Death on the Holy Mountain

by David Dickinson

  One of Pronsias’s brothers, Declan, was a solicitor out west in County Mayo. Another was a police sergeant down in County Kerry where the police station, for some unknown reason, had one of the finest vegetable gardens in the south. A third was a priest up in Donegal. His two sisters had made good marriages, one to a schoolteacher and another to a man who worked in a bank. Next to the black book was a red one where the entries and the accounts for the bar were kept. And next to that, the most secret volume of them all, the blue book where Pronsias kept the details of his loans. By now he had a more substantial portfolio than the bank in North Street on the far side of the square. His customer base was far wider than you might have expected, reaching out into levels of society that did not normally buy their groceries in the main square in Butler’s Cross. The loan business had begun in a very small way, regular customers unable to pay at the store. From then it gradually expanded into small tenant farmers behind with their rent, worried parents anxious to pay for their sons or daughters to take passage to England or America or Australia. Weddings, he had discovered by accident, were a fruitful source of business. About half of the local receptions were now paid for by the generosity of Pronsias Mulcahy, Grocery and Bar of Butler’s Cross. Pronsias charged slightly more than the banks in interest, that was admitted, but he never foreclosed on a loan, a little help for a friend in need as he would put it to his customers. He would let the loans go on for years if necessary, fully aware that if he ever foreclosed his business might dry up. He looked on himself as a great benefactor, oiling the wheels of local commerce and giving young people a chance to make something of their lives. When necessary, the youngest Delaney of Delaney, Delaney and Delaney, solicitors in law across the way, would draw up the necessary paperwork and keep the documents in their storeroom.

  Once a week on half-days like this one Pronsias would take himself off to the priest’s house at five o’clock for a refreshing glass of John Powers. Pronsias always took a fresh bottle with him, reasoning that Father O’Donovan Brady might need whatever was left to succour unhappy parishioners who had fallen foul of their God. Pronsias thought that the Powers would be more comforting than the priest in those circumstances, but he shared that thought with nobody. Father Brady was a useful fount of local information, pointing out to Pronsias who might be having trouble with the rent. It was an arrangement of mutual benefit to both sides. Both felt that whiskey in exchange for customers was a fair bargain, especially for Father O’Donovan Brady who appeared to have an inexhaustible supply of John Powers stored in his cellar, some bottles nearly full, some a third full, others half full, however hard he tried to exhaust his supply.

  Lord Francis Powerscourt had collected his wife Lucy from the railway station. She brought news of the children and of her relations, one of whom had fallen into financial difficulties and might be in need of rescue. Lady Lucy had a great many relations. After the formalities were completed at Butler’s Court, Lady Lucy admiring the furniture and the decoration in their enormous bedroom, Powerscourt took her down to the river and filled her in with the details of his investigation. The Shannon was very smooth that afternoon, flotillas of baby ducks on manoeuvres by the riverside under the watchful eye of a parent, the ducklings occasionally diving in unison underneath the water and reappearing together at exactly the same time, as if an invisible conductor was teaching them synchronized swimming.

  ‘I didn’t like to say anything in the carriage, Francis,’ she said, taking his hands in hers, ‘but you’re looking worried. Is the case not going well? Are you not making any progress?’

  Powerscourt laughed bitterly. ‘I was saying to Johnny only yesterday that I think we should give up, go home, pack our tents. We haven’t made any progress at all.’

  She squeezed his hand and led him to a bench in the shade. ‘You mustn’t give up, Francis, you’ve always said that, you and Johnny.’

  ‘I just don’t know what to do,’ said her husband helplessly. ‘What have we got here, after all? Well, we’ve got a whole heap of empty squares on the walls of these houses. Fine, you might think, but the abandoned plaster and the black smudges where the edges of the pictures were can’t actually tell you anything. The problem with the humans is worse. Normally there are lots of people you can talk to. Here the ones you can talk to who might tell you something, the owners, don’t tell you the truth. I’m sure all three of them have had, in effect, a blackmail letter from the thieves, but they all deny it. The other ones you can talk to, the servants and the local people, may not talk to you or they may, as it were, be in the pay of the enemy.’ He told her of his sulphurous encounter with Father O’Donovan Brady.

  ‘But surely, Francis,’ Lady Lucy was holding firmly on to her husband’s right hand, ‘the servants and people all trust the families in the Big Houses – they work for them, after all. I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem in England.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but this is Ireland. It’s different here. Let me tell you a story Richard Butler told me the other evening. It concerns a man called Blennerhasset, old Ascendancy family, living on a great estate down in Tipperary, family here since Elizabeth’s time, that sort of thing. Every general election this Blennerhasset was returned to Westminster with a big majority, his tenants and the people connected with the land all turning out to vote for him. Then the franchise changed. More and more people got the vote. Parnell and his crowd came along and changed the rules, Home Rule – what a comforting couple of words they are, images of a contented family sorting out their affairs in the parlour at home – now the order of the day. At the first of these elections under the new rules, Blennerhasset went off to the local town to make sure the voting was in order and check that the proceedings were properly conducted. All his tenants were very polite to him as usual. He was back home when the results were known, and he saw all the tenants having a party, a huge bonfire and fireworks in the main square. He thought it was to celebrate his victory in the normal fashion. But he hadn’t won. He’d lost. His opponent had won by a huge margin. All his tenants had doffed their caps to him, metaphorically speaking, but they’d voted for the other man. Blennerhasset was heartbroken. He couldn’t believe his tenants, his tenants, for God’s sake, had voted for the other fellow. They had betrayed him. His whole view of everything was shattered. He died not long after. Now do you see what I mean, Lucy? If you take the wrong people into your confidence you could be giving comfort and succour to the enemy and telling them what is in your mind. It’s like operating in a foreign country where you don’t know the language or where the same words have different meanings for the speaker and the listener. I’m in despair, Lucy, I really am.’

