a brown dress and black stocking, black shoes. She is a girl on the edge of becoming a woman.
Kitty shows Tomas the sights of Cork – the Municipal Gallery, University College, the Quays, the statue of Father Matthew.
‘He began the Temperance Movement in Ireland,’ Kitty tells him.
‘I don’t think it got as far as Drimnamore,’ says Tomas, laughing. Kitty frowns.
They climb Patrick’s Hill, looking down over the city, the wishbone of the River Lee coming together and broadening out to sea. They can smell the hops and malt carried up on the wind from Beamish’s brewery.
‘You must be proud of your city,’ says Tomas.
‘I’ll be prouder when it’s ours.’
They go back down along Patrick Street and the Quays. Whenever a patrol goes by, Tomas takes Kitty’s hand and doesn’t let it drop until the patrol is well out of sight. She asks him why he’s in Cork.
‘I’m not sure I can tell you.’
Kitty looks offended for a moment, then laughs. ‘I’m greener than a shamrock, green longer than you, I’d say. I’ve been a member of Cumann na mBan since I was fifteen. I was one of the two girls on bicycles, lookouts we were, at the Fermoy ambush. And the British shot my father after the Easter Rising.’
Kitty takes out a black-and-white postcard from her worn leather handbag. It is a head-and-shoulders picture of a young man with a thick moustache in an overcoat with a bunch of shamrock in his lapel. Below the photograph the caption reads:
MICHAEL O ’ HANRAHAN
Author of The Swordsman of the Brigade
Executed in Kilmainham Prison, 4 May 1916.
There is a catch in her voice as she says, ‘He was a teacher, a decent man. Not yet forty. And I hardly got to know him.’
They say nothing for a while, then Tomas tells Kitty about the Staigue Fort battle, the souterrain, how Patrick had been left behind.
‘His knee was destroyed – they tied him to a chair to shoot him. Like James Connolly in 1916.’
‘You had no choice but to leave him. But how did you get here?’
‘We hid out in the mountains, then made our way to Cork, walking across the hills and through the bogs, mostly at night. Frank O’Gowan’s a Cork man.’
‘Sure, he’s my cousin,’ says Kitty. ‘A tough one, that.’
Tomas finds he cannot tell Kitty about the hostages, about the shooting of Eileen and William.
The next morning he goes out alone to find St Mary’s Cathedral, cavernous and incense-heavy. Tomas finds a confession box with a priest and no queue, goes in and kneels down, resting his elbows on the flaking varnish of the sill.
‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...’
And the whole of the Staigue Fort story and the capture and killing of the hostages pours out of him; he still cannot give the hostages their names, nor say that Eileen Burke was a woman he knew well. The voice that comes from the other side of the grille is matter-of-fact with a strong Cork accent. This is the first confession Tomas has made to a priest other than Father Michael.
‘My son, murder is a mortal sin, a terrible sin. The archbishop has proscribed the Volunteers. I can give you absolution only if you can perform a genuine Act of Contrition and leave the IRA.’
‘O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pain of hell...’
There Tomas stops, gets up off his knees and walks out of the cathedral. Unshriven.
He goes back to the house uneasy, aware that he has crossed into a world where his old certainties are gone. There is no return. He and Patrick O’Mahony had walked across to Staigue Fort the night before the ambush for a change from the drudgery of the farm. The bloody halo round Seamus O’Connell’s head and the bullet that destroyed Pat’s knee had given a bitter meaning to adventure. Tomas has to wrench his mind away from the recurring images of the remote farmyard and the shooting of Eileen Burke and William McKelvey.
He turns into
Kitty shows Tomas the sights of Cork – the Municipal Gallery, University College, the Quays, the statue of Father Matthew.
‘He began the Temperance Movement in Ireland,’ Kitty tells him.
‘I don’t think it got as far as Drimnamore,’ says Tomas, laughing. Kitty frowns.
They climb Patrick’s Hill, looking down over the city, the wishbone of the River Lee coming together and broadening out to sea. They can smell the hops and malt carried up on the wind from Beamish’s brewery.
‘You must be proud of your city,’ says Tomas.
‘I’ll be prouder when it’s ours.’
They go back down along Patrick Street and the Quays. Whenever a patrol goes by, Tomas takes Kitty’s hand and doesn’t let it drop until the patrol is well out of sight. She asks him why he’s in Cork.
‘I’m not sure I can tell you.’
Kitty looks offended for a moment, then laughs. ‘I’m greener than a shamrock, green longer than you, I’d say. I’ve been a member of Cumann na mBan since I was fifteen. I was one of the two girls on bicycles, lookouts we were, at the Fermoy ambush. And the British shot my father after the Easter Rising.’
Kitty takes out a black-and-white postcard from her worn leather handbag. It is a head-and-shoulders picture of a young man with a thick moustache in an overcoat with a bunch of shamrock in his lapel. Below the photograph the caption reads:
MICHAEL O ’ HANRAHAN
Author of The Swordsman of the Brigade
Executed in Kilmainham Prison, 4 May 1916.
There is a catch in her voice as she says, ‘He was a teacher, a decent man. Not yet forty. And I hardly got to know him.’
They say nothing for a while, then Tomas tells Kitty about the Staigue Fort battle, the souterrain, how Patrick had been left behind.
‘His knee was destroyed – they tied him to a chair to shoot him. Like James Connolly in 1916.’
‘You had no choice but to leave him. But how did you get here?’
‘We hid out in the mountains, then made our way to Cork, walking across the hills and through the bogs, mostly at night. Frank O’Gowan’s a Cork man.’
‘Sure, he’s my cousin,’ says Kitty. ‘A tough one, that.’
Tomas finds he cannot tell Kitty about the hostages, about the shooting of Eileen and William.
The next morning he goes out alone to find St Mary’s Cathedral, cavernous and incense-heavy. Tomas finds a confession box with a priest and no queue, goes in and kneels down, resting his elbows on the flaking varnish of the sill.
‘Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned...’
And the whole of the Staigue Fort story and the capture and killing of the hostages pours out of him; he still cannot give the hostages their names, nor say that Eileen Burke was a woman he knew well. The voice that comes from the other side of the grille is matter-of-fact with a strong Cork accent. This is the first confession Tomas has made to a priest other than Father Michael.
‘My son, murder is a mortal sin, a terrible sin. The archbishop has proscribed the Volunteers. I can give you absolution only if you can perform a genuine Act of Contrition and leave the IRA.’
‘O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pain of hell...’
There Tomas stops, gets up off his knees and walks out of the cathedral. Unshriven.
He goes back to the house uneasy, aware that he has crossed into a world where his old certainties are gone. There is no return. He and Patrick O’Mahony had walked across to Staigue Fort the night before the ambush for a change from the drudgery of the farm. The bloody halo round Seamus O’Connell’s head and the bullet that destroyed Pat’s knee had given a bitter meaning to adventure. Tomas has to wrench his mind away from the recurring images of the remote farmyard and the shooting of Eileen Burke and William McKelvey.
He turns into
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