Irish Gold

by Andrew M. Greeley

The car pulls up and the man in it, wearing a brown tweed suit with a cloak, gets out and walks over to O’Kelly at the table. He’s not smiling because he probably figures O’Kelly is worse than cow manure, but he has to pay him off if he wants to use him again to betray poor old Ireland.

  They shake hands briefly and the man sits down. O’Kelly shouts for service and the woman of the house brings him out a jar and another one for himself.

  She and her man and the other two hide behind the bar because they know there’s going to be trouble.

  The two of them drink for a while and chat about politics. ’Tis clear they think the Free State is finished because they’re not getting enough guns from England to gain control of the countryside.

  Then the man from the car takes out his wallet and counts out the bills. O’Kelly picks them up, counts them, and smiles.

  “Now!” I says to the teacher as I pull the curtains back.

  His light thing explodes. Both O’Kelly and the other fella jump out of their seats.

  Liam and the two lads burst out the door.

  “We arrest the both of you,” Liam shouts at them, his Mauser (with only two bullets in it) pointed at O’Kelly, “for the murder of General Michael Collins.”

  Now here’s where that traitor proves how quick he is. He leaps at me man, pushes the pistol out of his way, and points his pistol right at Liam’s head, jammed behind his ear.

  Liam didn’t fire, I’m thinking, because a bit of him still respects the man he thought his colonel was. He wasn’t planning to kill O’Kelly himself.

  “If any of you move,” the traitor says, “I’ll kill your friend here. I’m going to retreat nice and slow to the car. You’re going to tell the man over there who’s got his gun on the chauffeur to back off, and my colleague and I are going to leave real peacefullike.”

  Not at all, I’m thinking. He’ll kill Liam and maybe shoot the other lads too if he can.

  “Careful, O’Kelly,” says the other fella, as cold as the ice at the North Pole. Or in the depths of hell.

  Well, there’s nothing left to be done. I’m standing inside the door, where Liam ordered me to stay. O’Kelly doesn’t know I’m there at all.

  “You fools don’t understand!” Daniel yelled at us. “I did it for Ireland! I don’t need the focking money! The fools in Dublin are not fit to run the country! I am! And I will! I’ll help make Ireland a great country! I only regret that you won’t be alive to see how much better a man I am than Mick Collins! Up the republic!”

  He lifted the gun, about to shoot.

  Without thinking about it much, I step out the door and bring me poker down on the back of his head as hard as I can.

  I bashed his brains out.

  Lord have mercy on the poor man’s soul. What right do I have to think I’m any better than he was?

  Lord have mercy on all of us.

  I can’t write any more.

  –– 52 ––

  [Not dated]

  “You’re not a killer, Nell Pat,” said the young priest.

  “Haven’t I been telling you that, woman?” says Liam, holding me hand real tight.

  “I know, but—”

  “You killed the first man, if you really did, to protect yourself and your aunt from sexual attack. You killed Daniel to protect your husband from certain death.”

  “But—”

  “You didn’t start the war, Nell Pat.” His pretty brown eyes were hard and angry. “You were caught up in it through no fault of your own, like so many other people have been in the last ten years. Instead of tormenting yourself, you should thank God that you and Liam are still alive.”

  There was no arguing with him and himself right, I suppose. He and Liam are also right when they say I’ll get over it. I’ll never be glad I killed either the Tan or Daniel O’Kelly, Lord have mercy on them both. Yet I’ll always be glad I saved me man.

  I hated Daniel O’Kelly because he killed me brother and tried to kill me husband down there in Cork by blaming him for the death of General Collins. I didn’t want him dead. I didn’t want to have to kill him.

  I had to kill him and that’s that. Maybe someday in heaven we can straighten it all out.

  I dropped the poker after I smashed his head and vomited all over the table where the jars were.

  “He’s dead,” Liam said. “The colonel is dead.”

  “Lord have mercy on the dirty bastard,” says one of the lads.

  The chauffeur tried to make a break for it, but the lad watching him tripped him and he fell flat on his face.

  The fella that paid O’Kelly stood there staring at us with a contemptuous smile. We were Irish savages, not even real human beings.

  “Let’s kill these two bastards,” one of lads says. “They’re murderers too.”

  “If we do,” says Liam, “we’re no better than they are.”

  “We can’t turn them over to the Free Staters, Liam.”

  “It would be the ruination of Ireland if we did that or if we killed them.”

  “The picture we have is enough,” says I. “In the hands of the right people it’ll mean freedom for Ireland.”

  “Which people, Nell Pat?” says the lad who wants to kill them.

  “General Richard Mulcahy and Kevin O’Higgins.”

  “Aye, that’s true,” he agrees.

  The fella has been looking at me with even more contempt, a dirty, savage, stupid woman, too uncouth and crude even to clean out the chamber pots in his castle. Then he smiles faintly. “You are a very perceptive politician, young woman.”

  “I’m not a murdering bastard,” says I. “We’ll leave you to heaven, if you don’t mind me quoting a poet.”

  “I do not deny”—his voice was rich and deep—“that I have killed for my cause. Collins killed for his cause too. If I am a murdering bastard, then so was he. I’d rather think that he was and I am soldiers—each fighting for a cause in which we believed.”

