Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Yours with love,

  “Kit”

  Nuala was in tears when she finished, for a moment totally identified with Kitty.

  “The poor man, doesn’t he love her? But he’s so tired and she doesn’t understand that. So tired.”

  “Kitty dearest,

  “Am back, but I’m so tired that I can scarcely remain awake. This is a line just to tell you so and to say I am thinking very much of you today, also to say that no matter how short my note is, I am writing it.

  “May God bless you always and may I see you again soon.

  “Your own.

  “Michael”

  “Isn’t that sweet?” she demanded.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t understand what’s at issue.”

  “Not at all, poor woman. How could she? Doesn’t this letter show that?”

  And she was Kitty Kiernan again.

  “They’re sleeping together by now,” I insisted.

  “You keep your dirty male thoughts to yourself,” she reprimanded me. “They are not . . . not that I’d blame her if they were. But, sure, isn’t he happy and proud in this one?”

  “My dearest Kitty,

  “I am as happy a man as there is in Ireland today. My thoughts just now are all with you and you have every kind wish and feeling of mine. Have just taken over Dublin Castle, and am writing this note while awaiting a meeting of my Provisional Government. What do you think of that? Otherwise I see all sorts of difficulties ahead, but never mind. Please come up tomorrow night—send a wire. Failing that, Wednesday. There is nobody like you, I find, and I wish I’d been nicer to you. ’Twas my fault.

  “Fondest love, dear Kit,

  “Your own,

  “Michael”

  Nuala wept in my arms, a position in which I was delighted to find her despite my resolutions to protect her. With the simple and poignant love letters of the couple now long dead rushing through my head, how could I possibly feel desire for her?

  Alas, it was easy.

  –– 25 ––

  “ARE YOU satisfied?” Nuala demanded as I was reversing the videotape Shadow of Bealnablath, an RTE (Irish Television) miniseries about the death of Michael Collins.

  “No way. You?”

  She pondered thoughtfully. “Not really, Dermot Michael. Isn’t it a bit too neat, too neat by half?”

  “By three-quarters.”

  It was late evening in my suite at Jury’s, the end of what was for me a reasonably busy day.

  When I came in from my swim, Nuala, eyes glowing, was waiting with a book she had picked up at Fred Hanna’s bookstore—The Day Michael Collins Died—and a video and audio tape she had somehow borrowed from RTE.

  I glanced at the book. She had highlighted in yellow the key passages.

  The book repeated what had now become the almost official line: Collins had died from a dum-dum bullet fired by Kerryman Dennis “Sonny” Neill, who did not know for several hours whom he had shot.

  The evidence seemed to me, even at first glance, to be circumstantial—the theory fit the data, but the data did not make the theory certain.

  “We’ll watch the tapes later,” I told her. “As soon as I’m dressed we’re off to the Lord Mayor’s mansion for a reception.”

  “We’re never going there,” she insisted.

  “We are so. The mayor of Chicago and his wife are in town. They’re neighbors of my family at Grand Beach—that’s a summer resort across the lake in Michigan. I’m invited and I must see them.”

  “Sure, aren’t they too high and mighty for the likes of me?”

  I wasn’t about to tell her that George had almost certainly tipped off the mayor’s office about my presence in Dublin and arranged for the invitation. He wanted a report from the city’s first family about Nuala.

  Clever fellow, that priest brother of mine.

  “They are not, Nuala Anne; they’re South Side Irish and nice people. Herself is from a Galway family.”

  “I’m not dressed to meet a lord mayor.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “You’d be sure about that?”

  “Would I say it if I wasn’t?”

  I went into the bedroom to dress for the reception, my best gray suit and a tie with the Irish tricolor and the American stars and stripes crossed on it.

  In case there was any doubt.

  Nuala was waiting for me when I came out, coat on and looking dubious. “Do I curtsy for them?”

  “Glory be to God, Nuala! Not unless you want to embarrass them something terrible. I beat himself at golf, herself mops up on me at the tennis court. They’re friends.”

  She was torn between curiosity about the Lord Mayor of Chicago, as she persisted in calling him despite my insistence that he was only a mayor, and shyness.

  Nuala could face down the Anglo-Irish aristocrats on their own turf without much trouble. Yet the Bridgeport Irish turned her shy.

  Maybe that was the real Nuala, a very shy child.

  Her image at the reception in the Round Room in Mansion House on Dawson Street was certainly that of a shy child—sweet, pretty, bashful. The Daleys liked her instantly, as of course they would.

  Good reports to Father George.

  “Father George”—the mayor smiled at me, that remarkable smile which seems aimed only at you—“said we should check up on you. You look fine.”

  “As best as I can when I’ve fallen into the hands of a Galway woman,” I replied. “Mrs. Daley”—I turned to Nuala—“is from a Galway family. We all know that the real Ireland begins only at the Shannon.”

  They both laughed. Nuala smiled sweetly but did not reply.

  “What part of Galway?” Mrs. Daley asked. “I’ve never been there, but maybe next trip.”

  “Connemara,” she murmured softly, the only word she said during the whole meeting.

  She charmed them completely—as I knew she would.

