Authors: James Lawless
I learned from the diaries that in the early years of its independence, Ireland, as a distinct entity, simply did not exist in the eyes of British diplomats abroad. Patrick argued that if Ireland could give formal recognition to the Franco government before Britain did, it would distinguish her from Britain and thus give extra weight to her independent status. Besides, the Vatican still maintained diplomatic links with Spain, and Ireland did not wish to contravene the Pope.
The Irish language was used as a diplomatic code, as nervous British envoys attempted to read Irish correspondences, particularly in German contexts.
From 1937 onwards, Patrick continued to campaign for Franco’s recognition. He spent most of the days writing
letters to interested parties. Every word he wrote contravened his own personal convictions:
If lies are repeated often enough they can take on the semblance of truth. There was a danger of succumbing, of being swept away by all the jargon, of losing one’s self.
***
De Valera refused to give early recognition to Franco. In a state of despondency, Patrick referred to himself as nothing more than a ‘marionette, whose strings are manipulated across oceans.’ The wiry politician played all his cards with other nations very carefully. ‘In the world of diplomacy,’ he maintained, ‘haste can prove fatal.’
In his mountain quarters, Patrick Foley had plenty of time for reflection. He related to my mother:
Spain is a country of extremes: snow-capped mountains, sunburnt earth; anarchist, fascist; chaperoned courtship, unbridled prostitution. In politics they all hold their opposing beliefs so passionately. They see no contradictions. No dark side. How does one rule people who are so passionate in diversity? The taking of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
She replied that there was ‘no hurry to have children in a world like this, even if God were to bless us’.
No hurry to have children!
The phrase made him fret. His moroseness about mortality, now heightened by war, made him obsessive about having an offspring. ‘No hurry! No hurry!’ he repeated.
But can words reveal total truths about a person? Are they not shackled by their own rules, thus limiting what they can convey? He confided to his diary of the many routes to unfaithfulness, and the clearest one was ‘through the tunnel of loneliness’. Some Irish saint – Colmcille he thought – described exile as ‘a form of dismemberment,
but the wound is unseen’.
November 1937:
A bitterly cold night. A snow storm outside my quarters. All sorts of strange howls and screeches – animal or human I don’t know – outside in the woods. A loud banging at my door. A terrified young girl appeared before me. She looked about twelve or thirteen. She pleaded with me to take her in, to give her refuge. Her uncle, she said, had fled over the mountains. The Guardia Civil were hot on her heels. Through the light of the oil lamp I saw her tremble. She had an old sack around her shoulders. I took her in. I stoked the fire. I put her to bed.
At about one a.m. I heard banging once more. It was the guardias civiles – two of them – looking for rameras and other creatures of ill repute.
I said that I had not seen anyone. I showed them my documents and claimed diplomatic immunity. They could not demand ingress. I had to shout. It affected my breathing. They looked at me suspiciously. A grin at my stoop. I told them that their positions could be in danger if they broke the laws of international diplomacy. I pointed out that they were in alien territory. They laughed, but when I demanded their identification numbers, they hesitated and eventually backed off. I heard shooting soon afterwards and wondered if it had been the girl’s uncle who had been shot.
The girl, L, sleeps. She is very pretty; her hair is so soft in my hands. Her little breasts rise and fall carrying each breath so precariously.
When she awoke, she stared at me for a moment with huge brown eyes. Then she wanted to thank me in a physical way for saving her. I thought of M. She said her uncle keeps her and other ‘nieces’ in an apartment in Barcelona. She repeated again and again that I was kind, and that she
would have to go as soon as the weather cleared. My offer to assist her with transport was rejected. She would not tell me where she was bound. Fear was written all over the poor creature. She was a child made woman before her time.
The following morning the weather cleared. I gave her some provisions and she went on her way. My quarters had acted as a house of shells and I was thankful I had preserved a life.
***
When Gearóid MacSuibhne was sentenced to death by Franco in 1938, my mother wrote to Patrick and asked him if he could do anything on Gearóid’s behalf. Patrick had no happy memories of MacSuibhne, but he was an Irishman in danger abroad, and Foley was the diplomat. Besides, de Valera had also sent official instructions that every diplomatic effort should be made to intervene if the lives of any of his former IRA colleagues were in jeopardy.
What is a diplomat? He is one who lies for his country. He is a weaver of words, a splitter of hairs, a surgeon of logic. Irish republicans argued he is a superfluity – Ireland has no colonies, so why does it need diplomats?
Patrick, in a world of snow and ice and fresh mountain air, saw the duties of his profession clearly:
We must not consider the actor or the role as pre-eminent. The sashes, the swallow-tail coats, the black silk hat, the appellation, the wining and dining, the chandeliers; the silver cutlery sometimes shine too brightly and blind us to our purposes, which must always be the ultimate interests of our country, especially her consolidation as an independent and sovereign nation. Perhaps M’s words about me are true when she sees me in such regalia: I am just a ‘stuffed shirt’.
***
In 1939 Patrick Foley was instructed to return to Madrid to attend Franco’s victory march. This was taken to mean in diplomatic circles that Ireland recognised the dictatorship, something which Britain had not done. The outcome of such action was that Ireland was now seen as an autonomous state on the international stage.
It was enough to make the embassy typist, señora Martínez, enquire why that rare phenomenon, a smile – albeit a wry one – registered on Patrick’s face.
Some days after the victory march, Patrick Foley was seated with two German agents at an open-air café near the Prado. He was watched carefully by two British agents across the road. Patrick records the meeting, but does not record the content of their conversation.