  He said a few more things that I will not write down here, though I will never forget them.

  “Now get the hell out of here,” says Liam finally. “And if you ever come back, you’ll be as dead as O’ Kelly.”

  The man stomps towards the car.

  I whisper in Liam’s ear.

  “Just a minute,” he says. “You should be after helping us dispose of the body of your informer. Lads, load the poor colonel’s body in the boot and escort our friends here to Maam Cross, then let them go.”

  “Aye,” they say.

  That was that. Liam says they emptied their guns into his body so the constables will think it was an IRA internal fight.

  They met last night and formally voted to disband the Brigade. So the Troubles are over here in Galway.

  The young teacher man brought us the pictures and the plate this morning. They’re perfect. They show the tables in front of the pub, the big car, Galway Bay, and the man paying off O’Kelly. Liam brought one of the pictures to a man in Galway who can get it to Dick Mulcahy with the message that the two of them are the murderers of Michael Collins and if he wants to know more there are those who can explain all of it to him.

  The teacher man, who could not lie even if he wanted to, has given us the plate and all the pictures and says there are no more of them.

  Everyone else—the three lads, the two couples at the pub, the teacher man—is sworn to secrecy. There’ll be rumors as the years go on. Eventually when it doesn’t matter any more people will figure out the truth. Maybe someone will even read me diary.

  It’s all over.

  I hope Mick Collins is at peace. I hope Ireland always realizes how heavy a price the young people of our time have paid for freedom—Mick, Kit Kiernan, Tim, Moire, even myself and Liam, and all those like us. No matter what happens in the years to come and no matter how happy those of us who survived may become, we can never forget these awful times—and those who did not live through them. God have mercy on them and God help us.

  I’m tired and sick and I
want to escape from this terrible land and start me life again in America where you don’t have to kill others to be free. That’s where Liam and I want to raise our child, and those who come after.

  –– 53 ––

  THE SUN greeted us the next morning in Cork and the sky was sparkling blue, a hint of spring rather than autumn—a deceptive beginning in Ireland, I had learned. We drove through Bandon to Clonakilty, where Collins had attended secondary school. I could not find Sam’s Cross on my ordnance map, though I had read somewhere that it was seven miles outside of Clonakilty.

  “’Tis easy to find out.” Herself bounded out of the Benz. “You always ask at the post office.”

  She was back in a moment, two bouquets of flowers in her hand. “The woman says that not many people ask. We drive straight ahead towards Skibbereen. Four miles down the road there is a village called Lisavaird. We turn right there and it’s the fourth crossroad. She says it’s marked, but in Ireland it means only one sign—except for the shrine at Mamene. Aren’t the signs there everywhere?”

  “Lisavaird is where he went to primary school.”

  “No Jesuits or Christian brothers for your man, is it?”

  “National schools all the way. That makes his achievements all the more remarkable. He was the youngest of nine children. His father was already over seventy when he was born—married an orphan girl of twenty-three when he was sixty.”

  “He never did.”

  “He did so. And they were very happy too, according to the books.”

  “You can love at any age in life, can’t you, Dermot Michael?”

  “I hope so.”

  A single sign announced “Collins Shrine.” Then suddenly we were at the fourth crossroad—on the left a whitewashed pub with a white sign with the name “O’Cullean.” I stopped the car.

  “It must be that place on the right,” Nuala said. “There’s a flagpole.”

  Beyond it was a small shrine—a pillar with a Celtic cross carved on it and his name and dates. The house with the flagpole was an old stone cottage, elegant for the time Collins was born. Later his mother would build a much better house only to have it burned down by the Black and Tans.

  Spontaneously Nuala and I knelt on the stone base of the shrine and said a quiet prayer. Well, a quiet decade of the rosary because I wasn’t about to stop praying till she was finished. She laid one of her bouquets in front of the shrine.

  “He deserves better of Ireland,” I whispered.

  “Doesn’t he now?”

  “The pub is where he met with his brother and some of his friends the morning he died and reportedly a ‘neutral officer’ in his quest for peace.”

  “Poor brave eejit,” Nuala commented.

  “That’s right. Poor brave, great-souled eejit.”

  We went back to Clonakilty and then to Bandon where, I informed herself, there was once a law forbidding Catholics after sunset—West Cork being one of the places that Elizabeth and Cromwell had “planted” Protestant settlers but with less success than in Ulster. The West Cork Prods became as Irish as the natives if not more so—the “Black” Protestants of the Somerville and Ross stories, totally daft by the time the two women recorded the doings of the Knox clan in Skibbereen—the “Skibawn” of their stories.

  “Isn’t it myself that’s attending a graduate seminar in Irish history and literature on this trip?” She spoke tentatively, hoping not to offend me again since we had declared an implicit truce in our struggle.

  I laughed, louder than was necessary. “The back of me hand to you, woman.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” She laughed too.

  She was right: I wouldn’t dare.

  Well, we weren’t snapping at one another anymore.

