“Seven months?”
“That’s all Collins has left.” Johnny put his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. A tear escaped his paw. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s this fucking book,” said Johnny. “It’s tearing at me. The emotional toll is still overwhelming, even nearly a hundred years later. Can you imagine how tough it was to live through the period that Collins and Grandpa did?”
“What’s that old Chinese saying?” said Diane, with a wistful smile. “‘May you live in interesting times’?”
Johnny shook his head. “It’s really a curse, because sometimes, you die in them.”
152
Róisín had just dropped off a friend at her nurse’s job at St. Vincent’s Hospital on St. Stephen’s Green when she looked up to see the Countess Markievicz advancing on her. The Dáil was meeting at University College Dublin in Earlsfort Terrance just down the way. There was no mistaking the Countess, with her big feathered hat and that determined walk. Strangely, thought Róisín, with all the focus on the Dáil and the Treaty debates, she was without an entourage.
“Connie!” Róisín called out, interrupting the Countess’s concentration.
“Róisín? Is that you?” Markievicz asked in surprise, as she stopped in her tracks. They embraced as the early January darkness descended on Dublin like a lid closing on a coffin. “How have you been?”
“Oh,” replied Róisín, “things are pretty much the same. I’m still up at the Mater.”
“Well,” said the Countess, “we in the Cumann na mBan must stay together during these tumultuous times. That was quite a vote by the Cumann—419–63.”
Róisín stared at the sidewalk. “I was one of the nays,” she said quietly.
The Countess looked shocked. “But why, dearie? We must be adamant at this crucial time.”
“I’ve had enough,” said Róisín, bringing her eyes back up to the Countess’s face.
“But we must fight for the Republic!” the Countess declared. “We can’t let cowards and English deceivers like Collins and Griffith seduce us with this false Treaty. Walk with me,” continued Markievicz, “I have a meeting at the Shelbourne.”
Róisín, mouth agape, starting walking with the Countess, when it hit her. “Wait,” she said, stopping Markievicz by taking hold of her arm. “Cowards? What cowards?”
“Collins and Griffith.”
Róisín had a quizzical look on her face. “Cowards? Mick Collins is not a coward. Mick Collins won the war. Mr. Griffith said so in the Dáil just the other day.”
“Collins did no such thing. Poor man. He’s now starting to believe his own press. The ‘Dublin Pimpernel’ and all that rot. Some soldier. Brugha said he was just one of his subordinates. A very minor subordinate, at that.” The Countess starting walking again, leaving Róisín alone by the fence of the Green.
“Connie,” said Róisín, running after Markievicz, “that’s not true. Brugha’s a fool. Everyone in Dublin knows that. A little man with a big chip on his shoulder. He’s jealous of Mick.”
The Countess stopped in her tracks. “Cathal Brugha is one of the most courageous men in Ireland.”
Róisín moved her head closer to the Countess. “He may be brave, but he is a fool.”
“How can you talk like that? What has gotten into you?”
“Sense,” replied Róisín. “Sense has gotten into me. We have our own country. The English are leaving. What more do you want?”
“We want a Republic!”
“You’ll get your Republic in due time. That’s what Mick said.”
“Mick, Mick, Mick. I thought you didn’t like the ruffian.”
“Mick Collins is not a ruffian. He is a patriot. Unlike de Valera, he is selfless. He didn’t go hide in America when things got sticky.”
Róisín saw Markievicz’s face go as dark as the approaching dusk. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the Countess, as she turned the corner of the Green and started galloping towards the Shelbourne.
“I know very well what I’m talking about,” snapped Róisín. “I’ve been in Dublin for the last six years, when you and de Valera weren’t.”
“I was in prison in England.”
“I know you were, but I was here. I saw the Black and Tan terror, and I saw Bloody Sunday, too. Mick did that, you know. Not Brugha. Not de Valera. He wiped the English scum out in one morning.”
“I always thought Bloody Sunday was overblown,” countered the Countess.
