1921

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “No one in my family’s ever been for Labour.”

  “Or married a Catholic,” he said cheerfully. “First time for everything, Cap’n.”

  The war seemed far away.

  THE wedding party was small, discreetly limited to Ella’s family and a few close friends: some Protestant, some Catholic. Louise Kearney attended on the arm of Hector Hamilton, Painless Dentist.

  The bride was a vision in pale blue lace. Her brother gave her away; Matt Nugent was Henry’s best man; Ava was matron of honor. A very grown-up Ursula Halloran was bridesmaid.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Henry,” she said, “that Papa wouldn’t come and be your best man. But he’s not even at the farm now. As soon as he was well enough he went back to the war.”

  “To Ernie O’Malley’s battalion?”

  The girl dropped her eyes. “He made me promise not to tell you what company he’d be with.”

  “Is he still so angry with me, then?”

  “He’s angry with the world. I don’t know him anymore.”

  Henry and Ella spent a week—a whole, wonderful week—in the Shelbourne Hotel. Fresh sheets every day; fresh flowers in crystal vases. The ambient hush of deep carpeting and heavy curtains. Tall windows from which to view the sunset, and the generous stars.

  And a banquet whenever they wanted. A banquet of warm flesh, of delighted laughter, of passion so fierce it seemed angry. The death of inhibition. The discovery of freedom.

  To Ursula’s delight, they invited her to join them for dinner before she returned to Clare. She entered the Shelbourne with the nonchalance she had shown the first time. The Free State government in Merrion Street was subservient to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but Ursula Halloran was a child of the Republic. Her posture proclaimed that she was as good as anyone.

  Young men in the lobby swiveled their necks as she walked past.

  “She won’t want to go back to Clare,” Ella warned her husband.

  Henry chuckled. “Oh, she won’t stay away from her horse for too long. But somehow I can’t see Little Business spending the rest of her life on a farm.”

  Ella agreed. She spoke again of Ursula’s education, of perhaps sending the girl to a finishing school abroad.

  “She has no documents,” said Henry, foreseeing difficulties. “They were…mmm…destroyed in the Four Courts.”

  “You know enough people in the government to find a way around that,” Ella replied confidently. “And my brother and I can help with the financial arrangements.”

  “I can handle them myself,” Henry said, setting his jaw.

  ON the first morning of November he kissed his new wife goodbye, went halfway down the street, turned, and sprinted back home for another hour. He took the afternoon train to Cork instead. Strapped to a luggage rail in the vestibule was his bicycle.

  Few civilians were on the train. In Henry’s carriage were two priests sharing a packet of cheese sandwiches, and a pug-nosed businessman in a suit too good for the filthy train. The other passengers were all Free State soldiers. Henry greeted those he knew with a nod and eavesdropped on their conversations. He was actually looking forward to returning to work. This is what I do. This is what I am. For the rest of my life. Journalist.

  Husband.

  Perhaps a father someday.

  The train jolted over its patched and repatched rails. Henry contemplated the irony of his lifelong avoidance of violence. Now he was actively seeking the nightmare landscape that repelled and fascinated him. As a child he had believed his nightmares predicted his future. And in a strange way, they had.

  His eyes drifted shut; his head fell back against the high seat. Henry had not had much sleep recently.

  ON the fourth of November a house in Dublin’s exclusive Ailesbury Road was raided by government troops in the predawn darkness. Ernie O’Malley, who was now assistant chief of staff of the IRA, was badly wounded in the shoot-out. Sixteen bullets were taken from his body in hospital.

  THE ninth of November found Henry Mooney in County Cork, looking for Erskine Childers. Like the Irish Bulletin, An Poblacht had been moving from place to place, often published on no more than the little handpress Childers carried with him. In spite of this the newsletter was finding its way not only to the IRA troops in the field but to the Republicans in prison, the foreign press, the European embassies in Dublin, and friends in England and America. Childers, worn to a thin white ghost of his former self, was standing by his post. It would make a moving story.

