by Jodi McIsaac
Nora relaxed into the sofa. Black-and-white photographs stood on the mantle over the fireplace. Jesus smiled benignly at her from a frame on the wall. Years had passed since Nora’s last visit, but her aunt’s sitting room hadn’t changed since she was a kid.
When Margaret was twenty, she had met and married a man from Dublin. Nora and Eamon had visited her a few times as kids, but the relationship was strained by Margaret’s disapproval of her brother’s politics. After Nora’s da had been killed, the visits to Margaret had stopped altogether. But even though they weren’t close, Nora had always been interested in this stately woman, who always wore her hair up and made the best scones Nora had ever tasted.
“Where’s Uncle Peter?” Nora asked when her aunt came back into the room. She gratefully accepted a cup of tea and a scone.
“He’s down to the races today,” Margaret said. “I’ll not be expecting him back ’til after tea. So what brings you to Dublin? Last I heard you were in some war zone in Africa.”
“Sudan. I’m on ‘rest and relaxation.’ It’s mandatory every few months for humanitarian workers. Helps us keep our sanity.” She attempted a smile but ended up grimacing into her teacup.
“Ach, aye, I can imagine. Have you been up home, then?”
“Just for a couple of days. A friend of mine died, so I went home for the funeral. But there was another bombing, and . . .” She hesitated, not sure how to explain her abrupt flight from Belfast. “I don’t know. I just felt like getting out.”
Margaret nodded soberly. “I understand. I felt that way when I was younger than you, so I did. I don’t know why any sane person would want to stay.”
“Love of their country, I suppose?” Nora said with a wry smile.
“Ach, well, there are other ways to love your country than blowing people up. Our family has a long history of warring with our countrymen, ever since O’Reillys were kings of Breifne. Some thought it was treason for me to leave the way I did, like I was turning my back on generations of O’Reillys. Anyway, you didn’t come here to talk politics, I’m sure.”
“Actually, I’m interested. Ma never talked much about Da’s side of the family. I barely remember my grandparents and don’t know much about them.”
Margaret cocked an eyebrow. “You sure you want to open that can of worms? I have to say I wasn’t surprised when your da signed up, nor young Eamon. Rebellion is in the O’Reilly blood, so it is. Maybe your ma didn’t tell you the stories because she didn’t want you following in their footsteps.”
“What stories?”
“The O’Reillys have been Volunteers for a long time, to be sure. The 1916 Rising, the Tan War, the Civil War . . . You name it, we were there. And we paid for it in blood. We’ll need another pot of tea for this. I’ll put the kettle back on.”
Margaret bustled back into the kitchen. Nora stood and stretched, then crossed to the bookshelf. She’d never looked closely at it before, but her fingers trailed the spines of the books as if they were searching for something. She stopped on an old leather-bound photo album on the bottom shelf. A small burst of dust erupted when she drew it off the shelf.
“What’s that you’ve found, now?” Margaret said, coming back into the room with a fresh pot of tea.
“I saw it on your bookshelf,” Nora said, embarrassed she’d been caught snooping. “Mind if I have a look?”
Margaret peered at the book in her hands. “Ach, I haven’t looked at that one in years. I inherited it from one of my aunts. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen some of these faces.” A wistful look flickered across her face.
Nora sat down beside Margaret and opened up the photo album. Black-and-white faces stared up at her as she leaned in closer. “Are these all O’Reillys?” she asked.
“Some of them, aye. This here is my aunt Sheila. She married a Moynihan.”
“What is she wearing?” The photo was of a young blond woman dressed in a stiff dark jacket with shining metal buttons and a brimmed cap. A leather strap crossed her chest, and she wore a brooch in the shape of a rifle.
“She was Cumann na mBan, the women’s branch of the Republican movement. This was during the Tan War, you see.”