“Overblown? I know the men who did this,” Róisín said, thinking of her Eoin, Vinny Byrne, and Jack Lemass. “This was an act of supreme national courage.” She subconsciously gestured towards Baggot Street, where two of the shootings had taken place. “Bloody Sunday drove the British to the truce. Without it, we’d have a Black and Tan stationed on every corner in Dublin today.” The Countess always knew that Róisín was direct, but she had never seen her so impassioned. “Yes, Connie, Mick’s men eliminated the scum, and who shows up immediately, after two years of sitting on his arse in America? Our esteemed president. He knew the truce was coming, and he had to have his hand in it.”
In front of the Shelbourne Hotel, the Countess stopped and looked at her erstwhile acolyte. “I stand with the president. His work in America was important, raising funds and bringing the struggle of Ireland to world attention.”
“And I stand with the General,” replied Róisín. “Raising money before Legion of Mary breakfasts in Columbus, Ohio, is not the same as taking out British spies.”
The line was drawn, and the two women just stared at each other. “Róisín,” the Countess finally said, trying to bring Róisín back to her side, “think of our martyred heroes. Think of the unborn generations of Irish children.”
“How about us?” retorted Róisín. “The living. Do we not get to have a say?”
“But look who’s against the Treaty,” implored the Countess, as she started the litany of prominent names. “Kathleen Clarke, Mary MacSwiney, Grace Gifford Plunkett, Mrs. Pearse.”
“I don’t want to belittle their martyred dead,” said Róisín quietly. “But they are dead, and I am alive. Don’t I get any consideration? I want a free Ireland—now—for my own unborn children.”
It was no use. “Goodbye, Róisín,” said the Countess. “We have nothing further to discuss.” With that, she turned and walked into the Shelbourne.
“Goodbye, Connie,” Róisín called after Markievicz, realizing that their friendship, like the country, was forever fractured.
153
Eoin and Collins rode in silence in the Crosley tender. They were coming from the Portobello Barracks, where they both now lived and worked. The tender rolled through the infamous Dardanelles, turned left at Dame Street, and sped by Dublin Castle and Christ Church, on its way to Lower Bridge Street. As they got to the Liffey River, they could see the two eighteen-pounder field artillery the British had lent the new National Army.
A lot had changed since the Dáil voted for the Treaty. In fact, things were moving so fast that, by June, the situation was changing day-today, if not hour-to-hour. In January, de Valera had stepped down as president, replaced by Arthur Griffith. De Valera, followed by Brugha, Stack, and the Countess Markievicz, had also walked out of the Dáil. On June 16, the Irish people had voted overwhelmingly for the Treaty. It was now time for the Provisional Government to act. “If we are not prepared to fight,” said President Griffith, “and preserve the rights of the ordinary people, we should be looked on as the greatest set of poltroons that ever had the fate of Ireland in their hands.” Trying to keep up with the deteriorating situation in both Dublin and Munster, it was decided that Griffith was to take over the political reins, and Collins would run the army that was so crucial to the survival of the new nation, which was nearly stillborn.
The effect that all this had on Eoin was that he was conscripted into the National Army and given the rank of Commandant-Colonel. It did not sit well with the twenty-year-old. It did not s
it well with Vinny Bryne either, who also ended up a Commandant-Colonel and, irony of ironies, had been placed in charge of Richmond Barracks by Collins himself. Eoin’s job really hadn’t changed. He still worked in intelligence and continued his work on the National Loan, as Collins had also remained Minister for Finance. His bodyguarding duties also came with the package.
“I don’t want to go into the army,” Eoin had initially protested.
“You have no choice,” snapped Collins. “Half the IRA is anti-Treaty, and they have deserted. I have to raise an army to run this country. You are in, and you will like it.” Eoin was wise enough—and knew Collins well enough—to know that this was not the time to argue. He knew Collins was under intense pressure, not only from his pro-Treaty comrades, but also from the anti-Treaty forces he was trying to placate. Not to mention from London, where the Brits were looking at the deteriorating situation with immense concern.
