Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  The beauty of the world hath made me sad,

  This beauty that will pass;

  Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy

  To see a leaping squirrel on a tree,

  Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk …

  And then my heart hath told me:

  These will pass,

  Will pass and change, will die and be no more,

  Things bright and green, things young and happy;

  And I have gone upon my way

  Sorrowful.

  It was true, he had always borne himself sadly, as if he had come into the world already old.

  He still hoped to see his mother and his brother before he died. He had no idea that that afternoon, Willie had been court martialled with Joe Plunkett, Michael O’Hanrahan and Ned Daly.

  Ned’s sister, Kattie Clarke, spent that evening in the store room of the Ship Street Barracks with six other women. From time to time, soldiers came to the door, wanting to chat and flirt. Some offered cigarettes, a few passed dirty remarks.

  The women refused to exchange a word.

  Kattie was praying for Tom and their sons and … for the new little one she now knew she was carrying.

  When the soldiers gave up, the women settled down for the night. Kattie took off her blouse and skirt to hang them on a line. She was to be interrogated again next day and wanted to look her best. It was cold and the girls had only one blanket between them. They refused to ask the British for anything.

  General Blackadder was a guest at a dinner given by the Countess of Fingall, who had chaperoned Countess Markievicz in London all those years ago.

  ‘I’ve just performed,’ the General said, ‘one of the hardest tasks I ever had to do. Condemned to death one of the finest characters I ever came across.’

  He sipped his wine, and continued in a melancholy tone.

  ‘A man named Pearse. Must be something very wrong in the state of things, must there not, that makes a man like that a rebel? I’m not surprised his pupils adored him.’

  There was a sharp knock on the Friary door in Church Street. The brother porter shuffled downstairs, muttering, ’11 o’clock, who’s calling at this hour?’ He opened the door not to a parishioner but to a soldier who handed him a letter.

  ‘From the Major commanding Kilmainham Jail.’

  Pearse was wanting to see Father Aloysius.

  The young friar asked Father Columbus to join him, then, trembling, gathered up all he needed for the last rites: ritual-book, candles, small white table-cloth, stole, phials of oil for anointing. Finally, opening the tabernacle, he placed hosts in a pyx inlaid with gold.

  The soldier apologized for having to make a couple of extra calls. Progress was slow owing to the curfew. The vehicle was stopped at several road-blocks by armed soldiers who peered at the occupants and examined their papers.

  ‘Sorry, Fathers,’ they were told repeatedly, ‘there are still snipers around.’

  As if to prove the point, bullets hit the road in front of the lorry.

  Their guide said, ‘It’s too risky to go on. We’ll have to head straight for the jail.’

  Only when they got there did he tell Father Aloysius that he had been detailed to collect Pearse’s mother and MacDonagh’s wife.

  At midnight, there was a knock on the store room door and a voice said, ‘Kathleen Clarke. Out here, please.’

  Kattie woke feeling sick. An officer with a lantern handed her a letter from Major Kinsman, Commandant of Kilmainham, marked ‘Very Urgent’. It said: ‘I have to inform you that your husband is a prisoner here and wishes to see you. I am sending you a motor car.’

  One of the girls asked, ‘My God, Kathleen, what does this mean?’

  ‘It means,’ she gulped, ‘they’re going to shoot my Tom.’

  Marie Peroltz said, ‘No, Kattie. Oh, no.’

  ‘Look, Marie,’ Kattie said, ‘do you think the British would send a car for me at midnight if my man were not going on a journey to the next world?’

  Father Aloysius was kept busy, ministering in turn to Pearse and MacDonagh.

  Father Columbus went to see Tom Clarke. ‘Would you like me to hear your confession?’ he asked, timidly.

  Clarke, with reason, had never trusted prison chaplains. ‘Yes, please,’ he answered warily.

  The Capuchin sat on the stool and put on his purple stole as Clarke knelt beside him. ‘Dominus sit in corde tuo …’ Before completing the sign of the cross, the friar said, ‘Now, my son, first admit to God you have done a great wrong.’

