1921

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by Morgan Llywelyn


  The name was bestowed by Christopher O’Sullivan, proprietor of the Limerick Echo.3 In his paper he remarked on a belligerent individual he had just encountered on the train to Limerick City. The man was wearing an oddly mixed uniform consisting of a slouched black cap, a dark green RIC tunic, and the khaki trousers of a British soldier. “Judging by his strange attire,” O’Sullivan wrote, “this creature resembled something one would associate with the Scarteen Hunt.” His reference was to a foxhunt, the Scarteen Black and Tans, whose hounds were well known for savagery to their prey. O’Sullivan’s readers understood the allusion.

  The Black and Tans had orders to make Ireland a hell for rebels to live in.

  HENRY Mooney took the next train to Limerick. From there he reported to the Bulletin: “Yesterday a string of military lorries entered this city. The Black and Tans proceeded to swarm over the place like rats over corn. They have been having indiscriminate target practice, which includes shooting up one of Limerick’s landmarks, Tate’s Clock. They fired on the clock tower in relays for some time, then forced their way into the bar of the Glentworth Hotel and demanded drink for which they did not pay. Even the RIC is giving these newcomers a wide berth.”

  Henry would have preferred to stay at the Glentworth, but went to his mother’s house instead. He did not like the idea of the women being alone there at night.

  Hannah Mooney met him at the cottage door with a string of complaints that would not wait until he took off his coat. “Have you heard what’s happening? Another army, God between us and all harm! Shooting up the town, so they are, and everyone in it. We’ll be slaughtered in our beds while you swan around Dublin not caring.”

  “I’m not in Dublin. I’m right here.”

  “Ye’ve come home where you belong then, and not before time.”

  “Ah…not exactly, Mam. I’m here on assignment, so to speak. I may not stay long, I have to go wherever—”

  “That’s just like you. Unreliable, always was.” As Henry shrugged out of his coat, Hannah eyed his suit. “That’s new, that is.”

  “I bought it last year.”

  “Fancy goods,” she said contemptuously, fingering the fabric. “Ye’ll make a holy show of yourself. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

  By now Alice was ensconced with the Sisters of Mercy, so Pauline and Hannah had only each other to chew upon, day after day. Henry provided a welcome diversion. They both attacked him. After a miserable evening during which his undigested dinner sat in his stomach like a cannonball, he put on his hat and fled the house on the pretext of visiting his brothers.

  He went to Noel rather than Bernard. Henry’s youngest brother had freckled skin, muscular arms, and a lumpy nose resulting from youthful fistfights. He could still give a good account of himself in a brawl on payday. He also had an unexpected talent for cabinetry and had considerably increased his father-in-law’s business, but one would never know it by looking at his own house. Noel shunned any signs of prosperity. Success brought begrudgery. A man who visibly had done better than others would be ostracized in the pub.

  Noel’s wife, whom Henry recalled as a blooming girl with a trim figure, had ripened into a flaccid matron. Like many Irish wives, she had acquired a peculiar anonymity. She was simply Her Inside. Public appearances limited to Mass, weddings, and funerals.

  As soon as she had served whiskey to the men, Noel’s wife vanished into the back of the house.

  Henry’s eyes followed her. A baby in her arms and another hanging onto her shirts. Year after year after year. She will live and die a sinner in the eyes of the Church, and invisible as far as my mother is concerned. And for what? For loving my fool brother more than he deserved.

  Noel eyed Henry over the rim of his glass. “What are you up to at all?”

  “Just visiting. Can I not visit my own brother?”

  “Don’t get shirty. I’m after doing all I can for Mam, if that’s why you’re here.”

  “All I’m asking is that you keep an eye on herself and Polly. Take a quarter-hour every night to walk over to the cottage—at different times every evening, if possible—and ask Bernard to do the same. I also suggest you fit a lock to the door.”

  “A lock on the door!” Noel set down his glass abruptly. “Where do you think this is, London?”

