That night when Henry went to Herbert Place to take Ella out to dinner, he arrived early—an almost unheard-of occurrence in Ireland. She was not ready. He had to cool his heels in the drawing room and make small talk with Edwin while his mind was upstairs with her. Ella in her chemise. Ella brushing her hair.
He hoped her brother could not read his mind.
ELLA was indeed in her chemise, frowning at a selection of frocks laid out on the bed. “Which one should I wear, Madge?” she asked her sister, who was lounging in a slipper chair.
“Do you want to look elegant or do you want to look gorgeous?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, are you dressing to impress other people or to make Henry want you?”
“Madge, I’m astonished!”
The younger woman just laughed. “Well, you do want him to desire you, don’t you? You can’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind.”
Blushing but smiling too, Ella admitted, “Madge, whenever he speaks to me in that deep voice of his I can feel my toes crossing and uncrossing.”
ON the third of May the Government of Ireland Act officially came into force. The Irish Bulletin printed the news in a stark black box, like a funeral announcement. That night Henry wanted to get drunk—grimly, furiously drunk. Instead he went to see Ella Rutledge.
His face told her everything. He was not looking for romance. This was a man in pain. “Come in and sit down,” she said gently, “and I’ll ring for a drink.”
“Best not. I already thought about that, but tomorrow won’t be any easier with a sore head.”
They sat close together in the drawing room. “Do you really think having two parliaments is such a bad idea?” Ella asked. “Perhaps it will ease the tension. I’d love to see things go back to being the way they were. The Belfast of my childhood was a kindly, tolerant place before Edward Carson curdled it with obstinacy and hate.”
“The Government of Ireland Act won’t make things any better,” he told her, “because it isn’t meant to. Lloyd George’s intention in partitioning us is to create a society too divided to function. Then he and those like him can cry, ‘Ah, we told you you weren’t fit to govern yourselves!’ That way they’re justified in refusing to grant us independence. And if they succeed here, what’s to prevent them from doing the same thing in…in India, say? Imperialism breeds a curious mentality, Ella. There is a type of individual who is determined to be right, no matter what the cost to others.”
Ella said, “That’s not limited to imperialists. I call it ‘last wordism.’ Long ago, my father made a rule that no one in this house was ever to try to have the last word.”
“Your father was a wise man.”
“He was. I wish you had known him; he would have approved of you.”
What did Tom Barry say? You need caution and courage in equal measure, and in that order. I think I’ve been cautious long enough. “I wish I had known your father, Ella. Then I could ask him for your hand in marriage. Now I’m not sure who to ask.”
Her lovely face was grave.
Oh, God. I’ve ruined everything.
Ella lifted her left hand and removed the circlet of diamonds from her finger. Then she extended the ringless hand. “Why not ask me,” she said.
TWO Irish-Americans who had met de Valera in New York successfully smuggled a few dozen Thompson machine guns into Ireland. They held informal training sessions to familiarize the IRA with the new weapon. Henry received a note from Tom Barry. “You should see the dandy toy the Big Fellow just sent me. It goes rat-a-tat-tat. Come down and I’ll let you play with it some time.”
A larger consignment of Thompsons was arranged through Clan na Gael. British intelligence agents in America did not have Michael Collins to thwart them; U.S. Customs learned of the shipment and seized it before it ever left New York.
The potential threat they represented did not go unrecognized. In Britain the voices calling for a truce grew louder. Lloyd George’s coalition government, shaky at the best of times, was forced to rethink its position, particularly in light of the fact that the number of nonmilitary persons being killed by Crown forces in Ireland was averaging almost one a day. Should that statistic be made public, the results could be dire for international relations—and commerce.
Two of the most influential British newspapers, the London Times and the Daily Mail, began clamoring for a peaceful settlement in Ireland.
HENRY wrote to Ned, “We’ve not yet told anyone, but Ella Rutledge has consented to become my wife!” He overcame his journalistic scruples to insert an exclamation mark, but even that was not sufficient. The next sentence was in block capitals. “I AM GOING TO MARRY ELLA RUTLEDGE!”
Ned replied, “We were absolutely gobsmacked by the news. Congratulations from us all. Precious in particular is over the moon. She likes Mrs. Rutledge very much and insists on being part of the wedding party. She wants to carry the bride’s train or throw rose petals or something, so you had best keep her in mind when you start making plans.”
Louise Kearney was not as wholehearted in her approval. Over meals she would gaze fixedly at Henry and clear her throat as if about to speak, then remain silent. Finally he could stand it no longer. “What’s the matter, Louise? If something’s on your mind, it’s not like you to keep quiet about it.”
She turned crimson and twisted her hands together in her lap. “Henry, Mrs. Rutledge is a sonsy* woman, I grant you that. But she’s also one of them.”
Henry was amused. “One of them what?”
“English.” The word came out in a hiss.
“Louise, that’s sheer bigotry. Besides, the Mansells aren’t English, they’re Anglo-Irish.”
“Sure and that’s worse. Don’t I have friends who clean houses for that sort and have to whistle for their wages?” She gave a contemptuous sniff. “Jumped-up gentry with empty pockets, giving themselves airs. Silk stockings and no breakfast.”
