Death at Christy Burke's

by Anne Emery

  “There goes your game plan for tonight, Michael.”

  “Brennan!”

  Monty chimed in, “I’ve seen Michael at poker, Kitty; you wouldn’t lose so much as a headband. Michael might want to layer on the garments, though. Or not . . .”

  “Monty!”

  “Don’t be blushing now, Michael,” Brennan chided him. “We were only slaggin’ yeh.”

  This was what Michael was going to have to endure, all because he had a friendship with someone who happened to be female! Just like two bratty younger brothers, when you thought about it, annoying and slagging him without mercy.

  “Pay them no mind, Michael,” Kitty urged. “If I had the power to hear confessions and dish out penance, Brennan Burke would not be up off his knees till the Second Coming of our Lord. And even then he’d have some explaining to do. Now, back to Rory Dignan. He wouldn’t be one of the Drumcondra Dignans now, would he? The lad used to come by the school where I taught, to walk his little sisters home. An angel of a boy. It wouldn’t be him.”

  “It would, unfortunately, Sister,” Finn replied. “His father landed a job in the North, so they went up there when young Rory was, what? Eighteen or so.”

  “And did he involve himself in the Troubles?”

  “Em, well, he made quite a name for himself up there. Well respected. In Republican circles, I suppose you’d say.”

  “Oh, Mary Mother of God. They’re burying little Rory Dignan. I remember him stopping to tie the shoe of one of the little girls at school. Then another girl saw the attention her friend was getting from this dashing young boy, and wouldn’t you know it, her shoe came untied too. In the end, Rory had a queue of little girls waiting for him. Didn’t mind at all. He tied every shoe and had a little joke or a remark for each of the children. Now,” she said, returning to the newspaper, “they’re saying it was a reprisal hit. Well, I’ve been wrong before and I may be wrong today, but I’d say they got the wrong man. I just can’t believe he’d have any part in a bombing.”

  “He didn’t.” Finn was no longer the smiling barman. His mouth was set in a hard line, his eyes invisible behind the dark shades. “It was murder, pure and simple. They wanted Dignan out of the way, and here was their chance.”

  “By ‘they,’ you’re referring to the UDA.”

  “What’s the UDA?” asked Monty.

  “Ulster Defence Association, a Protestant paramilitary group. And if that wasn’t enough, there are efforts afoot to stop the funeral.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The funeral was supposed to take place yesterday. Family flew in from as far away as Australia for it. They’re not people of means; they can’t afford to change their flights, buy new airline tickets. If the funeral doesn’t go ahead tomorrow, those people will miss seeing him laid to rest.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s the holdup?”

  “There were some matters to be negotiated. Things are tense in Endastown these days. Some of the boys were going to read a statement that accuses the security forces and the British Army of turning a blind eye — more like giving the wink of an eye — to assassinations carried out by the UDA and other paramilitary groups. Word went round about the planned speech, and they got a belt of the crozier.”

  “I take it that means the bishop disapproved,” Monty interjected.

  “The bishop indeed. The Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland.”

  “Some crozier, some belt.”

  “Exactly, Monty. Himself considers the statement too inflammatory. The Dignan people have gone out of their way to compromise. They brought in a negotiator from here. Somebody known to you and me, in fact, Brennan. Anyway they’ve agreed to modify the statement. Water it down. And they’ve even agreed that Dermot Cooney — one of the lads who’s a little hotheaded — will not be reading it as planned. Somebody else will. So they rescheduled it for tomorrow. Now they’ve got the Orange Order to contend with.”

  “How’s that?” Monty asked.

  “Well, you know what day tomorrow is.”

  “July the twelfth. Ah yes, the Glorious Twelfth.”

  “Orangemen’s Day. Wouldn’t I like to be up there to peel a few of them myself. Fuckin’ marching season. I’d have them marching. Right off the edge of this island!”

  “Finn,” Brennan cautioned.

  “I don’t get it,” Monty said. “What’s that got to do with a Catholic funeral?”

  “Well, it’s like this. They’re expecting a huge crowd of mourners for the Dignan send-off. Buses full of people from here as well as people from all over the North. The time of the funeral procession will conflict directly with the Orange march.”

  “So why don’t they change it?”

  “Why doesn’t who change what?” Finn snapped.

  “Can’t they schedule things so that both events can take place?”

  “No, they cannot. Or will not, in the case of the Orangemen. We, that is, the Catholics, cannot change the time of Rory’s funeral. There’s another funeral Mass scheduled in the church in the morning. The only Catholic church in the town. And the Aussies have to fly out just after tea time. So it has to be in the afternoon. And that’s when the Orange eejits march through the town beating their drums and crowing about the victory of King William of Orange over the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690. Now they’re trying to get another victory over us, three hundred years later.”

