishop (which he had) and that his memorandum was simply a rehash of a trial that was patently a violation of the elementary rules of justice.
Does Spencer believe the memorandum and the letter? Probably he does, but he is guilty of what the Jesuits at St. Ignatius College would have called “vincible ignorance.” His attitude is that English prosecutors simply don’t do that sort of thing and those who claim that they do are by definition wrong. There are people in D
ublin Castle who knew what happened, as do most of the reporters, even the Protestant reporters. Most of the Catholics in Dublin know the truth too. Spencer could not admit even to himself that such a miscarriage of justice could have occurred because the legitimacy of his role in Ireland would collapse from under him. So I will say in my dispatch summarizing the exchange.
Bishop Kane did not give up easily.
May 25, 1883
May it please Your Excellency,
I have the honor to acknowledge Your Excellency’s letter with accompanying memorandum of the 24th inst. Notwithstanding the statements and arguments so ably and so powerfully put forward in the memorandum, I still feel that nothing short of a public inquiry can satisfy a discerning and expectant public. For they feel that the circumstances of the case are very much altered since the trial, and they, therefore, naturally expect that the Government would take advantage of these circumstances to arrive at an exact knowledge of the actual conditions of things.
These circumstances are the declarations of Casey that, in proof of his sincerity after having been repeatedly reminded of his risk and responsibility, he was prepared to undergo any punishment, even death itself if necessary, in atonement for the guilt of having sworn away the life of an honest man, whom he declares to have been altogether absent from the scene of the horrid massacre at Maamtrasna.
The absence of any conceivable adequate motive on the latter occasion while he had obviously the most powerful motive on the former—the saving of his own neck from the halter—deeply impressed all who were present as to the truthful sincerity of his statement. Add to this, apart from the strong universal feeling then, as well as now, prevailing throughout Joyce country respecting Myles Joyce’s innocence, the dying declaration of the two other men executed with him as to his innocence as reported in the public press at the time.
It is hardly conceivable how, in the very jaws of death, they would allow themselves to be launched into eternity with a lie on their lips or an equivocation amounting to a lie. There are far fewer than seems to be supposed, who are ignorant of the obvious point of Christian morality that the abettor of and participator in murder are morally just as guilty as the man who strikes the blow or fires the fatal bullet. I assume that this important point was repeatedly and clearly impressed on the witnesses and party accused by the learned counsel on both sides at the trial. In addition, they must have received all necessary instruction and enlightenment on this and cognate subjects from the zealous chaplain of the prison in preparing them for death.
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