1921
Page 43
The pillared drum that had supported the dome was gutted. The great copper dome had collapsed, a ruin of melted metal, into the rotunda below. Daylight streamed through gaps in the walls torn by artillery fire. In the chambers off the central hall the marble floors were buried beneath a welter of charred debris, torn blankets, stale food, burnt paper, and broken weapons. It was possible to trace the painful evacuation, chamber by chamber, as the Republicans were driven back from their positions and eventually crowded together into the farthest reaches of the building.
It’s the GPO all over again, Henry thought. The future the same as the past. Round and round we go and nothing changes.
He returned to number 16 in a grim mood. As he put his trilby on the hat rack he told his cousin, “This war isn’t over; it’s only beginning, Louise. And it will be worse than the Tan War ever was. I’ve seen their faces. I’ve heard their voices. O’Connor and Mellows and Barry are in prison, but the rest will carry the fight out of the city and all over Ireland. I need to pack my suitcase.”
She was startled. “Leave Dublin, you mean? Now? Why?”
“Today Michael Collins told me the Provisional Government’s decided to reinstitute censorship to withhold vital information from the IRA—another unpleasant policy we’ve inherited from the British. It means that all sorts of things can happen without anyone knowing—unless someone makes a mighty effort to record what’s really going on. I’ve elected me. Most Dublin journalists are unfamiliar with the countryside, but I know it like the roof of my mouth, so I’m going back in the war-correspondent business. Besides, it will give me a chance to look for Ned.”
“I thought he was in Clare.”
“According to Little Business he hasn’t been at the farm for weeks.”
“But what about Mrs. Rutledge? Should you not be staying here for her sake? For that matter, Henry, should you not…”
Her voice went on but he was no longer listening. Instead Henry was standing once more on the staircase in Herbert Place. Edwin below him and Ella above, emerging from her studio with her hair disheveled and a smear of yellow paint on her cheek.
“…bring her back here with you?” Louise was saying.
His eyes stared past her into memory. “Funnily enough, that’s what I meant to do.”
“Then why didn’t you? Was she not willing?”
“She was. I wasn’t.”
Edwin shouting at his sister, “If you leave this house with this man you can never come back!”
Ella, stricken, tears filling her eyes. “Brother mine, say you don’t mean that.”
“Oh, but I do. If you go off with a Republican, I never want to hear your name spoken again.”
“YOU weren’t willing?” Louise was struggling to understand. “But I thought you loved her, Henry.”
“With all my heart.”
“Then why?”
“That’s why.”
His cousin clucked her tongue. “You’re as daft as a brush, Henry Mooney.”
I suppose I am, he thought as he climbed the stairs to his room.
When he had closed the door behind him, he sat down and looked once more at an article he was working on. “From the day of their founding, the Irish Volunteers possessed an extraordinary esprit de corps,” he had written. “Youthful fellowship, ardent patriotism, and the chivalrous ideals of those who inspired them worked a special alchemy. They lived life to the full yet were ready to die without hesitation for one another. In a few short years the tight-knit family of the Volunteers accomplished more for Ireland than generations had done before them. Yet those same men are now divided by a civil war. There is nothing more cruel.”
Henry put the article aside and stood up. Moving briskly in a futile attempt to keep ahead of the pain, he began to pack his suitcase.
Before leaving Dublin he telephoned the office of the Clare Champion. He was not sure the phone call would be put through, but the Dublin operator proved to be a Clare woman. Henry had once reported glowingly on her sister’s wedding, and after a few moments of chat she made the connection for him. “I have to listen, though,” she warned. “But I won’t cut you off unless you’re talking sedition.”
“How do you define ‘sedition’?”
“I have no idea,” she replied with a laugh.
Over a crackling connection Sarsfield Maguire told Henry, “The Republicans are solidly in control in Ennis. Liam Lynch is reported to be attacking the government garrison in Limerick.”
“If the IRA’s holding Ennis, is Ned Halloran with them?”
“Don’t think so; I certainly haven’t seen him. But Michael Brennan’s commanding the Free Staters in Limerick now. Could Halloran be with them?”
“I seriously doubt it,” said Henry.
“What’s happening your side of the country?”
“De Valera was among the Republicans who escaped Dublin; he’s with the IRA in Clonmel. Ernie O’Malley’s seized Enniscorthy.”
“Can you get us an exclusive interview with either of them? We could print it once the government comes to its senses and lifts the censorship.”
“Afraid I can’t help you right now, Sarsfield. I’m coming west myself.”
Leaning his forehead against the train window, Henry stared through smeared glass at the landscape rolling past. Jammed against his feet was his suitcase, which contained twelve new notebooks, his clothes, and his pistol.
WHEN Henry reached Limerick his first stop was the Limerick Leader, where he was told, “Liam Lynch has set up headquarters just outside of town. He’s engaged in truce talks with Michael Brennan at the moment. Brennan says he might agree to a truce with the Southern Command to keep them from marching on Dublin. But even if there is a truce, it might not last. General O’Duffy wants to defeat the IRA outright, on the battlefield.”
“What have you heard from the rest of the country?” Henry wanted to know.
