“As for Kevin O’Higgins, whom you called a murderer, you must not make assumptions when you do not know all the facts. Exercise a little moderation.
“Remember that men on both sides of a battlefield view themselves as patriots. I happen to know that Kevin’s father was killed by the IRA during the Civil War. His son was devoted to him and took his death very hard. Understandably, Kevin became convinced that physical force republicanism was the greatest danger to the Free State. As the minister for justice it was his duty to protect the nation from its enemies, and to that end he did his best.
“We must grieve for Kevin O’Higgins and for every man and woman lost to violence.”
The rebuke in Henry’s letter stung Ursula. She did not want moderation. She wanted passion.
With the death of Kevin O’Higgins, W.T. Cosgrave’s main rival on the political scene was gone. Only Eamon de Valera remained a threat. Cosgrave cannily introduced the Electoral Amendment Act, which required every parliamentary candidate to sign an affidavit agreeing to put his name to the oath and take his seat if elected. This meant abstentionists could not even run for office.
The ground was cut out from under de Valera.
The broadcasting station closed down for lunch. Ursula often ate her midday meal in Wynn’s Hotel, which since 1916 had prided itself on being “part of the Republic.” Great deeds had been planned there by the leaders of the Rising. The paneled interior of the hotel, restored since a disastrous fire during the Civil War, hummed with history. Many Dubliners could not afford a hotel luncheon yet wanted to eat in refined surroundings, so Wynn’s accommodated them by turning a blind eye on the source of their food as long as they purchased a beverage—usually a cup of tea.
One August afternoon Ursula entered the hotel restaurant carrying her customary lunch: two bacon sandwiches prepared by Louise and wrapped in brown paper. When the last crumb had been eaten and the brown paper folded along its creases and saved for reuse, she ordered a second cup of tea that she sipped very slowly, using up the minutes. Then she left the dimly lit sanctuary of Wynn’s and walked back to Little Denmark Street.
The sky was radiant but there was a hint of early autumn in the air. A tingling crispness, as tart as the first bite of an apple. Blue haze trapped in the tops of the trees.
Ursula forgot the posture drilled into her at Surval, the hours spent gliding across polished floors with a book balanced atop the head, and stepped out with an athlete’s ardent stride, long-legged and free.
If I were in Clare I would be riding Saoirse this very minute. Galloping across the fields with autumn coloring up around us like a tapestry. Or meandering along a little boreen with the reins lying loose on his neck, and himself and myself like one creature….
Her pace slowed; her inward eyes gazed upon private vistas. People brushed past her but she did not notice them. Her heart thudded to remembered hoofbeats.
When she reached the broadcasting station, the door porter greeted her with, “Welcome back, Miss Halloran. Ye took your time, but sure, on a grand day like this who could blame ye?”
“Are the others back already?”
“They are indeed.” He gave an exaggerated wink.
“Have you been drinking, Mac?” she asked suspiciously.
“Not yet, but I’ll be stocious tonight. Legless. Carried home on a door.”
“You mean you plan to get drunk?”
“Stocious!” he repeated. “I’m going to toast the Chief until the pubs close.” Winking again, he held the door for her. “Trot inside now.”
“Why are you being so mysterious, Mac?”
He grinned. “Ye’ll know soon enough.”
Ursula found her colleagues in gales of laughter.
“Och, that Dev’s a cute hoor!” exclaimed Séumas Hughes, mopping his eyes.
“What’s he done now?” Ursula asked.
“He knew he’d either have to give up politics altogether, or find a way to take the oath in spite of his scruples. So de Valera wrestled with his conscience…and as usual, Dev won. Off he goes to Leinster House this morning, appears before the clerk of the day, and announces—in Irish—that he’s not giving any promise of faithfulness to any power outside of the people of Ireland. The clerk says he doesn’t care about that; all he requires is de Valera’s signature in the Dáil record book. He opens the book and indicates where Dev is to sign. Below the oath.
