Leon Uris (11 page)

Dublin was a he-man’s world, new pubs lined three deep at the bar, the sporting scene, and the new volatile Gaelic politics of Griffith’s Sinn Fein Party. Ladies of the Anglo-ascendancy—English-born but rising in Irish society—had their saloons, flower shows, and the theatre. Most Catholic girls learned their catechisms, bore the babies, and remained docile about all the worldly matters exploding around them.

Nonetheless, the Gaelic revival was giving birth to a number of extraordinary women cut from different cloth. Among the leaders were a group of Anglo-Protestants whose families had been in Ireland for generations and who finally came to a turn of conscience over British misrule.

None among them was more stunning or daring than Atty Moore, who, barely out of her teens, was fast turning into an Irish Joan of Arc.

On her twenty-first birthday Atty inherited the Barony of Lough Clara. No sooner had the ink dried on the documents than she renounced her title and canceled the debts of the tenant farmers. She sold the manor house and a few hundred acres that surrounded it to a retired British general.

Atty kept the cottage of Darby Murphy and the grounds of the horse-breeding operation, which had always been profitable.

The balance of the barony was given to the peasants along with an office of agricultural experts to help modernize operations and increase yields.

She spent the bulk of her estate to set up scholarships to Trinity College for worthy scholars among the peasants and villagers, and she established a unique girls’ school in Galway to teach job skills from which females had formerly been barred.

The last major grant was made for research into the scourge of tuberculosis in western Ireland.

Atty was ever on the run. If a rent-and-rate strike had been declared in Waterford, she was there. If an epidemic struck Cork, she was there. If unjustified evictions surfaced, she was there. She was there in the scummy cobblestones of Dublin’s Liberties to help abate hunger.

More and more she defied the Crown, speaking at rallies where patience was short and anger was great. At last she was jailed and it caused such an uproar she was released immediately…only to lead another illegal march and be jailed again.

Each time she came through the bridewell gate, she did so defiantly, as though it were her intention to be a guest of the Crown in every prison in Ireland.

After months of nonstop skirmishes or a stretch in prison, Atty would fall out of the scene, retreating to her cottage at Lough Clara. She could lose the Gaelic revival for a time, riding far up into the hills and bens, but the movement soon came after her.

In the cottage, often alone, she would allow herself memories of Jack Murphy and a rereading of their correspondence. Jack had been able to marry his lady after her divorce and he worked his way into an editorship and daily column for his newspaper. Sometimes he wrote columns about Atty, as her fame crossed the waters. Their
relationship continued until his end. Jack joined a group of explorers on an expedition to Canada’s Northwest Territory. It turned into a disaster when an unexpected spring blizzard struck above the Arctic Circle. Everyone died. Although she and Jack were an ocean apart, there was a safety net for her so long as he was alive. Her closest intimate contact, her only real lover, was no longer to be dreamed about. With that illusion gone, Atty felt mercilessly alone.

Dublin was a provincial place. The inner circle of the revival was counted in a few dozen who were constantly rubbing elbows with one another at meetings and saloons.

Atty had met Desmond Fitzpatrick, a formidable barrister who worked a great deal in London. It wasn’t until he moved permanently to Dublin to take on a series of court cases and she took the lead in a long-running new play that they had a chance to extend their time together.

Desmond Fitzpatrick, an early follower of Parnell, was in his late twenties, the scion of an old Norman Catholic family from the genre who had conquered Ireland for the English in the twelfth century. After a time the Normans integrated to become “more Irish than the Irish.” The Fitzgeralds, Barrys, Roches, Burkes, Joyces, and Plunketts became the mighty Earls of Ireland before they, too, were ground down under the Cromwellian heel. They had fared better than their poor Gaelic coreligionists, the croppies.

As the Catholics emerged from generations of darkness in the nineteenth century, those of Norman ancestry made up a large part of the Catholic middle and upper classes.

Desmond was a long fellow, some six foot four, and joked that he and Atty should be together more often
because they were the only two who could see each other over the heads of a roomful of Irishmen.

