by Charles Egan
‘Would you go on out of that. Now tell me this, are you going over to Costellos’ this evening?’
‘I am. Are you coming?’ Luke asked.
‘Try and stop me!’
‘Well we better get a move on, that barge is going to be moving any minute.’
They raced to the dock, just as the barge was being cast off. Laughing, they jumped across the widening gap.
‘Next time you do that, you’ll be dead,’ the bargeman said.
‘Arra, what of it.’
They sat on top of the sacks of anthracite.
‘We look like black men,’ Jack said.
‘I don’t know about me, but you sure as hell do.’
They reached the Cortland Street Terminal.
‘Come on, there’ the bargeman shouted. ‘You got a free ride; you can at least help me to tie up.’
They jumped off and tied the barge to the bollards. A lot easier than weighing anchor, coming up the St. Lawrence to Quebec on the Centaurus. Anchors were heavy beasts, even with many men on the capstan winch. That had been a fearsome voyage. Well over a hundred dead, before they even reached Quebec, and then the horrors of Grosse Île.
They left the terminal and walked across the city to Five Points and Orange Street.
‘You know,’ Jack said, ‘getting the coal dust up your nose is one thing, the stink of this place is worse.’
‘It’s easy upset you are,’ Luke said. ‘Sure when you’re out milking the cows, don’t you get the same smell of shit?’
‘And that’s something I haven’t smelt for a long time, and pray I never do. Sure they’re only starving in Ireland.’
‘Wouldn’t you think of farming in America? Thousands of acres for farming.’
‘No way,’ Jack replied. ‘I’ve had enough of farms for ten lifetimes. Let’s just get up to Lackan when your wife arrives, and work out what the lie of the land is, once we meet your old gang. I’m damned sure of one thing, we’ll earn better money there than we’re earning across on the Morris Canal. It’s one right hell hole of a place, it is.’
When they arrived in Costellos’ bar, Costello was serving. The bar was hot, and humid. Costello was sweating, his shirt streaked and wet.
‘Well, lads, come over to do a bit of work?’
‘That, and to get a pint or two inside us as well,’ Luke replied.
‘Well, the first thing is to get ye looking respectable. Would you go out the back and get well cleaned. I’ll get Páidín to drop each of ye a clean jacket.’
They went out to the shack at the back. They both stripped off, and Luke sat into the zinc bath. Jack poured the water over him.
‘Damn it, that smells as bad as the streets.’
‘Why wouldn’t it? Isn’t that where it came from?’
He took a scrubbing brush that was hanging beside them. ‘Here, let me start scrubbing you down. Can you picture if your wife arrived over from Ireland today? What’d she be thinking of you? She’d run a mile.’
When Jack had finished scrubbing Luke, they changed around, and Luke scrubbed him until the skin glowed red. There was a knock on the door.
‘Mr. Costello said to drop these down to you.’
‘That it was good of you, Páidín,’ Luke said, pulling his trousers on. He put on the jacket, and when they were both ready, they went back to the front bar. It wasn’t yet busy. Costello put a beer in front of each of them.
‘How are ye finding the work across the way?’
‘Damned hard,’ Luke said.
‘Hard!’ Jack echoed. ‘Damn it. At least you were used to it on the railways. It was a lot harder for me.’
‘Might be,’ Luke said, ‘but at least you’re toughening up to it.’
‘Slow enough, too,’ Jack said.
But Luke was thinking of other things. Conaire – Costello’s brother and Luke’s companion and friend on the Atlantic crossing, in the mills of Quebec and the forests of Ontario.
‘Forget all that,’ he said, abruptly. ‘There’s only one other question I’d have for you, John.’
‘I thought you might,’ Costello said.
‘Any word of him?’
‘Not a whisper. I’m telling you, Conaire is dead. And isn’t that a terrible thing to say about my own brother.’
‘Sure you can’t be certain of that.’
‘As certain as anybody can be. He has my address. He’d have written by now, no matter where he was.’
