“I tried it once. But I didn’t know how to work the machine.”
“Where was this?” Declan wanted to know. “There’s not enough grass around here to keep a rabbit alive. If rabbits eat grass.”
“It was at, em, Sandra’s summer place up in Nova Scotia. When I was visiting one time. Her father had this list of ‘chores’ for me. Old Worthington got a little frustrated and said to me: ‘Burke. Don’t you know anything but football, fucking and fa-mi-re-do?’ That was the first glimpse I had of a sense of humour in the man.”
“Brennan!” his mother exclaimed, but not without a hint of laughter in her voice. Declan smiled. “I wonder how Sandra is these days,” Teresa mused. “Lovely girl.”
Father Killeen walked in then. “What did I miss?”
“A story about this fellow’s old girlfriend.”
“Girlfriends, wives, you boys should try living my kind of life. You two wouldn’t last a week,” the old priest boasted as he picked up his glass and gestured first at me and then at Brennan. “No trouble for the likes of me, of course. A stint in the Curragh and hard time up north in the Crum, and you soon learn how to live without the comforts of female flesh. You boys are too attached to the worldly life, I can tell by the look of you.”
Brennan smiled broadly and hid it in his whiskey glass. His parents looked highly amused. But Maura couldn’t resist a little jab below the
belt. “I know what you’re saying, Father Killeen, but Brennan seems to have lived quite well without — what was it again? Starts with an F. Oh, right: football.”
†
The next afternoon Brennan contrived to capture Leo Killeen alone while Declan was occupied with a follow-up appointment at the hospital. Leo had spent his first night at the Burkes’ but was moving on to new lodgings, a rectory at one of the local churches. Before Declan left for the outpatient department, his son assured him he would deliver their guest to his new abode. Eventually. For now, though, Killeen, Brennan and I had another destination in view. We walked down to Queens Boulevard and entered O’Malley’s pub. It was a classic Irish watering hole, long and narrow, with the bar along the left side as you walked in and a narrow shelf along the right-hand wall. The place was done in very dark wood, the walls covered with framed black-and-white photos of boxers, pool players and other sportsmen. At either end of the bar was a glassed-in cabinet with more memorabilia. Ninety percent of the patrons were male, all smoking, and most of them were gathered at the front end of the pub; horse-racing was the subject of the day. Celtic music played in the background, but the regulars talked over it.
Leo brushed past the convivial group at the front and made for one of the high round tables at the back. The bartender called over: “And what can I get for you today, Father?”
Brennan started to answer, but the barman’s eyes were on the only man in the room sporting a Roman collar. Father Killeen ordered a whiskey for himself and Brennan and looked questioningly at me. I asked for a pint of Guinness.
“Where’s Mickey today?” Brennan asked the barman after he poured the drinks.
“At a wake over at Lynch’s. I said I’d fill in for him.
Sláinte!”
We raised our glasses, and the man returned to his duties.
“So, young Brennan, your father has been modest about his service to his country.” Leo took a delicate sip of the golden liquid.
“He keeps himself to himself, you might say,” Brennan agreed, sitting
back and fishing in his jacket for a pack of smokes. He offered one to Leo, who declined.
“It’s about time somebody spoke for the record then.”
It was as clear to me as it was to Brennan that Declan liked the record just as it was, a
tabula rasa
when it came to his history as a man bearing arms. But if Leo believed Declan had kept his son, and the rest of his offspring, in the dark out of a reluctance to boast of his military accomplishments, neither of us was about to disillusion him.
“Well, you’ve no doubt heard all about your grandfather’s exploits at the
GPO
in 1916.”
“I’ve heard a good sight more about my grandfather and grand-uncles than about my own father.”
“Your grandfather, Christy Burke, burned with the Republican fire and he was there on Easter Monday with Pearse, Connolly and the other patriots when they took over the General Post Office. Unlike the patriots, poets and scholars who were executed by the British, your grandfather walked away a free man — after a stint in Kilmainham Jail.
