Authors: Jean Grainger
The lines of worry that had creased Cynthia’s face disappeared as she took Patrick’s hand and they climbed the stairs.
Chapter 24
Bert sat in his room and kicked off his shoes. What a day! What an eye-opener it had been to learn all about the history of this island. He’d been so distracted and enthralled by all of that, he’d barely had time to think about the real reason why he was in Ireland in the first place. The tour had never been anything other than a cover for his real plans. Now, however, the entire project had been catapulted into the back seat as a result of all this other stuff going on. Insofar as he had had time to give it much attention, he had come to the conclusion that no one individual in the tour group had emerged as a candidate just yet, but he wasn’t unduly concerned about that. There was still time to spare. He badly needed a nap but decided instead to power up his laptop, to check in with the others for a few minutes, see how things were going. Smiling as he keyed in his password JUTUS. He checked who was online: Chin Li, Harry and Ibrahim. Good, he thought.
“Status report?” Bert typed. “In process,” replied Harry.
“Delivered. Awaiting next,” responded Ibrahim.
“Nothing yet,” replied Chin Li.
Bert turned off the laptop and was asleep in less than two minutes.
Chapter 25
Ellen O’Donovan sat in the small parlour off the kitchen as she and Sean pored over piles of old photos. In her hand she held a small black and white photo of a young woman smiling at the camera. It was her mother. Ellen knew how fortunate she was to have such a precious thing, given that cameras had been a rare enough commodity in Ireland at the time. This particular photograph carried the name of a photographic studio in Cork on the reverse side.
‘I always knew you’d come back y’know,’ Sean said. ‘I don’t know why exactly, but I just had a feeling that somehow you weren’t finished with us.’
‘I don’t have very much information really. All my father told me was that my mother died and that shortly after that he brought me to the States. When he died, I found some letters that you had written to him. That’s how I knew to come to Inchigeela. I’d like to know more about my father…about what happened…if you’re prepared to tell me.’
Sean settled back into his easy chair and fixed Ellen with a penetrating gaze.
‘Of course my memory isn’t what it used to be,’ he said, ‘and God knows it was all a long time ago now. I was only ten years old when the two of ye left, but I’ll do my best to give you the full story. In as much as I know it anyhow.’
He paused, staring into the fire for a few moments, before continuing.
‘Tom was involved with the IRA, the old IRA I mean, not that shower of criminals – the Continuity IRA and the rest of them – that exist nowadays. Well, I suppose Mammy and Daddy were like most people around here that time. They didn’t like the British being here. They didn’t like the way they treated the people, but they thought the best thing to do was to try to stay out of that whole business as much as they could. “Keep your head down, work hard and mind your own business.” That’s what they always used to say. Michael was the eldest of us three boys, and ‘twas acknowledged that he would be getting the farm. I suppose it wasn’t fair, looking back on it, but that was how things were done around here for hundreds of years. So, we just accepted it.
‘As I’m sure you know, the tradition in a lot of Irish families at that time was that one brother would be sent for the priesthood. I think maybe Mammy harboured some notions in that direction for Tom, but if she did, she got nowhere with them because Tom had no interest in the church at all. I mean he went to mass and all that…the same as everyone else…but he didn’t show any signs of interest in the priesthood anyway.
‘At the time, we all worked on the farm together – children, women and all. There was no machinery much really, so almost everything had to be done by hand. Tom was great with the animals – strong as a horse. Tom and Michael never really hit it off though – they were too different I suppose. Michael was like my father in temperament – quiet and kept himself to himself – whereas Tom was always mad for a bit of action. As a young fella, he’d do anything for a laugh. He was great craic, always in trouble in school for all the pranks he played on the master, Badger Buckley. Even though he was a right divil, people liked Tom. He had a good heart,’ Sean paused again, and looked down at the photographs as if considering where to go next with his account.