‘But he can’t write.’
‘He’d know people who could write for him. Sure wasn’t that what you were doing for him, the time ye were up the forests in Ontario.’
Luke considered that. ‘Well, there are other possibilities,’ he said. ‘He might be logging out in one of the Territories. Or working down Louisiana way as a cowboy.’
‘God help him if he is,’ Costello said. ‘He won’t last long in that line of work.’
They spent all Sunday working in the bar.
Sundays were always busy in Costellos’. It was a good opportunity to earn extra dollars, and not as brutally tough as working in the anthracite terminals.
Luke was serving two men when he heard them talking about the potato crop.
He interrupted them.
‘Have you heard anything about it?’ he asked. ‘What’s the news from Ireland?’
‘A great crop, by all accounts. Leastwise in Kerry it is.’
‘It’s a great crop all over, I’d say,’ the other man said. ‘If it’s doing that well in Kerry, what would be wrong with the rest of the country, that it couldn’t do the same. No, there’s no sign of blight, that’s for sure. From all we hear, even the pigs won’t be able to finish all they’re being fed.’
Luke passed over their beers.
‘Well, that’s great news.’
*
One Saturday afternoon, Luke was back in Five Points without Jack, who had preferred to have a night out with the Tourmakeady men.
When he arrived in Costellos’, Costello asked him into the back office.
‘There’s something I’d like to ask you, Luke. You’re a true born Irishman, as I understand it.’
‘Sure what else could I be?’
‘I don’t know. After all those years in England…’
‘Well, I can tell you one thing for sure. I’m not an Englishman. How could I be that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. From what we hear of your cousin Danny, he’ll be an Englishman before much longer.’
Luke laughed. ‘My cousin Danny can do what he likes. I’m damned if I want anything to do with him anymore. But yes, John, I can assure you I’m an Irishman, and, please God, I always will be.’
‘And a good Catholic too?’
Luke hesitated. Other things flashed through his mind. Croghancoe. He remembered that day by mountain, and the vast power he had sensed behind it. He still could not understand what had happened to him. Was it some sort of madness? Or some vision of something or someone he would never understand.
‘Yes John,’ he said after some hesitation. ‘I’m Catholic.’
‘A Mass goer?’
‘Not all the time, but I know I should. In fact, there’s no excuse. There’s a church in Jersey City.’
‘There is. St. Peter’s has been there this long time.’
‘But what’s this all about, John? You’re not going to tell me I should become a priest, are you?’
Costello laughed.
‘Far from that,’ he answered. ‘Something else entirely. You’ve heard of the Ancient Order of Hibernians?’
‘Of course, I have. Why do you ask?’
‘Never mind. We’ll talk again. In the meantime, there’s an immigrant boat in. I want you to help out.’
‘Surely,’ Luke said.
Costello gave him a police baton. ‘Hide that under your coat. And you can take my sister with you.’
Luke was pleased to be accompanied by Catherine Costello. He had always found her to be an attractive woman, tall and eleg
ant, but a strong woman too. Sometimes in his own mind he compared her to Winnie. Still, in Winnie’s absence, he found himself enticed by Catherine. He should not, but she was in New York, and Winnie was not.
‘I’m glad you’re coming,’ she said to him. ‘John goes often enough, but I don’t like him doing it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s a saloon keeper.’
He did not press her about that.
When they arrived on the docks, a ship was already tied up.
‘We must wait,’ she said.
She sat on a bollard. Luke stood beside her.
‘What now?’ he asked.
‘Once they come off, we must get in fast. Get them before the runners do. You know yourself – if they get them, they’ll be jumped half way to some lodgings that doesn’t even exist. And there’s cutpurses here too that’d have your money, before you even knew it was gone.’
‘Rough business,’ Luke said.
He had been watching the waiting crowd. He picked out some groups of men in groups of two and three. Were they all meeting relatives? When the immigrants started coming through, the crowd pushed forward. Luke saw two of the men going forward, but they went in different directions as they got closer. At once, he was on the alert.
