The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (17 page)

45

T
he
Dáil
met for the second time on April Fool’s Day. De Valera was appointed
Príomh-Aire
, or First Minister, and Collins was selected to be the Republic’s first Minister for Finance,
an Aire Airgid
.

With the politics of the day out of the way, Collins, with vehemence, got back to his primary task—intelligence. He summoned Ned Broy to the Bachelors Walk office. “How about a peek at those intelligence reports?” Collins asked.

Broy looked at Eoin and shook his head, “The boy.”

“That’s the boy,” said Collins, “who reads your intelligence reports.”

“Mr. Kavanagh?” said Broy with surprise.

“The one and the same,” said Collins.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Broy,” Eoin added.

“Call me Ned.”

“You can call me Eoin,” said the imp, and the three of them laughed.

“Now that we’re all grand pals,” said Collins, cutting to the chase, “how about me looking at those delicious files on the filthy Fenians.”

“I can’t take them out of Brunswick Street,” said Broy.

“Who said anything about taking them out?” responded Collins. “I’ll go in.”

“To Brunswick Street? You’re daft!” said Broy, and Eoin nodded his head in agreement.

“There is no place as quiet as the lion’s den when the lion is sleeping,” said Collins.

“Meaning?” said Broy.

“Meaning how about next Monday night? What’s that? April seventh.”

“Mick . . .” began Broy.

“Next Monday, Ned. I’ll be there at the wishing hour.”

“Bring candles,” said Broy. “And a gun.”

At midnight, Broy let Collins in through the back entrance on Townsend Street. “Did you bring the candles?” he asked Collins, as he unlocked the door to the DMP’s “Fenian Room.”

“I thought you were jokin’,” said Collins.

Broy looked exasperated. He exited the room and returned with a few old stubs of candles. “Do you at least have matches?” Collins fished in his waistcoat pocket and displayed his pack. “And gun?” Collins gave him a smile, indicating Broy didn’t have to worry about that. “Then,” said Broy, “you’re on your own!”

“Come back for me in three hours’ time,” commanded Collins, and a chill ran down Broy’s spine out of fear. In front of Collins was a treasure trove—all the files on all the boys in Ireland, England, the U.S., Canada, and even Australia. Never before had a Fenian had such access to such secret information. “These bastards,” said Collins, beginning to steam at the arrogance of the British. He took his notebook out and jotted down information. The British knew everything. Collins couldn’t believe that the rebels had even got this far with all the intelligence the British had collected on their organization.

Then he came across it—the file marked “Michael Collins.” They knew all about him, going back to his IRB days in London. It was all there, from the GPO to his incarceration in Sligo. “He comes from a brainy Cork family,” he read, and was finally forced to smile. Then he heard a ruckus out on the street. A window in the building had been broken, and some drunken soldier was shouting at the top of his lungs. Collins blew his candle out and sat there in the dark. The coppers went out and took the drunk inside, and Collins gave a sigh of relief. He lit the candle again and went back to his file. They even had a picture of him. Luckily it wasn’t very good. He put it in his pocket, a souvenir of his night in Brunswick Street.

He heard a key at the door. Collins blew again, and the room went dark. It was Broy. “Time’s up. Get the hell out of here.” As Broy let Collins slip out into Townsend Street, he asked, “Well, what do you think?”

“I think we’ve been fooked,” said Collins. “But I’ll promise you one thing, Ned. From now on, we’re going to be doing the fooking.” And with that, Michael Collins disappeared into the Dublin night.

46

T
he post on the morning of April 9 brought some much-needed fear to Dublin Castle:

CEASE AND DESIST FROM ALL POLITICAL ACTIVITIES
BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
YOU’VE BEEN WARNED

“I’m not letting any young scuts,” said Detective Sergeant Sebastian Blood as he read Eoin’s perfectly typed letter, “tell me how to do my duty!”

“What’s the matter, Sergeant?” asked Detective Constable Brendan Boynton.

“Who do they think they are!” Blood spat. “Threatening the Crown!”

“You got one of those letters, too?” said Boynton, holding up his own copy.

“Guttersnipes,” said Blood. “We’ll teach them!”

“Calm down,” Boynton soothed. “The boyos are just trying to show us they’re in the game.”

“This can’t be allowed.”

Blood had just been sent down from Belfast to harass the Fenians. He had all the qualifications that a smart, young RIC G-man going places should have: Presbyterian, the proper lodge, and, of course, a deep hatred for Catholics. This was the kind of man, they thought in London, who would eventually bring the nationalists to their knees.

