The Rebels of Ireland: The Dublin Saga

by Edward Rutherfurd

  He wasn’t sitting near her at dinner, so they had no further conversation until, with the dessert course, a general discussion broke out upon the question of the union. Several views were expressed. Most of the Patriots were against it on principle. To her surprise, however, John MacGowan, whom everybody knew to be a United Irishman, was prepared to consider it.

  “We know we shall never get any satisfaction from the Troika and the Dublin Parliament as things stand,” he pointed out. “Even a London Parliament might be better than what we have.”

  This was immediately countered by a Patriot member.

  “For better or worse, there has been a parliament in Ireland for centuries. Take it away, and you’ll never get it back,” he warned.

  “And what,” Georgiana asked, looking down the table, “does Mr. O’Connell think?”

  She could see that he didn’t particularly want to be called upon, but he spoke up nonetheless.

  “I don’t like the idea of the union, because Ireland is a nation. But of one thing I am certain: whether Ireland forms a union with England or not will scarcely matter as long as the vast majority of Irishmen are treated as inferior citizens because of their ancestral religion.” He looked around the company. “Until Catholic disabilities are all removed, until Catholics can enter Parliament and hold office as high as any Protestant, we shall have explosive discontent in Ireland whether the Parliament sits in Dublin or London. It will hardly make a difference.”

  It was now that a white-haired old Patriot spoke.

  “I was one of those who voted with Grattan, so I am not easily persuaded of the benefits of Union. But I was in London recently, and I should tell you this. Cornwallis is entirely of your opinion. Prime Minister Pitt in London is coming round to the same view. They’d like to assure the Catholics and their Patriot allies that, as soon as Ireland is unified with England, the new British Parliament will grant the Catholic Emancipation that you want. The only problem is that they can’t say it openly, because if they do, they’ll never get the Protestant majority in the Dublin Parliament to consent to the Union. That’s the message, in private, they want to convey.”

  “Do you mean,” said Georgiana, “that the English government has to hoodwink the Irish Protestants?”

  “Lady Mountwalsh,” the old man said with a smile, “I never used those words at all.”

  She did not see Daniel O’Connell again for some time, though she heard word that his career was thriving. But the conversation of that evening was often in her mind.

  For the old Patriot’s words were soon borne out. Nothing official was said, but she heard from friends: hints were being dropped, private assurances given. By the autumn, it was clear that a bill would be brought before the Irish Parliament, around the turn of the year, which would invite that body to vote itself out of existence, and that the Patriots and supporters of Catholic Emancipation had been assured that, soon afterwards, their wishes would be granted. But even if these liberal men could be squared, what about the Ascendancy diehards who formed the majority? How would they be persuaded to give up their local power?

  She was rather surprised, therefore, shortly before Christmas, when Hercules casually informed her:

  “I’ve changed my mind. Union’s for the best. It’s the path of progress, I’m convinced if it.”

  She wondered why.

  The parliamentary debates began in January 1800 and went on for months. Georgiana listened to many of them from the public gallery. There were many fine speeches defending the Irish Parliament, but the most memorable came from Grattan himself, who, though sick at the time, came down to the Parliament for the late-night debate, dressed in his Volunteer uniform, pale as a ghost, and gave one of the greatest speeches of his life. Hearing such power, logic, and eloquence, Georgiana thought that the Union cause must be lost. Yet as the weeks went by, one by one, those who had opposed it before were rising to speak in favour.

  One day she found young Robert Emmet discreetly watching from the gallery, and they chatted briefly. She knew from William’s letters that Emmet had been in Paris, too, and he was able to give her news of him. “He speaks excellent French now,” he reported. “I shall tell him I saw you upon my return.” She asked him what he thought of the prospect of the Catholics getting their Emancipation if the Union came. “I think the English may be somewhat cynical there,” he answered. “They must calculate that, in a much larger British Parliament, the number of Irish Catholic members would still be too small a minority to have any effect at all.” When she remarked upon the number of members who seemed to be changing their minds about the Union, he grinned. “They’ve all been bought, Lady Mountwalsh. And for good prices. I think we may be sure of that.”

  The meeting with Emmet brought her grandson so vividly into her mind. She missed William. She had tried to take an interest in his younger brother, though her cool relations with Hercules did not make it easy. He was a sweet, good-natured boy who loved his brother William. But he was an odd young fellow who lived in a world of his own. He had a great aptitude for mathematics and loved astronomy. His father had even bought him a telescope, and he would occupy himself with it for hours, perfectly contented. She was glad he was happy, but was unable to follow him in these interests.

  William’s letters came regularly, once a month. She sent him money and was glad to do it. His letters were informative. He had no shortage of Irish company in Paris. There were over a thousand Irishmen in the French capital, he told her, many of them on the run after the revolt. There were United Irishmen who had left or been exiled; most of the students who had been expelled from Trinity College had graduated to Paris, too. As for the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, the adventurer-general, had now made himself master of France, as consul; and she learned with amusement that the fashionable world of the republic was just as pleasure-loving as it had been under the ancient regime. He said no word about returning to Dublin, though, and she supposed he was glad enough just to be away from his father.

