The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising (28 page)

74

“
W
elcome to the Dardanelles!”

Diane and Johnny were standing in front of Whelan’s Pub at the corner of Wexford Street and Camden Row.

“So, this is it,” said Diane.

“Yes,” said Johnny. “It runs all the way to the Grand Canal in the south and up to Dame Street in the north, connecting the Portobello Barracks to Dublin Castle. You can see how important it was to the British back then.”

“And important to Michael Collins.”

“And Grandpa, too,” said Johnny. He took Diane’s hand and walked a few paces into Camden Row. “That’s number forty.”

“So?”

“That’s where Grandpa was born. That’s where his father’s barbershop was between 1894 and 1910—before his finances went south.”

“So this is Grandpa’s neighborhood.”

“Deep to his gut,” replied Johnny, “he knew every inch of it. He also represented it in the
Dáil
until the day he died. Come on,” he said, taking his wife by her hand. They started walking north, entering Aungier Street. He pointed out a derelict building on the corner of Digges Street. The only clue to its past was the battered Smithwick’s sign hanging above, indicating that it was once a pub. “That’s where Dick McKee’s Monaghan sniper worked—great view down into Wexford and Camden Streets.”

They walked past the Dublin Institute of Technology, and Johnny continued his dissertation. “Do you know what that once was?” Diane shook her head. “That was Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, where it all began for Grandpa.”

Johnny could see that Diane was beginning to get overwhelmed by it all. “I can’t believe how intimate it all is,” said Diane. “History on almost every corner.”

“And ‘intimate’ is a good word,” said Johnny. “The one thing people forget about the Dublin street war is how close-quartered it was. Basically, Collins was picking a fight with the British Secret Service in what would be the size of New York City’s Greenwich Village and Chelsea, combined, and daring them to destroy him. This was hand-to-hand combat!”

Soon they were standing directly across from 31 Aungier Street, which was now a Polish grocery store, another sign of the times. “I can’t believe it’s still there,” said Diane.

“The only tenement to survive on the block,” added Johnny. “Pretty creepy, eh?”

“Grandpa had mystical powers.”

The day started on a sour note when Diane had confronted Johnny with a hearty, “You lying sonofabitch!”

“What did I do now?” demanded Johnny.

“You knew about Grandpa.”

“Knew what?”

“That he was a murderer.”

Johnny turned angry. “Grandpa was not a murderer,” he said. “My grandfather was a soldier and a patriot, who helped established the Irish nation. What he did was entirely within the rules of war.”

“But you knew,” Diane insisted.

“I didn’t know for sure,” said Johnny. “Grandpa was always circumspect about the whole thing. Not even in America, where it might have gotten him votes, did he reveal he was in Collins’s Squad. He didn’t even give a witness statement to the Irish government when they were soliciting histories back in the 1940s and ’50s. It was his secret, and although I was suspicious, I respected his privacy.” Diane gave him a kiss to make up. “Come on,” said Johnny, “we’re going to town. I want you to know how it felt to walk in Grandpa’s shoes.”

After arriving at the Westland Row DART station, Johnny walked Diane to St. Stephen’s Green, shot down Montague Street from Harcourt Street, and began his little tour.

“It’s a remarkably unremarkable building,” said Diane.

“Would you believe it’s eighteenth-century Georgian architecture?” Diane shook her head. “It’s been made a ‘protected structure’ by the Dublin Corporation—basically, a historic building. They can’t tear it down. I’m sure my great-grandfather would be impressed!” said Johnny, laughing. “It’s been remade over many, many times, of course.” The bricks were covered by a cream-colored, stucco-like surface. Johnny figured the fragile house remained standing only because of the strength of its latest coat of paint. “When it was built, both King George III and George Washington were alive. Think of that! I get a lump in my throat when I look at it,” Johnny said, and Diane squeezed his hand hard, “because that’s where my great-grandfather was murdered, and that’s where, I know now, my own grandfather avenged his death.”

“This little city has our family in its grip, doesn’t it?” asked Diane. “Even after almost a hundred years.”

“It does, indeed,” said Johnny. “Come on—let’s go for a walk.” They held hands as they walked down Aungier Street. At the Carmelite Church, they made a left and walked down to Golden Lane. “This is where the Piles Buildings were. As you can see, nothing exists of them anymore. Everything was torn down around 1980. It must have been a horrible eyesore by then.”

Then Johnny laughed. “What’s so funny?” asked Diane.

“I was thinking of the Duke of Clarence.”

“Who was he?”

“Queen Victoria’s grandson.”

“Oh,” said Diane, now laughing herself, “this has to be good.”

“Well,” said Johnny, “the young Duke and his father, the Prince of Wales—who would later become King Edward VII—were visiting this very site in 1885. It was one of those annoying visits where royalty meets and greets the great unwashed. Anyway, they were shaking hands when some ould wan tossed the contents of a chamber pot on top of the Duke’s pristine head. The Dublin poor had spoken!”

Diane laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s wonderful!”

“The Duke was quite a guy,” added Johnny. “Do you know he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper?”

“No!”