“Ernie O’Malley’s in Wexford. He’s captured Wexford town and allowed the Free Staters garrisoned there to leave unmolested. Bloody shame we can’t print that; it’s a good story.”
Henry’s next call was to his mother’s house. Before he had taken off his hat, his mother was berating him for leaving her alone to be murdered in her bed.
“Since you warned us, Bernard’s taken to sleeping here most nights and Noel looks in when he can,” Pauline assured Henry. “You needn’t worry; we haven’t seen any soldiers. They’re on the Cork road or the Dublin road but they don’t come this way.”
In Hannah Mooney’s imagination, however, the house was surrounded and under fire. “Ye’ll stay here where you belong and that’s all I’m going to say about that!” she shouted at her oldest son.
Out of the side of his mouth Henry said to Pauline, “Someone once suggested I cherish my mother, and I thought this would be a good time to give it a try. I must have been mad.”
When he left the house he could hear Hannah shrieking after him, but he did not look back.
Henry checked into the Glentworth Hotel, which was bravely attempting to conduct business as normal. As he stood at the front desk the bark of a rifle sounded in the street outside. The desk clerk flinched violently. “Doesn’t that bother you?” he asked the new guest.
“I’ve heard plenty of gunfire lately,” Henry told him. “I duck, but I don’t flinch.”
He began searching out old contacts and learning as much as he could about the situation. No one could tell him anything about Ned Halloran. In the confusion of the moment it was impossible to locate anyone below officer rank by name.
“Liam Lynch appears to be fighting a largely defensive war,” Henry commented in his notebook. “The IRA is winning some victories but their overall situation is not good. This war blew up without their being prepared. Now they are sending for the Republican forces in the north to come to their aid, leaving the Ulster Catholics unprotected against Protestant abuses. This will mean a cessation of hostilities in the Six Counties, but at a dreadful price.
Put a label on something. Create an image and convince people that the label is the reality, he thought sourly. Like the “Sinn Féin Rebellion.”
No sooner was a truce effected between Lynch and Brennan than word reached the city that massive Free State reinforcements from Dublin were on their way toward Limerick. Lynch was expected to fall back.
“Not many of our boys have any great mind for killing former comrades,” a Republican confided to Henry. He recorded the conversation in his notebook for inclusion in his next report to the American newspapers, adding, “From my own observation I believe this to be true.”3
On sudden impulse, Henry set off for Ennis. He had little hope that Ned would have returned to the farm, and did not know what he would say to him if he had. Ursula would be there—Ursula, who was so straightforward and saw things so clearly. She had become like the Pole Star to Henry, a fixed point in a dizzily wheeling firmament.
Only Norah Daly was in the house when Henry arrived unannounced. He had hitched a ride from the train station on a haywagon, arriving at the farm with prickles down the back of his neck and wisps of hay on his suit. Norah helped him brush off his clothes, then took him into the garden, where six rosy-faced children were playing under the supervision of Lucy Halloran. He hardly recognized them as the pale, frightened little refugees from Belfast. “They’ll have to go home when it’s safe, of course,” said Norah, “but there’s no hurry at all. We love having them here.”
A few minutes later there was a thunder of hooves and a wiry girl on a dark horse came galloping up to the house. When she saw Henry outside, she let out a whoop of delight and slid from her mount. She had the same strangling hug for Henry as always—stronger than ever because she was very fit.
“Take it easy, Little Business!” he protested.
“I’m Ursula,” she reminded him. “Little Business is a nickname for a little girl.”
“You’ll always be a little girl to me.”
She relinquished her hold and stepped back. “No,” she said, fixing him with her direct gaze. The blue eyes of her childhood had become grayer, smoky. “No, I won’t.”
The adults went inside for tea and conversation, leaving the children to play. Henry learned that Ned had not been home in many weeks. An occasional note was passed to his family, giving no more information than that he was well and thinking of them. But he could be anywhere—anywhere with the Republican forces.
“Of course we’re all Republicans here,” Ursula said proudly. “Both Norah and I have joined Cumann na mBan. Each branch has its own intelligence officer; did you know that, Uncle Henry?”
“I’m going to be sorry I asked this, but are you an intelligence officer, Little…Ursula?”
Her eyes gleamed. “Not yet, but maybe when I’m sixteen. In the meantime there’s lots to do, though. We carry messages and act as couriers—I’m to learn to drive a motorcar as soon as I’m old enough!—and arrange for safe houses, and even paint news on walls so our lads will know what’s happening elsewhere.”
Henry gave a wry chuckle. “Going to put me out of business, are you?”
“Oh, Uncle Henry, we have to counter the effects of censorship somehow. Is that not what you’re doing?”
“I can’t publish anything that would be useful to the Republicans. Only the Free State gets good press. Meanwhile I’m trying to collect information that will give a true picture of what happened when this is over.”
“I hope you’re going to tell everyone just how terrible the Free Staters and the British—”
“Whoa there!” Henry held up his hand. “I said a true picture. Do you have any idea how monstrous a civil war is, Ursula? There are good people on both sides. On all sides, for that matter. When it’s over, and it will be over, hatred must be forgotten. If I write anything that perpetuates it, I become part of the evil.”