He was deeply moved by her performance in the new play
Elvira the Hackler.
The drama decried the horrors of the linen mills of Belfast. Atty ranged from a gallant and spirited rebel to a wasted drunk with tuberculosis, made worse by the linen dust and slimy wet floors of the mills where the hacklers-worked barefoot.

Atty owned this play and her audience. Nothing onstage could take the focus from her, she was that dominating. On that special night Desmond Fitzpatrick leapt to his feet leading the chorus of bravos as Atty, bowing low, arid the curtain fell to the stage floor simultaneously. Desmond fancied himself a bit of an actor, as did most barristers. They balanced one another marvelously as players offstage. Atty had the raw rage and power of a warrior while Desmond Fitzpatrick had the wit and cunning of a Shakespearean conspirator.

His early career was as a Land League lawyer, defending the tenant farmer with notable success. Even when Desmond lost a case, he shook things up.

Then came a stint in Parliament as a member of Parnell’s “Pope’s Brass Band.” When he returned to Dublin and the revival, he worked for years as the political liaison for the Irish Party until it became stagnant.

Dublin was it, now. Desmond reckoned he could take nips and bites out of the steel web of legal entanglement by which the British controlled the Irish.

He pressed a theory called “Victor’s Validation,” which claimed that one nation could not own another nation either under God’s Law or, more appropriately, under British Common Law. Using British precedents and landmark cases of Common Law against the British proved a nightmare for the judges. Each time Desmond won a point, he weakened the British legal position just a mite but meanwhile laid monumental groundwork, not only for the Irish, but for all colonized peoples.

To repay Desmond’s visit to
Elvira the Hackler
and pacify her own curiosity, Atty went to the Four Courts to watch his performance in a small but far-reaching case.

Using his robes like a toreador, his wig askew, Desmond played fox and hounds with Justice Lord Barwell until the judge was finally compelled to engage the young barrister on basic grounds of Common Law.

“Common Law,” Barwell fumed, “was not in place nor was it recognized as the law of the land until centuries after the annexation of Ireland was a fact. I don’t give a hoot, Mr. Fitzpatrick, if the conquest of a neighbor is even arguable. The joining of England and Ireland was accomplished prior to the acceptance of Common Law as the law of the land…period.”

“But, m’lord,” Desmond answered, as though he were watching Atty Moore from eyes in the back of his head, “the conquest of Ireland was illegal prior to Common Law.”

“Nonsense,” the judge retorted, aggravated that he had been baited into the discussion. “Ireland was ceded to England by the Vatican. Your Vatican.”

“Indeed, m’lord,” Desmond shot back before Barwell could close the subject, “history records that Nicholas Breakspear, the son of a priest, went on to become the only English pope in history. He took the name of Hadrian IV and gave the land of Ireland to Richard II in 1159 for the purpose of amassing kingdoms for his sons.”

“I don’t care who the devil gave Ireland to England, and it could have been to pay his gambling debts for all I’m concerned. A papal bull issued by Hadrian, whether he was English or Mongolian, legitimizes our presence here centuries before the adoption of Common Law.”

“Exactly my point, m’lord.”

“What point?”

“Hadrian could not give Ireland to England because he did not own it.”

“I appreciate your attempt to revise history, Mr.
Fitzpatrick, but we are at the point of wasting the court’s time and patience. Popes have been giving lands away since time immemorial and what’s done is done.

“I agree, m’lord,” Desmond answered quickly and tenaciously. “But it has been proved…I repeat,
proved
…that all land grants during the reign of Hadrian IV, including granting Ireland, were forgeries. These grants have always been contested, and the Vatican itself—the
Vatican
—had declared these grants as forgeries and, therefore, invalid. May I go on, m’lord?” And he did so without waiting for an answer. “In 1440 the papal aide Lorenzo Valla proved, beyond doubt, that the document granting Ireland to England was a forgery.”

The judge laughed. “Now just where did you get this stunning bit of information, Mr. Fitzpatrick? Perhaps an editorial by Griffith in the
United Irishman,
or maybe in some hidden vault under St. Peter’s Cathedral?”

“No, m’lord. In the London Public Library. So you see, one can legally conclude that England never owned Ireland and conquered it under a forged document. Therefore, all laws passed against the Irish, as well as all attempts to force a union with the Irish, are illegal.”