Like Boynton, Blood was young for a job in the G-Division, but the British were rapidly discovering that they needed young men to keep up with the infant IRA. Blood—Boynton had learned from the few weeks that the two had worked desk-to-desk in Dublin Castle—was full of indignant bristle. His hatred of the nationalists was matched only by his love of clothes. He was impeccable from head to toe, and he liked to punctuate his Orangeman shibboleths by pounding his brass-handled walking cane into the floor
twice
. To Boynton, he was just the first in what was sure to become a long line of pompous Belfast RIC eejits sent to disrupt the rebels.

“It starts now,” Collins told Eoin the morning after his Brunswick Street adventure. Collins quickly dictated the two-sentence letter to Eoin. “Send a separate letter to every G-man in Brunswick Street and Dublin Castle.”

“How about Broy and Boynton?”

“Them, too,” said Collins. “We’ve got to keep their cover. I want to see the reaction. We’ll start roughing them up if they don’t resign. And we’ll eliminate them if they continue their intelligence work. We mean business,” said Collins, slamming his hand down on his desk to punctuate the word “business.” “Look at the shite I found,” he said holding up a typewritten telephone log.

“What is it?” asked Eoin.

“It’s a log of every telephone message that the RIC got during the Rising.”

Eoin went down the list line-by-line, then slowly looked up. “We know some of these people. They’re supposed to be on our side.”

“This is why we have to move now and move fast,” said Collins. “It’s the same old story—we plot rebellion, and the informers do us in. Well, that shite is going to stop, and that’s that. Remove their eyes and ears, and they’re impotent. Dead men don’t make telephone calls!”

At Dublin Castle, Blood continued his diatribe. “Who do they think they are? First a Rising, now a so-called
Dáil
.” Blood pronounced it “
Dale
.”

“
Doyle
,” corrected Boynton.

“What?”

“It’s pronounced ‘
Doyle
.’”

“I don’t bloody well care,” shouted Blood, “how it’s bloody pronounced! It’s an illegal assembly, and we have to put an end to it.”

“Easier said than done,” answered Boynton.

“We should imprison their leaders immediately.”

“We tried that,” reminded Boynton. “It didn’t work.”

“Shoot them!”

“Tried that, too.”

“Well,” Blood insisted, “we have to make an example out of
someone
!” Boynton turned his head away and was forced to smile. Collins would know about Blood’s reaction shortly and how he wanted to make an “example” out of someone. Boynton looked at the red-faced Blood again and almost felt sorry for him, for he didn’t know who or what he was up against—the newly appointed Minister for Finance of the Irish Republic, one Michael Collins.

47

E
OIN
’
S
D
IARY

I
have just spent the oddest week of my life with Eamon de Valera
.

Late last week, Mick came into the Bachelors Walk office and informed me that Dev needed an office for a short period, and he was going to give him the lend of the Exchequer Street one. He also informed me that I was going to go along with the office and be at the disposal of Mr. de Valera. I know it’s an honor to work for the First Minister, but I really wanted no part of it.

My “But Micks . . .” were ignored.

“Shut yer gob and keep yer ears open,” Collins said. “Is that understood?” I nodded. “Nothing about this office, your father’s shop, the Lincoln Gaol keys, or our intelligence gathering.” I thought it was a little odd, but I think Mick wants to keep everything close to the vest.

I was at the office on Monday at 7:00 a.m. to await Dev’s arrival from Greystones. I kept looking at my pocket watch, but there was no sign of him. Finally, at a quarter after eleven, the door opened, and this immensely tall, gaunt figure stood in the dark doorway. For a minute, my imagination ran away with me, and I thought it was Abe Lincoln, of all people. “Eoin Kavanagh?” the deep voice said to me.

“
Príomh-Aire!
” I said, referring to him as the First Minister of the
Dáil
.

“Yes, Eoin,” he said, examining me and the office all at once, “Minister Collins said I could use this office for a week or so.”

“Yes,” says I, “Mick—eh, I mean the Minister—told me you would be coming.” I still can’t get it in my head that Mick is the Minister for Finance.

“Very well,” he said. “Is that my desk?”

“Yes,
Príomh-Aire
,” says I, “that’s your desk.” I showed him to his chair, where he sat down without taking off his coat jacket and began going through a briefcase. He didn’t say a word to me for the next half-hour. I went about my usual business.