One accosted a woman with two children. The whole family were thin, with all the signs of hunger fixed on their faces. The woman’s dress was ragged, and she had a bitter and defeated look in her eyes. The children were barefoot.
She stopped and put down her bag. The man had moved around slightly, so that she had her back to his accomplice moving in. She did not even notice when the bag was lifted.
Luke moved quickly. He followed the bag, grabbed the man by the collar, and jerked him back. He was a small man, hair well cropped to his skull. He looked up at Luke. Then he dropped the bag and ran. Luke thought of chasing him, but instead he took up the bag and carried it back.
The other man had disappeared and Catherine was talking to the woman, who looked upset. Luke set the bag down in front of her.
‘Good work, Luke,’ Catherine said. ‘Now we’ve more to do.’
Another group had been accosted by a man, tall this time. She moved closer, listening from behind. Luke stood in beside her.
She turned to him whispering. ‘He’s saying he’ll bring them to the cheapest boarding house in Manhattan.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Doesn’t exist. They’ll be jumped and relieved of everything.’
Already the group was moving.
‘Come on,’ Catherine said. Luke followed.
‘Now – those two over there. They’re following.’
‘But they’re well back,’ Luke said.
‘They won’t be in a while. Come on, we’ve no time.’
Luke ran. He stood in front of the first man.
‘Where are you…?’
He got a head butt straight to the nose. He doubled up and tried not to scream.
A full minute later, he stood and looked around. ‘Where are the runners?’
‘Gone off with them.’
‘God help them,’ he said.
‘God help them is right,’ said Catherine, ‘because no one else will. Now let’s get you home. You’ve blood all over your shirt.’
Next morning, they were helping to clean up the bar.
‘You might do some deliveries for me, while we finish the cleaning?’ Costello said to Luke. ‘A few bottles of gin and whiskey.’
‘And how would I find the way?’
‘I’ll send Catherine with you. She knows the way, and she knows the prices. And mind you take good care of her.’
He gave Luke a sack of bottles and a baton. ‘Just hold this inside your belt,’ he said.
Luke hefted the sack over his shoulder.
‘Damned heavy,’ he said.
‘You should be fine, a brawny fellow like you,’ Costello said.
They left, and walked along Orange Street. The street was teeming with whites and blacks. Luke knew from the accents that many of the whites – most perhaps – were Irish.
They came to the first drop off.
‘Hagerty’s,’ she said.
There were pigs in the courtyard, snuffling at a trough. They walked down into a tiny cellar. The stench was far worse than outside. Luke found it hard to breathe. There was little air, and what there was, was stifling and hot.
Six beds occupied the room. Chamber pots stood under the beds, some close to overflowing. Luke put his hand to his nose.
‘You’re not used to this, are you,’ Catherine said. ‘It’s only slops for the pigs.’
A woman and two children were lying on one bed. She was drunk already. Her eyes lit up, when she saw Catherine. She stood, and reached out for the gin bottle that Catherine had taken out of the sack.
‘Catherine, alanna…’
Catherine whipped the bottle away, and stood back.
‘You’ll pay first.’
The woman returned to the bed and took a silver half dime from under the mattress.
‘You’re hard enough. And coming along with a tough fellow too.’
‘I’d need him, with the likes of you,’ Catherine said.
They walked back up the steps, across the courtyard and back into the street. At least the stink was less.
They arrived at a tenement, and climbed five flights of stairs. The room they entered was tiny. Two men approached her, and paid without comment. Two far tinier rooms extended from the back. From one of them came the sound of snoring.
They made another delivery and left.
*
Over the following weeks, they visited more tenements, but the story was always the same. Some were cellars, some high up in attics, some in hovels.
Then, one morning, they came to what Catherine described as ‘The Old Brewery’. This was an old building right in the centre of Five Points. He had seen it before. As he soon found out, it was no longer a brewery.
