“I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. I kept thinking about you, and the future. This business about the Treaty…I don’t know where it’s headed, Ella. I’ve been pacing the floor for hours, worrying.”
Her worried expression melted into compassion. “Oh, my dear, you take things too personally. It’s only politics.”
“Of course I take things personally—I’m only human!” he snapped. “And politics is no small matter. It’s behind everything that’s gone wrong in Ireland.”
“Perhaps it’s all for the best, Henry. Things usually are, you know.”
His nerve endings were too raw to be placated. “You’re saying that because you’re quite content to be part of the empire. That filthy old pirate Britannia’s made your family wealthy, hasn’t she?”
“That’s unfair, Henry.”
“I’m sorry. I lost the run of myself, I didn’t mean to imply…”
“Of course not.” She patted his hand. “I understand, dearest. Truly I do. You’re just tired and strained; let’s forget we ever had this conversation. I’ll ring for Tilly and…no, I’ll go to the kitchen myself and make us some cocoa. Would you like that?” She smiled tentatively. “A chance to see if your bride-to-be knows her way around a kitchen in case we can’t afford a cook?”
He tried to match her smile, her deliberate lightheartedness. But he imagined he saw a new wariness in her eyes.
Maybe she’s realized I’m not good enough for her. Maybe Mam was right about me all along and I’ve only been fooling myself.
IN an effort to encourage acceptance of the treaty the British government announced a general amnesty for all Irish political prisoners. If he had been facing Ned Halloran across a chessboard, Henry would have taken the opportunity to remark on a clever use of pawns. But he did not have Ned to talk to anymore.
Precious wrote: “I’m sorry if you and Papa have had a row. He won’t speak about it, so I don’t know what happened. But I love you just the same and wish you a very happy Christmas.” She included a handmade card depicting a girl and a black horse kneeling together beside the Christ Child’s manger. The figures in the pen-and-ink drawing had been reworked several times, with the nib of the pen digging into the paper as the youthful artist became more impatient.
The Dáil recessed for Christmas on the twenty-third with no end to the debate in sight. During the public sessions the galleries had been packed with people eager to see the duel between Collins and de Valera—and not disappointed. Both men were at the top of their form. Passion crackled through the air like the electricity sparking through the electroliers that lit the hall. Henry dutifully reported their exchanges to periodicals at home and abroad, but with a sinking heart.
Because he could no longer share his thoughts with Ned, he wrote to Precious. “They’re all good people,” he told her. “Courageous, principled people who genuinely believe they know what’s right for Ireland. If either side were acting out of self-interest or malice it would be different, but when it comes to decency there’s nothing to choose between them. That’s where the tragedy lies.
“After the Dáil adjourned I noticed Mrs. Pearse talking with Count Plunkett and Kathleen Clarke. Mrs. Pearse’s two sons, Count Plunkett’s firstborn son, and Mrs. Clarke’s husband lie buried in quicklime in the grounds of Arbour Hill Prison, victims of a British firing squad. How could people who have sacrificed so much for the Republic be asked to relinquish it now?
“Just across the room from them was Arthur Griffith, that sincere and brilliant man, who has dedicated his life to trying to improve the lot of the Irish people. And Mick Collins, a gunman in the process of evolving into a statesman, or I’m no judge of human nature. Were they wrong to try to save the Irish people from a devastating all-out war?
“It’s an impossible question to answer, Precious. Had the vote been taken before the Dáil adjourned for Christmas, I think the Republicans would have carried the day. But during the recess press and pulpit, both of which are for the Treaty, will have time to exercise their influence.” He could not help adding, “If you wonder why the Catholic Church supports the Treaty, the answer will tell you a lot about the establishment itself. Many individual priests are staunchly republican, but the hierarchy see the handwriting on the wall. They know which side will win. The Church, with so much property to protect, will always side with Power.”