“As you know, our people regrouped. And the public, who had been indifferent during the Rising, were outraged by the executions. The Tan War, the Anglo-Irish War, followed. You’ve heard of the notorious Black and Tans, Montague, the irregular force the Brits sent over to do the dirty work.” I allowed as how I had.
“That’s when Christy Burke took up with Michael Collins.” The old fellow nodded at me, as if all Collinses the world over could share in the glory. “I don’t see any resemblance in you, Montague, but you’ll want to look into it nonetheless. Brennan here looks more like Mick Collins, in fact: tall, dark-haired, bit of the same kind of mouth. Collins was better looking.” Brennan laughed. “But then, he was a lot younger than you. Never made it to his thirty-second birthday, God rest him.
“Now, your father surely told you that he met Collins. Well, I say met, but it would be more accurate to say he was presented to the Big Fellow by his proud papa. Declan was three or four years old. The way I heard it, little Declan kept pulling at Collins’s trousers — one of those rare occasions when he was in uniform — and asking if he could see his gun! And Collins supposedly ruffled Declan’s hair and
told him he’d have no need of a gun by the time he was old enough to carry one.”
“And was he right?”
Killeen shot Brennan a piercing look. “Obviously we didn’t think so.” He looked away and then took a slow drink of his whiskey.
We listened as the music switched from laments played on fiddle, whistle and bodhran to rabble-rousing ballads recalling old victories and defeats. “Ah, the old tunes,” Leo remarked. “The Republican homes were where you’d hear the old Fenian songs. Even jail couldn’t silence our lads. Many’s the singalong we enjoyed under the noses of the warders back in the day. Your da loved a song. But what was most valuable about Declan was his ability to instill some discipline in the other Volunteers. He did a great deal of the training, with weapons and operations. There was no nonsense about him when he was working.”
“I’ll bet,” Brennan muttered.
“And he was a crack shot with a rifle.”
“I see. What happened?”
“Your father was ordered to, em, remove two traitors from our midst.”
“Who gave the order?”
“One of his superior officers.”
“You?” The old man glared into Brennan’s eyes, then looked down at his hands.
Dublin, 1950
“What am I doing here, Leo? Where is everybody? When you summoned me to the usual spot in Parnell Street, I figured the entire command would be here.”
“Never mind everybody else. I need answers from you, Declan, and I need them tonight.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“I’m asking the questions here. Tell me about the raid.”
“We headed north, crossed the border, entered the designated British Army barracks, lifted their entire supply of Lee Enfield .303 rifles, and returned to Dublin. ’Twas a grand time entirely.”
“I don’t like your attitude here, Declan. Give it to me in detail and tell me what I want to know. Don’t waste my time, or your own.”
“Am I runnin’ short of time, Leo? All right, all right. The five of us went up there at night in two cars. McCann was driving one of them. I was beside him. I did my intelligence work beforehand, so I knew the layout of the barracks and where the rifles were stored. We left the cars way down the road, crept round the back of the barracks, cut through the perimeter fence and approached the Nissen hut where the armoury was located. We waited for the two sentries to go on their rounds, and we entered the hut. The rifles were secured by a chain running through the trigger guards. Our lads were prepared for that; we had cutters with us. We got away with two dozen rifles. Not the most spectacular raid, but a successful little mission. The raid didn’t make the news, as far as I ever heard. I suppose the Brits didn’t want to announce to the world that their defences had been breached yet again.”
“There was another purpose to the mission, though, wasn’t there? We had incontrovertible evidence that McCann was an informer —”
“I know that, Leo. I did my duty with McCann. That happened some distance from the barracks, but I took him — took his body — back and deposited him on the road leading to the hut.”
“Good. He did us more harm than you’ll ever know and he was primed to do more. Did you give him time to make things right?”
“How in the hell could he do that?”
“Not with us. With the Man Above.”
“He said his Act of Contrition. Why are we alone here tonight, Leo?”
