The Heather Blazing

by Colm Toibin

  “Well, there’ll be no factory anyway if they vote for Fine Gael, that’s one thing for sure.”

  Back in the headquarters she went through the register with one of the older women.

  “Now, someone should go and see them again because they’re wavering,” she said. “Thank God for Noel Browne, he’s the one that’s going to win Fianna Fail this election.”

  “Well, a lot of people out my way say they’d be Fianna Fail all the way if Noel Browne was in the party. He’s rid the country of TB.”

  “And Fianna Fail will follow on his good work—that’s what I tell them,” Carmel said. “But we’re the party that respects the Church.” She sounded as though she did not believe what she was saying, as though she was trying out slogans on them, and Eamon moved away when she began talking about the man who proposed painting the roads.

  “Did you ever hear worse?” she asked. “Daubing paint across the roads! It’ll still be there years later.”

  Eamon grew nervous as the days approached for the final rally.

  “If de Valera comes,” the local candidate said in a hushed voice to his father and himself, “he’ll talk about Wexford’s glory and 1798 and they’ll all cheer. But we’re looking for votes and somebody had better talk pounds, shillings and pence from the platform.”

  The only time, Eamon’s father said, that their local candidate had ever spoken in the Dail was to ask them to open the window. It was, his father laughed, the man’s maiden speech and it was widely reported. But he was a decent man, his father added, and worked hard for the town. He would help anyone out. He, too, thought that Eamon should make a speech. Eamon’s Uncle Tom still believed that he was too young.

  “He looks older than he is,” the candidate said. “If you’re against him making the speech, why don’t you make it?” Uncle Tom said that he did not have enough experience at public speaking.

  “Lemass is going to talk first,” the candidate said, “and he’s going to introduce me, and then Dev’s going to walk across from the hotel and that’s when the band will play. But we need someone before Lemass, someone local to get the crowd going. Will you do it, young Redmond, will you?”

  “If my father thinks I should.”

  “I’m all for it,” his father said.

  It was settled then. He took two days off school to work on his speech. He practised it on his own at first, and then he went down to his Aunt Margaret who listened to it in full.

  “Oh that’s grand, Eamon, that’ll bring the votes in. Go hard on Noel Browne now. Wait until your father and your Uncle Tom hear it. It’s great to see de Valera coming to the town again. Twenty years ago no one would believe you if you told them that Fianna Fail would be in power for sixteen years. After the Civil War it was very bitter here. Michael Collins was in this house, and there were others, men your grandfather and Tom had fought beside and trusted, and all they wanted was an easy peace. An easy peace and a good job. Once they got power they wouldn’t give it up, they were worse than the British. They shot their own, and after the war a lot of our side went to America and never came back. They gave up hope, and if it hadn’t been for de Valera and a few others, ready to work hard and organize, we’d never have got back in. There were people in this town who wouldn’t speak to you, or even look at you. But that all changed when Fianna Fail won the first election. I remember, Eamon, the first time de Valera came after he won, he was led into the square by fifty men on white horses and they were lighting tar barrels all over the Market Square. That was a great day here. That was a day to remember.”

  Later, when his father and his Uncle Tom came back from the party headquarters in the town he acted out his speech for them, but he noticed when he was halfway through that they were both quietly laughing. They tried to stop when he looked up but his Uncle Tom had to leave the room.

  “That’s a great way to treat him now,” his Aunt Margaret said to his father, but his father was still shaking with laughter and he left the room as well.

  “Don’t mind them now, Eamon, don’t mind them.”

  He told her about the two girls laughing at the meeting.

  “The election makes them all nervous,” she said. “But don’t mind them.”

  When his uncle came back he apologized for laughing.

  “I just thought of some of the hecklers in the square. They could stop you in your tracks. There’ll be a lot of hecklers. You’d want to watch them, Eamon,” he said and began to laugh again.