HENRY took little pleasure in the Christmas of 1921. He gave and received presents, went to Mass, attended parties, smiled, talked, ate and drank…yet he felt hollow inside, like someone sitting at the bedside of a critically ill patient through a dark and lonely night.
Precious wrote, “I have been thinking about your letter, Uncle Henry. I have been trying to be a TD in my mind and decide how I would vote. It is so hard to know. If only we could step into the future and then look back. But we shall step into the future. It is waiting for us, and it will be shaped by what they decide in the Dáil. I pray they will make the right decision.”
She signed the letter not Precious, nor even Little Business, but Ursula.
All over Ireland people were praying that the Dáil would make the right decision.
What would that be?
ON the second of January, 1922, a number of Dublin’s bridges were formally rechristened. Wellington Bridge—known locally as the Ha’penny or the Iron Bridge—became Liffey Bridge. Richmond Bridge was changed to O’Donovan Rossa. Queen Street Bridge was thenceforth to be known as Queen Maeve Bridge and Kings Bridge as Sarsfield.
The Irish were taking over.
Dáil Éireann reconvened on the third. Henry Mooney listened intently to the last impassioned arguments about the Treaty, transcribing as many as he could. At her request he sent copies to Clare addressed to “Miss Ursula Halloran.”
On the seventh of January a vote on the Treaty finally was taken in the Dáil. Among those who voted “Is toil”—quite literally, “I desire”—were Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Seán Milroy, Eoin MacNeill. W. T. Cosgrave, and Richard Mulcahy. Those voting “Ní toil,” “I do not desire,” included Eamon de Valera, Mrs. Margaret Pearse, Constance Markievicz, Cathal Brugha, Harry Boland, and Erskine Childers. Childers—thin and deadly pale—was physically shattered by what he saw as the betrayal of the Republic. He made no secret that he blamed Collins entirely.
The Treaty was accepted by Dáil Éireann with a vote of 64 to 57. The nation would have a chance to make its own decision in the upcoming general election, which would be seen as a referendum on the Articles of Agreement with pro- and anti-Treaty nominees fighting for office.
When the huge crowd in the street outside heard that the Treaty had passed the Dáil, they broke into a spontaneous cheer.
Inside the hall was a very different scene.
As if a line had been drawn across the floor with the tip of a sword, the vote separated friend from friend. Former comrades-in-arms gazed at one another across that line.
To the background accompaniment of the cheering in the streets, Eamon de Valera announced, “It will of course be my duty to resign my office as chief executive.”
“No!” cried Michael Collins.
De Valera ignored him. He went on, “The Irish people established a Republic. The Republic can only be disestablished by the Irish people. Therefore, until such time as the Irish people in regular manner disestablish it, this Republic goes on.”4
In an attempt to defuse the situation, Collins appealed to de Valera to help form a committee to maintain public order during the transitional time ahead. Many of the spectators thought he would accept—until Mary MacSwiney, sister of the dead lord mayor of Cork, leaped to her feet. “This is a betrayal, a gross betrayal!” she cried. “It is only a small majority, and that majority is not united. Half of them are looking for a gun and the other half are looking for the fleshpots of the empire. I tell you there can be no union between the representatives of the Irish Republic and the so-called Free State.”
Addressing the room, de Valera said in a stra
ngled voice, “I would like my last word here to be this: We have had a glorious record for four years; it has been four years of magnificent discipline in our nation. The world is looking at us now…” His voice broke. The man they called the Chief folded his arms on the table in front of him and put his head down on them while his long body shook with sobs.
Many of the women in the hall and not a few of the men began weeping too.
Henry Mooney saw a long look pass between Michael Collins and Harry Boland, on opposite sides of the hall. Both had tears in their eyes.
Paindrops.
On the ninth of January, Eamon de Valera formally announced the resignation of himself and his entire cabinet and led his supporters from the Dáil.
Chapter Thirty-six
HENRY tilted back his chair and surveyed the calendar on the wall. “It’s the first of February. The Feast of Saint Brigid. First day of spring.”