“You’ve met Ella’s family. They aren’t like that.”
“If you say so. But they seemed toffee-nosed to me, especially that Ava. Do you really suppose they will they let her marry a Catholic?”
ON the twenty-second of May King George visited Belfast for the formal opening of the new northern parliament. To the surprise of many, he personally revised the speech written for him and concluded by saying, “The future lies in the hands of my Irish people themselves. May this historic gathering be the prelude of the day in which the Irish people, north and south, under one parliament or two, as those parliaments may themselves decide, shall work together in common love for Ireland upon the sure foundation of mutual justice and respect.”5
AT Westminster Sir Edward Carson was proving to be something of a problem. His outspoken prejudices were deemed unhelpful in the changing political situation. So he was granted a life peerage as Baron Carson of Duncairn and appointed to serve as a lord of appeal. Thus effectively sidelined, Carson remarked with great clarity of hindsight, “I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power.”6
“Why did he not realize that sooner,” Henry asked bitterly, “when it could have done the people of this island some good?”
THE Bulletin—from its twelfth hideaway, a stately home in Longford Terrace, Rathgar—published the latest compilation of statistics. Justifying their actions on the grounds that Ireland was in a state of war—while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge members of the Irish Republican Army as prisoners of war—the British military was hanging or shooting prisoners without any pretense of a trial. Furthermore, all coroners’ inquests had been cancelled.
THE afternoon of May twenty-fifth was warm and sunny, with a light inshore breeze. Emmet Dalton, a former major in the British army who was now the IRA’s director of training, had selected a fine day for the Dublin Brigade’s maneuvers.
Splitting into two groups, the brigade sent one detail to prevent the central fire brigade fro
m answering calls. The second and larger group surrounded the magnificent domed Customs House on Eden Quay. James Gandon’s architectural masterpiece housed nine administrative departments, including income tax and local government records.
The Republicans ordered the large building evacuated. The frightened staff obeyed, but the head caretaker vehemently refused. After a brief argument, they shot him. Then they ran from room to room with paraffin and matches.
The time spent evacuating the building was sufficient to allow an alarm to be raised. As the Republicans left the building, the first lorry load of Black and Tans arrived. Gunfire once more rattled along the quays. Five members of the Dublin Brigade were killed and almost eighty arrested, but nothing could arrest the fire. The flames had tons of paper to feed upon.
For the rest of the day the skies above Dublin sagged with smoke. Crowds gathered to gape at the fire, which continued to blaze throughout the night until the great copper dome collapsed with a roar that was heard for miles. By morning only the blackened walls were standing.
Henry was sickened, and not just by the wanton destruction of a beautiful building. When Frank Gallagher asked him to write a triumphant article about the burning of the Customs House, he refused. “I can’t condone what was done there,” he said bluntly. “In destroying the records of the administration of Ireland we’re destroying our own records. We are Ireland.”
This was the kind of thing he had feared when he arranged for Ned to go to Clare. Otherwise Henry had no doubt Ned would have been inside the Customs House with matches in his hand.
Ned affirmed his belief by writing jubilantly, “Thank God for that fire! All those birth certificates burned—now no one can prove Precious is not my daughter.”
NO one doubted that de Valera had ordered the attack on the Customs House, though he was not acknowledging it publicly. “He’s waiting to see whether the action proves to be an asset or a liability to him,” Matt Nugent said to Henry in the Oval Bar. “You have to admire Dev. He knows when to keep his head below the parapet.”
“He knows how to turn a situation to his advantage, too,” Henry replied. “To make up for those who were killed and captured he’s amalgamated Collins’ men into the Dublin Brigade. That puts them under Cathal Brugha as minister for defense, and thus directly under Dev’s control.”
“What does the Big Fellow think about that?”
Henry shook his head. “I wouldn’t like to be the one who asks him.”
AT the end of May Anglo-Egyptian relations hit a new low as Egyptian nationalists rioted in Cairo and Alexandria, demanding independence. British soldiers quelled the potential uprising with rifle and bayonet.
IN June the British military arrested Eamon de Valera and imprisoned him in Portobello Barracks. The arrest took place without bureaucratic sanction.
THE destruction of the Irish income tax records forced the British government to confront the reality of the losses they were suffering. Michael Collins and the IRA were running circles around Crown forces.
Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson and Lloyd George had a serious disagreement over Irish policy which led to the prime minister refusing to reappoint Wilson chief of the imperial general staff. As a parting shot, Wilson flatly informed the cabinet that the British troops in Ireland were so demoralized they would all have to be replaced by October. To attempt to reconquer the country, he said, would require an additional one hundred thousand specially recruited men at the minimum, total martial law, and prohibition of all civil traffic except by special license. The cost to the British exchequer would be staggering.
Wilson went, but his words echoed in number 10 Downing Street.
EAMON de Valera was released from prison without explanation.
Within days Arthur Griffith, Eoin MacNeill, and Desmond FitzGerald were released as well.
ON the twenty-fourth of June Lloyd George sent a formal invitation to de Valera. He was asked to attend a conference together with Sir James Craig, who now bore the title of Premier of Northern Ireland.
