The Rebels of Ireland (128 page)

Easter week passed quietly. He saw Caitlin briefly on Easter Saturday. Sunday was spent quietly at home. On Monday, they prepared to receive their guests in the afternoon. It was a little before one o'clock that a neighbour came to their house with the news.

“Something's going on in the city. They say it's a rising. A soldier's been killed.”

“A rising? Why-ever would anyone want to start a rising now?” It made no sense. Soon afterwards, further news came. They've occupied the General Post Office in Sackville Street. They've proclaimed a republic.”

“This is madness.”

But soon the word was everywhere. There was a rising. Something big.

“I'd best go over and collect Caitlin,” he said. “Make sure she's safe. It's not far to Fitzwilliam Square.”

But when he got there, he found no sign of her. Nor did she appear at all that day, or the next.

She hadn't even been sure she liked Willy O'Byrne at first. It was his cousin Rita who'd introduced them.

She'd met Rita at a meeting of the Daughters of Erin, and some other groups. Maud Gonne might be a society lady, but Caitlin liked the fact that her organisation contained all kinds of people, and that once you were in it, all questions of class seemed to disappear. Rita had worked at the Jacobs Biscuit Factory until the great strike of 1913. After that, they had refused to take her back. By the time Caitlin met her, she was an organiser for the women's union and a member of the Irish Citizens Army. She was often at the big union headquarters of Liberty Hall, on the northern quay near the Custom House. “You can easily look in there on your way to the Abbey Theatre,” she said with a laugh.

Despite its name, the ICA was a union group. Connolly had started it at the time of the strike, to defend striking workers from vigilantes hired by the employers; but it was a trained force nowadays, open equally to men and women. Rita had intrigued Caitlin; she was a small woman, with reddish hair, and inclined to plumpness. Caitlin instinctively liked her, and they had agreed to meet a week later. And on that occasion, Rita had turned up with her cousin Willy O'Byrne.

Looking back, Caitlin remembered that it wasn't Willy's dark good looks, or even his occasional intensity that had impressed her. It was his calmness and the quiet logic of his thoughts. They had spoken about the women's movement, and the union, but when they came to discuss the war that had recently started, Willy had been quietly uncompromising.

“Ireland, with the best of intentions, has made a huge mistake,” he said. “By Ireland, I mean Redmond and the majority of the Volunteers.”

When, in answer to the threat from the Ulster Protestants in
1914, the Irish Volunteers had been started, the response had been quite astonishing. In no time at all, there were over a hundred and fifty thousand men. Few of them had arms, of course, but they were ready to drill, and train, and make a fine show of themselves, just as their Patriot namesakes had a century and a half before. Indeed, so large were the numbers that the organisation seemed almost to overshadow the Parliament men. Nominally, at least, as leader of the parliamentary party, Redmond was at their head. When Britain had promised Ireland her freedom and asked for help against the Germans meanwhile, and Redmond had told the Volunteers that they should oblige, about a hundred and seventy thousand Volunteers had gone along with him. But a smaller group, about ten thousand strong, had refused. The Irish Volunteers, they'd called themselves, and clearly Willy O'Byrne was on their side.

“It's not that I don't understand Redmond,” he had quietly told her. “I don't even blame the thousands of poor Catholic boys who've gone to fight in the British army. It's just employment, for them, and Redmond's promised them that if they do it, Ireland will be free. But the whole business is a huge fraud, that's all.”

“You don't think that the British will live up to the bargain?”

“I don't. The Ulster Protestants won't let them; and the British like the Ulster Protestants and despise the Irish Catholics anyway. The best we can hope for is a divided Ireland, which is no solution anyway. Redmond doesn't want to see that, of course. Because if he can't achieve anything useful, where does that leave him?” He shrugged. “At some point you have to face reality. There's going to be a fight. It can't be avoided.”

There was something almost cold about him, she thought. Cold but compelling.

“The worst of it is,” he went on, “that by supporting the British in their war, we play into their hands. Our own Volunteers are obligingly getting themselves killed in a British war fighting the Germans. At the very moment when, because of the war, it would be the easiest time to kick the British out.”

“Perhaps the British will feel differently about us by the time the war is over.”

“Hmm. Have you considered another possibility? What if the Germans win? We might be better off having them for friends.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. Yes, she decided, his mind is very hard. He read her thoughts.

“It's better to face a harsh reality than delude oneself,” he remarked. “Besides, it's you women who are the practical ones. It's you who have formed Cumann na mBan to aid the nationalist cause. And when you did, not a single one of the branches voted to go with Redmond. You all supported the Irish Volunteers. So I leave myself in the hands of the women.”

Rita grinned.

“He's good, isn't he?”

He's in the IRB, thought Caitlin.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood were just as secretive as ever. There was no doubt but that they'd be in the Irish Volunteers, for instance; but you wouldn't know for certain who they were. She decided to challenge him.

“Are you in the IRB?”

He stared at her, evenly.

“Why would you ask?”

“Are you?”

“They never say, I've heard. So it would be pointless asking.”

“I'll tell you this,” Rita said with a laugh. “They won't have any women in the IRB, will they, Willy? He never tells me anything, you know.”

Willy shrugged.

“I can't tell what I don't know,” he said. Then he smiled at Caitlin. His smile was charming. “I've met you before, by the way. You were a Countess then.”

