The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (15 page)

39

A
s Collins climbed the stairs to the Bachelors Walk office, he could hear a female voice on a rampage.

“Fookin’ British!” said Róisín in the loudest voice she had ever used on Eoin.

“I can’t argue with that,” said Collins, as he opened the door and threw his trilby hat on his desk and began taking his overcoat off. “With all that screechin’ I heard on the stairs, I thought yer man was pleasurin’ some Nighttown hoor.” Róisín turned beet red and was about to let Collins have it when the Big Fellow put his hand up in surrender. “Only, jokin’, Róisín,” he said, then gave her a playful faux punch on the jaw. For once, Eoin was speechless in front of his boss.

“They are so unfair,” snapped Róisín.

“Of course, they’re not fair,” said Collins. “That’s what makes them British. What, exactly, is your complaint?”

“I can’t vote in the general election.”

“And what’s the general consensus of the
Cumann na mBan
?”

“Connie is all upset. She wrote us from prison in England that we should make as much noise as possible.”

“Poor Connie,” said Collins in a voice that was not exactly rattling with confidence in the Countess Markievicz.

“What?” snapped O’Mahony, until she realized that Collins was needling her. With that, both Collins and Eoin burst out in laughter. “You’re a big jeer, you are, Mick Collins.”

“Róisín, love, I can’t help it. You’re too easy.” Eoin didn’t like the “Róisín, love” stuff, but he kept it to himself.

“Well,” replied Róisín primly, “I guess I am.”

“She’s a suffragette, without the suffrage,” offered Eoin.

Róisín was still peeved. “Who decided a woman has to be thirty in order to vote?”

“Probably some man,” said Eoin, helpfully.

“You bet it’s some fookin’ man.”

“How old are you, Róisín?” asked Collins.

“I’m almost nineteen.”

“Eighteen,” corrected Collins.

“How old are
you
?” Róisín shot right back.

“Twenty-eight,” said Collins.

“If you had my genitalia, you wouldn’t be allowed to vote either.”
Genitalia
, thought Eoin,
there’s that word again
.

“If I had your genitalia, I’d be in a different line of work!” replied Collins, getting a great laugh out of the room. “Róisín?”

“Yes?”

“Why vote once when you can vote twenty times?”

“Twenty!”

“I’m not jokin’,” said Collins. “We can get the
Cumann na mBan
ladies working all over the country. The victims of the famine will be voting this year!”

“We shouldn’t have any problem with this election,” opined Róisín. “The country is with us right now.”

Collins looked down at the young couple and added a dose of reality. “One, things change. Two, take nothing for granted. This is our chance. We are going to
crush
the British in this election, and we are going to work hard to do it. We will leave no stone unturned.” The intensity on Collins’s face was almost frightening. “This time, my young friends, Ireland will not be denied! And that’s that!”

Róisín and Eoin, paralyzed by Collins’s little speech, knew the British had, indeed, met their match.

40

C
ollins was a natural at electioneering. Although he liked to portray himself as only a humble “soldier,” he was, as he would prove in the years to come, a master politician.

With Eoin in tow, he hit the towns and fields of South Cork on market days, chatting up anyone who would talk with him, whether they were selling livestock or sitting in a pub. In one hamlet, he found a bunch of “ould wans,” as he called them, sitting on a bench in front of a general store. “Ah,” said Collins to Eoin, “the Banshee Brigade!” They were ancient, dressed in black from head to toe; only their wrinkled faces peeked out of their shawls. As he approached them, they were very quiet—until Collins turned on the charm.

“How are ya, missus?” he asked every one of them. “Aren’t we having fine weather, even for this time of the year?”

“We are, indeed,” one of them replied. “And what is your name?”

“I am Michael Collins, and I’m running for the Irish parliament—not in London, but in Dublin. It’s time we took control of Ireland’s future.”

“Yes,” the woman agreed. “
tUasal
Ó Coileáin
,” she added, addressing “Mr. Collins” in the Irish, “a real Irish parliament would be a great victory for poor ould Ireland.” Collins shook her hand vigorously at the smart reply. He was sure he had the people behind him.

“I’m glad you agree with me,” he said, bent over her like a question mark and still holding her hand from the shake, their eye contact intense. “Now, remember to vote for me on December 14th. Vote for the whole
Sinn Féin
slate, and we’ll be rid of these British hoors in no time!”

There was, at first, silence, and Collins looked horrified that he had let the word slip by his lips. Then the women began to laugh, and, since they were enjoying his indiscretion, he burst out with his own guffaw. “You’re the bold
garsún
,” the old woman finally said.

“I am indeed, missus,” he said, tipping his hat as they moved on. “There’s three votes there,” he said to Eoin.

“You think?” said Eoin, with a gentle tweak. Collins gave him his famous “look,” and Eoin smiled.

Eoin enjoyed these weekend trips to Cork with Collins in November and December, for it gave him a chance to view his mentor in his natural environment. It seemed Collins knew everyone around Clonakilty. It was a pleasure meeting Michael’s sister Mary and brother Johnny, and he enjoyed their immense hospitality. Michael was the youngest of the family, and his siblings loved telling stories of the naughty Michael and his youthful misadventures. The suddenly important revolutionary tried hard to turn the conversation around but with little success. It was easy to see how much love was spent on Collins-the-boy by his adoring family.