Anticipating a truce, an editorial in the Westmeath Independent proclaimed triumphantly, “English rule is broken in Ireland. No English policies, good or bad, will stand. The Irish people will govern themselves.”7
Henry Mooney cut out that column to save with his treasured copy of the Proclamation of the Republic. In the peace and quiet of his room at number 16 he began work on an article of his own. The first paragraph read, “1776—America. 1789—France. 1921—Ireland. This will go into the history books as the year Ireland won her own War of Independence.”
He put down his pencil and sat for a long time staring at the words. “Nineteen twenty-one,” he whispered. Then he went out alone to stand under the night sky. The hem of heaven was embroidered with stars.
DE Valera declined Lloyd George’s invitation. His response stated, “We most earnestly desire to help in bringing about a lasting peace between the peoples of these two islands, but see no avenue by which it can be reached if you deny Ireland’s essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination.”8
In the Clare Champion Henry explained, “Had Eamon de Valera accepted Lloyd George’s invitation to attend jointly with Sir James Craig, it would have amounted to an acceptance of Craig’s right to govern part of Ireland against the will of the national majority. We must obtain freedom from foreign domination for all our people, not just some. But we are almost there. The war is won. It only remains to win the peace.”
“IT’S down to politics now,” Henry told Ella when he called at Herbert Place that evening. “The two sides will negotiate until they find a position their supporters can live with. If Dev keeps his nerve and doesn’t give way, Britain will have no choice but to accept the Republic. After that there can be real peace between our two countries. After all, many in Britain are our friends—or our relatives.”
“Like my cousins in London,” said Ella. “You’ll meet them one of these days.”
“Mmm. What will they think of you marrying a Catholic? For that matter, what does your family here think?”
“So far I haven’t told anyone but Madge. She was worried that when she married I would be left as—how did she put it?—the last leaf on the tree. So I—Oh, hullo, Madge. Were you eavesdropping?”
“Of course not, since I already know your secret,” Madge replied, hurrying across the room to plant a kiss on Henry’s cheek. “I’m delighted for you both. I think Edwin will approve too—he likes you tremendously.”
“And Ava?”
Madge made a face. “Don’t worry about Ava, Henry. Let me tell you one of our secrets. When Sir Rhys Mansell came to Ireland to beat the recalcitrant natives into submission, he made one of those natives his mistress. After the rebellion was put down, he went back to England; but she was an Irish Catholic peasant, so he could hardly take her with him. He left her here with a bun in the oven, and that’s our famous Mansell connection. Descended from an illegitimate son. If dear Ava tries to pretend this family’s too good for the Mooneys, you just laugh at her.”
Laugh at Ava. And the cousins in London. And the relatives in Belfast. And the priests who will want her to convert and demand our children be raised as Catholics. And her Protestant friends who will be horrified. Laugh at those who will very rightly be concerned about what Ella’s getting into.
She hasn’t told people yet because she’s afraid to. I don’t blame her.
Henry did not take a cab back to number 16. He walked, with his coat collar turned up against an insistent drizzle.
In marrying Ella Rutledge he would be taking a leap of faith: faith that their feelings for one another would be enough to overcome all obstacles.
Chapter Thirty-one
ALTHOUGH he had declined Lloyd George’s invitation to a conference, de Valera organized a conference himself. He wanted members of the Dáil to consult with what he called “representatives of the political minority,” the loyalists living in the six counties in contention, and gain
their consent to a truce proposal on Republican terms.
De Valera set the date for the Fourth of July—American Independence Day.
The conference was held at the Mansion House. On de Valera’s orders the American flag was flown from the front of the building to honor the day. Four representatives from the loyalist side attended, but Sir James Craig refused to come.
None of the press was invited. The negotiations were held behind closed doors while an anxious crowd waited in the street, seething with speculation.
On the fifth of July a British emissary, General Smuts, arrived from London to hold private talks with de Valera.
When the conference concluded three days later, Desmond FitzGerald gave the Irish Bulletin its lead story: “Eamon de Valera, the president of Dáil Éireann, will be traveling to London on the fourteenth of this month to meet with the British prime minister at Downing Street. In the meantime General Macready has been invited to the Mansion House to discuss principles governing a possible truce.”
Ireland held its breath.
When General Sir Neville Macready, wearing full military uniform and with a revolver in his pocket, arrived at the Mansion House, he found the footpath lined with Irish men and women on their knees, saying the rosary. To his amazement, they greeted him warmly. “It’s peace you’ve come to bring us, then?” said one white-haired woman with a careworn face. “May God bless you.”
ON July eleventh a special edition of the Bulletin proclaimed, ANGLO-IRISH TRUCE SIGNED:
“The British army has agreed to bring in no more troops, conduct no provocative displays, and engage in no pursuit of Irish officers or men. For its part the Irish Republican Army has agreed to abandon its attacks on Crown forces, conduct no provocative displays, and cease interfering with government property and otherwise disturbing the peace. Republicans are given leave to go home, but asked to hold themselves ready for mobilization at short notice for the duration of the truce.”
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