“Then—and this is the rich part—Dev sees the Bible lying beside the open book. He promptly removes it to the far end of the room and tells the clerk, ‘You must remember I am taking no oath.’ Being careful not to look directly at the open record book, he takes a sheaf of papers from a folder he brought with him and sets them down so they cover the wording of the oath entirely. Then he signs his name.1 He’ll be able to claim he didn’t know what he was signing!”
Mairead Ní Ghráda laughed so hard she had hiccups.
The next morning de Valera arrived up at Leinster House with a flock of Fianna Fáil delegates. Standing on the steps in front of a battery of reporters, de Valera declared that the oath was merely an empty political formula. Then he marched his followers inside to sign the book. Fíanna Fail took their seats in the Dáil the following day.
Ursula gleefully wrote in her journal, “Dear Papa, the Republican star is rising again!”
A few days later Ursula received a disturbing letter from Norah Daly. “Your father’s after leaving the farm, Ursula. When I looked in his wardrobe his clothes were gone, not just his Volunteer uniform, but everything. If he comes up to Dublin please let us know. We are worried about him.”
I should have kept posting those letters, Ursula thought with a pang of guilt. Given him something to hold on to. But how could I? It would be like begging. I don’t know if he read those I did send. He probably wadded them up and threw them on the fire.
As she walked to and from work, she searched the faces in the street. He could be anywhere. Henry used to say he was a will-o’-the-wisp. Next to Michael Collins, Ned Halloran was the most slippery of all the Volunteers. Perhaps he’s gone to the north. That’s it. That is just what he would do. Gone north to defend our people.
Nevertheless she kept watching for Ned.
She had always searched passing faces. Hoping—fearing—to find one that looked like her face.
Over four years had elapsed since the official end of the Civil War, yet the unresolved conflict continued. Dublin rang with gunfire in the night. Men from both sides were tumbled into unmarked graves down the country. Increasingly disillusioned with militarism, the public, encouraged by the government, put the entire blame on the IRA. There was little or no criticism of government forces. The attitude was, “Sure we voted for that crowd, didn’t we?”
Playwright Seán O’Casey, who originally had been a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, became one of republicanism’s most outspoken critics. The man who once wrote in fury of the English, “These men ramped over the land for hundreds of years; shot, hanged the leaders of the Irish who wouldn’t agree with them, and jammed the jails with the rest,”2 had been embittered by the Civil War. His hatred for the IRA now exceeded his hatred for those against whom they had rebelled.
O’Casey’s postrevolutionary trilogy, The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock, and The Plough and the Stars, deliberately restricted the revolution to the filth and decay of the Dublin slums. The nationwide impulse for freedom was ignored. Republican characters were depicted as repellent and morally bankrupt. According to O’Casey it was not the rebels who were dying for the ordinary people, but the ordinary people who were dying for the rebels.
After a controversial beginning the plays became hugely popular.
Ursula refused to attend any of them.
In November a concert featuring the newly christened Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra, conducted by musical director Vincent O’Brien, was given in the Metropolitan Hall. A reduced price of one shilling was available for the working classes, who were allowed in first. “U
pper class” tickets were sold at an increased price.3
At Surval Ursula had acquired a taste for classical music. On the appointed evening she went to the concert hall straight from work. As she waited to purchase her ticket, she automatically scanned the faces of people walking past.
One of them paused, then grinned. Most Irish women dropped their eyes when confronted with a man’s gaze. Ursula smiled back.
When the young man whipped off his hat, crisp red hair rose from his scalp like a forest fire. A wholesome, pleasant, open countenance, with brown eyes sparkling amid a face full of freckles. “Miss Halloran? Do you not remember me? Finbar Cassidy from the passport office?”
“I do of course. I’m surprised you remember me, though.”
“Oh, I’d never forget you,” he assured her. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m going to the concert. Our orchestra is playing a Beethoven symphony tonight.”
“‘Our’ orchestra?”