  On the morning of the rally he went to Courtney’s barbers in Weafer Street and had his hair cut.

  “I hear you’re preaching tonight, sausage,” Paddy Courtney said to him. “We’ll all be down to listen to you. People’ll be asking about de Valera: who’s the long fellow beside young Redmond?”

  “No school today?” a man in the queue for a shave said to him.

  “Did you not hear the news?” Paddy Courtney stopped and addressed the group of men sitting on the bench waiting their turn. “Sausage here is going to open this evening’s deliberations. The Croppy Boy here is going to address his native town in the first national language.”

  “I’d say that there’ll be fellows waiting for him in the square. The whole town’ll be out tonight, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour,” a man on the bench said.

  “And the other shower,” said the barber.

  “The mother and his child,” one of the men sniggered.

  Eamon wore his good suit, a white shirt and a green tie. He went first to the party headquarters.

  “Have you it off by heart?” a man asked him. He did not reply. He walked across to Bennett’s Hotel. De Valera had arrived and was upstairs. Later, he would be going on to a rally in Wexford. A former minister whom Eamon recognized as Sean Lemass and his group were having sandwiches in the lounge. Eamon was introduced to Lemass and shook his hand.

  “I knew your grandfather,” Lemass said. He turned to the group. “He’s one of the Redmonds,” he said. “You’re Michael’s son, isn’t that right?”

  “He’s making a speech tonight,” someone said.

  “So he should,” Lemass said. “We’re going to need every vote we get.”

  As the time drew near they walked up through the town, and when they reached the platform in front of the council building the Market Square was filling up with groups of men talking in serious tones to each other. There were chairs at the back of the platform; a microphone had been set up at the front. Several men were now testing the microphone.

  “The trick is,” Lemass said to him, “look at every face. Don’t look down. If you’re nervous pick one man in the crowd and address yourself to him. They’re all looking at you and you should look back at them.”

  Eamon nodded; he was nervous now.

  The groups of men were getting larger. There was a big group outside Stamp’s public house and another around the monument to Father Murphy and 1798. As yet there were no women in the square.

  “Watch,” a man said to him. “The minute it starts the place’ll fill up. There’s fellows in from Bree and Ballindaggin and all around the Milehouse for this.”

  It was half past seven now, and de Valera had to be in Wexford for a monster rally at nine o’clock, or a quarter past nine at the latest.

  “Crowd or no crowd,” Lemass said, “we have to start.”

  Eamon’s father and the local chairman and several of the group who had been with Lemass went up on the platform and sat down. They left a space for Lemass in the centre, and a space for the candidate beside him. Eamon wondered if they had forgotten about him and he felt a sudden hope that they would decide not to let him speak. It was like the queue for confession, this terrible waiting.

  Eventually, the chairman of the local branch of the party went to the platform. It was dark and becoming cold. Eamon noticed that the square was slowly filling up; people were coming in from Cathedral Street and Weafer Street.

  “This is a great day for the town of Enniscorthy,” the chairman said.
There was a buzz in the microphone which grew into a piercing whistle as he spoke. He stood back while an electrician came on to the stage and began to fiddle with it, and then he tested it again.

  “Can you hear me now?” he asked. His voice blared around the Market Square, but no one replied. Again, a whistling, piercing sound came from the microphone.

  “Don’t go so close to it,” the electrician shouted at him.

  “Can you hear me now?” the chairman asked again, standing back from the microphone. His voice echoed in the square. He turned to the electrician and told him to warn each speaker to keep his distance from the microphone.

  “This is a great day for the town of Enniscorthy,” the chairman began again. “Not far away, and soon to appear, is one of the greatest statesmen in the world today, a figure revered both here and abroad. Our past and future Taoiseach.” The crowd was paying no attention; between each phrase the murmuring of voices could be heard. Eamon looked carefully at the text of his speech, although he knew it now word for word. Men were standing on the steps of the monument and people were watching from the windows of the houses, from Byrne’s and Godfrey’s and the Munster and Leinster Bank.

