Liberty

  There was no answer, only the screech of an owl in the distance. I curled up into a ball on the rough-hewn floorboards and let myself drift into a fitful sleep.

  I dreamed of my mother. She was young and beautiful, dressed in a flowing white shift of chiffon. Over it was her red velvet cape. Together we collected berries in the woods while bumblebees buzzed by our heads. I smiled up at her as she wiped the purple juice from the corner of my mouth with one long, elegant finger. ‘I am with you always, Jeanne,’ she whispered. ‘Me … and your grandmother … and your grandmother’s mother and her mother and her mother before that, all the way back to the beginning of all time. You have no need to be afraid, Jeanne. We are with you always. We are you.’

  The Rebel Army was assembling on a hill known as Edenvady, about half a mile south-west of the town of Ballynahinch. It was a high hill and well suited to the insurgency. Hundreds, maybe thousands of men were converging there, armed with whatever weapons they could get their hands on.

  The sun was up and the day was promising a humid heat. Faint streaks of clouds gathered high in the blue sky. Down in the village of Ballynahinch, there was an air of simmering terror that was being glossed over with forced laughter and much convivial back-slapping and merry-making, not to mention whisky-imbibing despite the early hour. Behind the tight smiles was a township waiting in fear. All of them resented the English but even as the rebel troops marched into their town, promising salvation and liberty, many of the townsfolk were losing their courage, aiming to sit on the fence or pretend things weren’t happening.

  ‘Well, I don’t know that it has to come down to bloodshed, is all I’m saying.’ One old fellow at the bar shook his head and scratched his nose. ‘The rebels have got thousands up there but they’re like a field of plucked roosters, all crow and not much claw.’

  Ignoring him, I dragged the plain wooden coffin into the inn’s kitchen by myself. Mary Ann McCracken and I had bumped the cart carrying the coffin full of weapons over the back paddocks, gullies and creeks to get it up to town off the roads, which were being closely monitored by the yeomanry and various auxiliary commands. Finn McCool had been a good strong packhorse for us but we’d worn down the wheels and broken three or four cogs on the cart. Mary Ann was pleased with our effort. After I’d gone back outside and yarded my horse, I waved off Mary Ann. She was going on up to Antrim with her sister and two clergymen to begin rallying support closer to Belfast. I went back inside the inn, knowing no one, to organise supplies of sustenance for the men who were arriving from all over the countryside. I had received the secret call to arms at the assembly point of Ballynahinch the day before.

  ‘My Irish sisters,’ I called to the gathering of women, young and old, who’d come from out of town with their United Irishmen husbands, fathers and sons. I clapped my hands and gave a whistle through my two fingers until they quietened down and gave me their attention.

  ‘We’re going to sweep through the town with two tasks at hand,’ I told them, taking charge. ‘One, to gather provisions, anything at all. Donations that people might be happy to give up: foodstuffs, pies or pikes, muskets or any sort of weaponry, even kitchen knives. Anything will be accepted most gratefully. Our other objective is to rally some more manpower! Every rebel sympathiser should pick up a pike and speak with violence today. That is the only language the redcoats understand so let’s take it to them and see some of their blood for a change. Manpower. We need a lot more of it!’

  ‘Oh, I could with some more manpower.’ One jolly woman roared with laughter. ‘My Paddy’s run out of steam, he has!’

  Many joined her in laughter but I continued speaking.

  ‘Our men on the hill need more muscle, more pikes, more men to stand alongside them! All we have on our side is our numbers. We are many to their few. Even hares can take down foxes if there are enough of them.’

  I looked around the room at the rosy-cheeked women, the mischievous children and the elderly. A low rumble of talk rippled through the drinking house. It seemed that most of the folk present were there to provide solidarity to one another, and drink whisky and dark beer to numb the growing sense of discomfort and fear as the reality of the situation began to seep in. Someone had brought a fiddle and was tuning it in the corner and another colleen, already more than a little tipsy, was dancing a jig to music that only she could hear in her head. The room was strung tight with tension despite the attempts at light-heartedness. Blood would be shed unless one side or the other surrendered and submitted, and we all knew that was not going to happen. When English stubbornness came up against Irish pride, you had two stags with antlers locked.