  Tom was absolutely shaken. ‘What?’

  ‘I said—’

  Tom was on his feet in a fury. This was just one more proof that prison chaplains were on the wrong side.

  He went to the door and rattled it. ‘Guard, get this guy out of here.’

  A soldier came running, shaking out a bunch of keys.

  The priest, bewildered, was on his feet. ‘But I’m only doing what the Church wants me to do.’

  ‘For your information, Father,’ Tom snapped, ‘I am not a bit sorry for what I did. I glory in it. And if that means I’m not entitled to absolution then I’ll have to go into the next world without it, won’t I?’

  He gestured to the door. Shaking his head, the Capuchin left for the lobby. That was where Kattie Clarke found him, looking sorry for himself.

  ‘Your husband put me out of his cell.’

  ‘Then you must have done something to deserve it.’

  The warder who let Kattie into Tom’s cell said, ‘One hour, ma’am.’

  It was a tiny cell with a wooden bed but no mattress, only a blanket. There was a small table and a stool. A soldier stayed, holding a jam-jar with a candle in.

  Tom said, in his usual quiet voice, ‘You know what this means, Kattie?’ She nodded. ‘I was scared to call you, I guess, in case—’

  ‘No need. You married a Daly, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m to be shot at dawn. I’m glad it’s a soldier’s death. I feared hanging and I had enough of imprisonment.’

  Kattie, to make herself strong, said, ‘And you told me better be dead than surrender.’ He acknowledged it. ‘And you would hold out for six months.’ Another nod. ‘What made you give in so soon?’

  ‘The vote went against me.’

  Radiant, as though being carried by angels shoulder-high, he said, ‘This was only our first blow. Ireland will get her freedom now, even if she has to go through hell first.’

  Father Columbus poked his head round the cell door. He said hello to Kattie and congratulated her on having so grand and composed a husband, then tactfully withdrew.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ she wanted to know.

  He told her what ‘that damn feller’ had said.

  Kattie still had not made up her mind whether to mention the baby on the way. It would bring him joy to know he was father of four; but sorrow too. He would never know if it were a boy or girl. Her having an extra mouth to feed would also add to his worries. He had suffered too much already. Hatred of people sometimes brings pleasure; but his was a hatred of wrongs and it hurt.

  Tom was now so ripe in his joy, so fulfilled in his life’s ambition, she felt it wiser not to risk disturbing him.

  He gave her a typically brief message to the Irish people: ‘I and my fellow-signatories believe we have struck the first successful blow for Freedom. The next blow, which we have no doubt Ireland will strike, will win through. In this belief we die happy.’

  Time was passing.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Kattie, and give my love to Daly, Tommy and little Emmet.’

  ‘Every one of your children,’ she assured him, ‘will be proud of their father for ever.’

  *

  Pearse, a bachelor, was trembling with the joys of existence, though on the edge of the grave.

  Father Aloysius made him even happier by saying, ‘This morning I gave Holy Communion to Mr Connolly.’

  ‘Thank God. It’s the one thing I was anxious ab
out.’ After a quiet interval, Pearse added, ‘You know, Father, I don’t really deserve this privilege of dying for my country.’

  The friar said, ‘I’m sorry your mother could not be here. I will go and see her first thing tomorrow.’

  He put on a purple stole over his brown habit.

  ‘Ready?’

  Pearse knelt for his confession. Afterwards, the friar gave him Communion. The flickering candlelight made it seem like a scene from the catacombs when the Church was young. He was so moved he could hardly read his ritual.

  After a while, he said, ‘I’ll just pop in and see Mr MacDonagh. I’ll be back.’

  MacDonagh was gazing in wonder at pictures of his children, Donagh and Barbara.

  Father Aloysius gave him the sacraments and from then on divided his time between the two men. He explained they would be blindfolded at the end but they should make little aspirations and acts of contrition in their heart.

  MacDonagh happened to mention that his sister was a nun in a convent nearby. The friar was so sad that a man had to die with no one of his family present, he went to the Commandant’s office to ask if he could go for her. The Major was sympathetic and laid on a car.