  All through the spring and summer, the debates about the Union went on. But when the final votes came, the Union won: Ireland’s Parliament voted itself out of existence. And the means by which it was done? Emmet was right.

  For if the vote took place in the new century, the process itself belonged, wholeheartedly, to the old. The Parliament, in its final act, brought all the eighteenth-century political arts to a magnificent climax. Jobs, titles, ready money—nobody could remember when they had been promised with such ruthless liberality. Cajoled, flattered, honoured, paid, peers and humble members alike sold their votes.

  No wonder Hercules had seen the wisdom of the Union. Not only was his peerage raised in degree, so that instead of being a humble baron, he was now the Earl of Mountwalsh, no less; but he was even chosen as one of the select group of Irish peers with the right to sit in the British House of Lords in London. He was also able to get titles and favours for a number of friends. He even got a knighthood for Arthur Budge, who, he had assured the government, was a loyal fellow who should be encouraged.

  It was in this manner that, in the summer of 1800, Ireland and England became united.

  The winter season that followed was a strange one. Georgiana opened her house and people came, but Dublin was half empty. People brought their daughters in to find husbands or enjoy the theatre. But not only was there no Parliament to attend, some of the greatest social and political figures had gone to London. Hercules was so rich that he intended to keep a house in both capitals, but most members of the new Parliament were not so fortunate. Their Dublin houses were standing empty.

  The north side of the Liffey was especially hard hit. Across from College Green, the broad artery of Sackville Street had led to a series of terraces and squares favoured by the Parliament men. One November morning, as she was passing through the area in her carriage, Georgiana saw old Doyle standing in front of a handsome town house, directing some workmen. She was never quite sure of his age, but she knew he must be in his eigh
ties. “The spirit of his mother Barbara lives on in him,” Fortunatus used to say. “Cousin Barbara never let go of her business until the day she died, nor will he.” Telling her coachman to wait, and stepping out, she went to ask the old man what he was doing.

  “Making alterations,” he growled. “Tenant’s gone. Can’t find another.” He was standing by the open door, and she looked in. The house was typical of its kind. A long hall and staircase; fine decorative plasterwork on the ceiling. Halfway up the stairs, a tall window with a semicircular upper frame graced the return.

  “What will you do?” she asked.

  “Put a caretaker in the parlour. Let the rest of the house room by room.”

  “But . . .” she gazed at the noble scale revealed within, “this is a gentleman’s house.”

  “Find me a gentleman.”

  “What sort of people will rent the rooms?”

  “People who pay.” He shrugged. “I’ve three other houses without a tenant, and seven more that will be vacant during the next three years. I’ll probably have to do the same to all of them. This is the result of the Union.”

  “Hercules says that the Union will bring progress,” she remarked sadly.

  “Not all progress,” said the old Irishman wisely, “is for the better.” She looked up at the window over the stair. A grey light was falling slowly through it, onto the empty return. It seemed to presage a new and shabbier world.

  But it was not until February that the real bitterness of the Union was tasted. For Georgiana, it came when John MacGowan arrived unexpectedly at her house one afternoon and, with a face more agitated than she had ever seen it before, cried out:

  “May England be cursed, Georgiana. We are betrayed.”

  You’re only a traitor if you’re caught. That was how Finn O’Byrne saw it, anyway. There had to be proof. To Deirdre’s accusation that he had betrayed the Rathconan men, he would simply point out: “Why would I do such a thing? It makes no sense.” As for her claim that he had set the Yeomen on Brigid, he would shake his head and say: “Her grief has affected her brain.” Most people, including even Deirdre’s own family, were inclined to agree with him.

  But she wouldn’t give up. She made the air of Rathconan poisonous for him. By the time the Union debates had begun in Parliament, he had decided to leave Rathconan and move into the city. She took some satisfaction in the knowledge that she had driven him out.

  Yet the fact was, he considered, that she had done him a favour. He found various kinds of work to keep body and soul together, while he lived in cheap lodgings in the Liberties; but it was after a year in Dublin that he found his niche as a caretaker in one of the houses where Doyle was letting rooms on the north side. Within a few months, he had made himself rather useful to the old man. He kept the house in good order, but he also had an uncanny knack of knowing when a tenant was likely to be late with the rent or, just as important, when they had the money to pay. “You seem to know everyone’s business,” Doyle said approvingly, and soon he began to give Finn small commissions. He even used him to collect rent from some of his other properties. From these activities, Finn was able to make a modest living; but he also had time to spare, and he wondered how to use it for profit.

  The answer was provided by King George III of England.

  When John MacGowan had come to Georgiana’s house in such distress, he expressed the shock and horror of Catholics all over Ireland. They had been betrayed.

  As it happened, the betrayal was not deliberate. When William Pitt had given assurances that something would be done for the Catholics of Ireland, he had honestly believed he could accomplish it. But even the canny Prime Minister had underestimated the forces ranged against him.

