1949 (24 page)

By being officially unavailable, Ursula had managed to avoid seeing Lewis Baines before he returned to England. Although he left several messages for her at 2RN and even sent flowers, she did not respond.

“You're daft,” the other women in the station told her.

“He's not for me,” was all she said.

When she was certain Lewis had left the country—she rang the Shelbourne to be sure—she was glad. Part of her was glad. As long as he was in Ireland there was always the chance her determination might falter.

Using coarse language in bed was such a small thing; hardly enough reason to reject a man. So said her rational mind, and she agreed. Even having a wife in England was not the reason.

The explanation went deeper than that. Much, much deeper.

Thankfully she had something else to think about. The Irish public paid little attention to the Nuremberg rally, which was seen as the internal business of another nation, but Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia made headlines in all the Dublin newspapers.
Invasion
was a word the Irish understood. Men who had never thought of discussing international affairs with a woman began asking Ursula for her opinions.

When she proposed doing a documentary on the fascist regimes gaining strength around the world, the idea was accepted at once. Ursula Halloran would be the presenter. No one said her voice lacked sufficient gravitas.

True to Ursula's prediction, Eoin O'Duffy's leadership of Fine Gael had proved disastrous. A demagogue in an age of more gifted demagogues, he overestimated his own importance and alienated his constituency. Leaving Fine Gael deeply in debt, he had formed a new, more radical party with a handful of his most loyal Blueshirts. Without his influence Fine Gael returned to the ideals of the earlier Cumann na nGaedheal.

Ursula wondered if Finbar Cassidy was pleased.

From time to time she glimpsed him in the street; Dublin was a small city. They smiled and nodded and went their separate ways.

 

At the start of 1936 one item above all others dominated the news. King George V of England died at Sandringham on the twentieth of January. The king had been in poor health for years, but nevertheless his death came as a shock to his people.

Many in Ireland still considered themselves his people.

The following Sunday Ursula had dinner with Louise and Hector Hamilton. The late king was the sole topic of conversation. The wireless had made him the best-known monarch in history.

“How many times have we heard that dear, gruff voice,” Hector rhapsodized. “It brought him right into our parlor and made him almost one of us. With our own ears we heard him say, ‘I don't like abroad, I've been there.'”
¹

Ursula laughed. “King George will be remembered for that one quote more than any other because it was such a narrow-minded remark.”

Hector glared at her. “Are you insulting our king?”

The laugh curdled in her throat. “Not my king. George Windsor was never my king.”

 

BBC coverage of the splendid state funeral of George V was broadcast in Ireland, but could not match, for poignancy, an earlier and more private event. “After His Majesty's death at Sandringham,” an announcer related in somber tones, “the coffin was placed on a farm trolley and taken, at dusk, across the fields to the local church, while a lone piper played ‘the Skye Boat Song.' The king's body was followed by a dozen friends and estate workers, and his beloved gray horse, Jock, with an empty saddle.”

Ursula had not expected the death of the king of England would make her cry.

King Edward VIII succeeded his late father on the throne of England. To focus attention back on Ireland, Ursula helped present a radio dramatization of Eamon de Valera's escape from Lincoln Jail in 1919
²
—an escape in which Ned Halloran had played a small part.

 

Elections in February in the Spanish Republic brought the leftist Popular Front to power. They were unable to prevent the increasing disintegration of the social and economic structure. Although in a wireless broadcast to the people Premier Azana promised “liberty, prosperity, and justice,”
³
martial law was enforced in four provinces.

The right-wing National Bloc, led by General Francisco Franco, began conspiring against the new government. As army chief-of-staff, Franco had the support of the military. The possibility of a Spanish civil war added to the tensions building throughout Europe.

 

On the afternoon of March seventh Finbar Cassidy telephoned 2RN and asked to speak to Miss Halloran. When she came on the line he said, “The Nazis have invaded the Rhineland, Ursula. Unopposed, as far as we know. They began marching across the border before dawn. I thought you'd want to have the story without waiting to get it from the BBC.”

Ursula was so surprised to hear from him she needed a moment to regain her composure. “That was thoughtful of you, Finbar. Are you certain it's true?”

“We're certain. External Affairs looks on it as a significant development. Hitler's openly defying the Versailles Treaty that awarded the Rhineland to France. He may justify his actions by saying the territory was part of Germany originally, but who knows what he'll do next? For years he's been claiming the German people need more land. A lot more land.”

“I'll write a news bulletin immediately. Can I say the information came from a highly placed government source?”

“You can.”

“I appreciate this, Finbar.”

“It was nothing,” he replied before ringing off.

Ursula had her scoop on the air before the first news came through from the BBC.