  ‘What does Johnny think about it all?’ asked Lady Lucy. But she never had time to find out what Johnny thought. For at that moment a huge shout of ‘Powerscourt!’ rang round the garden.

  ‘Powerscourt, where the hell are you?’ Richard Butler came into view, red-faced, running at top speed, panting from his exertions, waving a piece of paper in his right hand. ‘Powerscourt, Lady Lucy, thank God I’ve found you. Powerscourt, there seems to have been another one, another theft, I mean.’ He stopped and sat down on the edge of the bench. ‘Read this!’ He shoved the telegram into Powerscourt’s hand.

  ‘Crisis meeting tomorrow lunchtime. Ormonde House. One o’clock. Bring Powerscourt. Train from Athlone 10.15 or 11.05. My people will meet you. Ormonde.’

  ‘This doesn’t say anything about paintings being stolen, Mr Butler,’ said Lady Lucy brightly. ‘It could be about anything at all.’

  ‘Ah, Lady Lucy, but this is Ireland. If it was something unimportant you would feel free to mention it in a telegram. If it was something important, you wouldn’t dream of mentioning it. You could never tell who might be reading it, so you couldn’t.’

  ‘I see,’ said Lady Lucy, who didn’t.

  ‘Crisis, that’s the key to the thing now,’ said Butler, mopping his brow with an enormous handkerchief. ‘Crisis, Dennis Ormonde is
telling us. That can only mean one thing. More paintings have gone.’

  ‘I fear you may be right,’ said Powerscourt. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow.’

  All through that evening the word seeped through the floorboards of Butler’s Court. It travelled invisibly along the long passages. It flew up the great staircases and whispered along the attic corridors. The kitchen maids heard it in the kitchen as they prepared a great rhubarb pie for pudding that evening. The junior footmen heard it as they polished the silver in the pantry. Out in the stable block the grooms heard it as they prepared the horses for the night. More paintings have gone. Ormonde House is the latest house to be visited with the affliction. The Master and Lord Powerscourt are going there tomorrow. God save Ireland.

  Rain was falling steadily as their train travelled slowly across the province of Connaught. There were glimpses of great lakes as they passed by, of dark mountains glowering across a barren landscape. Richard Butler had given Powerscourt a brief history of the Ormondes, Earls of Mayo, the previous evening, the Ormondes the greatest power in the west for centuries past, their great mansion, Ormonde House, nestling on the shores of Clew Bay some five miles from the town of Westport, the finest house in Connaught. Powerscourt was to say afterwards that his first impressions of the place were a blur, so fast had events unfolded.

  The Ormonde carriage drove them at breakneck speed along the Louisburg road. Butler pointed out Croagh Patrick, Ireland’s Holy Mountain, towering over the landscape, brooding over the dark waters of the bay, imposing itself on the grey frontage of cut stone that was Ormonde House. A tall figure with black hair and prominent black eyebrows was pacing restlessly in front of the steps of his home.

  ‘Butler,’ he said, pumping his visitor’s hand, ‘glad you could come. Powerscourt, I presume you are Powerscourt, welcome to Ormonde House. And a sorry welcome it is too!’ There was, Powerscourt thought, a terrible anger flowing through this man, a rage that he was going to share with his visitors. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Come and see what the bastards have done!’

  He brought them into an elegant entrance hall and through a door on the right into the Picture Gallery. Or, Powerscourt thought sadly, what had been the Picture Gallery. It was a beautiful room, long and broad with a polished parquet floor and great windows looking out over the gardens at the far end.

  ‘Look at it!’ roared Ormonde, pointing to the five gaps on the blue wall, one after the other as if they had taken a sudden burst from a machine gun. ‘Look at what they have done, God damn their eyes! Two full-lengths, three portrait-sized paintings of my ancestors! All gone! Stolen by some thieves whose own ancestors probably rotted to death in the workhouse with the typhus in the famine years! And a bloody good thing too!’

  Dennis Ormonde was literally shaking with fury. His face was almost purple. ‘When I think of what they did, my family, for this county and for this country, I despair. I tell you what I would like to do, what one of my forebears actually did,’ he pointed, his hand shaking as he did so, at the first of the full-length gaps in the wall, ‘in the last rebellion in these parts. The authorities – my people have always been the authorities round here – brought the punishment triangles out in the main square over there in Westport. If the bastards talked before the action started they were released. If not they were lashed to the triangles, stripped and flogged by the yeomanry till their blood was running in the gutters and they were screaming for their mothers. But they talked after a while. My great grandfather got the names of the rebels from the victims on the triangles. And when they were caught, the bloody rebels, they were hanged, hundreds of them. Bloody good thing too. Too soft a fate for some of them, hanging!’