  “Vote Fianna Fail!” the chairman shouted. “Vote de Valera!”

  There was a small cheer.

  “And now,” he said, “it is an honour for me, as chairman of this Enniscorthy cumann of Fianna Fail, to introduce a young man who hails from one of the Republican families of this town, whose grandfather was at the forefront of the struggle for national freedom and sovereignty and whose father fought in the War of Independence alongside many of the great figures of modern Irish history. He’s going to address you now, so could I have silence, please, and your full attention, and there’s room at the front here for anyone who can’t see, and could I have a welcome please for young Eamon Redmond.”

  He walked up the steps to the platform and looked around at the faces in the dark square. Most people were still talking among themselves. He stood at the microphone and took his time. He held the script in his hands.

  “In Fianna Fail,” be began, “we’re looking for your Number One vote. We’re not, like other parties, looking for your transfers: left-over votes for left-over parties. This is not the party of transfers. We’ll leave it to other people to transfer.”

  “Ah, fuck off, Redmond, you little squirt,” a voice shouted from near the Father Murphy monument.

  The crowd laughed.

  “This is not the party that took a shilling off the old-age pension. We’ll leave that to others, the others we are now going to drive from power, because Fianna Fail is the part of this country, rich and poor, young and old.”

  A cheer came up, but there was still murmuring and laughter from around the monument.

  “We know, our history tells us, about the persecution of religion in this country. We know of the time when the priests had to flee from house to house. We respect our priests for that, and we don’t fly in their faces now, like some others do. We don’t start telling the bishops what to do, because we know our history. We know how much this country suffered under foreign rule, and there are others, and we’ll put names on them, there are others like Noel Browne and Sean MacBride, who want to bring us back under foreign domination. They want to bring Communism into this country and hunt the priests from house to house, like the English before them.”

  A loud cheer came up from the edges of the square and from the party loyals in front of the platform.

  “Ireland, under Fianna Fail,” he went on, “will respect the clergy of this country. But we will do more than that.” He stopped and looked around the square. “We were the first to build hospitals in this country, and we were criticized for doing that. But we will build more hospitals and we will stop the curse of emigration which has brought this country to ruin under the coalition government—”

  “Fuck off, Redmond, you’re only a squirt,” a voice shouted from the monument.

  “It’s people like you,” Eamon pointed at the area around the monument, “with your foul word brought here by the English, who don’t appreciate that we kept this country out of the war. And you wouldn’t understand that this country is in danger from outside influences, but most people in this square and in this town and in this country know that, the decent people of Ireland can make up their own minds whether they want you and your likes running this country or whether Ireland will be led by a figure as internationally renowned as Eamon de Valera.”

  He stood back now and looked at the crowd. Most people were staring up at the platform, some were applauding and a few were cheering. Lemass stood up from his seat and shook his hand.

  “You’re a great speaker,” he said.

  He took a seat on the platform while the candidate and Lemass spoke, but he was too excited to listen to them. He noticed the tension building up as each slogan was shouted out, he heard the cheers and whistling and applause. A heckler shouted over and over at Lemass about TB. “What are you going to do about TB? What did you ever do to rid the country of TB?” No one listened to the heckler; people were waiting for de Valera to appear. It was now a quarter past eight, and the Minister’s voice was growing louder and more passionate. He had been alerted to the news that de Valera was in Murphy Flood’s hotel.

  “He’s coming now,” a party worker at the front shouted.

  Lemass began to speak about the party leader and his stature in the world. Eamon watched the way being cleared at the side of the platform and de Valera being led along and helped up the steps. Suddenly, Lemass brought his speech to an abrupt end and the band began to play “A Nation Once Again.”

