by Colin Murphy
‘How dare you! We’ve been customers of this shop for years. You will sell me what I want immediately, do you hear?’
The man slapped his hands on the top of the counter. ‘It’s past the time we take orders from your kind. Yer high an’ mighty days of rulin’ the roost in my country are near done. Now, get out of me shop!’
‘How dare you speak to a lady in that fashion, you ignorant oaf!’ Weekes stepped forward, intent on striking the man with the back of his hand.
‘No, Asheton! Please, let’s just leave!’ she said as she pulled the infuriated Weekes from the store. Annie paused to collect herself outside. Her hands were visibly shaking and now a tear did run the length of her cheek.
‘What are we to do, Asheton?’
Weekes noticed that the overhead sign indicated Kilkelly was a licensed victualler, an official supplier to the army.
‘Come on. I’ve an idea.’
They remounted the landau and made their way back along Market Street to a cacophony of whistles so loud that Madeleine clasped her hands over her ears. By the time they reached the end of the street, Annie felt her humiliation was complete.
‘Jesus, that’s some story.’
During the previous two hours, the detail of Owen’s survival during the famine had been unearthed once more, like the potatoes that were now piled high on the handcart.
‘The workhouse sounds a bit like the ship,’ Thomas reflected. ‘There were two hundred and fifty passengers, fifty more than they were supposed te carry. Thirty died on the way and were just dumped overboard. We got half the rations we’d been promised. I got by because of the extra food I had. And half the ship had a fever when we docked. Christ knows how many of the poor bastards perished.’
‘We both had to grow up fast.’
‘But at least I had some money, you had nothing.’
Owen laughed. ‘And I wasn’t much of a thief either.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I only tried to steal oats from the English soldiers because you’d already done it. I thought I’d try the same.’
Thomas looked confused. ‘I’d already done what?’
‘Remember you stole the pig from the convoy? The meat that kept us alive?’
Thomas hesitated and then his eyes opened as though he could suddenly see through the fog of memory. ‘Oh yeah. So tell me, what happened after the Connors rescued you from Lough Mask?’
Owen had the strangest feeling of deep remembrance just then, of something untold, but it was so vague and dulled by time he could not bring it into focus.
‘Well, even when I’d recovered from the fever, Maebh or Tim wouldn’t let me leave the farm for a month, until things had quieted. I would have gone insane but I persuaded Tim to go into Ballinrobe library and bring me some books.’ Owen laughed at the memory.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘They were simple but honest people. Maebh couldn’t read, although I taught her later, and Tim was barely competent. And then one day he’s asking the librarian for King Lear and Oliver Twist.’
‘I’ve become a bit of a reader meself over the years.’
‘You have?’
‘Yeah. Me. The family fool.’
‘I’m sorry, Thomas. I didn’t mean–’
‘Relax. You’re right. Had no interest early on. Got it later, though. But not literature. Political books. Marx and such. Anyway, go on with your tale.’
‘Marx, eh?’ Owen reflected briefly, then continued, ‘well, we agreed on a story that I was Tim’s nephew from the west but I didn’t go into Ballinrobe for nearly a year, by which time the whole workhouse incident had been forgotten; not starving to death was more on people’s minds. The blight finally ended in ’50 but it was still a struggle running Tim’s farm. Though our landlords weren’t the worst. Not like Boycott or most of the others. There were about ten tenants and a man called General Booth, who was the Duke of Wellington’s secretary, no less, bought the estate. He wasn’t so bad. Built a big house called Ebor Hall.’
‘Ebor Hall?’ Thomas asked and leaned against the field’s gate.
‘Hmm. His rents were low enough to allow us get by, but I was a burden on them. Then I met Síomha. We married in ’57 and with the help of her dowry – her father had a pub in Clonbur – we took up this farm. We lost two babies at birth and then in ’60 Lorcan came along. Tadhg in ’63, then another stillbirth and we thought Síomha’s childbearing days were past. Then Niamh surprised us all in ’72.’
‘What happened te Tim and Maebh? And their daughter, Muireann?’