“It is,” Louise Kearney agreed absentmindedly. She bit off a thread, knotted it, and went on mending sheets. Lodgers were very hard on sheets. A few minutes later she glanced up. “Henry, why are you pulling faces?”
He paused in the ruminative examination of his mouth with his tongue. “Took a blast of cold wind in the street yesterday. Must have had my mouth open.”
“D’you have a bad tooth?”
“Mmm.”
She put her sewing aside. “There’s a pliers in the scullery. I could—”
“Don’t even think it. I’d rather be shot again.”
“Then promise me you’ll go to a dentist.”
“Mmm.” He resumed his contemplation of the calendar. “Little Business will be confirmed in a few months.”
“I thought you told me she likes to be called Ursula now.”
“She does.”
“Will you be going down to Clare for her confirmation?”
“Ned won’t want me there.”
“You’ll have to face him sooner or later, Henry, and try to patch up your differences, whatever they are.”
He had not explained them to Louise; had not explained them to anyone. The assumption was that he and Ned had quarreled over the Treaty as many in Ireland were doing, and he let it go at that.
Some pains you just have to swallow and keep to yourself. I wonder: When you fill up to a certain point with your secret pains, do you begin to die? Is that what old age really is?
He stood up. “I’d better get on my bike, Louise. I’ve an interview this morning with the president of the Dáil.”
“Well, why are you spoonybrassing around here, mortal man! Get your hat while I brush your coat. Do you have a clean handkerchief? Do you want some meat sandwiches to put in your pocket? Hurry up, Henry, don’t keep Mr. Griffith waiting.”
AFTER de Valera’s departure from the Dáil Michael Collins had nominated Arthur Griffith to replace him as its president. On the fourteenth of January the Dáil had elected a provisional government that was to operate while a constitution for the Free State was being drafted and accepted. Under the terms of the Treaty, if this did not happen within one year the administration of Ireland would revert to Britain.
The chairman of the Provisional Government of Ireland was Michael Collins, and its offices were in the former Royal College of Science.
Collins did not intend to wait for the national election, but had set about organizing matters as swiftly as possible to keep Ireland in Irish hands. Within days, a contingent of the newly designated Free State National Army took over Beggars’ Bush Barracks in Dublin while the British were still moving out. The former RIC Depot in the Phoenix Park was to be used for the new Civic Guards. In the aftermath of the Rising the British had allowed the Irish economy to disintegrate drastically, while the return of demobilized soldiers from the Great War had added to the already staggering unemployment. Recruitment offices for the Free State Army and the Civic Guards were unable to keep up with the flood of applicants. They included unemployed Volunteers, demobilized members of the British army, raw farmboys, and tough, illiterate gutties from the slums of Dublin.
The Provisional Government was up and running.
HENRY met Arthur Griffith in his office. Griffith began by apologizing. “There are books and papers and cartons everywhere, I’m afraid, both coming and going—Dáil material, Provisional Government business…. If you can find anything to sit on, please do, Henry. Just mind that one of my staff doesn’t whisk it out from under you and leave you sitting on the floor.”
“At least when you’re on the floor you can’t fall any farther.”
“I must remember that. Now if you have questions for me, I can give you half an hour if you don’t mind interruptions.”
“I’m grateful for whatever time you can spare,” Henry assured him. He thought Griffith looked ill, but did not say so. None of the Treaty delegation had looked hale and hearty when they returned to Ireland. “I would appreciate your thoughts on the new cabinet and the way ahead for the Irish nation, Mr. Griffith. My articles are now being published in America and on the Continent, so I can assure you a wide audience.”
“At least some good has come out of this frightful business. People everywhere want to know more about Ireland.”
Henry raised his pencil. “May I quote that phrase: ‘frightful business’?”
“I would prefer if you did not. We must look buoyant and optimistic.”
“Are you optimistic, sir?”