  Meanwhile, MacDonagh tried to capture in a statement his astonishment at the order to surrender.

  For myself I have no regret. The one bitterness that death has for me is the separation it brings from my beloved wife, Muriel, and my beloved children, Donagh and Barbara. My country will take them as wards, I hope.

  His work for the cause had left him with no time to make provisions for them. Donagh, the elder, was three and a half.

  He remembered with a smile how when he and Muriel were married on 3 January 1912, Pearse, who was supposed to be best man, forgot to turn up. A workman who was trimming the graveyard hedge acted as witness. When Donagh was baptized, Pearse chanced to drop in at the Rathgar church to pray. MacDonagh had rushed over to him and shook his hand, saying in his broadest Tipperary accent, ‘Well, Pearse, you got here in time for the christening, anyhow.’

  Whereas he had acted honourably, he felt he had been unjustly condemned. But he let that pass, for even that wrong had somehow put him in touch with the best part of himself.

  ‘It is a great and glorious thing to die for Ireland and I can well forgive all petty annoyances in the splendour of this.’

  His thoughts returned to his family.

  To my son Don. My darling little boy, remember me kindly. Take my hope and purpose with my deed.

  To my darling daughter Barbara. God bless you. I loved you more than ever a child has been loved.

  My dearest love, Muriel, thank you a million times for all you have been to me. I have only one trouble in leaving life – leaving you so. Be brave, darling, God will assist and bless you.

  Goodbye, kiss my darlings for me. Goodbye, my love, till we meet again in Heaven. I have a sure faith of our union there. I kiss this paper that goes to you – he touched it with his lips – but for your suffering this would be all joy and glory. Goodbye. Your loving husband. Thomas MacDonagh

  In the envelope, he put the photos of his children.

  Father Aloysius would see they were delivered.

  The friar knocked and knocked on the Convent door of Basin Lane. The sound echoed in streets that were empty even of the usual late-night drunks. When a startled Superior appeared, Father Aloysius begged her to let Sister M. Francesca see her brother before he died. Francesca, terrified, eyes down, hands folded in her sleeves, was soon in the car heading for the jail.

  The priest left her with MacDonagh and went to see Pearse, who had written two letters.

  In the one to his mother, he was still concerned with his manuscripts and unpaid bills.

  I have just received Holy Communion. I am happy except for the grief of parting from you. This is the death I should have asked for if God had given me the choice of all deaths – to die a soldier’s death for Ireland and for freedom.

  We have done right. People will say hard things about us now, but later on they will praise us. Do not grieve for all this, but think of it as a sacrifice which God asked of me and of you.

  Goodbye again, dear, dear, Mother. May God bless you for your great love for me and for your great faith, and may He remember all that you have so bravely suffered. I hope soon to see Papa, and in a little while we shall all be together again. I will call to you in my heart at the last moment. Your son, Pat.

  With the time of execution near, Father Aloysius gave him a ten-inch crucifix of brass and black wood, with an image of Our Lady of Dolours on it and a skull and cross-bones beneath the feet of Jesus crucified. Pearse took it reverently.

  When Father Aloysius left and the cell door was locked, he took a last look through the peep-hole.

  He saw Pearse in silhouette on his knees, with the crucifix in his hands.

  Sister Francesca was told time was up.

  She remembered words her brother had written which had impressed her so much. ‘The national rose of Ireland is An Roisin Dubh, the Little Black Rose, not the tender red flower to be plucked with the joys of life.’

  She was at the cell door when she turned back and placed a mother-of-pearl rosary round his neck. ‘Promise you won’t take it off?’

  He nodded, smiling. It pleased him that his mother’s rosary, the beads on which she had unceasingly prayed for them, would, like her arms, embrace him at the end. It gave a beautiful wholeness to his life: she who had given him birth was present spiritually at his death.

  Sister Francesca hoped the beads would be returned to her next day. But, as he kissed them, MacDonagh whispered, ‘They will be shot to bits.’