The Four Courts had been taken over in April by Rory O’Connor and two hundred of his men. For two months, the standoff had been rather quiet, as Collins decided not to push the issue, hoping for a peaceful solution. Then two things happened. Sir Henry Wilson had been assassinated in London by IRA agents, and Free State General J.J. O’Connell had been kidnapped by the anti-Treaty forces. The phone lines between London and Dublin had been hot. Mr. Churchill was not at all pleased.
“Enough of this shite,” were Collins’s last words to Eoin before they climbed into the tender.
No one loved Dublin the way Eoin did. And he especially loved the architecture, be it the façade of Trinity College, the beautiful Georgian squares, or the quirkiness of Henrietta Street. He had often thought that the British may be brutes, but they really knew how to lay out a city. Now his beautiful city was in ruins. They were still rebuilding the GPO, and he had helped burn the Customs House. Now, as he stood next to Collins at the foot of Lower Bridge Street and viewed the patina-domed Four Courts on this beautiful, tranquil June afternoon, he suddenly realized that he was to have a hand in the destruction of all three.
“What do you think?” asked Collins.
Eoin didn’t know if it was a rhetorical question or not, but he replied anyway. “I hear Jack Lemass is second-in-command.” Collins shook his head and bit his lip. “My brother Frank is in there, too,” Eoin added.
Collins pulled at the collar on his tunic and drew his hat down over his eyes. “It can’t be helped.”
General Emmet Dalton, Charlie Dalton’s brother and a veteran of the Great War, was the man Collins had put in charge. “Mick, Eoin,” Dalton said, “how are you?”
“You ready?” asked Collins.
“As we’ll ever be.”
“So these are our English cannons,” said Collins. “Nice of Mr. Churchill to make them available to us.” He patted the barrel and grunted at Dalton, “Fire when you’re ready.” Then both Collins and Eoin backed away. The eighteen-pounder shot, and the recoil almost took it back into Collins, as if it were a warning. Collins stubbornly retreated further down Lower Bridge Street. Then, from Winetavern Street, at the other end of Merchants Quay, they could see shells flying over the Liffey and hitting the Courts. The cannons at both ends of the quay couldn’t miss. The Four Courts were a sitting duck. Soon dark smoke rose up, and patches of fire could be seen. The pounding continued as shell after shell was fed into the artillery. Eoin winced as each one exploded.
He looked behind him and saw that he was only a few yards from the Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin. “I need a fucking drink,” he told Collins, and didn’t wait for an answer.
He was sipping a Jameson when he felt a big body next to him. It was Collins. “I’ll have what the Commandant-Colonel is having,” said Collins to the barman, who stood, mouth agape, when he realized who his new customer was.
“How can you do this?” Eoin asked.
“Because it’s my duty, that’s why.”
“The beautiful Four Courts.”
“Full of anti-Treaty forces.”
“Let the British do it.”
“This is our country now,” replied the General. “This is our business. We are not going to turn around and plead with England to come help us when things get messy. This is our mess, and we are going to clean it up. That’s what independence means. Do you understand?”
Eoin was quiet for a moment. “Yes, I understand,” he finally said. “But I still don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either, but it’s my job.”
The two men, in their brand-new Free State Army uniforms, stood next to each other not saying a word, slowly sipping their whiskeys. “You should have let me do that Wilson job, instead of those amateurs you sent,” Eoin finally said. “Me and Vinny could have done the job and been back in Dublin before they knew Wilson was dead.”
With all the trouble in the Free State, Collins still had his eye on the “Black North,” as he was wont to call it. It had been open season on Catholics, especially in Belfast, and Collins had gotten no satisfaction out of Sir James Craig, the Northern Ireland premier, nor Churchill or Lloyd George on the matter. He finally said to Churchill, “There is a pogrom going on in the North against Catholics, and if you don’t stop it, I will.” But nothing was done, and refugees had flooded into Dublin. Collins was aware that Wilson, from the safety of London, was proud of the murder work his men were doing in Belfast. Collins decided that if he couldn’t help the Catholics of the North, he would make a statement—and Wilson became that statement. His mistake was that he did not send the Squad, but two local Irishmen who were soon apprehended. It had all become the perfect political storm, and, now, the eighteen-pounders were doing Collins’s talking. Some were saying that that talk was actually from the ventriloquist Churchill in London.