“Eoin,” the deep voice broke the silence.

“Yes,
Príomh-Aire
.”

“What exactly do you do for Minister Collins?”

“Oh,” I said, as innocently as possible. “I do Mick’s—I mean the Minister’s—messages. Just the regular stuff. Make his tea. Go to the post office for him. Run his errands all over town.”

“I see,” said the First Minister.

“Would you like a cup of tay?” I asked hopefully.

“No, thank you. Are you still in school?” he asked, in a way that made it clear that he was a schoolmaster through and through.

“No,” says I, “I haven’t been to school in years.”

“I see,” he said, rather coldly, I thought.

“How long have you worked for the organization?”

“Since Easter Monday.” I saw that I had piqued the First Minister’s attention.

“Where?”

“Jacob’s and the GPO.”

“I see,” the First Minister said. “Do you see yourself going into politics?”

I was about to say, “Well, maybe, after Mick and I get the British hoors out of Ireland!” but I thought better of it. “Maybe someday,” I simply replied.

“If you are a young man,” said the
Príomh-Aire
as if he were lecturing a calculus class, “going in for politics, I will give you two pieces of advice—study economics, and read
The Prince
.” I nodded. “Do you know what
The Prince
is?” I shook my head. “It is a political science work by Niccolò Machiavelli. Have you ever heard of him?”

“No, I haven’t,” I replied honestly, thinking that he sounded like an I-talian chipper I knew down on Cork Street.

“He was a political scientist. He has no peer.”

I nodded numbly, and, with that, the First Minister rose and went out to his lunch. I jotted down some items in my notebook to relay to Mick later.
Príomh-Aire
returned after his dinner and went to work on the phone, sometimes speaking in Irish so I wouldn’t know what was going on. Over the next couple of days, many of his cronies came to see him. Seán T. O’Kelly, our man in Paris for the Versailles Peace Conference, stuck his head in the doorway and called out, “Chief!” They huddled together for an hour, whispering so low that I could not make out what they were saying. Cathal Brugha also stuck his head in, looking for “The Chief.” I was even surprised to see Robert Briscoe, Mick’s gun purveyor, pop in, looking for “My Chief.”

“He’s right over there, Mr. Briscoe,” I said.

The only man I knew more than casually was Harry Boland. He’s like Dev’s aide-de-camp or something. There was a lot of talk about America when Harry visited, and I have a feeling the
Príomh-Aire
won’t be hanging around Dublin much longer. Harry bade me goodbye and said, “I’m off to America to scout the Chief’s trip.”

“Harry,” admonished de Valera, like it was a big secret that he couldn’t wait to get out of Ireland and get to America.

“How’s Miss Kiernan?” I asked.

“She well,” said Harry. “I hope that Mick will take good care of her while I’m in America.”

“I’m sure he will,” I said, with more vehemence than I should have. Harry looked like he was going to say something but then just smiled.

“Harry,” de Valera said again. I think he was getting upset with all the talk of America.

“Ah, Chief,” said Harry, “you can trust Eoin. He’s the Big Fella’s Little Fella!” I blushed at the compliment, but
Príomh-Aire
looked at me suspiciously.

That was the first time Dev had heard the term “The Big Fella.” Several of Collins’s mates stuck their heads in during the week and said, “Is the Big Fella about?” “Where can I find the Big Fella?” “Will the Big Fella be at Vaughan’s tonight?” I discreetly directed them away with as little information as possible.

“Eoin,” de Valera said to me.

“Yes,
Príomh-Aire
.”

“Who is this ‘Big Fella’ that everyone seems to be looking for?”

I was dumbfounded. “Why, that’s Mick,” I said, and Dev looked confused. “Minister Collins,” I corrected myself.

“I see.” De Valera was quiet for a moment. “So Minister Collins is ‘The Big Fella.’ He must make quite an impression on people. A Napoleonic nickname!”

I was tempted to tell him that Mick had a Napoleonic nickname for him too: “The Long Hoor.” But I thought this might not be the time and the place.

On his last day at the office, he told me that I didn’t have to call him
Príomh-Aire
or “First Minister” anymore. I was thrilled. Was it going to be “Eamon,” or perhaps “Dev,” or maybe even “Eddie,” as I’ve heard some of the men refer to him?

“Eoin,” he said, “you can call me ‘Chief’!”

“Geez,
Príomh-Aire
,” I said. “I mean, thanks, Chief!” And, with that, the Irish First Minister got up and left the building, obviously hot for America.