1972

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Féin as a purely political party, the most nationalist of all the parties, but peaceful. Griffith was totally opposed to using physical force to achieve political goals. But after the Free State came into being, the republicans realised that they needed a political voice to oppose a government that was still dominated by British influence. So the 1949 Army Convention passed a resolution urging Volunteers to enlist in Sinn Féin.1 Few of the senior IRA figures had any interest in politics, they were men of action, but they saw no contradiction between the two organisations.

  “Their plan was to take over Sinn Féin and turn it into the civilian wing of the IRA, but,” Thomas gave an unexpected chuckle, “they discovered that Sinn Féin’s ideals weren’t so easily subsumed. A number of Volunteers had only joined the IRA ‘for the craic.’x The party’s influence turned them into deeply dedicated men. Sinn Féin’s educational programme exposed them to the high-minded principles of Pearse and the pragmatic socialism of Connolly and they absorbed it like blotting paper. Cathal Goulding is a good example.

  “By the time Cathal and I were released from Curragh Camp, younger men with more radical ideas were running the Army. Confrontation was inevitable. There was no real split in the Army, but what you might call a ‘splintering’ around the edges, with several breakaway groups forming under their own leaders. One or two cooperate with the Army from time to time, though most of the mainstream consider them as heretics to the principles of republicanism. Both sides believe they’re right, of course.”

  “That’s not uncommon on this island,” said Barry.

  “Are you interested in politics yourself?”

  “Not at all, I’m Army.”

  Thomas smiled his merry smile. “It’s possible to be both. Many of us are.”

  SOMETIMES Barry went north on the train, being careful to ride in the first-class car. Those passengers were never questioned at the border. Sometimes he hitchhiked, in which case he made certain that he was on an unapproved road. Border guards on the approved roads were more thorough when it came to examining documents.

  With every trip Barry’s confidence increased.

  As time went by he made less effort to change his appearance. Belfast was becoming familiar territory. Sinn Féin had a presence in the north. Known as “Republican Clubs,” the party provided a focus for republicans and nationalists in towns throughout the Six Counties. Barry had only to make himself known to be directed to safe accommodations.

  He slept in Catholic houses—but he drank in Protestant bars. His face was familiar in corner shops in both neighbourhoods. He read the pro-Unionist Belfast Telegraph and the pro-Nationalist Irish News. He could, and did, talk knowledgeably about current events to anyone he met—adjusting his point of view to fit the situation. The only way to get the pictures he wanted was to blend in.

  He had two cameras now. The second was a used Nikon he had bought in a Dublin pawn shop. From the same source he had acquired a folding tripod. The quality of his photographs was improving. Éamonn Thomas sold half a dozen of the best to a news agency in Chicago.

  NINETEEN sixty-one was the Patrician Year, commemorating Ireland’s patron saint. As a guest celebrant in Dublin, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen from America praised “the passionate chastity of the Irish male.”

  BARRY took most of his pictures in Belfast’s Catholic enclaves such as New Lodge, Short Strand, and the Lower Falls Road. But relying on his size to discourage possible troublemakers, he also ventured into the Shankill Road.

  Sometimes his size was not enough. One afternoon he rounded a corner and found himself facing four would-be toughs who walked with their legs wide apart as if their balls were too big. “Howya doin’, Taig?” their leader asked with a totally insincere grin—thus proving that he knew a Catholic when he saw one. Or maybe it was a lucky guess. Religion was not really an issue. These four just wanted action and one man alone looked like a soft target.

  Barry Halloran surprised them by baring his teeth in a savage grin. In that instant he changed from a photographer going about his business to a warrior going about his business. He did not even have to think about it, the skills were simply there. One long stride and his back was against a wall. In the same movement he let his camera bag slide to the ground. As the first man swung at him he waited until the ultimate moment, then ducked so swiftly that his assailant had no time to pull the punch and drove his fist into a brick wall. There was an audible sound of knuckles breaking and a howl of pain.

  The other three lunged forward with no plan of action other than mindless attack. Barry danced to one side, spun around, and gave one man a blow over the ear that sent him reeling. As an extension of the same movement Barry ducked again and drove his skull into the midsection of another. The man let out a mighty “oooof” as the air rushed out of his lungs, and sat down hard on the pavement.

  The third assailant received a kick to his kneecap that made him stagger, then Barry brought a powerful blow up from his hip to the point of the man’s jaw. When he felt the head snap backwards he was afraid he had broken the fellow’s neck. To Barry’s relief, his victim remained upright long enough to reassure him that his neck was still intact, then fell like a timbered tree.

  The whole fight lasted less than a minute.

  Not even breathing hard, Barry reclaimed his camera bag and walked away. It was a point of pride not to look back to see if they were following him.

  They were not.

  THE Shankill Road, which styled itself the Heartland of Loyalist Ulster, hated Roman Catholics, otherwise known as Fenians, Papists, Taigs. Drummed into the citizenry since birth was the unshakeable conviction that all Catholics were heretics sworn to the destruction of Protestantism. To kill a Catholic was to kill not a fellow human being but a member of a lower species.