While Eamon de Valera was giving his annual Saint Patrick's Day broadcast over 2RN, the transmission from the studio was suddenly interrupted by a clear, unaccented male voice saying, “Hello, everybody. This is the IRA!”
⁴

Ursula laughed out loud with surprise, then clapped her hand over her mouth as her colleagues exchanged shocked glances.

Government agents began scouring the countryside for hidden transmitters that could have been used in the sabotage. Throughout the day, Ursula smiled to herself from time to time as she went about her work.

Seven days later a grimmer news item was carried on the wireless. With a heavy heart Ursula prepared the announcement. “We regret to announce that Vice Admiral Henry Boyle, late of the British navy, has been shot dead at his home in County Cork by members of the Irish Republican Army.”

Once Ursula would have cheered when any member of the British military was slain. But that time had passed. There was something callous and brutal about shooting down a retired old man whose war was long behind him.

I hope it wasn't you, Papa. Please God, don't let it be Ned who pulled the trigger
.

On May 27 the 2RN newsreader announced, “Today marks the inaugural flight of Aer Lingus, the new commercial Irish airline service. The first flight will be from Baldonnel Military Aerodrome to Bristol in the United Kingdom, using a five-seater de Haviland Dragon called
Iolar
.”
^*

A de Haviland, like Lewis Baines's Moth
.

Damn him damn him damn him
.

 

On the twenty-fourth of June, Eamon de Valera officially declared the Irish Republican Army to be an illegal organization.

When she returned to her room that night Ursula went through the newspaper clippings she was saving and threw away every one referring to de Valera.

Damn him damn him damn him
.

But she kept on working for his government. Forcing her rebel soul to embrace the contradictions.

Lloyd George, the former British prime minister, visited Adolf Hitler in his mountaintop retreat in Bavaria and was deeply impressed with the man. When he returned to England Lloyd George wrote glowingly in the
Daily Express
, heaping praise upon the Fuehrer for his transformation of Germany. “The Germans are the happiest people in Europe,” Lloyd George stated.

Hitler continued to flex his muscles. Two years earlier he had sent Heinrich Himmler to Danzig to stage a Nazi parade with twelve thousand uniformed men, obviously intended to intimidate the new high commissioner, Seán Lester. As time passed Berlin had increased pressure on the Free City. By the summer of 1936 headlines such as
NAZI COUP FEARED IN DANZIG
and
HIGH COMMISSIONER DASHES TO GENEVA TO CONFER WITH LEAGUE OF NATIONS
were appearing in the world press.

 

In Dublin a special abattoir for Jewish meats was opened. A rabbi told newspapers covering the event that Jewish communities all around the world looked to Ireland as a haven of tolerance.

 

“August 1936 is a banner month for news,” Ursula wrote in her journal, “and the communications industry is at the heart of the excitement. The British Broadcasting Company has begun transmitting talking pictures on television! They are not available here, of course, but Fliss writes that the pictures look something like rice pudding with raisins. The Radio Corporation of America has been experimenting with television technology for several years. Scientists predict that television will replace the wireless but not many people believe them. Except me. I think the nature of magic is to evolve.”

 

That month the Olympic Games opened in Berlin to record crowds. Within three years of taking power, Hitler and National Socialism had transformed Germany. Visitors to the Games were awed by the grandeur of the facilities and the enthusiasm of the people. When German athletes won thirty-three gold medals, Hitler proclaimed it a triumph for Aryan superiority. But the undisputed star of the Games was non-Aryan and very black. American Jesse Owens won an astonishing four gold medals. As the vast crowd rose to salute Owens after his victory in the 200-meter sprint, Adolf Hitler pointedly left the stadium.

Also in August, the Irish government designated Aer Lingus as the national airline. Planes were based at Collinstown Airfield north of Dublin, a facility previously used by both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force. Irish wits promptly dubbed the national airline “Air Fungus.” Those with a bawdier turn of mind, the wild pagan past still existing under the sanctimonious surface, sniggeringly referred to “Cunni Lingus.” But not in public. Not where a priest might hear.

The new national airline attracted little public interest, for by that time General Franco had broadcast a rebellion manifesto and Spain was engaged in civil war. Franco's Nationalists against the government's Republicans. Photographs of burnt-out buildings began appearing in the world press. Churches and convents were reported under attack. The
Irish Independent
informed readers that the bodies of murdered Catholic nuns were lying on the sidewalks in Barcelona.
⁵

Catholic Ireland was outraged.

 

Sometimes it seemed that the fighting had become more important than the winning. A way of life, an end in itself. Against the horrific background of kill or be killed there were occasional moments of sensual and intellectual clarity that Ned Halloran never experienced in any other way. They acted upon him like a drug. He suspected other men had the same experience. “We fight, therefore we are,” he scribbled on the flyleaf of the notebook he always carried with him.