  This was the kind of talk Michael had heard around the family table all the time he was growing up. He was well aware of the past three hundred years of Irish history. Eight hundred years, really, if you measured from the time the English first landed in Ireland. It was eight hundred years exactly between the Anglo-Norman Invasion of 1169 and the beginning of the modern-day Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969. Things had always been bad for Catholics up there. The Loyalists, those who wanted to remain united with Britain instead of with the Catholic republic to the south, had gerrymandered the electoral boundaries to make sure they held on to political power; this enabled them to discriminate against the Catholics when it came to jobs and housing. Catholics began to demand their civil rights in the late 1960s, resulting in beatings from the police. It was in 1969 that the British Army was sent in to the northern counties. The army was still there. More than three thousand people — soldiers, Republican and Loyalist paramilitary forces, Catholic and Protestant civilians — had been killed in the Troubles since then. The casualty list said it all: there was aggression and there were victims on all sides of the conflict. No side was blameless. The death toll was still nearly a hundred people a year.

  In spite of it all, Michael firmly believed that peace would soon be at hand. It had to be. He prayed every night for Ireland, offered Masses for peace. He followed the news of developments like the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, which brought the British and Irish governments together to pursue a solution, and the new round-

  table talks involving several of the main political parties in the North. When Michael escorted his tourists around the island, he incorporated the latest news in his spiel. A turning point was near, he always said, and he believed it.

  Brennan’s voice brought Michael back to the present. He was speaking to his uncle Finn: “The negotiator you said is known to us, trying to broker the funeral across the border; that wouldn’t be . . .”

  “Leo Killeen.”

  Brennan

  The whiskey might have had something to do with it, and the Guinness consumed by the rest of them, but mainly it was compassion for the young victim of a sectarian killing, and priestly solidarity with Leo Killeen; all those factors went into the late-night decision to travel from Dublin to Endastown in the North of Ireland for the funeral of Rory Dignan on the twelfth of July, 1992.

  Finn was not amongst them. When they formulated the plan, Brennan had invited him along. But he shook his h
ead. Not willing, or perhaps not allowed, to cross the border. Brennan didn’t ask. Again. Every time Brennan came home to Dublin, there were questions he didn’t ask.

  So he had Monty, Kitty, and Michael with him as passengers in a little black sedan he had borrowed from his cousin at the John’s Lane church. Brennan and Michael were in clerical dress. Kitty was not in a nun’s habit, but her navy suit and gold cross were the next best thing. Monty wore a dark blue tweed sports jacket with a white shirt open at the neck. A thoroughly respectable contingent.

  Traffic slowed ahead of them as they approached the border with Northern Ireland. British territory.

  “Ah, the timeless architecture of County Armagh,” Kitty remarked. A massive watchtower, surrounded by a metal cage to withstand a rocket attack, loomed ahead of them. “Did you know, Michael, they built this guard post because the police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, couldn’t take the chance of using the roads to get to their station? Everyone and everything had to come in by helicopter. So here’s the result.”

  “That’s what they get for putting the border on the wrong side of a Nationalist area of Ireland,” Brennan said.

  This was known in some circles as “bandit country.” The Provisional Irish Republican Army was a dominant force here in South Armagh.

  They stopped at the crossing, and a young, heavily armed British soldier emerged from a hut and signalled for Brennan to roll down his window. Brennan did so and warned himself to keep his thoughts to himself. The soldier peered around inside the car, taking note of all the occupants, and addressed them in a strong North British accent.

  “Where are you headed?”

  A few seconds went by before Brennan answered. “Endastown.”

  “For what purpose?”

  Brennan pointed to his collar. “Religious purposes.”

  “How long will you be staying?”

  “As long as it takes to carry out our religious duties.”

  “How long?”

  Brennan glared at the fellow and considered many possible replies, several of them inconsistent with his religious duties. But Monty gave him a cautionary nudge with his knee, and Brennan finally answered, “A few hours is the plan.”

  “May I see your driving licence?”

  There shouldn’t even be a border here, with this young functionary demanding to see his papers, but Brennan told himself to focus on the funeral, and not to do anything that might jeopardize their arrival. He was a frequent traveller and he always carried an international licence. He leaned across Monty’s legs and opened the glove box, drew out the licence, and handed it to the British soldier, who glanced at it, then back at Brennan.

  “Passport?”

  Without a word, Brennan leaned over again, opened the glove box, brought out his passport, and gave it to the soldier, who examined it, then held on to it.

  Brennan put his hand out to get it back, but the soldier asked him, “Irish? Why does your licence say you live in Canada?”

  “Because I live in Canada.”

  “How long have you lived there?”

  “A couple of years. Like the couple of years I’ve spent at this border crossing today when I’m trying to get to Mass in what is, however improbably, your country.”

  “Did you live in the Republic of Ireland until a couple of years ago?”

  “I lived in New York City until a couple of years ago.”

  “But you have an Irish passport.”

  “My family immigrated to the United States. I reclaimed my Irish citizenship. As so many others would like to do.” Others on the northern side of this border, is what he meant.

  The soldier made a signal of some kind to a couple of other soldiers on patrol. Brennan heard him say “a Burke,” and the other two trained their gazes on him. They came towards the car while the first soldier disappeared inside the hut. Brennan crossed his arms over his chest and faced forward, ignoring the military men at his side.