  We took the wrong road out of Bandon towards Bealnablath (the Valley of the Blossoms) and found ourselves bumping down a paved but narrow country road in the middle of a forest with an occasional house. Still wild country. It must have been wilder seventy years ago. No wonder the IRA could hide so easily out here.

  Nuala, more convinced than I that we had taken the wrong road or maybe a back road, insisted I stop while she asked some kids who were apparently waiting for a school bus where we were.

  Being Irish, all four of them answered at once. Nuala tried her Irish on them and they fired back. One of the gossons seemed to take charge and give her detailed instructions. She handed them a pound note to divide among themselves and could have easily been elected to the Dáil from that district.

  We drove back to Bandon and tried again. The weather had changed while we were in the woods. Clouds had raced in from the Gulf Stream and brought with them mists and rain. That suited my mood perfectly.

  I drove carefully down the new road, noting that it was the same one that was in the TV film. And that it certainly hadn’t been paved in 1922.

  “They could hardly tear it up just for the film, could they?”

  Then it started to rain.

  We were almost to Crookston when we turned and suddenly came upon another shrine, larger than the one at Sam’s Cross—low brick wall, supporting a concrete platform with large stone crucifix, this time with an inscription in Irish.

  At first I could hardly believe that this was the place of the ambush. It seemed like just another bend in the road. Then I looked around and saw that it was the site of the RTE reenactment and that it was a perfect place for an ambush.

  “They have some kind of memorial service here every year,” I said solemnly.

  “Which my generation ignores, even after the RTE film.”

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  “A few weeks ago I would have said that they were a bunch of eejits. I guess I did say that, didn’t I now, Dermot Michael? The letters changed me mind.”

  “Pa and O’Kelly must have been up there.” I gestured towards the side of the high hill. “Up on that road. The National Army convoy was right here where we are now, and the Irregular ambush was on the other side, maybe two hundred yards in that direction. The laneway must be behind those hedges up there.”

  Nuala huddled under our one umbrella. “I don’t like this place.” She shuddered. “There’s evil here.”

  “A great man died here, Nuala.”

  “Even before that.” She shuddered again and rested her head on my shoulder. “It’s been evil for centuries. It’s not evil because he died here. He died here because of evil. It’s a place of death.”

  I had read her handwritten translation of the two entries the night before in stunned silence. (Her penmanship was excellent, by the way. What else?) Ma’s account of the final ambush was plain and harsh, yet agonized. She had lived her life with those bitter and ugly memories and had managed somehow to overcome them. Neither her faith in God nor her love for her man had been tarnished.

  It wasn’t fair that two such innocent young people, two shy children if there were ever any such, should have been forced to go into exile and to carry such heavy burdens with them.

  All right, they were an indomitable twosome and they had made it. All right, they had survived and Mick Collins had not. All right, Ma still had her man and Kit Kiernan did not. Still, the whole agonizing story should never have happened. What a mess the human condition was.

  Were there worse events in the twentieth century? Hell, yes. Auschwitz made the Troubles look mild. But . . .

  I wished I could weep for that young couple and what they had suffered. Had anyone ever wept for them? Her parents possibly and Moire. Maybe even the young priest with the pretty brown eyes.

  Probably they didn’t even weep much for themselves. They were survivors and survivors don’t cry. The faraway look I had seen on rare occasions in Ma’s sparkling green eyes must have brought her back to Carraroe and that youth which was cut short so quickly by war and death.

  “Are you all right, Dermot Michael?”

  “Fine.” I had handed Nuala the translation to put in the Federal Express envelope.

  She had slippe
d it into the envelope and sealed it.

  “Does that have to go out before we retype it?”

  “I’ll finish the first book on the road tomorrow. Shouldn’t we get the translations off to himself as soon as possible?”

  “In case anything happens to us?”

  “It’s insurance, Dermont.” She was watching me intently. “Your brother will have the whole story. They won’t be able to do anything to us then.”

  “You’re right, as usual.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Her soft, gentle voice was like a caress. Yes, I wanted to talk about it.

  “I’m all right, Nuala. I’d better get some sleep.”

  I knew I’d not be able to sleep.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, damn it,” I had snarled. “Leave me alone!”

  I had startled her.

  “I’m sorry if—”

  “I have a mother in Chicago should I need mothering. Now get the hell out of here!”

  She had left quietly and without protest.

  A man is entitled to be alone when he wants to, isn’t he?

  Even if she had been my wife, shouldn’t she have had enough sense to get out of that room instead of hassling me?

  A wife would not have to put up with what I had said. I had known that even then.

  I had not slept a wink. Nuala apparently fell asleep only towards morning. She overslept. I had waited impatiently in the dining room, munching on the hotel’s brown bread, which was only fair, until nine.

  Then I had rung her room.

  “It’s nine o’clock. We’re already an hour behind schedule.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, perhaps you could get up now.”

  She had hung up on me—which I suppose I had richly deserved.

  I had complained all the way to Clonakilty about the lorries (trucks, as I called them), about Irish roads, and about our late start.

  Nuala had snapped and snarled back at me, sniffling occasionally, whether with a cold or suppressed tears I could not tell and did not care.

  “Don’t try to pass here, you eejit. What if there’s another lorry coming at us from the opposite direction?”