“Historical precedent, our centuries of presence here, outweighs any argument you have set forth. You are free to believe your fantasy, but not in my courtroom.”

“But, m’lord, once science solves a mystery, an ancient mystery, it is no longer an ancient mystery but a new truth.”

“Religion is a subjective force, not scientific law. It cannot be revised,” Barwell concluded. “All right, Mr. Fitzpatrick, your arguments fail to present anything compelling regarding the case before us. The prisoner murdered one of Her Majesty’s revenue collectors. In your petition you agree that the prisoner, one Mr. Fogarty, is indeed guilty of the aforementioned crime.”

“Yes, m’lord. Mr. Fogarty has refused to wear prison
clothing or adhere to prison regulations imposed on common criminals. He is a soldier and, thus, a prisoner of war. Mr. Fogarty bore arms against your revenue collector because he does not recognize your rule of his land and he bore them as a soldier of his own country against yours and is entitled—”

“That will be all, Mr. Fitzpatrick.”

“Sir, I wish a ruling on the principle of Victor’s Validation—that is, you have no rights in Ireland except those imposed upon us through use of arms.”

“
Bravo!
” Atty shouted from the rear.

“Remove that personage,” the judge said without looking up. The gavel banged. “Mr. Fogarty’s petition is denied. He is a common murderer.”

Desmond Fitzpatrick walked back to the table and lifted a thick bundle. “I have similar petitions for twenty clients who are now serving prison terms. None of these prisoners committed murders, but they do not wish to wear prison garb. I wish a ruling that the wearing of prison garb is restricted to murderers exclusively.”

Wham!
went the gavel. “See me in my chambers, Mr. Fitzpatrick.”

“All rise,” cried the tipstaff as Justice Barwell snarled his way from the courtroom. Lawyers for the Crown really wanted to avoid Fitzpatrick in the courtroom. This often made them settle civil matters in his favor out of court.

While the military and political and governmental and industrial powers of England held their own against the Irish, some bright young chaps like Desmond Fitzpatrick were making inroads through the use of the law.

Desmond and Atty entered Jury’s dining room to a round of applause and wended their way through handshakes and congratulations until they were secluded in a backroom booth.

Des made a hasty dispatch of a double Irish whiskey and allowed the rumble of battle to subside. Atty had not realized until she saw with her own eyes what a brilliant man he was. Good Lord, setting up poor Barwell on nuances of a faked papal bull then striking home at the heart of the matter, prison uniforms.

“Des, why is the prison uniform fight so vital?”

“Because we are establishing that the common criminal and the Irishman who fights for Ireland’s independence as a unique nation separate from England are two different men. By granting a republican prisoner-of-war status, the English would recognize that the Irish have a right to challenge their presence here.”

A second drink done in, Des heated up to the subject. “The grand strategy which is emerging is that the revival of the old language, the old sports, the speeches, and the plays defines us as a people different from the British. Our first line of attack is that Irishmen are Irishmen are Irishmen are Irishmen.

“The second flank of the attack is the Irish Party in the House of Commons, which also says that the Irish are a separate people. Meanwhile,” he said with finger pointing skyward, “we attack in the courts. We do this by turning their own law on them.”

“We’re not going to talk them out of Ireland, Des.”

“Yes, but for the time being, our only ammunition consists of words. We have been able to fend them off from destroying us as Irish because of our way with words, deprecating them, laughing at ourselves. But as we know, sticks and stones may break their bones, but words will never hurt them. Soon, Atty, the third line of our attack will have to merge. Military action.”

“The Irish Republican Brotherhood,” she said.

“The Brotherhood. Armed warfare. You see, if we can establish that the Irish are different, then the Irish have a right to their own army. The Brotherhood will either be that army or lead that army.” Desmond turned to the
menu in his hand, looked up at Atty, and said, “Nothing looks good on the menu, but let’s eat anyhow. Unless…you let me eat the icing off you. You look magnificent.”

And so it went, two revolutionaries in a curtained booth. Both intense, handsome people with fires in their bellies and courage to waste. One was male, one female, and in that instant they recognized that difference, as England was different from Ireland, in a manner of comparison.