1903

Sheridan Smith looked out of his capacious window at the mist and wondered if they’d all find their way to the house. He supposed they would. It was easy enough: straight down Baggot Street from St. Stephen’s Green, over the canal, continue a furlong, and turn right. A fool could do it. And besides, the mist was lifting. An hour ago you couldn’t even see the house across the street.

He did not care to admit it, but he was enough of a snob to be a little anxious. For the Count was coming. And the Count had never been to his house before.

Wellington Road was a very pleasant place. Broad, lined with little trees, its handsome terraces set well back behind long lawns and gravel paths, it had almost the atmosphere of a leafy Parisian boulevard. It was part of the well-managed Pembroke family estate, which included the former villages of Ballsbridge and Donnybrook. Together with Ranelagh and Rathmines to the west, they formed a collection of genteel suburbs south of the Grand Canal, but all within a mile or so of St. Stephen’s Green, where lawyers, civil servants, financial and professional men, with perhaps more Protestants than Catholics, could escape both the old city’s municipal taxes, and the poor folk who infested its tenements and streets.

Sheridan Smith and his family liked to have company at Sunday lunch, and the company was usually good. Sheridan’s position as a newspaper editor would in any case allow him a wide circle of acquaintance, but he made a point of cultivating friendships in every quarter. It was something the Smith family had learned from the Mountwalshes.

There was no question, the family of Stephen Smith and Maureen Madden had done remarkably well. They had had three children: Mary, followed at intervals by the two boys, Sheridan and Quinlan. Stephen had remained as agent to the family for the rest of his working life, and no doubt the frequent contact with that aristocratic family had been a useful influence on his children. Sheridan was a man of some position in Dublin. His brother Quinlan Smith, down in Wicklow, was the same way on a smaller stage. And since his own temperament inclined towards the theatre and the arts, as well as politics, Sheridan Smith’s range was broad indeed. “I can open every door in Dublin,” he liked to say to himself—not out loud, of course; but he was glad if people knew it.

Sheridan had married quite well—his wife belonged to the branch of the MacGowans with the most money—and they lived, if not in one of the largest, still in a very comfortable house on the northern side of the street; for all the houses in Wellington Road were good.

Sheridan quickly went over the company he was expecting. His mother first: widowed for nearly twenty years now, Maureen Smith was still an upright, active woman, with a sharp mind. Then Father Brendan MacGowan, a cousin of his wife’s, who was bringing a young man he wanted him to do something for. Sheridan had asked young Gogarty, too. That was a lively fellow who’d go far. A gentleman also. He’d put up a good show. And then the Count and Countess: “The aristocratic side of my family,” as he’d said to his wife with a smile.

It must have been a shock to the Mountwalsh family when the old earl’s youngest grandson had fallen in love with Stephen Smith’s daughter, Mary. But they had been very gracious about it; and the marriage had taken place. Sheridan had still been only a boy at the time. Mary’s daughter Louisa and he had always been rather friendly. And Louisa had made things even more interesting, it seemed to him, when she had married a most elegant older man, Count Birne. Louisa and the Count now divided their time between County Meath, where they had bought an estate, and Paris. In Dublin for a few days now, they had promised to come to the Sunday meal and would be bringing their little daughter.

Should he have striven for a more distinguished company? Of course not, he told himself. This was a family occasion. This was solid, middle-class Dublin, and none the worse for it. He was conscious also that, although the old landed aristocracy carried huge prestige, it was actually his own sort—more so with every year that went by—who were determining the course of affairs in Ireland. If the Count ever had any desire to take part in the public affairs of Ireland—though, it had to be said, not a hint of such a notion had ever been apparent—he’d probably be quite glad, Sheridan told himself, to be related to me.

And now, faintly through the mist, he heard the ring of a bell, and a little toot from a horn, and, in brisk style, his first guest, half an hour early, came rapidly along the street on a bicycle.

Willy O’Byrne walked briskly. He had been on a small errand. But it wouldn’t do to miss Father Brendan MacGowan and, perhaps, his destiny. “Don’t be late,” the priest, who knew him well, had said, “for I shan’t wait for you.”

Montgomery Street. It ran at a sleazy slant only a hundred yards behind the sleek Palladian presence of the Custom House on the Liffey’s northern bank. Sublime Georgian Dublin stared graciously over the water towards Trinity, while at its backside, like a genial sewer, ran the city’s other life. Monto—street of whores, street of his sin and shame. Necessary street. Quiet, almost empty for once, on a Sunday morning. He passed down it, ducked along Abbey Street, and out into the broad grandeur of Sackville Street, that marched grandly northwards from the river like a military parade. Respectable again. He proceeded south. Across the Liffey. He could have done it blindfolded.

City under a white mist. It was as if all the waters from mountain and stream had met the exhalations of last night’s humanity— its drunkenness and its dreams, its whispers and its breathings—and that the two had coalesced, e pluribus unum, dissolving into this dank mist over the Liffey that hung by the bridges as if reluctant to leave Dublin and be gone, into the open sea.