“I’m employed by the Dublin Broadcasting Station,” Ursula said proudly. “Are you interested in classical music yourself?”
“I’m a brand new convert,” Cassidy assured her. He dug in the pocket of his Crombie overcoat and pulled out his wallet. “Will you be my guest?”
“I pay my own way, thank you.”
“Surely a young lady like yourself…”
“I pay my own way,” she repeated. Then she smiled. “But I’ll save a seat for you next to mine, if you like.”
Her smile was amazing. Finbar luxuriated in it for a moment while every other thought skittered from his mind. Recovering himself, he bought a program at the door to share with her. As they sat in their brown plush seats their arms almost, but not quite, touched. From time to time she glanced at him covertly. He whispered, “They’re quite good, I think.”
“I think so too, but I’m prejudiced.”
“As I recall, you’re a girl of strong prejudices.”
Ursula was about to take offense until he laughed out loud. Then her own effervescent laughter bubbled up.
“Ssshhh!” hissed someone behind them.
With an effort they controlled themselves. They dare not look at one another for fear of laughing again.
When the performance ended Finbar invited Ursula to a café near the hall for hot chocolate. Remembering her aversion to smoking, he left his cigarettes in his pocket.
She studied his face across the table. Beneath the fiery hair was a wholesome, open countenance, with warm brown eyes and blunted features, as if a finer face had been drawn and then partially rubbed out. Only his ears were distinctive. Instead of being rounded at the top they were almost pointed, like a faun’s.
Finbar Cassidy was one of the plain people of Ireland. The native Gaels who had suffered conquest and humiliation and impoverishment until the mere fact of survival was a miracle. All that remained of an ancient race of warrior kings.
Ursula opened the conversation with a classic Irish question. “Where are your people from, Mr. Cassidy?”
“Finbar, please. My father’s fathers have fished the coasts of Donegal for generations. Before that they were farmers in Fermanagh until Cromwell drove them out and planted Protestant settlers on their land. My mother, God have mercy on her, was a MacMahon my father met at the fish market in Galway. She claimed descent from Brian Bóru, but sure, everyone in Ireland does that.”
“How do you know so much about them?”
“Once the sun sets, there’s not much for fishermen to do but mend their nets by the fire and tell stories. And what’s more interesting than stories about one’s own family?”
Ursula took a sip of her chocolate. Dabbed her mouth with a napkin. Stories about one’s own family. Exploring the roots that go back…
Finbar intruded on her reverie. “Suddenly you seem far away. What’re you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
His quick grin flashed amid a blizzard of freckles. “I never met anyone less likely to be thinking nothing.”
Young ladies at Surval were taught to respond gracefully to compliments from young men, but Ursula Halloran would never be comfortable with compliments. Sometimes she did not even recognize them. “Be assured that I am in the habit of saying what I mean, Mr. Cassidy,” she said tartly.
His brown eyes begged forgiveness. “I do apologize, Miss Halloran. I have a talent for wrong-footing myself with you, it seems.” He reached for their handwritten bill. “I’ll pay this and then take you home, if you’ll allow me. Or is that something you would rather do for yourself too?”
Chapter Ten
Louise Hamilton put her hands on her hips in disgust. “What good did learning them fine manners do you? You should have invited that young man into the parlor, Ursula, and him after bringing you in a taxi on such a cold evening. I made sticky toffee pudding earlier,” she said unnecessarily. The smell of burnt sugar lingered on the air. “You could have offered him some instead of slamming the door in his face.”
“I did no such thing, Louise. I just didn’t ask him in.”
“And why not? A nice young man with a pensionable job. It’s time you were thinking of your future, as Mr. Hamilton remarked just the other day.”
“When I was a little girl,” said Ursula, “I dreamed I would marry Uncle Henry.”
“That’s all very well, since he’s not really related to you. But he’s taken so.”
“He is,” Ursula acknowledged tonelessly. “Henry is taken.”