  But when Henry finally found the newsletter’s most recent office, two Republican soldiers were boarding up the windows. “Too bad you missed him,” they told the journalist. “He’s on way up to Dublin.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “He told us before he left, and proud he was too. The Chief sent for him to become secretary of his new government.”

  “Dublin’s not safe for men like him right now,” said Henry.

  “Especially if they’re carrying guns,” one of the men agreed.

  “Does Erskine have a gun on him?”

  The soldier scratched his jaw reflectively. “Well, I wouldn’t say he has a gun on him.” He turned to his companion. “What would you say?”

  “I wouldn’t say he hasn’t. Are you down from Dublin?” he asked Henry.

  “I am. I’m a journalist.”

  “Izzat a fact?” the man responded. His attitude expressed total disinterest.

  But the other said, “Tell us, journalist—what news of Ernie O’Malley?”

  “He’s survived, which is something of a miracle. He must be made of the same stuff as Cathal Brugha. They have him under heavy guard in hospital.”

  “They’ll never keep him,” predicted the soldier.

  ON November eleventh Erskine Childers was arrested at Robert Barton’s house in Wicklow. He was carrying a revolver which had been given to him by Michael Collins, but he did not use it to defend himself, because there were women in the house.

  In London the first wireless news broadcast was made from a room in Marconi House in the Strand. No mention was made of Childers’ arrest. But word spread like wildfire through Ireland.

  Henry debated with himself about going back to Dublin, then decided against it. Childers would be tried before a military court for possession of an illegal firearm and the wheels of justice ground slowly. Meanwhile he would cover the war. He went looking for Tom Barry.

  On the seventeenth of November the Emergency Powers Bill was invoked for the first time. Four young Republicans were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham.

  Under the same act, Erskine Childers was swiftly convicted and sentenced to death. He appealed the decision. Cosgrave, under tremendous pressure to commute the death sentence, offered Childers a reprieve if he would cease all further opposition to the Free State government.

  Childers refused.

  He was being held in Beggar’s Bush Barracks, where on the evening of November thirteenth he was allowed a visit with his wife and son. He told young Erskine, “Never do or say anything that would cause bitterness.”1

  Next morning at first light—and while his case was still under appeal—Erskine Childers was marched before a firing party of fifteen men. He thanked his executioners, forgave his enemies, and refused a blindfold. Members of the firing squad were so distressed their hands were shaking. Childers’ last words were to them. “Come closer, boys,” he said gently. “It will be easier for you.”2

  HENRY was appalled. “I am sick to my soul at what amounts to the judicial murder of an elected member of the Dáil,” he wrote to Ella. “Only someone who believed profoundly in his principles could have met his death as bravely as Erskine Childers did. Why are we killing the best ones? When will it stop?”

  Liam Lynch sent a letter of protest to the Provisional Government. “We on our side have at all times adhered to the recognized rules of warfare. In the early days of this war we took hundreds of your forces prisoner but accorded to them all the rights of prisoners of war
and, over and above, treated them as fellow countrymen and former comrades. Many of your soldiers have been released by us three times although captured with arms on each occasion. But the prisoners you have taken have been treated barbarously, and when helpless you have tortured, wounded, and murdered them. We therefore give you and each member of your body due notice that unless your army recognizes the rules of warfare in future we shall adopt very drastic measures to protect our forces.”3

  WHEREVER Henry went, he sought Ned Halloran. He heard rumors that Ned had been in Dublin with O’Malley, but left the city before O’Malley’s capture. Then someone said he was with Liam Lynch. He was seen in Waterford and Youghal and Skibbereen. He could be anywhere. He was as ephemeral as Michael Collins.

  Chapter Forty-four

  December 6, 1922

  SAORSTÁT ÉIREANN OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED ONE

  YEAR TO THE DAY AFTER SIGNING OF ANGLO-IRISH

  TREATY

  ULSTER GIVEN ONE MONTH TO OPT OUT

  ON the seventh of December two unarmed Dáil deputies were shot by Republicans at the Ormond Hotel on Upper Ormond Quay. The victims were Pádraig O’Máille, the deputy speaker of the Dáil, and Seán Hales. Hales was killed.