Nora squinted closer at the picture. Every Irish child knew about the Tan War, the bloody War of Independence against Britain that followed the failed 1916 Rising. It was called the Tan War after the Black and Tans, a particularly barbaric auxiliary group recruited in England to help the British-run police force in Ireland. The entire country had descended into guerrilla warfare, and the fighting had only stopped after a treaty was signed with Britain. Rather, the fighting against the British had stopped, and the fighting between the Irish had begun. The Anglo-Irish Treaty had given Ireland Free State status—meaning it was still part of the dominion of Great Britain, but with its own government. For some, this was enough. Others would settle for nothing short of a completely independent Irish republic. Nora suspected which side the O’Reillys had been on in the Civil War that followed the signing of the treaty.
“What was her role in the war?” she asked, pointing at the picture.
“Oh, she never said. Not to me, anyway, or my parents. Most Cumann na mBan were dispatch carriers who helped move arms, care for the wounded, things like that. But some fought right alongside the men. After the Civil War, Sheila got married, had five children, and, as far as I know, never breathed a word of her wartime activities to anyone. But I reckon she had a story or two to tell.”
Nora turned the page. Two young men stood side by side in a black-and-white photograph, their faces smiling and their arms around each other. They were standing outside a whitewashed cottage. Both were wearing suspenders, white shirts, and caps, and each had a cigarette dangling from his fingers. “That’s your grandfather,” Margaret said, pointing to the man on the left. “My da. And that’s his younger brother, Roger. This must have been taken before Roger went to Dublin.”
“Why did he go to Dublin?”
“Well, you have to remember it was all one country back then, so it wasn’t unusual to move around for work. But Roger was a soldier through and through. Da never talked much about him, except to say he was a prison guard for a time. He died quite young. Here, the date’s on the back. April 4, 1923. It’s a shame and a pity.” Aunt Margaret crossed herself absentmindedly.
She kept turning pages, stopping to point out relatives and tell Nora what little she knew of their lives.
“Wait,” Nora said suddenly, driven by some impulse she couldn’t name. “Go back a page.”
Margaret obliged, and Nora’s teacup rattled on its saucer.
It was the man from her dream.
His eyes stared out at her from the page, and she heard his voice in her head. Come find me, Nora. It was unmistakably him—his nose, his cheekbones, even his prematurely gray hair. Nora stared back, her heart in her throat. Was this really happening? Had he led her here, to this photograph in her aunt’s living room? She shivered despite the warm cup of tea in her hands.
“Are you all right, dear?” Margaret asked, looking between Nora and the photo.
“Who is this?” Nora whispered, unable to tear her eyes away. “Who is this man?”
“I have no idea,” Margaret said. “A friend of my father’s, I assume. Let’s see if there’s anything written on the back.” She gently prized the photograph from the corner tabs holding it to the page. Scrawled on the back in faint writing, it read: Thomas Heaney, IRA. Killed in action, 1923.
Chapter Six
Margaret forced another cup of tea on Nora and closed the photo album, laying it on the coffee table.
“Can I keep this?” Nora asked, still holding the photo of Thomas Heaney. She’d searched through the rest of the album for other pictures of him, but this seemed to be the only one.
“I suppose there’s no harm in it, but are you going to tell me what this is about? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Maybe I have. “Are you sure you don’t know anything else about this man?”
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“I told you, I have no idea, save for what it says on the back. But it seems to me that you know something about him.”
“I don’t,” Nora admitted. “It’s just . . . I saw him in a dream. Several dreams, actually. He looked exactly like this. I’m sure it was him.” The longer she stared at the picture, the more certain she felt. He had the same look of longing in his eyes, as if he were far away . . . or wished to be.
Margaret crossed herself and muttered, “Mary, save us.” She took the photo from Nora and examined it, then handed it back. “’Tis never a good sign to dream of the dead. But perhaps you’ve seen his photo before and have just forgotten.”
Nora shook her head vehemently. “No, I’ve not seen him before. Only I’ve been dreaming about him for months now. He’s even spoken to me.”
Margaret’s gray eyebrows arched. “Oh, aye? And what did your man have to say?”