It clung to him in dingy droplets, enveloped him. You could not escape it.

He hurried past the entrance to Trinity College. No point in glancing through its portals, since he wouldn’t be going there. Then, keeping its wall on his left, he walked eastwards with the shops on his right, past Dawson Street until, soon afterwards, he saw the shuttered bookshop where he was to meet him.

Willy tapped on the shutters, as instructed. A moment or two later, a door beside him opened, and the priest came out. Crinkly grey hair, a little stout, friendly, purposeful: Father Brendan MacGowan closed the door behind him with a sharp bang, extracted a small silver watch from a pocket, glanced at it, and smiled.

“You’re on time,” he said, surprised. He gave a nod at the tightly closed green shutters behind him. “My brother’s bookshop,” he said. “Do you know my brother?”

He knew all about him. MacGowan’s bookshop was a world of its own, over which the priest’s younger brother presided in a silent manner. If you dared to touch any of the books, it was said, he had a nasty way of half-closing one eye and staring at you with the other, so that people called him the Cyclops. Willy had heard that if he liked you, he was pleasant enough.

“I don’t,” he said.

The priest was already sailing along at a good clip.

“There are three of us, you know,” he remarked. “My elder brother has the farm. My father bought it. Up in County Meath.” He waved, vaguely, in the direction of Tara. “I became the priest, and my younger brother has the shop. Your aunt and uncle are both well, I hope?”

His uncle, who had married his father’s sister, had a job with the Guinness Brewery. You couldn’t do better than that. Set for life, once you got in there. Good pay. Always looked after. The great brewery buildings and their associated smells rose like some huge, incense-laden temple, as if the city had a third, nondenominational cathedral out west of the Castle towards Kilmainham barracks. Generations of a family would work in there, secure in the knowledge that the holy black liquid they produced was the healthy life-blood of the people. Had his father hoped that his uncle, having only daughters but no living son, might find a place for him there, from which, perhaps, he might even rise into a position of minor authority? Had his father hinted something of the kind to his uncle, that day, when he had come into the city and, with his uncle, taken him, Willy, out to the pub as a father should, for the formal initiation into manhood—the taking of a tankard of the same liquid? Willy didn’t know, but no such suggestion had ever been proffered; and he was secretly glad of it, for although he hadn’t the slightest objection to the brewery, it would have been awkward to have to refuse such a gift.

“Yes, Father.”

They were well. They were very well. They were snugly well. They breathed the thick mist of Dublin and were sustained by it.

“And your cousins? They’ve three daughters I believe.”

“Yes, Father.” Thriving. If a man’s best hope was the Guinness Brewery, a woman’s was just half a mile south of the Castle, close to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. For here a sister temple arose: The Jacobs Biscuit Factory.

If the Quakers had long been making a quiet contribution to the commerce, and the welfare, of Ireland, some of them had now been raised, by their diligence, into a veritable patriarchate: Jacobs, Newsoms, Bewleys, they controlled great wealth. Jacobs Cream Crackers and the brightly coloured Jacobs Biscuit tins were known over much of the globe. And in the usual Quaker fashion, the Jacobs were good employers, with about fourteen hundred men and women working in Dublin, and more brought in for the Christmas rush. The women were paid less than the men, of course. The men would have been outraged otherwise. But two of his aunt’s three daughters were earning quite well, with piecework, in the bakehouse.

“Here we go,” said Father MacGowan, as they turned up Kildare Street. On the corner, its dark redbrick portals and cavernous marble halls rising like a rampant oriental palace, stood the Kildare Street Club, bastion of social might. Could Father MacGowan enter those portals? Willy wondered. Probably not. He, for certain, would never set foot in the place unless in some menial capacity. For all he knew, there might be a maze underneath it, and a minotaur.

Then came the National Library, and Leinster House, and the National Museum. He could enter there, at least. They came out at the top of the street and into St. Stephen’s Green. “Ah,” said Father MacGowan, “the Shelburne Hotel. That is the place where you meet the best people.” And then, by a train of thought that was not quite apparent to Willy: “You have never thought of entering the priesthood, I suppose?”

He had not been to the best of schools, the Jesuit schools; but, albeit often at the end of a strap, the Christian Brothers had taught him thoroughly. He was deemed to be intelligent. Possible material for the priesthood, therefore. Another kind of security was being offered, better than the brewery perhaps. There was a prestige in being a priest, too. Your family was proud of you. Not to mention the enhancement of your soul.

“I suppose I should like to marry some day,” he answered.

“Well,” said Father MacGowan, “we shall have an excellent meal, I am sure, with Sheridan Smith.”

Oliver St. John Gogarty was something of a young hero. Scholar, poet, athlete: Mahaffy at Trinity College said he was the best pupil he’d ever had. And he had taught Oscar Wilde, too—though of course, since the trial and disgrace, Wilde’s name was not one to be mentioned, under any circumstances, in Dublin now. Gogarty had won the poetry prize three times, an astounding feat, favoured Greek metre over predictable English pentameters, and was an accomplished practical joker as well. With his smoky blue eyes and his thick brown hair flecked with fair highlights, he resembled, if not a Greek god, at least a Hibernian hero.