  “They’re grand people altogether,” she informed me afterward as we walked towards the green. “Such nice smiles.”

  “They’ll report on you to George.”

  “Whatever will they say?” She seemed troubled.

  Not so troubled that she didn’t slip a couple of shillings into the hand of a young traveler—the politically correct name for a tinker or an Irish “Gypsy,” as these poor folk are also called—who was begging on the street.

  “That you are a lovely, sweet, shy young woman who will undoubtedly take good care of me.”

  “Sure isn’t that the truth?” She grinned wickedly.

  “Having talked to you on the phone, George won’t be so sure. On the other hand, he knows the Daleys are pretty good judges of people, so he’ll half believe it. I won’t disillusion him.”

  “Brute.” She pushed me lightly, inordinately satisfied with herself.

  George would in fact size her up perfectly and report to the family that I had indeed met a nice girl—and one who was more than a match for me.

  “We’re not going that way,” I said as she turned left for the walk back to Jury’s.

  “Where are we going?” She stopped and considered me suspiciously.

  “I’m taking you to dinner.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s impolite to ask.”

  Sudden panic. “Will I look all right?”

  “Probably not, but I’ll have to put up with you!”

  She poked me again, but even more affectionately.

  We walked west along the green and crossed in front of the new shopping center across from the Gaiety Theater.

  “I have to send a Brigid cross off to a niece in America for her birthday. Do you mind walking into that place?”

  “Sure, haven’t I told you that I’m a materialist and meself afraid to go in there before now?”

  Afraid of a mall?

  “You’ll note on the left,” I said as we entered the glass-topped building, “the ruination of Ireland: lingerie that even whores wouldn’t wear a couple of decades ago and n
ow devout and holy matrons buy and put on.”

  “Sinful,” she said insincerely as she carefully took in the window display, “altogether.”

  “You’ll note that young woman showing her embarrassed husband a scandalous bit of white lace and himself shocked something terrible. I tell you, Nuala Anne, it will be the ruination of the Irish race.”

  “Ah, it will, won’t it now? But sure, won’t the poor man enjoy taking it off her?”

  “Not as much as she will enjoy having it taken off. ’Tis the women that are the devils.”

  “Aren’t they now?”

  “Sure, the bishops should do something about sinful places like this, shouldn’t they?”

  “I’m sure they will. They don’t have anything else to do, do they?”

  The two of us giggling still, we walked into a jewelry shop, where Nuala took charge of buying the Brigid cross for my niece, Brigid Maeve Ready.

  I had little to say in the matter. Nor did I dare ask about the price until the bill was handed to me.

  “Places like this will make a terrible materialist out of me.” She sighed, not feeling any guilt at all.

  On the way out, she darted into the lingerie shop. Flustered, I trailed after her.

  “Now, wouldn’t this be a nice thing to have?” She held up a red and silver garment that was not totally transparent, but might just as well have been.

  “Nuala . . .”

  “Sure, I can buy it myself,” she insisted. “I don’t have one like this and a woman can never tell when she’ll need this sort of thing, can she now?”

  She paid for the teddy—I think that’s what it’s called—in cash, tucked the tiny package under her arm, and, head high, walked out of the shop, myself still in attendance.

  In the game we were playing I was now pretty much the loser.

  “Do you think, Dermot Michael,” she said as, back on the street, we were passing the Chicago Pizza Factory, “that I’ll look nice in this obscene thing?”

  “I don’t want to imagine, Nuala Anne.”

  She laughed nosily, knowing full well that I already had. “Are we going in there in honor of Chicago?”

  “We are not, woman.”

  She gave money to another little traveler.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when I finally conducted her into White’s on the green, one of the best restaurants in Dublin. Nuala looked around dubiously, searching for the lay of the land so she would know how to act. She decided for the grand lady image, not quite the duchess, mind you, but still someone who had eaten in better restaurants than this thousands of times.

  “You’ll order for me, won’t you, Dermot Michael?” she begged me. “Sure, I can’t even read the menu.”

  I could and did—garlic mushrooms and then smoked sea trout. A single glass of white wine for each of us.

  She demolished the sea trout.

  “Could I ever have another glass of wine, Dermot Michael?”

  “I suppose so.” I sighed, as if I were not totally delighted by my charming dinner companion.

  At least she hadn’t made me pay for the lingerie.

  “You’re a strange man, Mr. Coyne.” She inspected me over the wineglass. “A strange man altogether.”

  “Am I now?” I found my face turning hot.

  “Now, don’t get that hurt look in your eyes. I’m not being critical. . . . I don’t know all that many men, but I’m sure that most of them aren’t like you. You’re kind and sweet and good”—her eyes seemed to be misting—“and respectful and those silver-green eyes of yours see everything and want to heal everything.” She reached for a tissue. “And now I’m going to cry about how wonderful you are.”

  She reached for my hand, touched it, and then quickly withdrew it.

  “Thank you, Nuala.” My own voice was hoarse.

  Two sentimental Micks—and on a glass and a half of wine each. We went back to Jury’s, read the book by Meda Ryan, and watched the tape directed and narrated by Colum Connolly.