  Hercules had been especially active. It had not been difficult to convince stolid English gentlemen in the London Parliament that the Catholic menace of 1641 was still alive. “God knows,” they would say after listening to him, “he was born and bred there, so he should know.” But most effective of all was FitzGibbon, who, once again, got to work upon King George. “I cannot have Catholics in my Parliament,” the old king reiterated, “whatever Pitt may think. It’s against my coronation oath.” And although he was technically incorrect, and Pitt brought all the weight of argument and influence to bear upon him, nothing could break through the barrier of the king’s honest, royal obstinacy. Pitt, who was a man of his word, honourably resigned.

  But that was little use to the Catholics of Ireland.

  “First Cromwell takes all the Catholic land; King William promises Catholic rights, but then we get the Penal Laws instead; now we are betrayed again. You can never trust the English.” That was how John MacGowan saw it. That was how United Irishmen all over Ireland saw it, and those in Paris, too. So did Finn O’Byrne. But for him, the betrayal brought an opportunity.

  It was not until the autumn of 1801 that he went to see Sir Arthur Budge at his Dublin house. The newly made knight listened to what Finn had to say, then he wrote a letter and told him to take it to Lord Mountwalsh. When Finn presented himself nervously at the house on St. Stephen’s Green, he was ushered, after waiting only half an hour, into the bureau of the new Earl of Mountwalsh himself.

  Though Finn could not have known it, his timing had been fortuitous. Budge—who didn’t much like him, but admitted his usefulness—was about to give up his Dublin house and live entirely at Rathconan, where his old father was now getting too frail to cope alone. So he had passed him on to Hercules for what he was—a small-time informer wanting to be paid—and he had imagined that Hercules would probably pass him on to some minor official at the Castle. But even Finn could discern that, behind the hauteur natural to an aristocrat confronted by such a thing as himself, the earl was actually rather pleased to see him.

  The Union was not turning out quite as Hercules had hoped. True, his title was now magnificent and the Catholics had been denied. Both outcomes brought him satisfaction. But life in London had been a disappointment. He had realized, of course, that his political position would be less significant there. He was one of a few Irish peers in a great assembly. But he had not understood that he would suffer a loss of social status. It was subtle: it would only have been apparent to members of his own exalted class—and the upper servants, who lived vicariously through such distinctions. But the fact was that in fashionable London, an Irish peer, even an earl with a seat in the British House of Lords, was not quite the same thing as an English lord. His ancient lineage and nobility were accepted, but his title was not quite, as the English might say, out of the top drawer. Still more important, though his fortune was ample, it was dwarfed by the fortunes of the greater English aristocrats. Without influence, with a second-rate title and a second-class fortune, Hercules found himself for the first time in his life in a position where he couldn’t bully people. It distressed him deeply.

  While he would rent a house in London, therefore, he had decided to spend a good part of his time in Dublin, where, as he calmly acknowledged, “I am hated, but important.”

  And this informer Budge had sent him might be rather useful.

  Ireland might have the protection of the Union, but that did not mean the island was secure. Nowhere in Europe was safe. To the oppressed of every land, France remained the symbol of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and her ruler Napoleon Bonaparte was a hero. Even great artists and musicians, like Beethoven, believed it. In Ireland, too: “The meanest peasant in Connacht believes that Bonaparte will deliver him,” Hercules could remark with contempt. The United Irishmen might have lost heart after the rebellion, but if the heroic French appeared on Irish shores, that could change in a moment again. True, there was talk of a truce with the French. Cornwallis was going over to France to see what could be done. But it was unlikely that any peace between the British monarchy and the French republic could last for long. And it was equally unlikely, in Hercules’s judgement, that the United Irishmen would behave themselves either. More than a year ago, FitzGibbon had told him: �
��That wretched little Robert Emmet, that I threw out of Trinity, has been trying to set up a new United leadership here in Dublin. We got wind of it, and if we catch him here again, we’ll throw him in jail.” A spy on the continent had recently reported that young Emmet was one of a delegation seeking help from Bonaparte.

  But not much else was known. Were these plots getting anywhere? What preparations, if any, were now afoot in Ireland? Nobody in the Castle knew. So if this fellow O’Byrne can infiltrate the United Irishmen and bring me any information, Hercules considered, he’ll perform a useful service, and enhance my reputation with the government—both worthy causes.

  “I pay well,” he told O’Byrne, “but I’ll only pay for what I get. You will also report to me, and to me alone.”

  Finn left delighted by his good fortune.

  After he had gone, Hercules remained staring thoughtfully in front of him. For the running of Finn O’Byrne was not the only private espionage in which he was nowadays engaged.

  It had not been difficult to guess, after young William had absconded from England, that he must be getting funds from someone, and the most likely source of funds had been his grandmother. It had taken patience, but recently he had been able to persuade his mother to employ a particular footman in her house in Merrion Square. The fellow knew how to pick locks, and should therefore be able to open the drawer in her bureau where he knew she kept her most private correspondence. The man was literate, and his instructions were to transcribe the letters. If, as he guessed, William was sending letters, he’d like to know what was in them.

  He didn’t know who his son’s associates were, but he suspected they might be fellows like Emmet. Young William had refused to spy for him when he was at Trinity, which had been shockingly disloyal. Perhaps now, unwittingly, he could do better.

  Yet it was to be another year before anything came from this source that was really useful.