Haltingly, Nora told her aunt about how the dreams had increased in clarity until the man—Thomas Heaney—had finally spoken to her and told her to find him in Kildare. “I wasn’t even supposed to come back to Ireland—I had planned to go to Kenya for my break. But the same night he told me to go to Kildare, I found out my friend had been killed. So I came home instead.”
Margaret watched her warily but said nothing.
“Then in last night’s dream, we were in a stone courtyard, surrounded by high stone walls. There was blood on the ground. There was the sound of guns being fired, and then I woke up.”
“Well, I don’t pretend to know what it means,” Margaret said slowly. “But there’s a fine museum down at Kilmainham Gaol. That’s where many of the political prisoners were kept during the Tan War and the Civil War. They might be able to tell you more about this Thomas Heaney, if he was IRA.”
Nora reread the inscription on the back of Thomas Heaney’s photo. Killed in action, 1923. “Do you think he was killed at Kilmainham? Is that why I had that dream?”
“I’ve no way of knowing, do I? But it’s a possibility, I suppose. The Free State executed dozens of IRA Volunteers. O’course, the IRA killed their fair share of Irishmen, too.” She shook her head and glanced up at Jesus on the wall. “A dark, dark stain on our history, if you ask me. And it’s still going on in the six counties, so it is.”
“It seems pretty far-fetched that I would dream of someone who’s been dead for decades,” Nora said, changing the subject. “Maybe you’re right; maybe I saw this photo in Da’s things when I sold the house.” But would she have remembered his features so perfectly from a single glimpse at a photo? Something told her the explanation wasn’t anything so simple.
“Why don’t you go down to the jail and see if they’ll let you have a look at the records? You can find out if he was a prisoner there,” Margaret suggested.
“Maybe . . .” Nora considered this. “But the records might not even be there. You don’t happen to have a computer, do you?”
“Me?” Margaret laughed. “I’m too old for that.”
“Auntie Margaret, you’re not even sixty,” Nora said reprovingly. “But it doesn’t matter. I can go to the library later on.”
“This has gotten you quite tied up, hasn’t it?” Margaret’s eyebrows were knit together.
Nora blushed and got to her feet. “No . . . I’m just interested, that’s all. It feels strange to know so little about one’s own history. Maybe the dreams were just a sign that I should learn about this man. He could be related to us somehow.”
“And maybe they mean absolutely nothing at all,” her aunt countered. “Why would the Lord put such things into your head?” Nora had been wondering the same thing. Margaret patted her cheek. “I’ll say a prayer for you. But don’t let it upset you too much. You’ve had a lot to deal with lately; it’s no surprise your mind is spinning.”
“I won’t. I should get going, though. Thanks for the tea. And the scone was delicious.”
“Ach, not at all, dear. Come and visit anytime. How long are you on this break?”
“It’s supposed to be a couple of weeks. But I might go back early.”
“Well, you’re welcome to stay here; I hope you know that.”
“I do,” Nora said with a smile. She kissed her aunt’s cheek. “But I’m better off alone just now. I’ll let you know if I find anything more about this Thomas.”
“You do that.”
Nora walked a couple of blocks to the bus stop but then decided to keep walking the rest of the way to the city center. It was an unusually fine summer day—and such weather begged to be enjoyed, particularly in Ireland. Besides, she needed time to think. She kept pulling the picture out of her purse to look at it. She turned it over and over in her mind as she walked, replaying everything she could remember from the dreams, as well as what she knew about the Civil War.
An hour later, she found her way to the public library and logged on to a computer. Her search for “Thomas Heaney IRA” turned up nothing. She scrolled through pages of results, but nothing seemed to match the man and date from the photo. Perhaps her aunt was right, and she’d do best to visit the Kilmainham Gaol museum. She plucked a brochure for the museum out of a stand near the entrance of the library and studied it for a moment. The sun shone on the sidewalk outside the glass doors. Tourists and locals flooded the streets. The economy was thriving, and for the first time in Ireland’s history more people were moving to the country than were leaving it. It really is a beautiful country. I should see more of it.
She was so close to Kildare . . .
Don’t be ridiculous.