“You were given another order, weren’t you. You had two informers to eliminate, not just one. Tell me about the arms dump.”
“What about it?”
“You were supposed to go there with Quinn, stash the Lee Enfields, and dispatch Quinn while you were at it. What happened?”
“I drove out to Quinn’s house in Terenure. And what was going on but a grand old hooley inside, a birthday party for his oul fella,
turning sixty. Quinn’s mother invited me in, handed me a glass brimming with whiskey, and sat me down with the family. Quinn was in full flight on the fiddle. The wife was banging the piano so hard her arse was coming off the bench with every downbeat. Their little son was dancing and everyone was gathered round clapping and stomping their feet, and singing one of the old come-all-ye’s. Then the little lad — seven or eight years old he was — sang one of the old, sad songs in the most beautiful voice you’ve ever heard. There wasn’t another sound in the room, just everyone gazing at the wee child singing. Quinn picked him up afterwards, gave him a big kiss and danced him round the room.
“Then the Republican songs started up, and everyone joined in. That’s when I gave Quinn the eye. He stared back at me for a few long seconds as the music roared on around us. Then he bolted.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I didn’t make a move. I let him go.”
“You disobeyed your orders, Declan. You let a known informer get away. And here’s where it gets worse for you: Quinn found out, somehow, where the arms dump was and betrayed it to the authorities. So we lost all our hard-won weaponry from that dump. You look as if this is a surprise to you.”
“You’re fucking right, it’s a surprise. You’d better not be telling me you think I whispered to Quinn where our stash was.”
“You’re in the soup at headquarters, Declan. What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I let Quinn go.”
“Why?”
“Have you ever heard my little boy sing, Leo?”
Brennan took a long swig of O’Malley’s best whiskey, then busied himself with a cigarette. He didn’t look at me or Leo. He had to come to terms with something he had perhaps suspected all his life, and now knew to be true. I tried to picture the scene in the woods in Northern Ireland. Declan Burke with a gun, standing over “Benedict,” the traitor. A man who saw the hit coming, a man who was given the opportunity to say his prayers before his death. Did he beg to be spared? Wouldn’t we all? And the second informer. The
worst he got was a threatening stare. I knew what a look you could get from Declan’s icy blue eyes, even when he wasn’t staring you down as a representative of the Irish Republican Army. But he didn’t have a heart of ice; he couldn’t bring himself to shoot a man he had seen in the company of his wife and children.
“Those two men,” Leo said, “the informers, were guilty of the worst kind of betrayal. Terrible things happened to some of our lads as the result of their treachery. You have to understand that, Brennan.”
“Did the
IRA
believe my father had given away the location of the arms cache?”
“They did. Your father hadn’t given it away. He hadn’t taken Quinn there. But there were many in the organization who thought Declan was an informer himself and he’d tipped Quinn off about the weapons. The truth is, we just don’t know how Quinn found out. We’re a talkative race. Maybe somebody else was informing, or just let it slip when he shouldn’t have. Perhaps under the influence of drink. It’s right there in the
IRA
handbook now, you know. The Green Book. Volunteers are warned against ‘drink-induced loose talk and pub gossip.’”
“It’s an Irish movement after all,” I piped up.
“It is indeed,” Father Killeen agreed. “And we have to recognize that. Though I think the Stalinists were a little harsh in their judgement.”
I was even farther out of the loop than I thought. “What’s that, Leo?”
Brennan answered my question: “Joseph Stalin said he couldn’t take the Irish revolutionaries seriously because they hadn’t shot any bishops.”
Leo added: “That wasn’t all. A couple of Communist agents looking into the Irish movement back in the thirties apparently reported to headquarters that the Irish were ‘too Mexican’ to be good revolutionaries! So we’re not apparatchiks, we’re not robotniks!” The old soldier was still smarting from the wound.
Brennan prompted him: “You were saying, Leo, before Joe Stalin offended you —”