According to the 1926 census the Free State had the highest proportion of unmarried people in Western Europe. More than 50 percent of those between twenty-five and forty would spend the rest of their lives single. Mass emigration and a stern Catholicism that condemned sensuality and forbade sex for any reason other than procreation within marriage were largely responsible.
Finbar Cassidy was not easily discouraged. At the weekend he called on Ursula and invited her to the cinema. She meant to refuse, but it was simpler just to say yes. We’ve already attended a concert together. What harm can there be in going to a film?
Outside the theater Finbar bought her a vanilla ice cream and teased her about a smear of cream on the end of her nose. Ursula’s smile was so magical it made his heart leap.
Yet in unguarded moments he glimpsed a lurking sadness in the girl.
A fortnight later he accompanied her on a tour of Dublin’s museums. The various collections were much as the departing British had left them, only shabbier. The government had no money to spare for items it deemed nonessential. It pained Ursula to see Ireland’s cultural heritage gathering dust. We wrested our treasures out of the lion’s paw…for this?
Afterward they paused in St. Stephen’s Green to rest. Sitting upright on a park bench with her hands folded and her eyes downcast, Ursula reminded Finbar of a grave, quiet child who expects the worst.
He resolved to make her smile more. From then on, whenever they went out together he regaled her with jokes and funny anecdotes. When she laughed he felt as if she had given him a present.
Ursula found Finbar as comfortable to be with as an old friend, but he was also, she concluded, an amiable lightweight who never entertained a serious thought. She could not imagine him being willing to die for Ireland.
Finbar Cassidy did not compare to the pantheon of heroes in her heart.
When he asked Ursula to go to Mass with him she declined. Attending Mass with a young man implied a possible future together, and there could be none. After that she was always busy when he invited her out. Eventually he stopped calling.
Most single Irish women—and a surprising number of married ones—were ignorant of the mechanics of reproduction. But Ursula had spent her adolescence on a farm. When neighboring farmers brought their mares to Saoirse for breeding, she had held the stallion’s lead shank because no one else could control him. She had watched him mount his mares. Watched the plunging hindquarters, the thrusting, giant phallus. Smelt the heated musk. Felt passion vibrate down the lead shank int
o her hand.
And wondered…
Sometimes Ursula took out the only picture she had of Síle Halloran, a photograph of herself and Ned together. Called a “cabinet portrait,” the glossy sepia print revealed two young people uncomfortable at the camera’s scrutiny, leaning against one another as if for support. When they were together a golden circle seemed to surround them, shutting everyone else out.
Ned had changed almost beyond recognition since that picture was taken. But Síle Halloran was frozen in time. Solid cheekbones. Eyes slanted like a cat’s. A wide, sensuous mouth.
The little girl called Precious had overheard someone say, “That Síle’s a man’s woman and no mistake.”
A man’s woman.
On Saturday afternoons Ursula’s female contemporaries went to the cinema together to weep over the latest romance from Hollywood. In the evenings they met at one another’s homes for card parties and sandwiches filled with Galtee cheese and sliced celery. Mostly they talked about their husbands’ faults—or about finding husbands.
Ursula accepted one or two such invitations, struggled to conceal her boredom, and never went again.
Instead she began attending the meetings of Dublin’s Republican women, making friends among the generation that had taken an active part in 1916. Women like Geraldine Plunkett Dillon, Helena Moloney, and Kathleen Clarke. The gunwomen, as P.S. O’Hegarty called them.
Their dreams were Ursula’s dream; they spoke a language she understood.
In her journal the adult Ursula wrote: “Maud Gonne’s marriage to John MacBride collapsed. Constance Markievicz separated from her husband. There are women who need something larger than marriage. I am one of those women.”
I am one of those women.
Ursula Halloran was consciously inventing herself.
5 January 1928
STALIN EXILES KEY OPPOSITION FIGURES
Joseph Stalin now holds all reins of power in the Soviet Union
1949 Page 8