  ON the thirtieth of March Tomás MacCurtáin was replaced as lord mayor by his second-in-command in the Cork Brigade—Terence MacSwiney.

  No attempt was being made by the British authorities to bring MacCurtáin’s killers to justice.

  HENRY went out to the orchard to have a look at Flossie’s colt. Now three years old, the animal had grown too tall to be called a pony. His coat was a steel gray so dark it appeared almost black, and he had his mother’s beautiful head. When he saw Henry, he came trotting over with his ears pricked. His friendly nicker brought a smile to Henry’s face. For some minutes he stood stroking the velvet nose and the silken neck. “There now,” he murmured. “There now.”

  When he left the orchard the young horse followed him all the way to the gate.

  “That’s a fine animal,” Henry remarked to his mother. “Gentle, even though I notice you haven’t gelded him.”

  “Bernard says he might be worth something if we leave him entire. Alice made a pet of him, that’s why he’s so soppy.”

  “Is he broken in yet?”

  “Bernard’s going to do it when he has time.”

  Henry studied his fingernails. “Was there not a friend of my father’s who broke horses in very gently, so they were safe for anyone to handle?”

  “He charges money.” Hannah drew her lips together as tight as purse strings.

  “I’ll tell you what, Mam,” Henry said, glancing up. “Why don’t you sell the colt to me? I’ll give you enough to buy a pony who’s already trained to the cart.”

  Hannah looked at her son as if he had lost his mind. “And what would you be doing with a horse? You don’t even like horses.”

  “I never said that. Will you sell him to me or not?”

  A cunning glint crept into her eyes. “Have ye as much money as all that?”

  “I do not have much money, but I think it would be good investment,” he replied, swiftly calculating his finances.

  Hannah Mooney was a shrewd dealer, and never more than when dealing with her family. Henry spent the better part of the morning arguing with her. At the end of the negotiations both felt sure they had been cheated and there were hard feelings, but the colt belonged to Henry.

  He posted a letter to number 16 in the ordinary way, from the Limerick post office. In it he wrote, “Ask Precious if she can suggest a good name for a horse.”

  ON Easter Monday Frank Gallagher was one of sixty political prisoners in Mountjoy who went on hunger strike. They claimed they were being illegally incarcerated and demanded pardons.

  Meanwhile General Macready, anticipating an anniversary repeat of the 1916 Rising on that date, had positioned troops and police on the main roads between Cork, Limerick, and Dublin. The rising did not come. The vacated barracks, however, were mysteriously burned. Simultaneously Republicans entered local revenue offices throughout Ireland, soaked the tax records with paraffin oil, and set them afire.

  In County Limerick the situation was similar to that throughout the south and west. The Republicans knew the territory and had the support of the majority of the people. Under an IRA brigade structure they operated in small, mobile companies known as flying columns, which consisted of between fifteen and thirty men. They could appear suddenly, strike a target, then disappear before the British could mobilize against them. For this new sort of warfare they had no uniforms. Dressed in soft hats and trench coats, they overpowered garrisons and seized the weapons. Initially policemen who tried to stop them were bound hand and foot and left, cursing but generally unharmed, at the side of the road.

  Crown forces had no idea when or where a flying column might strike. There was a sudden dearth of informers to pro
vide this information.

  There were not as many Republicans in the field as the British were made to think; prisons in both Ireland and Britain were packed to the rafters with men who would swell their ranks if only they could get out. But clever marshalling of its resources was enabling the IRA to confuse and demoralize a much larger force.

  This was the arena into which the Black and Tans were pouring.

  In the Bulletin Henry commented, “This band of brigands is being allowed to maraud and murder with impunity. Their targets are not limited to Republicans. Anyone Irish is fair game. The Black and Tans are not nearly as civilized as the hounds for which they are named.”

  Dublin Castle retaliated by claiming that the victims of the Black and Tans actually were being murdered by “Republican extremists.” A similar claim was made concerning the death of Tomás MacCurtáin. The new lord mayor of Cork rejected this story outright. Terence MacSwiney publicly laid the blame for MacCurtáin’s death on the British government and the blame for the lie on Dublin Castle.