“Yep,” replied Johnny, with some satisfaction. “Died of syphilis. Always looked a little light in the boots to me, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh,” said Diane, “you’re so bold! And you get such satisfaction from such information.”

“The only duke I ever liked,” said Johnny, sincerely, “was Duke Ellington.”

Johnny led her up Stephens Street, and they emerged on South Great Georges Street. At Dame Street they crossed and turned left. Before they came to the City Hall, they turned down Cow Lane. At the bottom, they found what remained of Saints Michael and John’s RC Church.

“This is where it all began,” said Johnny. “My whole family is linked to this dead church.”

“It’s closed?”

“For a long time,” replied Johnny. “It’s a shame. It’s the oldest Catholic Church in the city, and it was the first Catholic Church to ring its bells after Catholic emancipation. Now it’s waiting to become a theatre or something.”

“You really hate change, you do!” laughed Diane. “You’re nothing but a historical stick-in-the-mud!”

“Go ahead, mock me,” sighed Johnny, “but our family history was made in this church. And,” he added, “this is where Grandpa visited on the morning of Blood’s assassination—and maybe the reason he had such mixed feelings about the church.”

“Did he? I thought Grandpa liked the clergy,” protested Diane. “He once told me that he always kissed the Cardinal’s ring on St. Patrick’s Day because it was worth a thousand votes!”

“Yeah,” said Johnny, “I can just see him now, kissing Francis Cardinal Spellman’s ring on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. They hated each other. The Cardinal thought Grandpa was too liberal, and Grandpa thought Spellman was an old queen, which he was. They were both right!”

“I love it when you talk dirty, filthy sex,” teased Diane.

“They didn’t call Spellman ‘Aunt Franny’ for nothing,” replied Johnny, with relish. They walked around the old church, hoping that a ghost from the family’s past might want to reach out, but it was quiet. “That assassination of Blood had a traumatic effect on Grandpa,” said Johnny. “I think he was probably in shock when he came here that morning. It must have been awfully disturbing for a man like Grandpa, a straight-shooter if there ever was one.”

“No pun intended,” interjected Diane.

“That must have been a Freudian pun, don’t you think?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time old Sigmund came between us!”

“You know,” said Johnny, turning serious again, “he never took the sacraments ever again. Not even matrimony.”

“You mean your grandparents never married?” said Diane, looking shocked.

“I hate to disappoint you,” Johnny said, laughing, “but my father was not a bastard.”

“That’s a relief—considering the stuff I’ve heard about him!”

Diane realized she had been too flippant about the subject of Johnny’s father. It seemed that no one in the family wanted to discuss Eoin Jr. The old man and Róisín never talked about him, because they never got over the loss of their only son. And Diane thought Johnny didn’t want to discuss him because he felt his father had abandoned him. “My father,” said Johnny, unconsciously dropping his voice a full octave lower, “was the unfortunate offspring of two exceptional people. He had a hard time living up to the standard his parents had set. Sometimes people find this world such a terrible place that they can’t handle it.” Johnny paused and then smiled gently at his wife. “My father may have been a bastard, but he was no bastard! My grandparents were married in a civil ceremony by the State of New York at the Municipal Building, down by City Hall. I’m sure it was a mutual decision. Róisín wasn’t crazy about the church, either.”

“I don’t get this whole thing with the church,” said Diane. “He’s always going into churches, but he wants nothing to do with the church.”

“Remember Grandpa chasing away that priest the day he died? He was going to give him Extreme Unction. What euphemism do they use today? The Sacrament of the Sick? Grandpa didn’t want any part of it. Tough old bird to the end.”

“See! That’s what I don’t understand,” said Diane. “But he insisted on having a funeral mass at the Pro-Cathedral.”

“I think Róisín had a lot to do with it,” said Johnny. “I think she was abused as a child by the nuns and wanted nothing to do with them. And, of course, she had great influence over Grandpa. She was in the movement, the
Cumann na mBan
, before 1916. Remember, Grandpa was an accidental revolutionary! He was also a suspicious old cod anyway. There was a lot of politics going on back then. Some bishops were excommunicating Volunteers. Excommunication became certain bishops’ choice of ecclesiastical terror. Apparently, it was alright for the British to murder Irishmen but not okay for Irishmen to defend themselves. Many, including Collins and Grandpa, resented it. Collins actually thought that some of the bishops were collaborating with the British against their own people. They never fully trusted Holy Mother Church again.”

“It’s so, so complicated,” confessed Diane.

“I think the shooting of Blood—and others—had a lot to do with it,” said Johnny. “In his own way, I think Grandpa didn’t feel he was worthy enough to receive the sacraments. When you think of it, he was purposely starving himself of God’s love, a love I think he deeply craved.”

“What a remarkable way to put it,” said Diane, clearly moved by the thought. “In effect, he was penalizing himself.”

“We Kavanaghs are a remarkably bad lot of Catholics,” confessed Johnny. “But we were all born Catholics, and we will all die Catholics.” He looked intently at his Protestant wife. “Why, even Róisín had a Catholic burial.”