‘Muireann did well for herself. Became a teacher and then married one. Moved to Dublin. I still get the odd letter.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Maebh drowned in Lough Mask in ’64.’ He threw a fleeting glance out across the water. ‘Tim refused to come and live with us here. He wanted to spend the rest of his days on the farm that he’d shared with Maebh. I visited when I could and he lived alone a long time. Died three years ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
Owen waved it away. ‘In the years before he died he was actually on friendly terms with the new landlord, Lord Mountmorres. Mountmorres used to drive back from his magistrate meetings in Clonbur drunk as a lord, so to speak. Tim picked him off the road more than a few times and brought him back to Ebor Hall.’ Owen chuckled and shook his head. ‘Mountmorres – a pillar of the British establishment – even sent a wreath to Tim’s funeral. Tim would’ve had a good laugh at tha– Are you all right, Thomas? You look as white as a ghost.’
‘Me? I’m fine. Go on.’
‘That’s it, really. The next significant thing that happened in my life was you turning up.’
Thomas laughed. ‘Hardly significant. But it’s good te be home,’ he said, gazing reflectively back across the gentle slope of the field, the earth exposed and bare. ‘It never leaves ye, ye know that?’
‘What?’
‘Ireland. Mayo. I spent a lot of time working dusty earth under a scorching sun thinking about the mucky soil in Mayo. I imagined when I left that it would fade away like the memory of some cailín ye had a grá for when ye were young. But it never did. Maybe it was because you’d stayed behind, I don’t know. Or maybe we’ve all got Irish mud flowing in our veins.’
He laughed, but there was a sad, mournful note in his voice.
‘Don’t be getting sentimental on me, a hard oul’ rock like you,’ Owen joked.
‘You’re right. Cold as stone, I am. Cold as stone.’
A handful of children still lingered near Lough Mask Estate’s entrance, their crude jeers providing a fitting footnote to the day’s events. When they reached the house, Madeleine took to the steps like one pursued by wasps, desperate to banish the outside world. Annie plodded to the door, her despair weighing her down.
Young William asked after her and then ran excitedly to Weekes, who was lifting a wooden crate from the landau’s luggage rack. William studied the stencilled writing: Her Majesty’s Forces. Garrison rations.
‘Do you think you could carry one of these, William?’
‘What’s in it, Mr Weekes?’ the boy inquired as he lugged the crate erratically towards the house.
‘The only food we could get. Canned beef and pea soup. Army rations. I cajoled an officer in the cavalry barracks to give it to us using my army ties. Though the blighter gave me a hard time of it. Said it was forbidden to supply civilians. It won’t last long, but I suppose we have our own vegetables at least. Where is your uncle now, William?’
Before the boy could reply Boycott himself provided the answer, stomping up with a pitchfork in hand. ‘Weekes! Where the blazes were you? Have you any idea how much work we have to do?’
‘Yes, Charles,’ Weekes muttered to himself. ‘Far more, I think, than we can handle.’
CHAPTER 20
It was the anxious desire of the Land League executive to discourage all violence, except where an eviction for arrears of excessive rents might justify resistance. Beyond this the pur
pose of the League was seriously injured by serious agrarian crime. Deeds of violence, no matter how originating, would be credited by British papers to the teaching of the movement, and these would offer the government an excuse for a resort to coercion, and thus render difficult, if not impossible the work of thoroughly organizing the country. Perpetrators of crime were anathema at the headquarters of the League.
–The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, Michael Davitt
25 SEPTEMBER 1880
A line drawn along the midpoints of Lough Corrib in Galway and continuing north through Lough Mask would measure almost forty miles, although compared to the sea-sized lakes that Thomas had seen in America, the loughs were like village ponds. A relatively narrow strip of land separated the loughs and near the centre of this nestled the village of Clonbur, or Fairhill, as the English gentry called it.
One of those gentrified persons, Lord Mountmorres, or William Browne de Montmorency, 5th Viscount Mountmorres, a man of forty-eight years, had purchased a fine residence near Clonbur some years before called Ebor Hall, which enjoyed a magnificent view of the islands in the waters of Lough Corrib. With it came an estate of fourteen farms of twenty acres each, one of which had once been home to Tim and Maebh Connor, and to Thomas’s own brother.