  Dennis Ormonde walked back down his gallery and closed the door. He went back to stand by the empty spaces once again. They seemed to reignite his anger.

  ‘I’m bloody well not going to take this lying down, I can tell you. They may be taking over the land, they may have all the bloody MPs in that useless bloody Parliament in Westminster, but they can’t steal my property, they damned well can’t. I’ve talked to the local police, might as well have talked to the man who referees the hurling matches for all the good that’ll do. I’ve wired to Dublin Castle and an inspector and his colleague from the Intelligence Department are on their way. I’ve sent word to the Grand Master of the Orange Lodge and the man who runs the Royal Black Preceptory in Enniskillen asking for one hundred men, aged between twenty-five and forty and in good health, to come and report for orders. They’re to bring their own weapons. One hundred stout Protestants to carry the battle to the foe. Croppies lie down. And I’ve asked the Apprentice Boys in Derry to stand by with another hundred if we need them. I’m going to station guards on duty all night at every Big House with reasonable paintings in Mayo and the neighbouring counties. And, one last thing, I’m going to post a notice in Westport and Castlebar tomorrow afternoon when the thing’s back from the printers, offering thirty pounds reward for information leading to the return of the paintings, all of them, mine and yours, Butler, and Connolly’s and Moore’s, and the capture of the bastards who took them. They’ve always betrayed their own for money in the past, the spineless scum, maybe they’ll do it again.’

  The look of fury never left Ormonde’s face. If the thieves had known the response they were going to receive, Powerscourt thought, they might have stayed in bed. Posting a reward for such an enormous sum was one thing, importing one hundred armed Protestants into a predominantly Catholic county was another, fraught with dire political consequences. Orthodox Catholic opinion would be appalled and might contemplate reprisals. The Church itself might feel bound to take a stand. They could not watch from their pulpits and their altars while armed Protestant gangs patrolled the countryside and threatened their parishioners. As for less orthodox Catholic opinion, Powerscourt was filled with foreboding. The men who came out in the night in these parts knew all about houghing or mutilating their landlords’ cattle and lighting up the night sky as they torched the Big Houses. Not far from here, not all that long ago, they had invented the boycott at Lough Mask House. Would it travel twenty or thirty miles and devastate the Ormondes of Ormonde House? If the angry man with the black hair and the black eyebrows went ahead with all his plans, it could plunge the west of Ireland into a political crisis. Powerscourt felt he had to try to prevent his investigation ending up in a whirlpool of sectarian violence.

  ‘Lunch,’ announced Dennis Ormonde. ‘Can’t let the bastards put us off our food.’

  The Ormonde House dining room was one of the most beautiful in Ireland but Powerscourt had little time to admire the plaster glories on the ceiling. Still muttering to himself, Ormonde began to carve a great side of beef, the blood dripping down on to the serving dish. ‘Got to have it rare, this Mayo beef,’ he said. ‘Well cooked it tastes like roasted string.’ He paused and looked around the table, heavy with ornate silver.

  ‘Horseradish!’ he shouted at the butler. ‘Where’s the bloody horseradish, for Christ’s sake? Twenty years I’ve been eating beef in this house with you serving at the table and you still manage to forget the horseradish!’ He shook his head. ‘Wife’s fond of it too, oddly enough,’ he added, nodding at his guests and heaping enormous portions of Mayo beef on to the three plates. ‘She’s even planted some of the stuff in the kitchen garden so we can make our own.’

  Two footmen sidled in and began serving roast potatoes and peas. The butler who had fled the room at great speed reappeared with the offending horseradish. Ormonde took a giant’s helping. ‘Now bugger off,’ he shouted at the servants. ‘Come back in twenty minutes with the pudding. And if I catch any of you listening at the doors, you’re fired!’

  ‘Now then, Butler,’ he said between mouthfuls of meat, ‘what do you think of my plan? Shake the bastards up a bit, don’t you think, when they find a brace of Orangemen waiting for them as they creep out of the shrubberies?’

  ‘Well,’ said Butler in a hesitant tone of voice and Powerscou
rt knew it was going to be a difficult afternoon, ‘it’s certainly bold. It has merit. But I just wonder if it might not be a little inflammatory.’

  ‘Inflammatory? Inflammatory?’ Ormonde yelled, pausing to lower his fork. ‘Just tell me this, who’s doing the inflammatory round here? Is it me? Have I been inflaming things? I have not. These bastards are the ones with the inflammatory, breaking into people’s houses and stealing their pictures. If that’s not inflammatory then I don’t know what is!’

  ‘I have every sympathy with your plight, after all I am in the same position as yourself,’ said Butler, ‘but I do think we have certain responsibilities as landlords not to start something which could lead to a great deal of violence.’ Powerscourt saw Butler was pressing himself back into his chair as hard as he could as if it were a defensive wall or rampart.