  National newspapers were covering the hunger strike in Mountjoy with almost fevered intensity. Too many men were involved to ignore. Every day saw larger public demonstrations outside the prison. The first international journalists, including John Steele for the Chicago Tribune, arrived to cover the story. Rumors abounded. The men were being released; they were being paroled; they had refused parole and were holding out for complete pardon.

  ON the fourteenth of April the hunger strikers were released from Mountjoy Prison. Beds were waiting in the Mater Hospital for those who were too ill to go home. A steady rain fell all that day. The streets leading away from the prison were lined with cheering crowds waiting under umbrellas to see the taxicabs pass by.

  After Frank Gallagher had been home for two days, the Bulletin staff went to visit him. They found him propped up in a chair in his own room, with a fire burning brightly on the hearth and a vase of fresh flowers on the table. He greeted them each by name with a wan but cheery smile.

  Gallagher’s time in prison had left him with a straggly auburn beard that contrasted startlingly with his black hair. He was even more emaciated than Henry had expected. The cords on his neck stood out like vines on a tree; his Adam’s apple protruded like the stump of a sawn-off limb.

  Kathleen McKenna had to turn away from the horror that lingered in his eyes.

  A journalist to the bone, in spite of his weakness Gallagher insisted on relating his experiences to his colleagues. “At the start I was intensely happy. That may sound strange, but we all were. The fight had begun; something that must be done in the name of liberty and the rights of men. The last bowl of porridge we were willing to accept tasted so good.

  “We told one another it was no different from fasting at Lent, and we thanked God we had the strength to do it. Then the headaches began. The cramping in the belly. The first days are the hardest. One is so used to have the day in prison divided by mealtimes. Eventually you think you’re getting used to it. You feel clammy and weak, but determined; you even make jokes. Though never about food. You daren’t talk about food.

  “Reading. Reading is a godsend. In the exercise yard you look at the other men and see how sharp their features are becoming and how feverish their eyes. And you know the same mark is on you, too: that curious slouching gait that comes from having no energy and a dizzy head. Emotions start to run riot. Anger, despair, sometimes a marvelous ecstasy like that of the ancient saints. In my cell I talked to Jesus quite a lot, I think.

  “The guards were vicious to us, they wanted to break us. They let our families visit just to torment us with thoughts of leaving them forever. Officials came and made offers and promises we knew they did not mean to keep. Oh, they had so many ways to torture us. There is a cruelty that lurks in some men’s souls which is only released when they have other men in their power.

  “One of their tortures was to tempt us with food. Another was to prevent us from sleeping. I began to have waking nightmares about a coffin, about all of us in one coffin together. I knew I was raving and I prayed God to let me hold onto my sanity and not die some broken mad creature.

  “But there was a paradox in all this. The weaker we became, the stronger we proved ourselves to be. After a while we knew nothing could break us. We had won then. No matter what else happened, we had won.

  “Sometimes I was peaceful and sometimes I was desperately afraid. I began to believe that all the others were dying, or dead, and I should be the only one left. I was frantic with fear; fear of surviving when all my comrades were gone. You know how it is with our boys, that grand sense of camaraderie we’ve shared from the beginning. To be the last one alive…it was the worst torture of all.

  “And then, when I thought I could endure no more, the warder came to say a release had been agreed on. My dear friends weren’t dead after all. We were going home.”4 Gallagher paused, then turned his face toward the open window. “Listen,” he said in a rapt voice. “I can hear a blackbird sing.”

  THE British government announced that the category of political prisoner was being revoked. In future, Republicans would be treated as common criminals.

  Winston Churchill, Britain’s secretary of state for war, had yet another idea for bringing the Irish to heel. His concept was the recruitment of a band of ex-army officers to be known as the Cadet Auxiliaries. Ostensibly attached to the police, they were in actuality another force of military irregulars. Calling them cadets was a cynical ploy to make it sound as if they were fresh-cheeked young lads rather than experienced fighting men. The Auxiliaries were paid an extravagant pound a day and were answerable only to themselves. Their instructions were the same as the Black and Tans’.