Griffith took off his spectacles and wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You’ve always played square with us, Henry, so I’ll answer your question…but off the record. I’m quite worried about the situation. The majority of the people support the Treaty; you know that and I know that. But there are very strong emotions on the other side and Dev knows how to play on them. He insists that his heart tells him how the Irish people really feel…and he wasn’t even born in Ireland. It is very arrogant of him,” said Arthur Griffith, the least arrogant of men.
Henry smiled. “Do you not recall what the Duke of Wellington said when someone accused him of being Irish because he was born in Ireland? He said, ‘Being born in a stable does not make one an ass.’ Or something to that effect.”
Just then two men came in with a hand truck and began piling up boxes. “Those are for the City Hall, mind you,” Griffith said. One of the men nodded. “And that lot over there go to the Castle.”
“How strange it is,” remarked Henry, “for the Dáil to be sending documents to Dublin Castle.”
“I can’t quite get used to it myself. Unfortunately I couldn’t be at the Castle on January sixteenth for the official handover of the place. I was struggling with a mountain of urgent government business elsewhere.”
“Mick told me he went to the Castle in a taxi,” Henry said. “The British had everything organized in advance. When he came swaggering in, some officious little bureaucrat complained that he was seven minutes late. Threw their whole timetable off. So Mick told him, ‘Blast you, sure and you people are over here for seven centuries. What bloody difference does seven minutes make now that you’re leaving?’ ”
Griffith managed a tired smile. “You have to admire his nerve. I was at the Mansion House later when he announced that he ‘had received the surrender of Dublin Castle which was now in the hands of the Irish nation.’ I know perfectly well the British had not meant the handover as a ‘surrender,’ but Mick made it into one.”
Henry smiled too. “I only wish the men who died in 1916 could have been here to see it.”
“They should never have died, Henry,” Griffith insisted. “No one should ever have died.”
“Name me one nation that was born bloodlessly.”
“We have to complete the winning of this one bloodlessly, but it won’t be easy. Imagine the scene: Michael Collins and his ministers in City Hall, surrounded by the ruins of one administration and trying to put another together while the Republicans are cursing them through the keyhole.”
Henry chuckled. “Metaphorically speaking.
”
“Not necessarily. It could really happen. Remember that two years ago the Irish Republican Army voluntarily placed itself under the control of the Dáil. Now the Dáil has voted for the disestablishment of the Republic, replacing it with a Free State. That’s thrown the relationship between the government and the army into disarray.
“To make matters more difficult, the Provisional Government’s just appointed Richard Mulcahy as minister for defense to replace Cathal Brugha. It will be an unpopular decision with many Republicans. Brugha is one of their greatest heroes. Last night de Valera met with the senior officers and asked them to give Mulcahy the same cooperation they gave Brugha, and asked Mulcahy himself to take no action that would split the army.”
Henry said, “That’s a hopeful sign, is it not? Dev always was good at holding opposing sides together.”
“That was then and this is now,” replied Griffith. “I’m not convinced he wants to hold them together. If the army does split one branch will be composed of veterans of 1916 or men who devoutly wish they had fought in 1916. It won’t be over for them until we have the thirty-two-county Irish Republic their comrades died for. If Dev tells them to continue the fight, they will.”
When the interview was over, Griffith put one hand on Henry’s sleeve. “Now may I ask you a question? Off the record?”
“You may of course.”
“Which way do you go in this?”
“As a journalist I’m strictly neutral, but…I tell a lie. That’s pretentious and it’s not even true. My head accepts the Free State as a political expedient. But my heart is with the Republic.”
“Ah,” said Arthur Griffith sadly. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”
THAT night Henry took Ella to dinner at the former Metropole Hotel. The Dublin landmark, which had been destroyed by British artillery during the Rising, was now rebuilt. The occasion marked its official reopening as the Metropole Cinema, Ballroom, and Restaurant. He hoped the ambience would put her in a good mood.
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