‘After Tom had left for America, you wouldn’t believe the number of people who called up to the house with stories about all the fun they’d had with him. The old people in the parish had the best yarns. Tom loved old people and he used to spend hours listening to their stories about the old days. He had a great respect for them. But be that as it may, the big problem was that himself and Michael rubbed each other up the wrong way. Michael believed in hard work and not much else, and while there was no denying that Tom did work hard on the farm, Michael always thought he was too giddy, always thinking of mischief, mad for the bit of divilment. Anyway, one night there was a bit of a row between the two of them, the way brothers can have a go at each other sometimes. In the finish, it was decided that Tom would be better off working somewhere else.
‘Mammy was mortified, of course. To see one of her boys going looking for work and there a fine farm at home. But there was nothing to be done about it. After the fight with Michael, Tom was determined to go. Mammy was always worried about what the neighbours would think – sure what woman isn’t? Tom got a job in Kiely’s shop in Macroom, pulling and dragging stock mostly. They were delighted with him because he was a big strong lad and well used to hard work. He loved it, meeting everyone coming in and out of the shop and hearing all the news, and it seemed after a while that the new arrangement suited everyone.
‘Now at that time, even though we’re only fourteen miles from Macroom, most people only went to town once a month, if even that, so all the carry-on with the Auxies wasn’t that obvious to us. Tom saw a lot more of it, of course, because he was working in town. He passed them every day. He used to come home with stories about how they would push old people off the footpath, how rude they were to everyone. I remember one night he could hardly eat his dinner, he was so vexed. The story was that there was an old man who used to come in from Coachford direction to town, selling eggs. He was a harmless auld fella God help us…just trying to keep going the same as ourselves, and he had a word for everyone. Well, one day he had to go into the shop for a bit of twine to put around his bag because it had burst and he was afraid he’d drop the eggs. He left the bags of eggs outside the shop…everything was safe in those days…nothing would be robbed from you, and he got the bit of twine from Tom. Anyway, they had a bit of a chat and when the poor man went out he was fierce upset. Some soldier had stood on all the eggs and was laughing at the poor old man trying to save them. You might think that in the grand scheme of things that wasn’t much, but for Tom it was the thing that turned him. He couldn’t bear to see the way good hardworking people were humiliated by the British, and so that night he joined the IRA.’
Ellen sat mesmerised. The image of her father as an IRA man was very difficult to reconcile, but she was in no position to contradict her uncle’s story. Though she sometimes had trouble understanding his West Cork accent, she hung on his every word.
‘Mammy and Daddy had no idea about Tom’s activities at first. And, if they had, they’d have tried to put a stop to it for definite. Anyway, after a few weeks, they must have copped on that something was up. The thing they noticed was that Tom had started hanging around with the O’Driscoll boys and everyone knew they were up to their necks in the IRA. Their father had been put in jail for anti- British activity and they were following in his footsteps. They were from town and I suppose ‘twas them that recruited Tom really. He spent a lot of time with them and came home later and later in the evenings, sometimes even in the early hours of the morning. Daddy was very upset but, as usual, it was Mammy who was left to deal with it.
Daddy was like Michael; he didn’t say much. I remember her begging and pleading with Tom not to stay out late. ‘You’re only looking for trouble,’ she’d say to him. But she might as well have been talking to that wall over there, for all the good it did. Michael got stuck in him then, when he wouldn’t do as Mammy asked. But he wouldn’t listen to him either, so in the end, Michael said that Tom would just have to move out and that was that. He said he didn’t want his family drawn into anything just because Tom wanted to be a hero and play soldiers. I remember that night so well. I was only a child, sitting at the top of the stairs listening to this fight going on. I was crying because I didn’t want Tom to leave. He was great to me, always playing football with me or bringing me sweets on pay day. That happened in July, 1919, I suppose.
‘Well he left anyway, but before he did, he promised me he’d take me to the mart on the next big fair day. I loved going in to see all the cattle being sold and Tom would get me a bottle of lemonade and sweets and we’d stay out all day. He went to stay with the O’Driscolls in town, and while he was there I suppose he took a shine to Bridget. She was the only daughter of the house. I thought she was lovely. She had a great big, gutsy laugh that everyone around here used to find kind of infectious. That’s my strongest memory of her, always laughing and joking and everyone around her smiling. I suppose that’s why herself and Tom got along so well. She was small and dark with curly hair and a bit wild from having only brothers around her. Her mother died when she was young, so she wasn’t brought up too ladylike, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t rough or anything, no, no, no, nothing like that. She was just a bit of a tomboy I suppose. She used to play with me whenever they would collect me and take me on days out. Tom and Bridget were very good to me, so they were, the two of them.’