  Outside the prison, as Father Aloysius was seeing her into the car, she asked if he would keep the beads for her.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And God bless you, my dear, for coming.’

  Kattie Clarke was in the lobby when the firing squad arrived. It made Tom’s death so unbelievably real she put in an official request for the return of his body for burial.

  ‘I am sorry, ma’am,’ the Commandant said, ‘it would be wrong of me to give you any assurances.’

  Father Aloysius handed all the documents confided to him to Major Kinsman, who promised to see they were delivered. He was then asked to leave.

  ‘Surely,’ the friar protested, ‘I can stay with members of my flock to the end.’

  The Major said there was no question of that.

  Deeply disappointed, Father Aloysius returned with Father Columbus to Church Street where he vested in black ready to celebrate Requiem Mass for his three brave rebel friends.

  Pearse stooped as he was led through the low doorway of his cell. He had already heard, with envy, one volley, telling him the first of his comrades had fallen for Ireland.

  Along the dark, dank corridor he went, feeling the sublimity of the moment and a love for Ireland most men reserve for wife and children, down steps that clanged like pistol shots. After that first volley, the very walls grew ears.

  At ground level, he was blindfolded and his hands were bound behind his back.

  A second volley rang out. Those around him flinched, not for him but for themselves.

  With a soldier on each side, he was guided briskly out into the Stonebreakers’ Yard. It had the shape of an ellipse, its high walls shielding it from prying eyes. He felt cobbles under his feet but could not see the few side-sheds where isolated criminals broke stones, nor the covered lorry at the far gate-end into which the bodies of Clarke and MacDonagh had been thrown, nor the blood, redder than holly berries, at his feet.

  He walked straight, with firm proud strides, without a doubt. He was doing something that would never end; he would go through death without hurt.

  So he smiled as he imagined Emmet had smiled. Few men lived their dream; fewer still died the death of their choice.

  He was halted at the north-west corner, a few feet from the wall.

  *

  ‘Introibo ad altare Dei.’
/>   Father Aloysius began celebrating Mass just as the sun, symbol of the risen Christ, rose, whitening the east window.

  Executions and the first Mass of the day celebrating Christ’s death on the cross could only take place at dawn.

  Willie had been roused in Richmond Barracks. An officer had heard that Pearse’s mother could not be reached. As a humanitarian gesture, he decided to allow his brother to speak with him before the end.

  Not knowing this, Willie, woken from a nightmare filled with burning buildings, suspected that he was to be shot himself. An armed guard led him towards Kilmainham Jail. He had been court martialled and was expecting execution, but surely they gave notice, if only for the relatives’ sakes? Was he going to his death, without a priest to give him confession and Communion? Was he to have no chance to say goodbye to Pat and his mother?

  In the Stonebreakers’ Yard, the twelve-man firing squad was ready, six kneeling, six aiming over their heads.

  At the order, ‘Aim,’ one of the squad, young, tired, found his rifle too heavy for him. It dipped in his hands.

  The officer in charge said, ‘As you were.’ Again: ‘Aim.’

  Pearse’s triumph was delayed a few seconds – they seemed like an added eternity – to commit his loved ones, as he had promised to God, the great Deliverer.

  ‘Fire!’

  ‘Kyrie eleison.…’

  Father Aloysius repeated the immemorial prayer of the Mass, begging pardon of the Holy Trinity. ‘Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.’

  Willie was at Kilmainham gate when a third volley rang out. Now he was sure they were going to shoot him.

  Surprisingly, his escort halted in their tracks, looking at each other.

  A warder at the gate shook his head. ‘Too late.’

  Willie, perplexed, was led, without a word, back to his cell. No one felt authorized to tell him that he had just heard his brother being killed.

  *

  In her cell opposite Pearse’s, the Countess did not know who the victims were. After each volley, she heard the single-pistol shot.

  This chilled her more than anything in the rising; so cold, it seemed, so unnatural. A defenceless human being waiting for a group of armed men to pour lead into him. An officer pressing a revolver to his head and pulling the trigger.