She gave him a measuring look. “Are you on Collins’ side, then? Papa said you were.”
Henry had never lost his temper with the girl, but now he came close. “God’s garters! I’m trying very hard not to be on anyone’s ‘side.’ I’m for Ireland and what’s best for Ireland.”
“So is Papa.”
Henry’s shoulders sagged. “I know.”
Norah changed the subject. “How is Mrs. Rutledge? We like her so much. Will you tell her that you saw the children and they’re well?”
He smiled and nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“And your wedding in October—will you still have it then? In spite of, well, in spite of everything?” Something in his eyes alerted her and she dropped her voice. “Everything is all right between the two of you, is it not?”
“It is,” he said. “Everything is just grand.”
Before leaving Ennis, Henry called in to the Clare Champion for the latest news. “The IRA in Cork City has taken over the Examiner and made Frank Gallagher editor!”4 Maguire told him excitedly. “Gallagher’s a friend of yours, is he not?”
“I hope so,” Henry said.
Maguire went on: “They’re holding a line whose northern borders extend from Enniscorthy to Kilkenny and south of Limerick. In addition to Ennis there are strong pockets of resistance from Galway to Donegal. None of this can be published, of course. Makes the IRA look too good. But we’re quite free to publish stories that show the Free State Army winning. For example, we just learned that Seán MacEoin has captured the bridge at Killaloe. Now the way’s open for him to march straight into Limerick with a large force. I’d say the truce between Lynch and Brennan will be broken by sundown tomorrow.”
Henry borrowed a bicycle and hurried to Killaloe in hopes of an interview.
MacEoin had set up temporary headquarters in the Lake Hotel on the Ballina side of the bridge. Leading up to it was a narrow road choked with military vehicles of every description. Across the river, easily visible from the hotel grounds, was the ancient ring fort where Brian Bóru had been born a thousand years earlier.
On the front steps of the hotel stood Commandant MacEoin, supervising the loading of his personal gear into a lorry. His green Free State uniform was crisp and new. His brown boots were highly polished. “You can tell your readers that Limerick will be secure in government hands very soon,” he assured Henry. “The Irregulars are only trained for guerrilla warfare, and they’re underequipped for that. With our armored cars and field guns we have an insurmountable advantage.”
“You sound very confident.”
“I am, Mooney. I learned my optimism from Liam Lynch, in fact. Many’s the evening we’ve talked philosophy together. Liam never entertains the possibility of losing.”
“But one of you must,” Henry pointed out.
“Indeed,” MacEoin gravely replied, “one of us must.”
Henry returned the bicycle to the Champion with his interview. Then he set off to cover the war.
The Provisional Government broke the Limerick truce. After two days of fierce fighting and considerable destruction of property, Free State forces held undisputed control of the city. Lynch fell back to Kilmallock and another hard-fought battle.
Following the shifting tides of war was not easy. The Republicans were blowing up bridges and mining trains to destroy government supply lines, making rail travel unreliable. Occasionally Henry was able to hitch a ride, but it was almost impossible to borrow a bicycle; most of them had been commandeered by the IRA. At last Henry found a lanky farm boy who produced a rusty machine from beneath a haystack and sold it to him for an exorbitant price.
One of these
days I’m going to learn to drive and buy a motorcar, he promised himself. Something bigger than a damned Delage.
Chapter Forty-two
ON the twelfth of July a War Council was appointed by the Provisional Government. Michael Collins was made commander in chief of the Free State Army. Eight days later the Dáil was informed that both Limerick and Waterford were under the total control of the government.
Henry Mooney was in Carrick-on-Suir at the time, observing Republican preparations to defend against advancing government forces. Anxious citizens watched from doorways. One little golden-haired child ran out into the road chasing a hen, and her mother dashed after her to carry her back into the safety of the house. At the doorway the woman paused with her hand cradling the back of her child’s head, and glanced fearfully up and down the street. Both directions.
“It is neither Free Stater nor Republican the people fear,” Henry wrote. “It is simply War.”
For the sake of the townspeople the IRA ultimately decided not to try to hold the town, and fell back.
As he was riding his bicycle down a lonely country road a sudden spate of machine-gun fire burst from a hedgerow. Bullets slammed into the plowed field beside him, sending up sprays of dirt from the furrows like hailstones striking a pond.
Rifle fire responded from another hedgerow.
Wouldn’t do any good to show ’em my press card, he thought, pedaling furiously until he was out of range.
THE pace of war increased. Henry saw dead men piled in ditches and streams of blood running between the cobbles of village streets: the nightmare landscape from his childhood come back to haunt him.
At three in the morning, when he surveyed the landscape of his own life and saw it littered with loss, he thought he would welcome the oblivion a bullet could bring.
A few nights he spent in hotels; most he passed in army encampments. Talking a little, listening more.
“I really thought the Big Fellow would break the Treaty, unite the IRA, and march on the north,” a Republican told him. “We’d have followed him to hell itself if he’d done that. Why didn’t he?”