“I can’t afford to have men like you and Vinny out of the country at this time,” said Collins. He paused and pursed his lips. “Maybe I should have just let it go, but Wilson had it coming to him. Maybe Craig and Churchill will heed me the next time I have a protest in the North.”
“I hear Robert Emmet used to drink here,” said Eoin, suddenly changing the conversation.
“And plot rebellion!” added Collins.
“He’d probably be in the Four Courts if he was alive today.”
“I wish I was in the Four Courts myself,” added Collins, wistfully.
“We’re not rebels anymore, are we?”
“No,” replied Collins. “No, we’re not. We are now the government. All my life I have fought government, and now I am the government.”
“God has a cruel sense of humor.”
“He has,” agreed Collins.
“We are living a fookin’ disaster, aren’t we?”
Collins drained his Jameson, looked at Eoin silently for a minute, and then laughed. “We are indeed, Commandant-Colonel. It is a fookin’ disaster. But it’s our fookin’ disaster!” Eoin smiled at Collins’s gentle jibe at his rank and followed his boss back outside to witness more obscene destruction, which they hoped, eventually, would help build the new nation.
154
“Welcome home,” Eoin said to Jack Lemass. Lemass smiled wearily and took a seat to the side of Eoin’s desk. They were back at Richmond Barracks, which was under the command of Vinny Byrne. “Can you believe it, Jack? Six years later, and we’re both back in the same prison we started out from.”
“Yes,” said Lemass, “we were baby rebels then. Now Vinny’s the boss man, they tell me.”
“It seems so long ago.” The two friends were having a hard time getting their conversation going. Neither wanted to talk about why they were there. Neither wanted to utter those two dreaded words: “civil war.”
“You need a shave,” said Eoin, with a small laugh. Lemass looked particularly sinister unshaven. It seemed his five o’clock shadow started at about nine in the morning.
“Beautiful uniform,” Lemass said to Eoin, giving a gentle gibe. Lemass himself was a mess; his own clothes were filthy with grime and soot from the fi
res inside the Four Courts. His appearance reminded Eoin of their escape from the GPO into Moore Street, dragging the poor, stranded Jew, Abraham Weeks, with them.
“You can blame Mick for the uniform. He conscripted me.”
“How is Mick?”
“How do you think he is? He’s worn out—thanks to you guys.” Lemass shrugged his shoulders. Funny, thought Eoin, it was a similar question he heard from a lot of the Four Court rebels, “How’s Mick?” Ernie O’Malley had asked. So had General Tom Barry from County Cork. This was the cream of the crop of the Republican movement, and somehow, they had lost them. All of them were great Irishmen.
“What do you want to see me for?” asked Lemass.
“Paperwork,” replied Eoin. “I’m supposed to interview you.”
“Interview away.”
Eoin got up without speaking and went to the door. “Bring me Frank Kavanagh,” he told the sentry.
“Where are you sending me? Mountjoy?”
“Home,” said Eoin to the surprised Lemass. “You’re no use to me locked up.”
“You’ll get in trouble.”
Eoin gave a small smile. “So what can they do to me?”
“What do you want from me?”
“You’ll see.”
The sentry returned with Frank. “Commandant-Colonel, how are you?” jeered his brother, cheeky as ever.
“Just shut your gob. Do you know who this is?” Eoin said, pointing at Lemass.
“Commandant Lemass.”
“You are to do exactly what the Commandant tells you to do. Do you understand?” Frank nodded his head affirmatively.
It was Lemass who was confused. “What . . . ?” wondered Lemass.
“Jack,” interrupted Eoin, “take this eejit out of here and get him out of the movement. I don’t want him on the pro-Treaty side or the anti-Treaty side. I just want him out of the movement. And out of the country.”
Eoin reached in his pocket and pulled out a twenty-pound note. “Here, Frank, this is for you,” holding it in front of Frank’s face. He then gave the money to Lemass for safekeeping. “This is my life savings. Take it, and get the fuck out of this country. North Wall. Tonight. Jack, you make sure. Now both of you get out of here, while the getting is good.”
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