  Henry Mooney learned of the shootings through the IRA network before the news was published in the papers. “That’s cold-blooded murder!” he told his informer.

  “Execution,” the other man snapped. “Hales and O’Máille voted for the Emergency Powers Bill. They were willing to execute our boys without trial or appeal, so now they know what it feels like.”

  On the eighth of December four Republican prisoners, one from each province, were taken out of Mountjoy and executed in reprisal: Richard Barrett, Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows, and Rory O’Connor.

  Saorstát Éireann was baptized with the blood of brothers.

  NORTHERN Ireland opted out of the Free State.

  HENRY went home. Home to Ella.

  Tilly met him at the door of the house in Sandymount. Her services for a year had been Edwin Mansell’s wedding gift. “Is Mrs. Mooney at home, Tilly?” he asked as he handed her his hat.

  “She’s in the linen closet, sir; we were just doing the—”

  Henry ran past her. He found his wife sitting on a stool while she rearranged sheets and tablecloths. She looked up in surprise at the sound of his feet in the hall. Before she could say anything he flung himself down beside her and put his weary head in her lap.

  She stroked his hair. Saying nothing. Loving.

  Late that night as he lay in her arms, he remarked, “I might as well stay in Dublin, Cap’n. The war’s here too; I heard rifle fire as I was coming from the train.”

  “I know. I have mixed feelings about it. If it keeps you close to me I’m glad, but on the other hand…”

  “Indeed. On the other hand.” Henry sighed and rolled over onto his back. “Ella, I was born before the turn of the century in a time when things still seemed clear, somehow. If a man was honest and paid his bills and lived a decent life, he knew what to expect of the world. Black and white. But now…but now. It’s all shades of gray, Ella. Right and wrong, good and evil…it’s all shades of gray.”

  THE first sitting of An Seánad, the Senate, was scheduled for the eleventh of December. Henry planned to be among the journalists covering the historic event. With An Seánad and An Dáil in place, the new Irish Oireachtas, or Parliament, would be complete.

  On the morning of the tenth Dubliners opened their newspapers to read in horror that the homes of four members of the Dáil had been raided during the night and set afire.

  Seán MacGarry’s three children, one an invalid, had been trapped in their rooms, and only rescued when their gallant mother fought her way through the flames to save them. Mother and children were severely burned; MacGarry’s young son died in hospital.

  On the twelfth the Duke of Abercorn was sworn in as the first governor-general of Northern Ireland.

  On the nineteenth of December seven more Republicans were executed by the Irish Free State.

  ALTHOUGH he was not in the mood for Christmas, Henry went shopping. At McBirney’s Gift Exhibition on Aston Quay he bought Ella a champagne-colored crêpe-de-chine jumper with an inset lace yoke and three-quarter-length sleeves. It cost twenty-five shillings and sixpence, which seemed expensive to him until he fell in love with a silver-backed hairbrush at thirty-seven shillings and bought her that too.

  Feeling suddenly impoverished, he decided on books and chocolates for the rest of his gift list. In Switzers’ he found Herbert Strang’s Annual, which promised excellent stories by popular authors for children. He bought the book for Ursula—though he personally was tempted by some of the tales he saw in The Boys’ Own Annual

  When he returned home with his packages, he found a brief letter awaiting him.

  “Dear Uncle Henry,

  “I am buying all the papers now, because I want to know as much as I can about what is happening. In the Irish Independent this morning I saw an advertisement under Public Notices: Examination for Boy Clerkships, Age 15 to 18 Years, a Competitive Examination in the service of Dublin Corporation.2 Why could I not apply for something like this as soon as I am old enough? Why does it have to be limited to boys?