  Yet the poor Protestant neighbourhoods around the Shankill were physically indistinguishable from the poor Catholic neighbourhoods around the Falls Road. The only difference to be seen was the ubiquitous Union Jack. The British flag flew from scores of windows and was painted on numerous walls.

  By identifying himself as a photojournalist Barry was able to take pictures of several prominent loyalists. One proudly posed with a rifle cradled in his arms. “Yer gonna put me in the newspapers, right?”

  Barry recalled the pride he had felt at the idea of being a sniper. With his grandfather’s rifle.

  That was a million years ago.

  One of Barry’s favourite photographs showed a slim youth and a pretty girl gazing into each other’s eyes, oblivious to the world around them. The boy’s open-necked shirt revealed a Cross on a chain around his neck. She wore a rayon headscarf printed with the Union Jack. In the background a man who might have been the father of either one was striding angrily toward them, waving a clenched fist.

  Barry captioned the picture “Romeo and Juliet, Belfast, 1961.”

  LEFT to their own devices, the two communities, Protestant and Catholic, made tentative efforts toward integration. They had almost everything in common but their religions. Yet both religions contained secret societies which worked constantly to discourage any rapport with “the other side.” Catholic and Protestant were kept apart by force if necessary.2

  Politicians who had built their careers on bigotry were the only beneficiaries.

  THE more time he spent in the north, the more difficult Barry found it to return to Trinity. The university seemed an artificial world where people lived greenhouse lives. Reality was sometimes brutal but that did not lessen its fascination. Barry was obsessed with the desire to show others what he had discovered: that nothing was as simple as it appeared from the outside.

  Éamonn Thomas was selling more and more of Barry’s photographs. It was being done quietly, attracting no attention in Ireland, but foreign news agencies were increasingly interested in the work of “Finbar Lewis.” “Looks like the republican publicity bureau is up and running again,” Thomas remarked to Goulding.

  ON t
he twelfth of April, 1961, the Soviet Union put the first man into space. Twenty-seven-year-old Major Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth during a flight lasting 108 minutes, and returned safely. Elements of the American press were scathing in their denunciation of Russia for risking a man’s life with what must be inferior technology.

  On the fifteenth of May, Alan B. Shepherd, Jr., became the first American in space, with a fifteen-minute sub-orbital flight.

  As Barry’s first year at university ended he was summoned to GHQ. “The campaign in the north doesn’t seem to be going anywhere,” Cathal Goulding told him. “But we have a plan to turn that around. We’re going to cut a nationalist enclave out of the rest of Northern Ireland by blowing some strategically located bridges in County Fermanagh.3 Are you up for it?”

  When Barry hesitated, Goulding added shrewdly, “You’re the best we have. Without you, we don’t have a chance.”

  Barry flung back his head. Flame leapt in his eyes. “Then I’m up for it.”

  A room in a Dublin safe house was arranged for him while he waited for orders. When they came they were disappointing. The mission was off. “Our scouts report a number of patrols throughout the area.” Goulding told Barry. He sounded bitterly disappointed. “There’s been so much RUC activity along the border lately … well, we thought we had a chance, but maybe not. We hardly have enough locals to help us anyway, most of them are in prison. Forget about it for now, Barry. Maybe later.”

  Maybe later. Everything’s “maybe later.”

  But there is something I can do now.

  He paid only a brief visit to the farm before heading north again. This time he left Ned Halloran’s notebooks in a bank vault in Ennis.

  His destination was Derry, which he remembered from his early days in the Army. He arrived in Derry on a fine afternoon in early summer. The sky was swept free of clouds by a fresh wind. Sun-kissed light percolated through narrow streets where laughing children played the games of children.

  From the moment he arrived, Barry was taking photographs.

  Derry was situated in a valley traversed by the River Foyle and surrounded by gentle hills. Once, those hills had been mantled by oak trees, part of the primordial forest which had been destroyed during the Elizabethan conquest. To the north of the city glimmered the broad waters of Lough Foyle. The lake narrowed dramatically at the head, providing protection from the often violent sea off the northern coast.

  “Derry” was derived from the ancient Irish word daire, meaning oak; a name the Irish continued to use although the city officially had been renamed Londonderry by the English. As a result of this Derry/Londonderry identity, the town was also known as “Stroke City.” The nickname reflected its dual nature in more ways than one. Derry lay within County Londonderry, one of the Six, but a short distance out the Buncrana Road was County Donegal—in the Republic. Donegal considered itself as outside both the Six and the Twenty-Six. Although the people were emotionally committed to the Republic, they found much to admire in Northern Ireland. They abhorred sectarianism but appreciated the straightforward honesty of ordinary Protestants.

  Like Belfast, Derry was a city divided. But in Derry the majority was Catholic. Unionist landowners and politicians made certain the Catholics never forgot they were inferior. They were contained in virtual ghettos, encircled by Protestants like thirteenth-century Marcher lords holding back the Welsh tide.

  The Bogside district, which lay just below and to the west of the ancient walled city of Derry, covered nine hundred acres and was occupied by more than twenty-five thousand Catholics—half the total population of “Londonderry.” Although there were some newly constructed flats, for the most part the Bogside and the nearby Creggan district, also Catholic, consisted of slums and tenements; substandard rental accommodations for people who could never hope to own their own homes.