  There was certainly prima facie evidence of a coverup—no autopsy, no inquest, no determination of the kind of wound or wounds. No wonder conspiracy theories had flourished for so long. Had he been shot by his own men, by Emmet Dalton, fearing either a war against the Protestants in the North or a too-easy peace with the Irregulars?

  This theory no longer seemed likely because some of the IRA men who fought in the chance ambush had told the truth before they died, after lying about what had happened for years.

  Or had they told the truth?

  How could one be sure?

  How could they have been sure?

  It seemed that after their retreat from Cork, a group of IRA officers had met for a strategy conference at Bealnablath. De Valera had been there in the morning but had left, aware that Collins was in the area and taking a terrible chance of ambush. He said that he hoped he would not be shot because he was a strong man and a strong man could make peace. Weak men would continue the war.

  The Long Fella was right. Thousands would die in a war that Collins might have ended that week.

  The Collins convoy moved through Bealnablath in the morning on the way down from Crookstown (where he had met with a “neutral” officer in search of peace) to Bandon and Clonakilty, where he would visit his brother at the family home—and talk to another “neutral.”

  The motorcyclist who led the convoy stopped an IRA man on the road (they didn’t wear uniforms, of course) and asked the way to Newcestown. The man recognized Collins and reported back to the pub where the meeting was in progress that Collins was on the road to Bandon and might well come back the same route later in the day.

  The officers debated an ambush. They had no desire to kill Collins, but they resented the invasion of Cork by the National Army and felt they ought to fight.

  Were they aware that if there was an ambush, they might kill him?

  It was wartime and men might not think of such things. They might also believe in his invulnerability, as he himself apparently did.

  So they set the ambush and planted a remote-controlled land mine. They waited most of the day and then, assuming the convoy was returning to Cork by another route, most of them drifted away. There were only four men in the laneway above the road (and the various groups of Kerrymen drifting along the hill on the other side, unknown to anyone else) as the light faded. Two of them went down to remove the mine so that no countrymen would be hurt the next morning.

  Then the convoy appeared. The two, having just disconnected the mine, rushed back up to the laneway and began to shoot. The troops returned the fire.

  Nobody was shooting very accurately. As the troops turned up the laneway, the four Irregulars retreated, still firing. Some of those who had left earlier rushed back to the scene of the firefight. Gunfire crackled vigorously for a few minutes, but no one on either side was hit.

  There was a lull in the shooting. The National Army forces relaxed. Collins came out from behind the cover provided by his car. The shooting started again.

  It was one of these bullets, fired during the retreat, that killed Collins, according to both the film and the book. The rifleman was “Sonny” Neill, a sometime solder in the English army who was reputed to be a crack shot and who by mistake had loaded dum-dum bullets (stolen from the Black and Tans) into his weapon. He had no idea whom he had hit because of the distance, the fading light, and the hedges that lined the highway. Only hours later did the Irregulars learn they had killed Collins. Some of them openly wept.

  There were four different groups in that gloomy valley: the National Army; the remnants of the ambush; those who had left the ambush and rushed back to join the shooting; and the two groups of Kerrymen who were retreating along the ridge opposite where the four ambushers were.

  Anyone could have fired the fatal shot.

  The matter was complicated by the nature of the wound—a massive injury in the back of his neck that might have been caused by a ricochet, or by a Mauser fired from behind, or by an exiti
ng bullet fired from the laneway or a dum-dum bullet fired from the other hill.

  There was some grisly conversation on the radio tape between Meda Ryan and Colum Connolly about the nature of the wound and the direction from which it was fired.

  The Collins family’s plea (on the videotape) that it no longer mattered who killed him seemed reasonable enough, as did their refusal to permit an exhumation to discover whether the fatal wound was an exit or an entry wound—unless you were obsessed with conspiracy theories, as I was. The dum-dum bullet might easily have been a solution invented to explain the mystery.

  Sonny Neill might have fired the fatal shot, but so might any of the other men who were present in the fading August light.

  IRA intelligence thought almost immediately that Sonny Neill was the killer, as he apparently did too. But was the dum-dum an explanation they devised to convince themselves, while hiding the secret from everyone else for half a century?

  No one was alive who could answer that question.

  The mystery remained.

  The RTE program was skillful and moving. It began with a reenactment of the ambush at Bealnablath, then told the story of Collins’s brief life and his remarkable achievements, then finally tried to solve the mystery of his death. It included pictures of Kitty, as did the Ryan book, and quotes from their correspondence. She was a beauty, no doubt about that—and with a charming smile.

  No wonder Mick fell in love with her despite her poor health and her inability to understand the demands of public life, particularly his public life.

  She was not, I noted to myself, as beautiful as Nuala.

  Few were.

  That worthy young woman watched the video—on a machine she had borrowed from the hotel management (which now ate out of her hand) and rolled triumphantly into the parlor—with considerable display of emotion. She sat on the couch, foot tucked under her, tissue in one hand, fingers of the other tightly clenched.

  When I offered a comment, I was told sternly to “shush.” However, she reacted with sighs, gasps, exclamations of protest, and sobs.