  “Love,

  “Ursula”

  Next morning Henry exchanged Strang’s for Boys’ Own. At home that evening he said to Ella, “Let’s start making inquiries about schools for Ursula. Abroad, somewhere. Out of Ireland for a while.”

  ON the seventeenth of December, 1922, the last of the British troops left the twenty-six counties of southern Ireland. A day later the Free State Parliament passed its first act.

  The Shelbourne dinner menu at Christmas was decorated with shamrocks only, and the dishes were described in Celtic lettering.

  William Butler Yeats issued a bitter statement as his legacy to the new year. “The Government of the Free State has been proved legitimate by the only effective test: it has been permitted to take life.”3

  “CONFIDENTIALLY, many in the government would like to execute Ernie O’Malley,” a member of Mulcahy’s staff told Henry, “but the minister refuses to shoot a man on a stretcher. Painful memories of James Connolly, you know. O’Malley’11 be sent to Mountjoy instead, as soon as he can be moved.”

  Henry was hugely relieved. Every life that was spared, Republican or Free Stater, seemed like a victory.

  On the second of January the minister of defense appointed Paddy O’Daly as GOC of the Kerry Command. O’Daly had a reputation as a hard man and was considered a great asset to the Free State Army.

  On the thirteenth the home of W. T. Cosgrave was burned down.

  On the twentieth eleven more Republicans were executed. “Callous murderers must pay the price for their bloody crimes!” gloated pro-Treaty newspapers.

  Winston Churchill agreed. He referred to the late Erskine Childers as a murderous renegade Englishman, saying, “No man has done more harm or shown more genuine malice, or endeavored to bring a greater curse upon the common people of Ireland than this strange being, actuated by a deadly and malignant hatred for the land of his birth.”4

  The speech was quoted without censure in many Irish newspapers.

  HIGHLY incensed, Henry Mooney wrote, “We are observing the deliberate demonization of the Republicans. Influenced by a self-serving desire to be on the winning side, some people are beginning to depict them in the same terms the British government once applied to the Irish race as a whole. Thus victors justify their treatment of the vanquished.

  “No one escapes the poison of civil war, however. Many Republicans now view their opponents—their erstwhile comrades-in-arms—as devils incarnate.

  “In another generation, or two at the most, the men and women who are experiencing these events and personally know the other people involved will be gone. Words printed on paper will be all that remains. We owe it to the future to tell the truth, not the politically expedient truth.”

  His work bec
ame more important to him than ever. Lights burned very late in the house in Sandymount. Ella came downstairs at three in the morning to find her husband hunched over his desk with a map of the southwest spread before him.

  “You’re going back, aren’t you,” she said. It was not a question.

  “I have to. It’s where the war is. It’s where I’ll find the truth about what happened to Michael Collins.”

  “The war is here in Dublin too, Henry, and so are men who must know what happened to Collins. You’re going back to look for Ned Halloran, aren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “But you said yourself he could be anywhere. Why there?”

  “The Free State Army has driven the Republicans out of almost every place but Cork and Kerry. They’ll fight to the end there, so that’s where Ned will be. I know him.”

  “There is something very wrong between the two of you, isn’t there?”

  “Mmm.”

  “And you want to mend it before…before anything happens to him.”

  “Mmm.”

  “If I ask you what it is, will you tell me?”

  He swiveled around in his chair to meet her eyes. Here was the real test of their marriage; now, when he least expected it. If you really love her, you must give her a chance to understand.

  “Yes,” he said truthfully. “Yes, I will tell you.”

  “Then I shan’t ask.”

  He almost crushed her with his embrace. “Dear God, I love you!”

  ON the eighteenth of January, 1923, Liam Deasy, member of the IRA executive and acting commandant of the Southern Division, was captured by the Free State Army. He was tried by court-martial and sentenced to death. Deasy had long been seeking a way to end the war without surrendering the ideal of a republic. The Free State government persuaded him to write a document urging unconditional surrender in return for his life. He finally agreed as the only chance for survival open to him. Copies were sent to de Valera and to Lynch.