“The wrongdoing is no longer limited to the Crown forces,” Henry reported regretfully. “Violence infects the very air. The plain people of Ireland, who once would do ‘anything for a quiet life,’ are like a nest of hornets disturbed.”
Erskine Childers wrote, “It is impossible to escape from the subtle demoralization which comes to a people bludgeoned into silence by the law, driven underground to preserve its national organization and forced under intolerable provocation into desperate reprisals.”7
The coarsening of the Irish was evidenced in a number of ways. Henry noticed that the everyday language of the streets was becoming more vulgar, liberally sprinkled with profanities which would have been unthinkable only a few years earlier. His own mild expletives began to seem quaint.
“If we are not careful,” he warned, “we will turn into the brutes our enemies picture us.”
The Bulletin informed readers that frightened bureaucrats had begun moving themselves and their families behind the protective walls of Dublin Castle. They slept on office furniture and sent out for meals.
From his office in Dublin Castle, surrounded by police who thought they were protecting him from the Republicans, Ned Broy actually was providing a base for penetrating the deepest secrets of the British government. He made two carbon copies of every report he typed: one for his bosses and one for Michael Collins.
Collins’ intelligence network now included Belfast as well as England. Constantly on the move, he covered Dublin by bicycle and the rest of the country in friends’ motorcars. He had offices and safe houses everywhere and was said to carry a hundred keys. One thing was certain: he held a hundred Republican strings firmly in his hands.
By the time Eamon de Valera had been in America a year the most popular games among Dublin children were ambush games.
The Dáil was aware of every aspect of IRA activity but did not comment officially and gave no approval. By June arbitration courts had been set up in twenty-eight of Ireland’s thirty-two counties. Through these courts, plaintiffs were appealing to the Dáil to enforce law and order—an enforcement the British could no longer guarantee.
In the June elections Sinn Féin candidates enjoyed a landslide. “We’re away in a hack!” a jubilant Arthur Griffith announced at a party held to celebrate in the Gresham Hotel.
At the end of the month the Dáil set up Land Courts that considered over three hundred cases. A number of loyalists, finding themselves landowners in a new republic not under their control, were desperate to sell their property. The Land Courts guaranteed that they received a fair price and were treated with every courtesy.
“The Republic of Ireland exists,” Henry wrote, “whether Britain and the world choose to recognize it or not. The people have brought their nation into being through the ballot box, and continue to support it with their devotion.”
The Republicans also were establishing their own police force. Dublin Castle was outraged anew. In a land with a British administration and almost fifty thousand armed men under British orders, the audacity of the Irish in trying to police themselves was unforgivable.
Erskine Childers told readers of the Bulletin, “Daring daylight raids on government buildings are taking place in Dublin. Documents and even arms have been seized by Republicans without having to resort to gunplay.”
In July the IRA appropriated Dublin Castle’s mail at the General Post Office. When Lord-Lieutenant French received his next postal delivery, he was astonished to find the packet marked PASSED BY CENSOR, IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY.
The Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries began burning the homes of civilians whose greatest crime was living in the vicinity of a Republican ambush. They also burned down the creameries upon which the support of many rural people depended, leaving farm families destitute.
The IRA retaliated by burning some of the great country houses belonging to British loyalists. Many of these houses were very beautiful, an irreplaceable part of Ireland’s architectural heritage. They were also hated symbols of the conqueror: the Haves flaunting their triumph over the Have Nots.
EDWARD Carson was furious about the results of the election and made a real rabble-rousing speech on the twelfth,” Desmond FitzGerald told Henry by phone. “It was plainly intended to incite violence against the Catholics. Get yourself up there—you know the train connections—and send us a description of the situation. Mick Collins gave me the name of an inexpensive hotel just off Victoria Street, not far from the Ulster Hall. He has an agent on the staff who’ll look after you.”
“I have arrived on 19 July, in the middle of the Marching Season,” Henry wrote in his notebook as soon as he had unpacked his bag in Belfast. He wanted to set out the historical context before exploring the city and recording his impressions. “Those who do not live in the northeastern corner of this island may not fully appreciate what the Marching Season represents. The Orange Order is a Protestant organization founded in County Armagh in 1795. The Order began as a secret society committed to imposing its will by physical force. Its name was taken from William of Orange, the Protestant king who defeated the Catholic King James in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The Order grew out of earlier sectarian groups such as the ‘Peep O’ Day Boys,’ which had kept Armagh, Tyrone and Down in a state of turmoil for years. These self-appointed vigilantes visited Catholic peasants by night, threw them out of their homes and destroyed their property.
“At the end of the eighteenth century a concerted effort was being made to ban northern Catholics from employment in the thriving linen industry, and Protestant businessmen flocked to join the new Orange Order. The Order also spread to America. In the 1870s violent Orange Riots rocked New York City as Protestants staged triumphalist marches through Catholic neighborhoods. Irish, Spanish, and Italians were targeted. Almost seventy people were killed before the city government banned any further marches.8
“In 1913 Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionists, looked to the Orange Order for support when founding the Ulster Volunteer Force. Carson encouraged naked sectarian hatred to keep himself in power. This resulted in the founding of the Irish Volunteers as a countering force, which in turn led to the Easter Rising and the current situation.