Sean stopped to take a sip of tea. ‘I suppose you must be thinking will he ever get to the point of the story?’ he smiled.
‘I can never express how much hearing all of this means to me,’ Ellen responded. ‘I want to try and remember every detail, every word. You can’t imagine how often I’ve dreamed of this moment. Actually, that’s not really true. Because I never dared to believe anyone would be able to tell me anything after so long. I really thought finding a headstone in a graveyard would be the highlight of my trip. So, please Sean, if you‘re not too tired, go on…tell me more.’
‘OK so,’ Sean began again. ‘Well, next thing we knew things started getting much worse with the British. They seemed to feel more threatened by the IRA, so they took out their frustrations on the people around here even more than they had done before. It was decided by the IRA that a guerrilla-style campaign was to be used against them and so the British started suffering small losses. By that time, they were rounding up anyone they even suspected of IRA involvement, so some of the lads had to take to the outdoors. Because it wasn’t safe for them to be found in one place, the best thing they could do was live on the run like.
‘By then Mammy and Daddy had accepted that Tom was going to do what he wanted, although they never said it mind you. Do you know, I think they were secretly kind of proud of him. I remember the night of our cousin Ann Creedon’s wedding, when the soldiers came in and hit Donal Creedon, Ann’s father, with the butt of a rifle. God, that was a terrible night altogether. They took loads of fellas away that night and roughed then up very bad. After that, anyone involved with the IRA had no choice but to go on the run, Tom included. They organized themselves into small fighting forces called Flying Columns and no-one really knew where they could be found. ‘Twas safer for everyone that way.
‘Bridget would cycle out from Macroom to visit us every few weeks, to see if we had any news of Tom, or to let us know if she had spoken to him or had received a letter from him. Tom and Bridget weren’t engaged or anything like that, but they had an “understanding” as it was called. I’d say Tom would have loved to have asked her to marry him at that stage…he was mad about her…but if the British thought she was connected to him, it would have put her in terrible danger. So the pair of them left that end of things alone.
‘Anyway, they did their best to keep in touch with each other but Tom knew he had to stay away, from their home places especially, for the safety of their families. I couldn’t tell you the amount of times the British came to the farm looking for him, shouting and roaring and making an awful mess. Being destructive just because they could, like. One time, a young soldier, only about eighteen or so, put me up against the milking parlour wall and threatened to shoot me if Mammy didn’t tell them where Tom was. She was great that day. She stood up straight, she was only five foot one, and said: “I don’t know where Tom is. I wish I did. Now, kindly let go of my boy. I’m sure your mother didn’t bring you up to threaten women and children.”
Her tone was so cutting, and the way she spoke so dignified, he did let me go. ‘Twas frightening all the same though.’
Sean took another sip of tea. His reticence to continue was palpable, Ellen thought, his mind debating how he would go about telling her the next bit.
Reading his mind, she said: ‘Sean, please don’t worry, just tell me the story as it is. I’m not as fragile as I look.’
Sean smiled sadly. ‘You are a perceptive woman Ellen O’Donovan, but then again you didn’t lick that off a stone. Your mother was the same. Well, the next big memory I have of Tom was a night out in the barn over beyond. Bridget and Tom were there, and Michael and Mammy and Daddy of course, as well as the two O’Driscoll boys. I wondered why everyone was out in the barn but I suppose they didn’t want anyone to see them from the road. Tom was a wanted man…and so were the O’Driscolls…so they were taking a huge risk coming out into the open, especially all together.’
Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘You see the thing was Ellen, the long and the short of it was that your mother was expecting and they were all trying to decide what to do about it. In those days, it was a terrible scandal, and the girls who found themselves in that position were locked away in terrible places, their babies adopted in America. Usually, the priest would get involved but not in this case. You see, the parish priest here at the time had spoken out against the IRA…he had family in the British Army during the Great War I think, and so he was very unpopular in the parish as a result.