  If they did not own their homes, they could not vote in local elections.

  In the Bogside, Barry chatted with unemployed men on street corners and women on their front stoops. Their humour was wry and irreverent, but there was a sweetness, a gentleness, about them in spite of generations of hardship. They deserve better than this. God knows, they deserve better than this.

  Toward evening Barry was walking along Eastway Road in the direction of the Creggan when he heard someone shout his name—his real name—and turned around in surprise.

  URSULA returned the snaffle bridle to its peg and massaged her shoulder, wincing as her fingers encountered a particularly sore spot. Damn it to hell, she thought resentfully. Her back, her knees, even her neck were often stiff in the morning, she who had been so agile. The right shoulder was the worst, though, a deep pervasive ache that robbed her arm and hand of strength.

  The two young geldings were the best horses produced on the farm in years. With their powerful hindquarters and bold way of moving, they would appeal to wealthy Americans looking for show-quality hunter prospects. If she could have them schooling over low rails by the time of the Royal Dublin Horse Show, perhaps she could sell them both for high prices.

  The geldings had been backed in the spring and accepted the saddle without major resistance, but they needed a lot of roadwork to muscle them up. More than that, neither one had much of a mouth yet. She would have to spend long hours in the saddle, fingering the reins with consummate skill, giving and taking and giving again, making constant microscopic adjustments of pressure until each horse understood the telegraphy she was transmitting. Somewhere along the way—because they were young and strong and full of life—one or both would rebel. If they did not have enough spirit to challenge her authority they would not have enough heart for a long day’s hunting.

  There had been a time when Ursula exulted in the feel of a young horse coiled like a spring beneath her. Matching her skill against his will. Using a subtle combination of strength and guile to convince the animal that resistance was useless. Then praising, rewarding, demonstrating the fun they could have together as long as the horse was obedient.

  Such training required that the rider be in top physical condition. A horse could detect the slightest weakness and take advantage.

  Ursula rubbed her shoulder again.

  There was no one else she could entrust with the two geldings. Their quality demanded a talented trainer, something more than a local farm lad who would be willing to trot them down the road. If only Barry were home …

  He was not as gifted with horses as Ursula, but under her expert eye he could have done the work. Instead she had just spent half an hour on the chestnut gelding, trying to convince him that she was in charge. But he knew better. He kept flicking an ear back toward her as if to read her mood, then setting himself against her hands. There was not enough strength in them to hold him. She had given up and turned him out into the paddock rather than risk an all-out battle that she was destined to lose.

  Slowly she trudged back to the house.

  Perhaps the shoulder would be better tomorrow.

  As consciousness returned Barry received messages of distress from the outposts of his body. His mind was adrift with pain. With a deliberate effort he plunged back into the dark pit, and escape.

  When he next opened his eyes he saw a balding man with the furrowed face of a bloodhound leaning over him. “How’re you feeling then?”

  “Fine as feathers,” Barry croaked in a voice he did not recognise as his own. When he tried to sit up, fire shot along his leg and exploded in his chest.

  The man eased him back down onto the bed. “You’ll not be going anywhere for a while. Just lie still, you’re safe enough for now.”

  Split lips and an aching jaw made it an effort to speak. “What happened?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me. I found you lying all in a heap in a doorway. At first I thought you were dead, but when you groaned I brought you straight here, I couldn’t leave you in the street. A job I had of it too; you’re a mountain, you are.”

  “Where are we?”

  “My house
. It’s only a stone’s throw from where I found you.”

  Focussing on the man bending over him, Barry saw a clerical collar. “You’re a priest?”

  “I am a priest. Father Aloysius at your service.” The man smiled, causing his face to fall into still more pleats. “From your accent, I’d say you’re from the south.”

  “County Clare.” Barry closed his eyes for a moment.

  “Clare. And your name is … ?”

  My name is … A cognitive struggle. “Finbar. Finbar Lewis.”

  “Shall I fetch a doctor, Finbar? Or would you rather go to hospital?”

  “No hospital,” Barry said quickly. Helpless in a hospital in Northern Ireland? No way. “How bad am I hurt?”

  “I think you have some broken ribs, there’s an almighty lump on the side of your head, and your left leg looks like it’s smashed.”

  “Jaysus.” A momentary nausea racked Barry. “It feels like that too. Plus there’s a terrible pain in my back.”

  “Do you want me to have a look?”

  “Please.”

  Father Aloysius eased Barry onto his side and pulled his clothing out of the way. Even the slightest movement hurt, but Barry gritted his teeth and made no sound.

  “Almost the whole of your back is black and purple,” the priest reported. “And there are some marks … you’ve been kicked in the kidneys by someone wearing steel-toed shoes, I’ve seen it before. They probably knocked you in the head, then battered you as you lay on the ground. It looks like you put up a fight before you went down, though. Your knuckles are badly bruised. All in all, I’d say you’re lucky to be alive. A weaker man might have died from a beating like this.”