“There are many decent members of the Protestant community who do not agree with the politics of the Orange Order. But as so often before in Ireland, bullying and intimidation triumph. Every July the Orangemen celebrate the Battle of the Boyne by parading throughout the northeast, beating huge drums, shouting antipapist slogans, and physically assaulting any Catholic foolish enough to come within reach. The Marching Season is a terrifying time.”
When Henry had completed his article, he set out for the railway station to give it to a safe courier.
The streets of Belfast were gaily decorated with arches of red, white, and blue bunting, the colors of the British flag. Surmounting these were brilliantly colored panels depicting King William on his white horse; an open Bible; a black servant kneeling submissively at the feet of Queen Victoria. On a piece of waste ground between two shops Henry saw the smoldering remains of a huge festive bonfire. A few hundred yards farther on, he encountered an Orange parade.
The drums announced it first; the awesome Lambeg drums whose menacing thunder drowned out thought.
Crowds lined the street waiting, craning their necks. Excited, happy; a holiday atmosphere. Men and women eating ice cream. Children with balloons on strings. When a little lad of five or six gave Henry a gap-toothed grin, he found himself grinning back.
The parade, he had to admit, was a stirring sight no matter what one’s persuasion. A flute-and-pipe band ecstatically playing “The Sash My Father Wore” brilliant banners tossing in the wind; burly drummers beating the immense Lambeg drums with such energy the blood ran down their wrists. Unconsciously Henry began tapping his foot to the infectious beat of the drums.
Behind the band marched the Orangemen themselves in their unofficial uniform of dark serge suit and bowler hat. The Orange sash
was prominently displayed. They walked with stiff dignity, their faces set in grim lines that belied the festival atmosphere. But when someone in the crowd shouted, “Burn all the papists and bugger the pope!,” many of the marchers grinned.
Henry—who had thought himself antithetical to the religion of his birth—turned and went back to the hotel. In his room he took off his bowler hat and stamped the hard crown flat with his foot. He put the ruined hat in the bottom of his suitcase with his revolver, then went out into the streets again to soak up more local color.
He never heard the shot that hit him.
Chapter Twenty-five
AN unreliable sun played tag among the clouds over Dublin. Ned had gone to a meeting. Síle was boiling sheets in the big copper boiler in the yard behind number 16 when Louise came stumbling out of the house. “Sweet Mother Mary,” she gasped, wringing her hands. “Curse them terrible Proddys!”
Síle looked up. “What are you talking about?”
“The Prods have shot our Henry.”
Síle dropped the wooden stirring pole and ran into the house.
Four men in the somber black of undertaker’s assistants had deposited a coffin in the middle of the parlor. As Síle burst into the room they were just unscrewing the lid. She stood transfixed while a hundred images of Henry flooded her mind, tumbling over one another like pebbles on the bed of a rushing river. All so alive. She could not picture him dead. Perhaps it was not Henry after all, she thought desperately. Perhaps there had been some dreadful mistake of identity.
She forced herself to approach the coffin and look down as the lid was removed.
Henry Mooney lay inside.
A moan was wrung from Síle.
Henry’s eyes opened.
She staggered back with her hand to her mouth.
“It’s all right,” a familiar deep voice said. “I’m not a ghost, though I might have been if these lads had made the airholes in the side of this contraption any smaller.”
The “undertaker’s assistants” carried him to the best bedroom in the house, while Louise arbitrarily dumped the belongings of its usual tenant into a smaller room. Within half an hour of his arrival Henry was resting on clean sheets. His cousin was busying herself in the kitchen, preparing food he did not want. Síle had assigned herself to be his nurse. Precious was in charge of fetching and carrying, though every few minutes she trotted into Henry’s room to reassure herself that he was still alive.
“It’s really not serious,” Henry assured Síle. “A wound in the hip, but the bullet went clean through. A freak shot, perhaps even a ricochet. It nicked the bone but didn’t break it, and missed all the vital organs.”
“Any bullet wound is serious.”
“Well, Mick’s man didn’t seem to think this one was. Thank God he was on duty when they brought me into the hotel. He found a doctor to patch me up and pronounce me dead, all in the one visit. Then he arranged for…er, undertakers, to bring me back to Dublin. All I need now is a few days to recover.”
“You’ll need more than that,” Síle told him. “We’ll have to keep the wound clean and those dressings changed, for one thing.”
“Louise can send for that doctor of Ned’s.”
Síle bristled. She had decided the man was a quack, and said so. “I can tend a wound as well as any doctor. Didn’t I learn first aid for the Rising?”
Henry felt his neck redden with embarrassment. “It’s a hip wound, Síle. I really don’t think—”
“And haven’t I seen any number of naked men and their private parts?” she snapped.
Henry’s mouth fell open.
“I’ll tend you myself, Henry Mooney, and no arguing. The fewer people who know about this, the safer for us all.”
By the time Ned came home Henry was sound asleep. Síle, Louise, and Precious took turns telling Ned the story, or as much of it as they knew. Two days later Michael Collins told him the rest.