  Terrorize.

  Within days the irrepressible Irish had new nicknames for both organizations. The Black and Tans were the “roughs” the Auxiliaries were the “toughs.”

  The regular members of the RIC were torn between loyalty to British paymasters and empathy for fellow Irishmen. A number of constables resigned. Others hardened themselves and joined the hunt for “Shinners,” meaning any Republican who could be brought within gunsights.

  The IRA extended its campaign to shooting policemen.

  EVENTUALLY Ella responded to Henry’s written apology with a note in which she assured him there was nothing to forgive. The rest of the brief letter was formal, almost impersonal. “I am well, though Madge is recovering from a cold. The weather in Dublin is hopeless. We may go to Beech Park for a few days.”

  “I am well also, though very busy,” Henry wrote back in the same tone. “Roscommon will be a pleasant change for you. I know the hunting season is long over, but Madge will enjoy the fishing. Please give my regards to your family.”

  The letters were less satisfying than no communication at all. It was obvious a rupture had taken place in the relationship, but he could hardly repair the damage by post. Perhaps it’s better to leave things as they are. I have nothing to offer to compare with what she has.

  IN England one hundred and thirty Irish Republicans began a hunger strike in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. They demanded to be treated as prisoners of war.

  In May the Irish Transport Workers Union declared a strike. If either soldiers or members of the Black and Tans boarded a train, the engineer would refuse to start.

  The Dáil Loan, the Bulletin reported, was oversubscribed. The original goal had been £250,000. The total had reached £357,000 in spite of repeated efforts by British agents to seize the money.5

  By decree of the Dáil, the Irish Volunteers, the Citizen Army, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood officially were amalgamated into the army of the nation.6

  HENRY Mooney traveled up and down the west interviewing people and documenting events. He wrote: “Wherever I go I hear stories of tragedy and anger—and optimism. For Irish nationalists, centuries of oppression are culminating in a flare of hope.”

  Because he was Henry he also interviewed loyalists. He wrote: “These are men and wom
en who genuinely love their monarch and are baffled that anyone would want to live under any other system. Like children threatened with being orphaned, they are frightened and resentful. The new Republic must offer them at least as much as they are losing.”

  Henry’s personal commentaries appeared in many issues of the Bulletin. “We cannot print enough copies of the newsletter to meet the demand,” an elated Kathleen McKenna informed him. “Desmond’s duties as a member of the Dáil are keeping him increasingly busy and Erskine has been wonderful about taking on the editing chores. All is well here, but we miss you.”

  One day Henry received a personal letter addressed in a childish hand. Holding it close to the lamp in his mother’s kitchen, he read: “Dear Uncle Henry, I think a good name would be an Irish word my Papa taught me. Saoirse. It makes me think of a horse running wild and free, with the wind blowing its mane.”

  Hannah Mooney bustled over. “What’s that word?” she demanded to know, stabbing the paper with her finger.

  “Sayr-sha,” Henry enunciated phonetically. “That’s the colt’s new name: Saoirse. The Irish word for freedom.”

  AS birds sang their summer songs in the hedgerows, the activities of the Black and Tans increased: a reign of terror unlike anything Ireland had seen since Cromwell. Civilians were used as target practice from army lorries. Republican prisoners were shot in the back on the pretext they had been trying to escape. When the authorities could not find a Republican marked for extinction, they had his mother or father shot.

  IN faraway India on the twenty-eighth of June, 250 members of the First Battalion of Connaught Rangers laid down their arms in protest against what was being done by the British government in Ireland. Sixty-two were court-martialed for mutiny.

  IRELAND had become a very dangerous place. Any road might lead British troops into a Republican Army ambush, although Cathal Brugha was against ambushing, preferring what he called “straight fights.” His vision of the best way to fight the British was diametrically opposed to that of Mulcahy and Collins.

 

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