  I wanted the revolution. I just wasn’t so keen on the blood shedding, although George and Will always told me that, ‘Many may have to suffer, so that some day all Irish people might know peace and justice.’ It was for the greater good and I understood that.

  A large group of the women gathered out on the street and we carried baskets and pulled small, wheeled carts by hand. I blew a strand of hair from my face, rolled up the white buttoned sleeves on my blouse and gave a nod.

  ‘Aye, lasses.’ I smiled. ‘It will be dirty work our men must steel themselves for and they’ll be needing full bellies and peat-fire in their bones. Grab provisions and we’ll meet back here at the inn in the kitchen for baking at high sun. Press upon their patriotism and make them give generously.’

  Full of hope we set off through the narrow streets of Ballynahinch, door-knocking and requesting whatever the inhabitants could offer up. I collected beef and bacon and sacks of oats.

  ‘Where are your menfolk?’ I asked at the many doors that were opened by frightened women and children. ‘They need to take arms and join the others on the hill. Have they left for there already?’

  Most of those I asked dropped their eyes and then hurried to provide a generous proportion of food and produce, but were silent on the issue of their men. One woman was quite forthright with me and set me straight. I was not so happy to hear it, though.

  ‘Most men in Ballynahinch have taken to the mountains,’ she told me. ‘With the yeomanry and the Monaghans and all the rest ready to march through our town, well, the nerve’s gone from them. If they stand against the soldiers, we’ll all be taken down. They’ll burn the village to cinders. Some folks don’t have the backbone for it.’

  ‘But this place, Ballynahinch, was chosen because it is rife and ready with rebels,’ I said, aghast at her words. ‘I’ve seen you at a meeting, Madame, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Ah, love, it’s not that we don’t rally behind the cause,’ she said, twisting her mouth around the words. ‘It’s just that we fear it will be the end of us. If the French were here with us, standing strong, then maybe, but we don’t want to risk our children’s futures or their very lives. I’m here to bake bread for those that want to fight but I’ll not have my men slaughtered in a war they cannot win.’

  I sighed and shook my head.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Catherine,’ she told me. ‘And I’ve got seven wee ones under ten. We have nothing, but you can take all the food in the pantry, all of it, and we pray that the Rebel Army holds strong and all. The soldiers will leave the women and children well enough alone, we hope.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ I told her. ‘You’re best to take your young ones off to the mountains as well.’

  Almost every cottage and farmlet had the same sorry story. They were all for booting the English from our shores but few were ready to risk their lives and those of their families for the cause.

  Many of the women were eager to help at the inn and had come to boil the salted beef and bacon, and bake oatcakes for the troops. I returned to the kitchen to find plenty of hands punching out dough on dusted boards. In the main bar of the drinking house, music was playing and the old men who had remained behind, too weary to flee to the mountains and too weak to join the rebell
ion, danced like calves taking their first steps on spindly, shaking legs. Children ran between their ankles, trying to trip them up, while their mothers gossiped and gabbed about how the day might unfold.

  By early afternoon, the women had prepared a huge amount of food to be transported to the rebel camp and I nominated myself along with two other women from Ballynahinch to transport the carts up to the troops. I had not been to Edenvady Hill, but Will had drawn me a comprehensive map on a large piece of butcher’s paper and I knew I would have no trouble finding it.

  The women introduced themselves as Sarah and Eilish and with the help of some others we loaded up three carts full to the brim. Not scrimping on our menfolk, we packed ham and many oat-loaves, buns, boiled salted beef and bacon, and plenty more besides.

  ‘Piking English dogs is hungry work,’ Sarah joked but the younger woman looked away, discomforted by such talk.

  As reality set in, I began to feel queasy at the prospect of having our good men, my own George and Will foremost in my mind, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the redcoats. I had a vision of clashing metal and rivers of blood and shut my eyes, saying a prayer that it might all be over with as few casualties as possible.