At first sight it appeared to be a well-built structure, with a ground floor, two upper floors and an attic above the ‘Old Brewery’ sign. There was a liquor store on the ground floor.
‘Ah yes,’ Catherine said, when he pointed it out to her. ‘That’s Brennans. They don’t like us.’
‘Damned sure they don’t. How do we sell here so?’
‘Simple. We undercut them. They have to pay rent for their big shop in this neighbourhood. We just take our gin from my brother’s cellar. It costs nothing extra for rent.’
They made their way up through the building.
‘There’s two hundred people living here,’ she said.
‘Two hundred!’
‘Wait till you see.’
The floors were divided and subdivided, many with lofts dividing the floors further to create extra levels. Many families lived in tiny rooms, eight and ten to a room. In some, it was impossible to stand erect.
Quickly, they sold out. When they came back to Costellos’, she gave the money to her brother.
‘She’ll make a good businesswoman too,’ Costello said.
‘A rough business, I’d say,’ Luke said.
‘It is,’ Costello said, ‘and one that’ll show you the reason you don’t want to stay in the Five Points.’
‘What about yourselves, so?’
‘We’ve got a business, haven’t we? Five years saving for it, I was, working the other bars, and always intending to have my own. By God, it’s the only business I got to know living here, and it gives a good enough living too for Eileen, Catherine and myself. Why would I go anywhere else?’
The next week, he visited the docks again. He was more careful, and only once got into a squabble, which he terminated with one quick blow to the other man’s jaw.
Working the quays, he noticed many of the immigrants now were from County Mayo. Through them, he heard of a massive eviction in the south of the County, carried out by Lord Lucan. He thought back to the Clanowen evictions at Gort
na Móna the previous year. Hundreds of people on the road, women keening, children crying. From all he heard, the Lucan evictions were enormous compared to Gort na Móna.
There were reports too of another failure in the Irish potato crop. It seemed though, that this was partial, and given the early news of a bumper crop, Luke was not too concerned. There were always potato failures in Ireland. Mayo too. Sometimes they lost part of the crop, sometimes it affected one part of the country only.
They had heard enough of the excellent crop in July, and the thought of more hunger in August was too much to contemplate.
Another failure? Only a rumour. Ignore it.
*
When he returned to Orange Street that night, Costello was waiting for him. They found a quiet part of the bar and Costello placed a whiskey in front of him.
‘What do you know of the Hibernians? Costello asked him.
‘Not a lot, to be honest,’ Luke said. ‘They’re a secret society, so how could I know much?’
‘There’s a lot for you to learn so,’ Costello said.
‘Isn’t it oath-bound?’
‘It is,’ Costello replied, ‘but only about certain matters that are restricted to those who have to know. For the rest, we are an open society, a fraternal organisation if you like, and sure what’s wrong with that?’
They spoke for an hour. For the most part, Costello did the speaking, with Luke asking an occasional question.
As he walked back to the Cortland Street Terminal that night, his head was reeling. So much information. So many things to think about.
He did not know if there was a Hibernian Club in Jersey City, and somehow this did not interest him. He suspected the main power of the Hibernians would be concentrated in New York. The idea of an organisation of Irishmen seeking to control a major city, or even parts of it, fascinated him.
This would never have been possible in any of the major British cities such as Liverpool or Manchester, and even Dublin was more directly controlled from London, whether its City Council was Irish or not. He doubted too whether Quebec or Montreal could ever have Irish control against French opposition.
But New York?
Through Costello, Luke had found out much more about the workings of the organisation, and its increasing political work in the city. He also heard more of the social and charitable aspects of the organisation, and the assistance it provided to Irish immigrants pouring into New York. The Hibernians fought the runners targeting the immigrant ships; they provided food and cash for the most miserably poor of them, and they found jobs for them among their many contacts in the city. And when the immigrants were established, they were expected to assist the Hibernians, not only in its charitable work, but also in rounding up the Irish vote at elections, and finally in voting themselves.