She read the Kilmainham brochure again. Maybe the courtyard from her dream had no real-world equivalent. On the other hand, there was a chance the museum would have photos of some of the prisoners. It wouldn’t hurt to check.
She boarded a bus and a few minutes later disembarked at the gates of the jail, a harsh, ugly stone structure framed by tall, leafy trees on an unassuming street. A crowd of American tourists was just getting off a large green tour bus. She stood at the back of the group as they filed in through the front entrance. Barred windows winked down at her as she shivered in a sudden chill breeze. Carved into the stone above the open doorway were five twisting dragons with wide, rolling eyes, their necks held in place by heavy chains. She was reminded of a Chinese fairy tale she’d once read. A painter created stunning depictions of dragons for a new temple, but he refused to draw the eyes because doing so would bring the dragons to life. The emperor ordered him to draw the eyes, awakening the dragons and causing untold destruction. She could almost picture these scaled figures breaking their stone chains and taking flight over Dublin.
“Intimidating, aren’t they?” A young man wearing a red Office of Public Works shirt nodded up at the snakes.
“What do they mean?” Nora asked.
“It’s simple enough. Murder, rape, theft, treason, and piracy—the five serious felonies back when the jail was built.”
“Cheery,” Nora muttered as the line inched forward. She paid her admission fee just inside the door. “I’m looking for a particular courtyard,” she told the woman at the desk. “All right if I just have a look around?”
The woman shook her head. “Access is by guided tour only, though you’re free to visit the museum for as long as you’d like.”
“Right,” Nora said. She pulled Thomas’s photo out of her purse, already feeling ridiculous. “And I’m wondering if this man was ever a prisoner here . . .”
“You’d have to make an appointment with Archives,” the clerk said, already accepting a credit card from the next person in line. “Talk to one of the museum staff.”
Nora frowned, disappointed, then took her receipt and caught up with the American tourists. She followed them through a narrow corridor lined with books for sale, then into a large square room filled with displays and exhibits. But before she had a chance to look around, the next tour was announced and she hurried to join the group.
The young guide smiled at the guests and beckone
d them closer. “Welcome to Kilmainham Gaol,” she said in a bright, clear voice that belonged on a stage and not in a prison. “My name is Liz, and I’ll be your guide today. If you’ll follow me out these doors, our first stop will be the chapel, where we’ll watch a short video.”
Nora tagged along with the group, half-listening to the tour guide and craning her neck for anything that might remind her of Thomas or her dreams. They watched a short film about the history of the jail and some of its more prominent prisoners, but Thomas wasn’t among them. Then they toured the old section of the prison, three floors of claustrophobic corridors, cramped cells, and peeling paint. As they rounded a corner, Nora noticed something written in large block letters on the wall above a barred window: “Beware of the risen people that have harried and held, ye who have bullied and bribed.”
Nora shivered, frozen in place for a moment, then hurried to catch up with the group. She listened as Liz told them about the dark, desperate years of the Great Famine, when people would purposefully commit crimes in front of the authorities. They knew they were guaranteed at least one meal a day in prison, which was better than starving to death on the outside.
How bad must it have been, to want to come to this place?
Next they were onto the East Wing, which Nora recognized from the film In the Name of the Father. The soaring ceiling gave it an open, airy feeling that reminded her of a cathedral. It was shaped like a horseshoe, with cell doors all around the outer edge on three levels. An iron staircase descended from the third floor down to the main level, where they stood. Liz explained that this layout had allowed the wardens to see every single cell at once. Nora craned her neck with the rest of the tourists, scanning the three floors to see if this was true. Then her eyes fell back on the iron staircase, and her hands flew to her mouth.
Dozens of women were descending the staircase, but not willingly. Soldiers dragged them by their hair, slamming their heads against the iron rails as they pulled them down. One of them landed at Nora’s feet, and she stepped back, nearly colliding with the man standing behind her. The woman on the floor looked up at Nora, blood running into her eyes. Her lips were clenched together. As Nora watched, the woman rose and charged at the staircase, only to be tackled and wrestled to the ground.