  ‘We’ve got thousands up there, so I’ve heard,’ I said enthusiastically, trying as much to bolster my own spirits as those of the other women. ‘A mighty proud and fiercely Irish army of men determined to sever Ireland from Britain and give her a place among the nations.’

  ‘You sound like Theobald Wolfe Tone himself.’ Sarah grinned as she threw the canvas tarpaulin to me and we secured it to keep the food shaded from the heat of the sun. ‘Have you seen him in the flesh? Oh, he’s lovely. Such a grand and handsome chap. I all but swooned, I did, when I saw him all those years ago. I was much younger then and might have turned his head if I’d had a mind to, but now I’m like a heifer put out to pasture. He’s rallying the French for us.’

  Sarah laughed a tinkling laugh and I smiled, but I saw Eilish close in on herself and go rigid. The poor thing was beside herself with worry.

  ‘You all right there, Eilish?’ I asked gently. ‘Do you have menfolk up on the hill?’

  She nodded stiffly. ‘Me sweetheart, Donald. I didn’t want him to go. I wanted him to head for the hills, go up with the rest of them till all the fuss was over, but he’d not hear of it. He wants to take down the English. It’s foolhardy, it is. The yeomanry have got the whole King’s force behind them. Our lads are just a ramshackle band of farmers with hayforks. They’ll be crushed just like them down near Dublin. Bunch of foolish boys and men playing soldiers!’

  That wiped the smile off Sarah’s round face. Her expression changed and she spoke with the curl of a scowl.

  ‘Where there’s a will and a fire in the heart, there’s a weapon more powerful than anything made of wood or iron. All those folks with ardour for the cause who up and ran away like rats on a sinking ship as soon as the call went out, they’re cowards. Only those who are real Irish are up there on that hill, readying their pikes. I am proud of my man, Kenny, and my three sons. May God be with them. Now let’s get this tucker to them and stop crying like babies.’

  We took three of the packhorses tethered to the posts in the back paddock behind the inn and shackled them to three old block-wheel carts. I wasn’t about to make my fine Finn McCool drag such a heavy load up the steep incline that soared from the other side of town. He was sore and tired from the cross-country ride and needed resting. It was going to be a long night and I wanted him ready in case I should need him for a speedy getaway or a lap of honour about Ballynahinch once we’d crushed our enemy the next day.

  The ride through town felt like a funeral parade. Curtains hung like shrouds in the windows. Dogs poked about in puddles, their tails between their legs, bored and sniffing out some excitement: a cat or a rat or a forgotten bone. The flagpole bore the English flag but the flag hung limply, giving a half-hearted sigh with every breath of wind. There was no chatter. No laughter. No children tearing at breakneck speed through the narrow laneways, chasing kites or leather balls.

  Ballynahinch was abandoned and any who remained must have been buried deep and quiet in the bellies of their homes. No smoke drifted up from chimneys. No fiddles or pipes played. Even the churches were shut.

  ‘After the women and old men had given up their food, most of them hurried off to the mountains as well. Traitors,’ Sarah said, bristling.

  It was unnerving and despite the late sun and heat of the summer day, I felt a chill down my spine. We walked on with only the sound of the cart wheels on stone to accompany us. My thoughts were scattered and I tried to gather them. Many sympathisers were deserting on the eve of the battle. The horses pulled the front cart of food as we women walked beside it. I held Finn McCool’s reins in one hand.

  ‘It will be on their conscience when we liberate Ireland,’ I muttered. ‘We will all enjoy the freedoms that come with our victory but some will have greater earned them!’

  Young Eilish looked to her hands, which she wrung nervously together. Above us a few soft clouds idled in the sky and I heard the gentle clang of a goat-bell from the back of one of the cottages.

  As we left the town behind, the roads became more congested with bands of men riding toward the big hill. Most were travelling at speed and paid us no mind but a few doffed caps and called to us.