Rita looked at Caitlin, surprised. Rita shook her head. When she had joined the Daughters of Erin, she had stopped using her title. There were enough countesses about already, she had decided. One of
these was the leader of Cumann ne mBan, the Countess Markievicz, a flamboyant Anglo-Irish aristocrat who'd married a penniless Polish count, and who liked to wear uniforms and carry a revolver. The other was Countess Plunkett, whose husband, heir to a rich Dublin builder, had been made a Papal Count for his generous donations to the Church. The Plunketts and their children were prominent supporters of the various nationalist movements. Two countesses were enough, Caitlin had thought. She went by the name of Caitlin Byrne.

Willy reminded her of the occasion when he had met her at her uncle Sheridan Smith's house. “You were five or six, I think. You were sick.”

“I'm afraid I don't remember you,” she confessed.

“No. But I remembered you. By the way,” he added, “I work for Sheridan Smith. But I never discuss my politics with him.”

“Then nor will I,” she promised him.

She hadn't seen him for some weeks after that.

She had first put on the uniform of Cumann na mBan in May 1915. She was seventeen. The uniform was not issued. Many of the women made their own. Green tweed was prescribed: a long military jacket with big flap pockets, a long skirt, white shirt, green cloth tie. And the all-important pin brooch—the initials “C na mB” in gold, with a rifle through them.

She had kept it hidden from her mother in a suitcase, and worn a long mackintosh over it when she went out to the meeting.

The purpose of Cumann na mBan was auxiliary. They trained together in first aid and signalling. Many of the women learned to shoot a rifle also; and it was at target practice one day that she saw Willy O'Byrne again. He had come by to watch. As it happened, she had discovered that when it came to shooting a rifle, she was a natural marksman.” Annie Oakley,” the other girls called her. She found him standing behind her as she finished.

“Impressive.”

“Thank you.”

He gave her a look that was appreciative.

“The uniform suits you.” He thought for a moment. “Ever used a pistol?”

“No.”

“Try this.” He pulled out a pistol and gave it to her. It felt surprisingly heavy in her hand. “Here.” He took her arm and held it in position. “I'll show you.”

It took her a little time to master the technique, but after a few days of practice, she became quite proficient.

He had encountered her several times in the weeks after that. He would just stop by the house where they met; or if she had gone down to see Rita at Liberty Hall, down on the quay, she might find him there. He would speak to her in a friendly way, just for a few minutes usually; then he'd be gone. One day at the end of August, meeting her at Liberty Hall, he produced a sheet of paper and pressed it into her hand. “I had it printed,” he told her. It was a funeral oration for an old Fenian. It had been given by Patrick Pearse, one of the most inspired of the Irish language enthusiasts, who had done much to further the cause of Irish education. She could see why Willy O'Byrne had gone to such trouble to have it copied down and printed: the oration was magnificent. Many of its phrases struck her. He invoked the memory of Wolfe Tone. His words had the inspiration of another Emmet.” Life springs from death,” he urged, “and from the graves of Patriot men and women spring living nations.” But it was his final peroration that was the most memorable of all. The British thought they had pacified or intimidated the Irish. How wrong they were.” The fools! the fools! the fools!—they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

As he urged her to read it, she noticed a look in his eye that she had not seen before, and realised that, after all, he was capable of being moved.

Several times after that, during the autumn months, she was able to have quite lengthy conversations with him. Once, he even told her about his childhood at Rathconan, and how his father had tried
unsuccessfully to buy his tenancy from old Mrs. Budge. She told him about her own encounter with the lady. He was curious to learn that she would return in another life as a bird of prey. Perhaps it was this link with his childhood that quite often made him come and talk to her if he saw her in a crowded room.

It was a little before Christmas that he turned up at a meeting and afterwards beckoned her to one side.

“I have something for you.” He smiled. “A Christmas present.” He took out a carefully wrapped rectangular package and handed it to her. It was quite heavy. “Better open it when you get home. Don't let anyone see you.” Then he turned away.

In her room at home, when she had locked the door, she opened the box. She had already guessed. It was a pistol: a Webley, long-barrelled, deadly. And ammunition. She wondered what she could give him in return.

The next day, to her surprise, her mother had found her knitting.

“I thought you hated knitting,” she remarked.

“Just something that I promised to do for a friend,” she remarked. Two days later, it was done. Not a terribly good production, perhaps, but adequate. She saw him at Liberty Hall on Christmas Eve. “Here's your present,” she told him, with a smile. “Better not unwrap it here though.”

Early in the New Year, however, she was delighted to see him wearing the scarf she had knitted. It was green. It looked very well on him, she thought.

By now, it seemed to Caitlin, the Irish Volunteers were highly organised and well trained. They had branches all over the country. Their leader, a man named Mac Neill, kept them in excellent order. There was always the risk that the British authorities would clamp down on them; but so far they had obviously thought it wiser to do nothing. The people of Dublin were quite used to seeing their orderly parades. As for the women in Cumann na mBan, some were quite open, others preferred not to advertise their connection with the movement. She herself had never mentioned it to her mother or
Sheridan. On the pretext of going to an art lecture, she would often slip out in uniform. But she usually wore something over it. The servants knew, but said nothing.

One thing did strike her, however. Once, walking back from a meeting, pushing her bicycle while Willy O'Byrne walked beside her, they had been speaking of the considerable forces at the government's command. The British still had twenty thousand regular troops in barracks. In addition, there was the Royal Irish Constabulary. And ironically, there were also a considerable number of Redmond's Volunteers, who were supposed to be helping the British for the war's duration. When you thought of all these numbers that the British could arm, her question seemed obvious.