of ten to twenty on a Tuesday, forty or fifty on a Saturday, mostly farmers and gentry, several officers from The Curragh, a few horse-copers always on the lookout to buy or sell. Queen’s County is good hunting country, its grass, hedges and banks, well-spaced and well-guarded fox coverts, coupled with no barbed wire and little shooting, all guaranteeing a run almost every day. The huntsman, a hard-bitten, hard-riding man from County Galway, knows his business. He had been lured away by Charles from the Galway Blazers with the promise of a good cottage and better horses.
‘I’m not welcome in Galway any more,’ says Charles. ‘Worth it to have got Timmy Murphy.’
John shows so little sense of fear out hunting that Charles has to persuade him to slow down at his fences.
‘It’s the horses I’m worried about, not you.’
He and Charles like each other’s company, happy with long periods of silence as they hack out and home, what conversation there is concentrating on horses, hounds, coverts and the run. After a deep bath and a glass of Irish whiskey, the two of them relive the run over dinner with salt cellars, pepper pots and napkin rings.
Charles’s wife Cis is happy to sit quietly through dinner, occasionally answering a question about the place-names of the county, otherwise speaking only to encourage the single maid to clear the plates and bring in the next course.
‘She knows our hunting country better than I do, stopped riding after a nasty fall. Now she’s in love with the Lord,’ Charles says in a rare moment of candour. ‘I married a Papist, you know. She spends all her time with the Poor Clare Sisters, it makes her happy, and they’re harmless enough. My father would have cut me off, even though she was a Dease and her brother a VC, but there wasn’t anyone else to leave it to. Good thing being an only son. And in these times having an RC wife is better than an insurance policy. That and Timmy Murphy, who knows the local boys. We’ve never even had a visit.’
‘Eileen believed in Home Rule, and much good it did her,’ says John. Charles changes the subject.
7
‘W HATEVER YOU DO , don’t run,’ says Frank O’Gowan as they walk down Patrick Street. ‘You’ll not outrun a bullet. The Tans will shoot a running man first and ask questions after. Not many questions.’
Cork bewilders Tomas; Drimnamore could fit in its back pocket. Tomas has never been out of Kerry, never seen trams and buses. The steamers unloading along the Quays are enormous. The city is full of soldiers, policemen, Black and Tans, Auxiliaries.
‘The Auxies are the worst. They’re the ones with bandoliers and pistols on each hip, like Mexican bandits. Ex-officers who got a taste for killing out in France and signed up to do some more. Bastards, all of them, bastards.’
They spend the first two nights sharing a room in a two-up, two-down house with a privy at the end of a neglected little garden. The row of houses is next to the railway station. Maureen O’Hanrahan is Frank’s cousin and an IRA widow. Her house is well placed to see who and what passes through Cork Station.
On the second day a messenger comes for Frank, and he and Maureen go out together for half an hour. Frank comes back alone.
‘That one thinks because he has a felt hat and a trench coat with a turned-up collar he’s Conn the Hundred Fighter. Didn’t he jump a yard in the air when a car backfired alongside of us in Waterside Lane? Any road, Michael Collins, the Big Fellow himself, wants to see me, so I’d better go. And you, Tomas, clear out for the day. That one’s stupid enough to have been followed.’
‘Where’ll I go? I don’t know my way around Cork,’ says Tomas.
‘Kitty will take you,’ says her mother. ‘Best pretend you’re sweethearts if the RIC stop you.’
Kitty, who is eighteen, dark-haired and serious, blushes and looks away. She is a head shorter than Tomas and Frank, who are both over six feet; she is wearing
‘I’m not welcome in Galway any more,’ says Charles. ‘Worth it to have got Timmy Murphy.’
John shows so little sense of fear out hunting that Charles has to persuade him to slow down at his fences.
‘It’s the horses I’m worried about, not you.’
He and Charles like each other’s company, happy with long periods of silence as they hack out and home, what conversation there is concentrating on horses, hounds, coverts and the run. After a deep bath and a glass of Irish whiskey, the two of them relive the run over dinner with salt cellars, pepper pots and napkin rings.
Charles’s wife Cis is happy to sit quietly through dinner, occasionally answering a question about the place-names of the county, otherwise speaking only to encourage the single maid to clear the plates and bring in the next course.
‘She knows our hunting country better than I do, stopped riding after a nasty fall. Now she’s in love with the Lord,’ Charles says in a rare moment of candour. ‘I married a Papist, you know. She spends all her time with the Poor Clare Sisters, it makes her happy, and they’re harmless enough. My father would have cut me off, even though she was a Dease and her brother a VC, but there wasn’t anyone else to leave it to. Good thing being an only son. And in these times having an RC wife is better than an insurance policy. That and Timmy Murphy, who knows the local boys. We’ve never even had a visit.’
‘Eileen believed in Home Rule, and much good it did her,’ says John. Charles changes the subject.
7
‘W HATEVER YOU DO , don’t run,’ says Frank O’Gowan as they walk down Patrick Street. ‘You’ll not outrun a bullet. The Tans will shoot a running man first and ask questions after. Not many questions.’
Cork bewilders Tomas; Drimnamore could fit in its back pocket. Tomas has never been out of Kerry, never seen trams and buses. The steamers unloading along the Quays are enormous. The city is full of soldiers, policemen, Black and Tans, Auxiliaries.
‘The Auxies are the worst. They’re the ones with bandoliers and pistols on each hip, like Mexican bandits. Ex-officers who got a taste for killing out in France and signed up to do some more. Bastards, all of them, bastards.’
They spend the first two nights sharing a room in a two-up, two-down house with a privy at the end of a neglected little garden. The row of houses is next to the railway station. Maureen O’Hanrahan is Frank’s cousin and an IRA widow. Her house is well placed to see who and what passes through Cork Station.
On the second day a messenger comes for Frank, and he and Maureen go out together for half an hour. Frank comes back alone.
‘That one thinks because he has a felt hat and a trench coat with a turned-up collar he’s Conn the Hundred Fighter. Didn’t he jump a yard in the air when a car backfired alongside of us in Waterside Lane? Any road, Michael Collins, the Big Fellow himself, wants to see me, so I’d better go. And you, Tomas, clear out for the day. That one’s stupid enough to have been followed.’
‘Where’ll I go? I don’t know my way around Cork,’ says Tomas.
‘Kitty will take you,’ says her mother. ‘Best pretend you’re sweethearts if the RIC stop you.’
Kitty, who is eighteen, dark-haired and serious, blushes and looks away. She is a head shorter than Tomas and Frank, who are both over six feet; she is wearing
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