  ‘God bless you, good women,’ one man called and another whooped out some passing comment that was lost on the afternoon breeze. One well-heeled man wearing an impressive vintage cap rode beside us and gave us more detail on what was going on.

  ‘They’ve had some heavy losses up Antrim way,’ he said solemnly. ‘That’s why so many of the men from Ballynahinch have fled. General Nugent is leading the charge of British forces and from all accounts he put down the Rising in Antrim quickly and mercilessly. Those of us that fled unharmed are joining our comrades on the hills down here.’

  ‘But my brother told me that the rebels have complete control of the north and middle eastern areas of County Down.’ I questioned him as we began to climb the road up into higher country.

  ‘True, true.’ The man nodded, his mouth set tight. ‘But for how long, hey? We needed all the men in this town to reinforce our troops.’

  ‘My boys are up there,’ Sarah said proudly. ‘And same with Betsy’s here and yours too, lassie,’ she said, giving Eilish a stern look. ‘It says it in the Bible,’ Sarah continued. ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself, shall not stand.’

  ‘Please,’ Eilish said in a voice that warbled with fear, ‘don’t speak like that. I cannot bear to think of anything but victory. Our men are determined and they have fire in their hearts.’

  I smiled at her and nodded. ‘That they do.’

  ‘We will rid this island of English just like Saint Paddy rid it of snakes and toads.’ The man on the horse grinned, and gave us a friendly wink before cantering off to catch up with the men ahead of him.

  The wheels of our carts rolled up the gravelly road, playing percussion with the sound of our horses’ hooves. I shut my eyes and listened to the beat as it pulsed in my blood and I instantly recalled a ditty we often sang at our rebel meetings. We called it the Liberty Tree. Slowly, in little more than a murmur, I began to sing:

  It was the year of ’93

  The French did plant an olive tree …

  Sarah, obviously a grand supporter of our cause and a regular at meetings, took up with me, her voice rich and deep.

  … the symbol of great liberty

  And the people danced around it …

  Our voices grew loud and I smiled encouragingly at young Eilish as she meekly joined in and then gathered a little momentum, her chest swelling up with breath and song.

  … that equality, freedom and fraternity

  Would be the cry of every na
tion.

  Climbing higher up the hills west of Ballynahinch, toward the ribbons of smoke and the sound of bugles and pipes, we sang at the top of our voices, our feet marching in the dirt, the sound filling me with hope, courage and great pride for our brave men. Men rallying to the cause, riding around us, joined in and it became a spontaneous battle song just like those sung by the great Irish kings and their troops going to battle over the many years, fending off those that would seek to claim our emerald isle for their own.

  I was heartened to see the spread of our army on the flanks of the hill as we approached. Thousands had gathered and there was a sense of excitement and enthusiasm. The hill commanded a magnificent view of the country for miles around and the little town nestled at its foot. Men congregated in small clumps and some enjoyed the shade of thickets of trees, lying on the grass, resting in preparation for the battle ahead. Two stocky young men approached us with open smiles. The sun shone with a fierce brilliancy. County Down had suffered a long season of drought and the grass was scorched.

  ‘Looky here.’ One grinned. ‘Are these angels come to minister to us from Heaven?’

  The men took Finn McCool’s reins and helped us unshackle our horses so we could lead them to drinking troughs, then insisted on unloading the food from the carts into the supply tents. Everywhere we went we were met with smiles of welcome and gentlemanly bows of gratitude. Someone somewhere was playing a concertina and tents were pitched between trees, behind which rose a gentle slope. I recognised some faces from meetings but felt enormous relief when Will came bounding across a patch of grass, waving wildly at me.

  ‘Betsy, love,’ he yelled. ‘Betsy!’

  He came to me and picked me up and spun me around making me giddy and my stomach lurch. It was no mean feat to lift me off my feet as I was a tall girl. I laughed and struggled out from his arms, landing my boots on the grass with a thud.

  ‘They say many have fled to the hills, men who ought to be here fighting with you,’ I said, catching my breath. ‘Cowards.’