away from the auldfella and the shop.’
Stephen’s father is staunchly sympathetic to the republican cause. He had fought in Bolands Mill with de Valera in 1916, and had escaped internment when the fighting ended, his knowledge of the back lanes of Dublin far better than any of his pursuers. He’d returned to his butcher shop and drifted away from the movement, but he supported the cause with food, funds and sons when he could spare them.
‘You’ve guns enough, and your brothers at least have had some practice. And Mulally and Patterson?’
‘They’re grand lads. They can be trusted to do the job right if I tell ’em how.’
Gilhooley is little more than a boy himself, O’Hanley reflects. Eighteen, and yet so capable, loyal and brave. Rough, certainly, but a born leader.
‘Hit the bank then, Stephen, and may God guide and protect you.’
Stephen Gilhooley blesses himself and replaces his white butcher’s cap. ‘And you, Commandant O’Hanley.’ He holds out his hand and O’Hanley hesitates, inspecting the proffered hand for dried blood before he reluctantly takes it.
8
T he Sheriff Street tenements where Jeremiah Byrne lives are two streets away from the Liffey quays. The buildings show grime-blackened brickwork and are hunched closely together, soaking up the daylight, forcing the autumn sun to fade its way up alleys, over chipped steps and onto the soft, grassless soil of fetid common yards. Jeremiah feels the chill of shadow as he shortcuts the warren of lanes leading to his home.
Like all Sheriff Street residents, Jeremiah knows every rat-run, every hidey-hole in the area. Residents pass through the open doors of neighbouring buildings and beat paths across what were once leafy gardens to access particular streets or dwellings. There is very little that is private in the tenements and, in this, Sheriff Street is no different from the rest of tenement Dublin. Outdoor toilets are shared, as are water pumps. Laundry lines are strung across lanes from building to building. Food, when it is scarce in one family and plentiful in another, is shared. Families of up to fifteen living in one room. Glass in less than half of all windows.
Jeremiah comes to the building that houses his family’s flat, and climbs the cracked and hollow-worn front steps, entering through the doorway that has been without a door since before he was born. On the coldest, wettest days of winter, sheets of scrap wood from dock pallets are sometimes nailed together and propped in the empty doorframe against the wind and sleet, and this is guarded by residents so that it will not be taken by neighbouring tenants for firewood. The fanlight at the top of the doorway is free from any pane of glass, and serves only to funnel winter winds into the building more efficiently. Years before, some resident had vainly stuffed rags in several of the empty gaps where now they sag like oily clots, blackened by time and smoke and cooking grease.
Sixty odd people share the Georgian house that had once been home to a single, wealthy family and several servants. Jeremiah’s flat was once a bedroom in this house. It is shared by his mother and her sister, his own four sisters and six male and female cousins and, occasionally, by his uncle. Of the children, Jeremiah is the oldest and the man of the family during times when his uncle, a carter, thief and opportunistic extortionist, is serving one of his numerous, if too short, prison sentences. Jeremiah knows that his uncle is free at the moment—has been for the past two weeks, though he has seen him only once briefly in that time—and says a small prayer. It is something he does rarely, and even then does it with the utter conviction that it is a useless practice, but he does it now; prays that his Uncle John Keegan has been lagged for something, anything and is not home and won’t be for a long time. He mimes a sloppy sign of the cross as he mounts the patchwork wooden stairs to his flat.
He
Stephen’s father is staunchly sympathetic to the republican cause. He had fought in Bolands Mill with de Valera in 1916, and had escaped internment when the fighting ended, his knowledge of the back lanes of Dublin far better than any of his pursuers. He’d returned to his butcher shop and drifted away from the movement, but he supported the cause with food, funds and sons when he could spare them.
‘You’ve guns enough, and your brothers at least have had some practice. And Mulally and Patterson?’
‘They’re grand lads. They can be trusted to do the job right if I tell ’em how.’
Gilhooley is little more than a boy himself, O’Hanley reflects. Eighteen, and yet so capable, loyal and brave. Rough, certainly, but a born leader.
‘Hit the bank then, Stephen, and may God guide and protect you.’
Stephen Gilhooley blesses himself and replaces his white butcher’s cap. ‘And you, Commandant O’Hanley.’ He holds out his hand and O’Hanley hesitates, inspecting the proffered hand for dried blood before he reluctantly takes it.
8
T he Sheriff Street tenements where Jeremiah Byrne lives are two streets away from the Liffey quays. The buildings show grime-blackened brickwork and are hunched closely together, soaking up the daylight, forcing the autumn sun to fade its way up alleys, over chipped steps and onto the soft, grassless soil of fetid common yards. Jeremiah feels the chill of shadow as he shortcuts the warren of lanes leading to his home.
Like all Sheriff Street residents, Jeremiah knows every rat-run, every hidey-hole in the area. Residents pass through the open doors of neighbouring buildings and beat paths across what were once leafy gardens to access particular streets or dwellings. There is very little that is private in the tenements and, in this, Sheriff Street is no different from the rest of tenement Dublin. Outdoor toilets are shared, as are water pumps. Laundry lines are strung across lanes from building to building. Food, when it is scarce in one family and plentiful in another, is shared. Families of up to fifteen living in one room. Glass in less than half of all windows.
Jeremiah comes to the building that houses his family’s flat, and climbs the cracked and hollow-worn front steps, entering through the doorway that has been without a door since before he was born. On the coldest, wettest days of winter, sheets of scrap wood from dock pallets are sometimes nailed together and propped in the empty doorframe against the wind and sleet, and this is guarded by residents so that it will not be taken by neighbouring tenants for firewood. The fanlight at the top of the doorway is free from any pane of glass, and serves only to funnel winter winds into the building more efficiently. Years before, some resident had vainly stuffed rags in several of the empty gaps where now they sag like oily clots, blackened by time and smoke and cooking grease.
Sixty odd people share the Georgian house that had once been home to a single, wealthy family and several servants. Jeremiah’s flat was once a bedroom in this house. It is shared by his mother and her sister, his own four sisters and six male and female cousins and, occasionally, by his uncle. Of the children, Jeremiah is the oldest and the man of the family during times when his uncle, a carter, thief and opportunistic extortionist, is serving one of his numerous, if too short, prison sentences. Jeremiah knows that his uncle is free at the moment—has been for the past two weeks, though he has seen him only once briefly in that time—and says a small prayer. It is something he does rarely, and even then does it with the utter conviction that it is a useless practice, but he does it now; prays that his Uncle John Keegan has been lagged for something, anything and is not home and won’t be for a long time. He mimes a sloppy sign of the cross as he mounts the patchwork wooden stairs to his flat.
He
Similar Books