Lord Mountmorres had not garnered for himself a reputation as a harsh landlord, despite having recently refused a request, like Charles Boycott, for a reduction in rents. His Lordship’s refusal was motivated by his poor stewardship of the estate, for he managed his financial affairs badly. He also tended to drink to excess to dull his financial troubles and a vicious circle began to enclose him in this regard. To his credit, in the tenantry’s eyes, he had not evicted any tenants for years, despite several of them falling behind with rent.
But that is not to say he was widely beloved, simply not widely hated. And for the most part, the antagonism directed towards him resulted from his position as a magistrate of the law. Most Irish people held the view that ‘law’ was an abbreviated term for ‘British law’, which they considered was formulated to keep them in their place rather than to keep the peace. Lord Mountmorres confirmed much of this view as his judgements and sentences were considered erratic, extreme and heavily biased against the peasantry.
In August of 1880, Mr Patrick Sweeney, who spoke no English and was employed as a herdsman by Mountmorres, was dismissed for failing to attend to his flock of sheep, several having been stolen. Mountmorres also wanted Sweeney removed from his ‘cottage’ – a dwelling consisting of a sloping roof of turf supported by stones, which even by the standards of the day would be considered fit only for housing animals. Lord Mountmorres sued for a formal decree of eviction at the Petty Sessions of Clonbur Court.
Petty it may have been in the eyes of the law, but to Sweeney it was his only home and he presented his case through a translator to the appointed magistrate, claiming he was an agricultural tenant and should be afforded equivalent rights. The evidence was ruled in favour of Mountmorres and Sweeney was evicted, subsequently sharing his view loudly and widely that a British magistrate would never rule against one of its own over an Irish peasant. It was this ruling and Sweeney’s vociferous condemnation of it that brought Mountmorres to the attention of a violent faction of Irish nationalism and essentially signed his death warrant. Donal Doherty and Thomas Joyce were appointed his principal executioners.
The court in Clonbur sat every second Saturday, after which Lord Mountmorres was known to join his fellow magistrates for brandy and cigars, where they would discuss their disaffection with Gladstone’s Liberal Party and his kowtowing to Parnell, as well as Britain’s military progress in other territories across the globe. These debates frequently extended late into the evening, so it was often in an advanced state of inebriation that Mountmorres would set off erratically in his carriage along the one-and-a-half-mile route home.
It was in this condition on the night of 25 September 1880 that he approached the bend in the road at a place called Dooroy, where the land sloped gently down to the glassy, moonlit surface of Lough Corrib, not five hundred yards from Ebor Hall, and where three men of murderous intent lay silently in wait.
Donal Doherty sat with his back to the wall, checking his Schofield revolver for the umpteenth time.
‘Why de ye keep doin’ that?’ Cal Feeney asked too loudly for comfort, a distinct tremble in his voice, which issued from his lips on a breath of alcohol.
‘Keep your fucking voice down!’ Thomas snapped.
Feeney didn’t comply. ‘Why? D’ye think there’s a constable hidin’ behind every rock?’
Doherty abruptly grasped a fistful of Feeney’s hair. ‘Yeah. That’s right. That’s why we’ve never been caught. Now shut yer fuckin’ mouth or I’ll shut it permanently.’
‘Quiet!’
Thomas, who had been kneeling against the wall watching for Mountmorres, dropped sharply to the ground.
‘Is it him?’ came Doherty’s anxious whisper.
‘Man from the cottage.’
‘Fuck!’
They saw a light approaching from the direction of the cottage about two hundred yards away. They also became aware of a woman’s voice.
‘Peadar! Peadar Flanagan! Will ye come home this instant? Ye have me out o’ me mind with worry.’ Her voice was breathless, as though she’d had to run to catch up.
They watched as shafts of lamplight slanting through the gaps in the stone wall advanced ever nearer.
‘Leave me be, Nuala! I’m sure I heard a man talkin’. If there’s sheep thieves out here I’ll throttle ’em!’