In an attempt to save MacSuibhne’s life, the Irish legation had proposed to de Valera that perhaps a trade deal could be made with Franco. As Spain was in danger of isolation from many countries, she would be glad of any help she could get from Ireland. In fact some Spanish diplomats had suggested an alliance of the Catholic countries, Spain, Italy and Ireland, to stand firm against the communist threat. Patrick Foley expressed his frustration when a trade deal was rejected by de Valera and Franco, both of whom he referred to as ‘stubborn mules’.
MacSuibhne could not be granted a pardon. Was Franco afraid of losing face? Patrick argued that American prisoners and those of other nationalities had been released. The counter argument was that MacSuibhne was not merely a republican soldier, but was now perceived as an international terrorist linked to Basque and Catalan anarchists.
However, there was the possibility of a break through German lines. Franco was dependent on Germany, and that country wanted to make use of IRA men in its planned onslaught on Britain. The compromise was that
MacSuibhne would be allowed to ‘escape’, just as they had allowed the ‘escape’ of another Irish officer, Frank Ryan, some time previously.
Gearóid was to be driven to the Spanish border, where he would ‘break free’. Patrick asked if there was a guarantee that he would not be shot in the back. The agents told him that no such guarantee could be given; the alternative was to leave him in prison where he would surely die. A car would be waiting for him at the border which would take him to Germany, where he would join other IRA men, including Frank Ryan. From there they would plan an invasion of Ireland (
Operation Dove
) which would synchronise with the Führer’s planned onslaught on Britain (
Operation Sealion
). Patrick’s role was to go to Burgos prison and brief MacSuibhne about the plan.
Patrick knew that while de Valera (who was acting as both foreign minister and taoiseach) might go along with a simulated escape, he would not accept an invasion of Ireland, firstly because he had declared Ireland’s neutrality in the event of Britain’s war with Germany, and secondly because the IRA had already been proscribed in Ireland.
I find a second letter which my mother wrote to Patrick, again pleading with him to attempt to save Gearóid’s life.
On the journey to Burgos the embassy driver, Javier Jiménez, hardly spoke a word. Patrick records how he frequently went into sulks as a way of expressing disapproval of what they were trying to do. ‘He is a fascist at heart and dangerous in more ways than one.’
Patrick describes the prison:
As the prison door was pushed open by a guardia civil, a shaft of sunlight, like a search light, pierced the dark cell seeking signs of life. A cough was heard before anyone could be seen. I heard a rustling sound and looked down on the dirty straw floor to see two bodies crawling like
reptiles towards me. The guard banged the door closed and brandished an oil lamp. There was no window or ventilation in the room. The smell was nauseating. G lay before me, bearded, unkempt with a wild look in his eyes. His left leg was in a splint. I wondered was F making a mockery of us by having a leg of the ‘escapee’ broken.
He recognised me instantly. ‘I can’t run anymore,’ he said in Irish.
The other man was small and thin and coughed frequently.
‘His name is Jesús,’ said MacSuibhne. ‘There is more than one Jesus in Spain, you know?’
I looked closely at the Spaniard. At first I thought it was dirt, but as my eyes adjusted to the light, I realised it was congealed blood which clung to the wrists of Jesús.
G, refusing to speak in English, started to ridicule me, alleging that I wasn’t a real man. I don’t think he realised how deeply those words plunged. He said that I was nothing more than a lackey dressed up like a peacock, that diplomats were traitors, that they failed to secure the thirty two counties. G hurls words like grenades; there can be no hiding, no nuances, no ambiguities with him. His sort of nationalism is transparent, but I’m at a loss to know what drives him. What holds up his part of the sky? Is he an anarchist or a patriot, or some sort of Utopian socialist or a Robin Hood? How can ideology be so strong in such conditions? Are such men as G fundamentally different from religious martyrs?
The soul condemns the body.
***
Diplomacy involves engagement with
realpolitik
, with subterfuge and secrecy. It is cold and subterranean. It shrivels beside the high flames of idealism.
Nevertheless, Patrick Foley, diplomat, persevered in the weaving of words.
I told G that I was merely a clerk who talked to other clerks. However, it was only when I explained how recognition of a country’s embassies played a vital role in managing to get international recognition for our fledgling state, that he began at last to converse seriously with me. He told me that, unlike him, I wasn’t putting myself in danger, and that he was here to gain recognition for an international republican brotherhood. I told him I was here because my wife (mo bhean) interceded on his behalf.
‘Do bhean?’ he said and grinned.
For years I’ve listened in silence to the raucous ridiculing of the cuckold – the butt of many jokes here in Spain – and now my fears are being compounded in the presence of this man.
***
Patrick Foley was puzzled, not by the courage, but by what he calls the ‘effrontery’ of MacSuibhne in the face of death:
Why did he not cower down or pull at my sleeve and beg to be saved? Perhaps when one extinguishes other lives so easily, one places little value on one’s own. He stared at me knowingly. His confidence in relation to M made me feel that there was some secret between them to which I was not privy. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder, but rather more distrusting. I feel like a person who has arrived too late at an important event. Childhood bonds cannot be broken, not even by adult institutions, not even by marriage. I feel like Edgar to G’s Heathcliff.
I tried to rise above the attempted slurs. I told him my
instructions were to accompany him to the French border at B, whence he would be escorted by the Gestapo to Germany. There it was intended he would join up with other members of the ‘movement’ who were planning Operation Dove. My job was to explain the dangers, that it could be double-cross – ‘the generalisimo is capable of anything,’ I whispered, interjecting into my own statement, while staring at his splint. He could be shot in the back while supposedly escaping. And there would be nothing we could argue against the Spanish head of State who was not putting himself at risk. There were no guarantees. But on the other hand there was no alternative either.
‘Danger is no stranger to me,’ he said.
The guardia civil returned carrying crutches made of wood so rough they looked like they had just been hacked down from a tree.
My heart grieved that we had to abandon Jesús in the dark cell. MacSuibhne protested, but I told him they were orders.