  “People of Enniscorthy,” Lemass shouted into the microphone, “I present Eamon de Valera.” Lemass shook de Valera’s hand and gently brought him towards the microphone. Eamon wondered how much he could see; one of the men in the hotel had said that he would soon have to undergo another eye operation.

  De Valera stood on the platform without speaking. There was still cheering coming from the crowd and he raised his hand for silence. As he did so, a man shouted, “Up Dev!” and the crowd burst into further cheering. He stopped and waited until there was complete silence in the square. He held the silence, still saying nothing, and then he started.

  “I stand in one of the sacred towns of this island. I am proud to be in one of those places which has ever kept the flame of nationhood alight, even in darkest times. Throughout our history, we have asserted our right as a people to be free, and nowhere more so than on Vinegar Hill overlooking this town in Seventeen and ninety eight. In this great square, steeped in history and lore, stands the great monument by Oliver Shepherd to the bravery of the Croppy Boy and the great leadership of Father Murphy in those far-off years. But they are not forgotten, and we are still inspired by those great deeds and those great heroes. We, too, have known difficult times, and in recent days this country has been ruled by unnecessary controversy while our best young people emigrate, take the boat to England and America. We are the national party and we will tackle the real problems facing this country; we will not make controversy where there is no need. Our party is stable and we will not break into factions and go against the will of the people and the will of God . . . so vote Fianna Fail next week for stable government and the good of Ireland.”

  When he had finished the band started again, this time with “The Boys of Wexford.” Eamon stood back as de Valera was helped from the platform. The crowd had already begun to disperse. One of the men with Lemass asked him if he wanted to be introduced to de Valera. He nodded and was brought down to where de Valera was surrounded by well wishers and supporters. When he was introduced, de Valera spoke to him in Irish about the importance of the language in the life of the country. Soon, de Valera was brought back to Murphy Flood’s where there was a car waiting for him to be taken to Wexford. Eamon noticed Lemass’s friend, the man who had introduced him to de Valera, talking to his father. Before he left for Wexford in the car with Lemass he ca
me over to Eamon and shook his hand again.

  “I was talking to your father. He says you’re going to University College Dublin if you get the results. He says that you’re a great scholar. I was saying to him that you should do the bar. There’s a great need now for Fianna Fail barristers. We could do with fellows of your calibre. But I said I’d call up to your father on the way back so I have your address.” He shook Eamon’s hand again and walked briskly towards the waiting car.

  Eamon went with his father to his grandmother’s house. They sat in the front room with his Uncle Tom. Both men had bottles of stout to celebrate de Valera’s visit, Eamon had a glass of lemonade. His Aunt Margaret came and put a plate of fancy biscuits on the table.

  “Did you hear the man introducing me?” Eamon asked them. “He said that you fought in the War of Independence.” He looked at his father.

  “I didn’t do much,” his father said.

  “Your Uncle Patrick and your grandfather were more involved,” his Uncle Tom said.

  “What did you do?” Eamon asked his father.

  “I caught the train to Dublin a few times,” his father said and shrugged as though he wanted to say no more.

  “You couldn’t just burn a house, you see,” Uncle Tom said. “You’d have to get permission from Cathal Brugha in Dublin. You’d have to present him with all the facts; any of the houses that entertained the Black and Tans had the officers for dinners and parties, they’d be on the list. Your father’d go up, he was young enough and he pretended to spend the day in the National Library, but he’d slip out to see Brugha, or one of Brugha’s men, and then permission would come back and then we’d do the job.”

  “Burn the house?” Eamon asked.

  “We gutted a good few of them all right,” his uncle sipped his drink. “Wilton, old Captain Skrine, the Proctors on the Bunclody Road, Castleboro. I have a book upstairs I took from Castleboro the night we went out there. They had a great library. It’s a pity I didn’t have more time. I still have it upstairs. It has a note inside saying ‘Ex Libris Lord Crew.’ What’s it called? Cranford by Mrs. Gaskell. I must look for it. I’m sure it’s up there somewhere.”