Back in Dublin, a lot of the politicking fell on Eoin’s shoulders. Candidates had to be found and put on the ballot. Voting rolls had to be reviewed to spot strengths and weaknesses.
Sinn Féin
reinforcements had to be sent from Dublin to troubled precincts throughout the provinces.

Collins was particularly interested in inflicting heavy casualties on the Irish Parliamentary Party. Its leader, John Redmond, had died earlier in the year, so the IPP was rudderless. But Collins had never forgiven Redmond for offering Irish support in Britain’s war without securing the enactment of Home Rule. And to compound the felony in Collins’s eyes, the IPP could do nothing to stop the conscription bill from passing. When conscription was passed, the IPP walked out in protest. Collins wanted to turn that walk into a full running retreat. From now on, he pledged, Irishmen would not be fodder for England’s international adventures. His plan for the IPP was annihilation.

Eoin, working out of the Bachelors Walk office, was inundated with telephone calls and telegraphs from all over the country. Collins had attached a sign to the wall: VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN. This time, it was no joke.

Sinn Féin
volunteers were dispatched to check the parish death rolls going back to 1915. With all the confusion of the general election, it would be very difficult for local officials to keep up with who was dead and who was breathing. Collins saw nothing wrong with the dead voting to bring democracy to Ireland.

Men of voting age were told not to shave for the next month. A good beard was worth at least four votes. First, there was the full beard (vote one); then just the mustache and goatee (vote two); then the mustache (vote three); and finally the clean-shaven face (vote four). Poll watchers who didn’t go along with Collins’s plans could be neutralized by showing them a Mauser bulge. This policy was particularly important in “swing” districts where
Sinn Féin
would have to fight for votes. Collins was leaving nothing to chance.

When the votes were counted, it was an overwhelming victory for
Sinn Féin
. They won seventy-three of 105 seats and swept the country, except for four counties in Ulster. The IPP was reduced from eighty seats to six.

“Now,” said Collins to Eoin, “the fun begins.”

41

“
L
ook what I found.”

Johnny Three held Eoin’s pocketwatch, dangling from its fob, in front of his wife. “Where did you find it?” asked Diane. “In the last suit he wore,” said Johnny. “It was in the vest, or the ‘waistcoat,’ as he always called it.”

“Boy,” said Diane, “that’s an antique. It might be worth something.”

“It’s priceless.”

“Priceless? Why?”

“Look.” Johnny held the watch in front of Diane and opened its lid. “Look at that.”

Diane took the watch into her hand and strained to read the inscription. “I can’t see it,” she said. “Let me get my glasses.”

“You’re getting old.”

“And you’re getting close to big trouble.” Diane dropped her spectacles to the end of her nose and read:

Eoin Chaombánach, a chara,
Do chara, Mícheál Ó Coileáin
Nollaig, 1918

“What does it mean? It’s in Gaelic.”

Johnny took the watch and squinted to see the engraving. Then he read:

“To Eoin Kavanagh, My Friend
From Your Friend, Michael Collins
Christmas, 1918.”

“That’s beautiful,” said Diane, getting tearful.

“That’s a beautiful piece of history,” agreed Johnny. “No one knew about the secret to this watch but me and my grandmother. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t. What was the big secret?”

“I think it was kind of the old man’s love bond with Collins.” Eoin paused. “He always carried it with him to remind him of Collins’s relentless tunnel vision.”

Diane took the watch back from Eoin, closed the lip, and kissed it. “I wish we’d never found that damn diary.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s just too heartbreaking for me.”

“Geez,” said Eoin, “I doubt it went down to easy for Grandpa, either.”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Diane, wiping an eye dry. “I just wish they all didn’t have to suffer so much.”

And suffer the Kavanaghs did. Christmas 1918 was to be their last holiday together as a family. Collins had headed to Cork for the holidays, and Eoin and Róisín decided to put together a Christmas dinner for the family. Da was delighted that the two of them were “courting,” as he liked to say. Mary and Dickie were brought home from their orphanages, and the barbershop at 31 Aungier Street came alive with children’s laughter, if only for a week. On Christmas Day, Róisín sent the entire family off to mass at Saints Michael and John’s down on Wood Quay, while she stayed home and cooked a fat goose. Róisín could do without the cooking, but any excuse to avoid mass was good enough for her. She had gone to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, she fibbed when they asked. Mary and Dickie were delighted that Father Christmas had brought them toys, but Frank was still his morose self. “Cheer up, grumpy,” Róisín had said to him, but he remained stale.

The whole clan sat down around the table in the flat above Castle Barbers. Before he carved, Joseph Kavanagh said grace and thanked the Lord—and Michael Collins—for rescuing his family from desperate poverty. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, “Please, Lord, protect this family in 1919,” as if he knew of a terrible foreboding.

Johnny laughed as he wound the old pocket watch. “What’s so funny?” asked his wife.

“Grandpa was the only man I ever knew who wore a wristwatch
and
carried a pocket watch. What an eccentric!”

“He sure was a stickler for time,” said Diane. “Nothing would piss him off more than people who were late.”

“And guess where he got that from?”

“Mr. Collins?”

“I’d
hate
to be late for the Big Fellow. You could be made permanently ‘late’ for being late.”

Diane laughed and then turned serious. “1919 will be bad, won’t it?”

“Diane, my love,” said Johnny, as he took his wife’s hand, “it won’t be nice.” He paused. “And what comes after that will be even worse.”