  A minute or so later, the first soldier returned and said to Brennan, “Open the boot, please, sir.”

  “And what exactly do you expect to find in there?”

  “Open it.”

  Brennan took a deep breath. He received another nudge from Monty, and a softly spoken “Now, Brennan” from his pastor in the back seat. It was times like these that the ancient rage welled up in him, the rage that had fuelled his grandfather, his father, his uncles, in their revolt. But there was a practical side to his character, and it saved the day here as it had on countless other occasions. This was not the time for a showdown with the British Army; Brennan and his companions had to get to the funeral. So he kept his mouth shut, got out and opened the trunk, and did nothing more aggressive than give the Brits a damning look. Then he glanced at Kitty, sitting beside Michael in the back. Her lips were clamped tight, her eyes straight ahead. She, too, was exercising extraordinary control over her mind and her mouth. But the indignities were finished soon enough, and they were permitted to cross into British territory.

  They travelled through the farmland of South Armagh for a short while, until the traffic slowed again. Brennan saw vehicles parked on the side of the road, people walking forward in groups. A sign informed them that they had reached Endastown. A young man with a black arm band signalled for them to pull over.

  “Good afternoon, Fathers. Sister. Here for the funeral?”

  “We are,” Brennan replied.

  “I think you’d be better to pull over and walk the rest of the way. Through traffic is being rerouted around the town, but anyone here for the funeral had best go on foot. There will be no place to stop your car up ahead.”

  “All right. How far are we from the church?”

  “A mile or so. But there’s trouble.”

  “Oh?”

  “They’re not letting us through.”

  “Who’s not letting us through?”

  “The RUC. The Orangemen are on the march. The funeral procession is going to be held up.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t tell you any more right now. Because that’s all I know.”

  “Thank you. Appreciate your help. We’ll head up there.”

  It was a brilliant sunny day, and the four new arrivals joined the throngs of people gathering for the funeral. The closer they got, the thicker the crowds. There must have been two thousand people on hand. The streets were lined with three-storey houses and shops in pastel colours, with chimney pots at each end of the buildings’ roofs. A short distance away Brennan could see a tall spire topped with a cross. That would be St. Áine’s, the only Catholic church in town. It was then that he heard a rhythmic pounding. The Lambeg drum, the traditional drum in the Orange parades. He thought they didn’t carry it much anymore, it was so heavy. Well, they were wielding it here today. Loud and insistent, primitive and threatening, it seemed to alter the very beat of his heart. He sent a murderous look in the direction of the sound.

  “Let’s see if we can find the funeral cortège,” Michael said. “Try to spot Father Killeen. Brennan, we’ll follow you.”

  They all fell in behind him as he moved forward. He heard a cacophony of accented speech in the crowd, as people from the Irish Republic mixed with their separated Northern brethren. Nobody objected as the priestly contingent passed them in the queue. There, up ahead, was the hearse, and the rest of the vehicles halted behind it. Flanking the hearse on either side was a line of men dressed in camouflage jackets and dark berets; black balaclavas covered their faces. Directly ahead of the hearse, and stopping it in its tracks, was a barricade manned by armed members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. And on the other side of the barricade were three armoured personnel carriers, each one a squat and menacing presence with its massive steel plates, its pipe-like gun pointed away to the side. A slightly built grey-haired man in vestments of white stood before it, in animated conversation
with two enormous British soldiers who loomed over him.

  “There’s Leo!” Brennan announced, and charged ahead.

  “Let’s see what this is all about!” Michael exclaimed as he followed behind.

  “Michael, the less said the better,” Kitty warned him. “You don’t know these people.”

  “She’s right, Mike, keep that in mind,” Monty echoed.

  “Oh, I’ll not be saying a word. No worries there.”

  They stopped and observed the vested priest at the barricades. Leo Killeen. Now there was a man with a past; Brennan wondered how long it took him to be cleared at the border. Before taking Holy Orders in the church, Leo had been issuing orders as a commander in the IRA, and one of those under his command in the 1940s was Brennan’s father. Declan Burke was a formidable man by any reckoning and, ever since Brennan had met Leo the year before, he had marvelled at the notion of Leo being in command of Declan and keeping him in line. Did Leo even weigh a hundred and forty pounds? Well, he was certainly having his say now, in a strong Dublin accent.

  “No, the Mass cannot be put off any longer. The man’s family has to be at Belfast airport in two hours’ time. It has to be now. Let us through. The man has a right to a decent Christian funeral in his church, and a decent burial outside it. Halt the march, and let us pass.” The words were mild, but Brennan could hear the metal beneath them.

  “I can’t let you through, Father. I have my orders. You’ll have to turn them back. Return to the table and come up with an alternative plan. I’m sorry.”

  “No, we won’t be turning back. Get those bowler-hatted, drum-beating gobshites to turn back. This is a young lad’s funeral. Take a look at his mother, why don’t you. What sort of a man prevents a mother from burying her son?”