Collins arrived shortly after Síle carried a breakfast tray to Henry’s room. He stood filling up the doorway, grinning in at the patient. “How’s she cuttin’?”
“Don’t use your Cork slang on me,” Henry said. “I’m not able for it this morning.”
“He’s feeling better,” Síle interpreted. “That’s why he’s so narcky.”
“I am not! Narcky, I mean. What have I to grouch about? I spent half a day in beautiful Belfast and saw shag-all of it, got shot in a painful place, came home in a coffin, and am lying here with no privacy and no peace while women fuss over me and feed me beef tea. Which I hate.”
Síle lifted her eyebrows at Collins. “See what I mean?”
“I do indeed. Leave me with him for a few minutes, will you?”
Síle Duffy Halloran was one person who did not jump when Michael Collins issued an order. She merely looked at Henry, who nodded. “It’s all right, Síle. If I need you I’ll give a shout.”
“So that’s Ned’s wife,” Collins said when he judged her out of earshot. “Somehow she’s not what I expected.”
Henry chuckled. “Síle’s not what anyone expects.”
“She’s a fair lass,” Collins added.
“Have you not met her before?” Given her a gun, perhaps, to sneak into my suitcase?
“I have not; I’d remember her surely.” His expression was guileless, but by now Henry knew him too well. It could be the complete truth or a total lie.
Collins abruptly changed the subject. “We got you out of Belfast just in time, Henry. The same day you were shot, armed mobs attacked the Catholic areas, burning and looting.1 The riot’s still going on. More than fifty people have been wounded and nineteen killed so far, but the police are making no effort to intervene. And we don’t have enough armed men up there to protect our people, damn it.
“Oh, by the way, at least there’s some good news. Erskine and Molly Childers have bought a new house.”
“Really? Where?”
“Bushy Park Road in Terenure. Erskine’s working on the Bulletin at home now.”
When Collins had gone, Síle came in to change Henry’s dressings. As she turned down the bedcovers he closed his eyes. He could not watch her face while his body lay exposed to her. Her fingers were cool; competent. Stripping away the old dressing, she gently bathed the wound with carbolic and tepid water. “There’s an artery that runs down through the groin,” she remarked, tracing its route with her fingertip. “If the bullet had gone an inch to the left you could be dead now.”
“Lucky me,” said Henry. His eyes were so tightly shut he could feel the lids crinkle at the corners.
Síle bent down to examine the wound more closely, looking for any hint of infection. He could feel her warm breath on his bare skin.
Does she know what she does to me? Of course she does; she’s an experienced woman if ever there was one. Dear God…something’s stirring down there, and it’s not just the hair on my belly.
He lay in an agony of embarrassment, but she made no comment. She dressed the wound with professional expertise, then said briskly, “There, that’s you done and dusted.” When she had pulled the sheet over him and tucked the blanket in, Henry finally opened his eyes. Síle rewarded him with a smile. “I didn’t hurt you too much, did I?”
“No. You didn’t hurt me too much.”
DEAR Ella,
“I am back in Dublin for a while, although currently indisposed. As soon as I am up and about again I hope you will allow me the pleasure of calling upon yourself and your family.
“As ever,
“Henry Mooney.”
IT was the first week of August before Síle and Louise would allow Henry to leave the house. His hip was very sore, and he was not certain he wanted to entrust himself to a bicycle just yet, so he began building up his strength by walking around the neighborhood. What he saw made him resolve to keep his revolver with him at all times.
Regular army men patrolled the streets of Dublin carrying rifles with bayonets fixed. In addition to their traditional bat
ons, the Dublin Metropolitan Police force was now equipped with handguns. Plainclothes members of G Division loitered around known Republican meeting places. They tried to appear inconspicuous but sometimes gave themselves away by looking nervous.
And everywhere, swaggering like beings beyond the moral restraint of gods or men, strode the Black and Tans.
Dubliners were living in a state of siege. A residence or commercial premises could be raided at any time without warning. Looted articles were displayed like trophies. At night searchlights played on the fronts of houses while military transports rumbled incessantly through the streets.
On the ninth of August the Restoration of Order in Ireland Bill received the royal assent. Trial by jury was virtually abolished. The military forces were relieved of almost all restraints under law.
Henry immediately wrote an angry denunciation of the bill and took it to Terenure by tramcar. In spite of his emotions, he was careful to make certain he quoted the bill precisely. Erskine Childers was a meticulous editor. Every detail of every story had to be checked and double-checked—a finickiness that was turning Arthur Griffith’s initial admiration for the Englishman to sharp dislike.
Childers read Henry’s article twice, checked it against the bill himself, and promised to publish it in the next Bulletin. Henry Mooney was back at work.
His next article, he decided, would focus on the mass hunger strike that had just begun in Cork Jail. Sixty Republicans—many of them being held without charge—were demanding that the category of political prisoner be reinstated.
“The British government has decided to risk their deaths rather than accede to what is, after all, a reasonable request,” Henry wrote. “Other countries recognize political prisoner status. It is meant to guarantee humane treatment; nothing more sinister than that. Yet this is being denied in Ireland.”
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