‘Jesus, Peadar, they might be armed. And you with a feckin’ hurley to defend yerself. Come back before I’m driven te me mind’s edge.’
The man heaved a sigh. ‘Ah sure, they’re probably well gone.’
The light and footsteps began to recede, then the man whispered something and they heard the woman giggle like a little girl. The three released their captured breaths and relaxed. Doherty turned to Feeney.
‘Take a turn watching. Keep quiet and keep low.’
‘Can’t wait te plug the bastard,’ Feeney whispered.
Thomas and Doherty exchanged a shake of the head.
Ten minutes elapsed in the moonlit silence.
‘My father was imprisoned by Mountmorres, so this is personal,’ Doherty whispered eventually. ‘And if what your brother said about him being blind drunk every week is true, this should be easy.’
‘It’s him!’ Feeney blurted.
The two men whirled about and peered along the narrow country lane, hemmed in on either side by the signature stone walls that divided Connaught into a million plots of poor land. Mountmorres too would be hemmed in, unable to turn left or right or retreat.
‘Feeney!’ Doherty snapped in a whisper. ‘Don’t forget. If the horse bolts, stop it, shoot it if you have to. We’ll take Mountmorres.’
‘But I–’
‘Just fuckin’ do it!’
They watched as the carriage drew near. The wheels criss-crossed the muddy ruts rather than following them and the horse whinnied continuously as though in protest.
‘He’s pissed. Just like your brother said.’
They waited until they could see the man’s shape within the dark hollow of the covered carriage, about twenty yards away, close enough to see the landlord’s distinctive top hat.
‘That’s him. Let’s do it!’
All three rose as one and vaulted the wall. Feeney stumbled and fell on his hands and knees with a curse. Doherty and Thomas took three steps into the track and levelled their weapons. They heard an audible gasp as the drunken landlord realised what was about to befall him, and he had time to flick the reins hard and spur the horse to mow them down. The two men fired together, Thomas’s shot going harmlessly through the black canvas hood. Doherty’s shot struck Mountmorres in the shoulder and the landlord cried out in shock and pain as he reeled sideways and tumbled from the vehicle face down into the mud. As the panicked horse
took flight directly towards them, Thomas and Doherty leapt to either side of the track.
‘Feeney! Stop the horse!’ Thomas yelled as it hurtled by. He witnessed Feeney’s pathetic and unsuccessful attempt to grasp the trailing reins.
‘Christ!’ Doherty roared as they rose and turned towards Mountmorres.
The man lay on his side, his fine black dress coat covered in mud and blood, his top hat sitting upturned on the grassy verge like a beggar’s waiting for alms. He was grunting in panic and pain, but surprised them by suddenly pulling a small weapon and firing. Thomas reacted first, the gun being directed at him, and two bullets passed each other in the darkness, one grazing the soft flesh of Thomas’s left arm, the other tunnelling through the landlord’s stomach and exiting halfway up his back.
Mountmorres’ gun hand reacted spasmodically, snapping out straight and releasing the weapon. His only defence gone, and realising his mortal peril, panic took hold and he rolled over and began to crawl away through the mud, emitting desperate, wheezing grunts with each movement. He’d barely progressed one yard before Doherty pushed a toe under his body and rolled him over on to his back. He lay there a moment staring up wide-eyed at his assailants, abject terror written across his mud-streaked face.
‘This is the only justice you’ve ever seen,’ Doherty snarled and pointed his gun at Mountmorres’s head. Thomas aimed at his chest and a moment later two shots in quick succession echoed across the wild landscape.
‘Let’s get to the horses,’ Doherty said and turned, but as they moved away Feeney pushed between them and walked towards the body.
‘He’s dead, Feeney, let’s go!’ Thomas snapped.
But Feeney was not to be denied. He emptied three chambers into the lifeless corpse and then laughed.
‘Feeney! For fuck’s sake, let’s go!’
Feeney turned away and ran to them, then all three vaulted the wall and started to run across the stony field towards a small copse of trees where they had secured their horses.