“I tried to bring my friend Joyce,” he had remarked pleasantly to his host when he had parked his bicycle, “but he wouldn’t come.”

Sheridan Smith wasn’t entirely sorry. He didn’t know Joyce, but he was well aware that Gogarty, who was a generous fellow, swore by the young man’s genius, and promoted his reputation at every opportunity. Not, he felt sure, that young Joyce could possibly be in the same league as Gogarty himself. Besides, Gogarty was a gentleman and poor Joyce, he’d heard, was not. He thought of Joyce and the Count and was glad of the young man’s absence.

“Father MacGowan’s bringing a poor young student with him,” he told Gogarty. “If I’m occupied, would you be nice to him?”

When Willy Byrne approached the house, he felt some trepidation. It had been kind of Father MacGowan, who’d only come to know him because he came to give classes occasionally at the school, to have taken an interest in him. Apart from the priest, and the very limited resources of his own family, he had no one to sponsor him in the world. As he entered Wellington Road and saw the big, bland terraces staring down at him mistily, he realised suddenly that he had never been inside such a house before. Though the priest hadn’t said so directly, it was obvious that he hoped their host might do something for Willy. But what if he made a bad impression? Would that make the priest lose interest in him? What should he say?

“Just observe,” Father MacGowan said, as if reading his thoughts. “Answer politely when spoken to. You’ll do very well. I wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise. Well, here we are.”

Three minutes later, rather pale, he was silently observing for dear life. He’d never been faced with a Count before.

You could see that Count Birne was not entirely well. He was tall and he was thin; he was wearing one of the new, double-breasted jackets, and trousers with turn-ups—a fashionable elegance hardly seen yet, even in the Kildare Street Club, of which he was a member. His black hair, streaked with grey, was parted near the crown of his noble head. He wore a moustache, parted neatly in the middle and brushed along the lip. His nose was somewhat larger than one might have expected from such an exquisitely manicured figure. In his right hand, between his second and third fingers, he languidly held a Turkish cigarette. His eyes, brown and melancholic, gazed down with soft good manners at whomever he was talking to— which in this case was young Gogarty, who seemed to take such a personage entirely in his stride. In answer to Gogarty’s question, as to the provenance of his title, he answered quietly:

“I am a Count of the Holy Roman Empire.”

You could tell he was not well from the way, very discreetly, he leant against the ebony walking stick he held, at a slight angle to the back of his thigh, in his left hand. From his answer, however, Willy derived one piece of comfort. At least this daunting person was a Catholic.

His own companion was old Mrs. Maureen Smith, who asked him about himself, and was easy to talk to. By and by, while Father MacGowan spoke to the Count, Gogarty came over and chatted in a friendly way. Willy learned that he planned to become a doctor. Gogarty was only a little older than he was, but Willy could see at once how great the young man’s advantages were compared to his own. He’d never met someone of that age who had such social ease and graces. Various children appeared. The countess had disappeared upstairs with her own daughter who, it seemed, had chosen her arrival at the house as a moment to be sick. The countess came down in due course, without her daughter. She was elegant, but entirely friendly. Then they all sat down to eat.

The Sunday family meal at Sheridan Smith’s was a very relaxed affair. The children ate with the grown-ups, but at a certain point were excused. Only then did the conversation become more interesting.

And to his surprise, Willy quickly discovered that, rather than be questioned about his own exalted life, the Count was anxious to know the opinion of the company on a number of matters. “I have not spent enough time in Ireland during the last few years,” he explained, “and each time I return, I become more confused.” He smiled. “Some years ago, we heard much of Home Rule. For ten years now, we have heard less. But now I see that Mr. Redmond, who occupies the place that Parnell had, leads no less that eighty MPs in the British Parliament, and hopes for Home Rule once again.

“We used to hear of extremists, too, who were ready to use violence to turn the British out. What has happened to them? Have they disappeared? Meanwhile, the British government seems to do all it can to destroy the old Protestant interest. So what does it mean? Is the ghost of Parnell to rise from the grave? Are we supposed to be British or Irish, Protestant or Catholic?” He looked round the table. “Father MacGowan, tell me, where does the Church—my Church—stand?”

“I shall tell you exactly,” said the priest with a smile.

“Which means, since he has a Jesuitical streak,” said Sheridan Smith with a smile, “that he won’t tell you at all.”

The priest blandly ignored him.

“Many of the priests, and even some of the bishops, remembering the heady days of Daniel O’Connell, have been somewhat inclined to support the movements for Home Rule.”

“Though they destroyed Parnell,” his host reminded him.

“They could not ignore his adultery,” Father MacGowan said reasonably. “Not once it became so public.” He took a sip of wine. “But that is not the point. What really mattered, and what matters still, is that the view—I should say the indomitable personality—of Cardinal Cullen prevailed. He condemned the extremists, of course. That need not be discussed. But he refused to allow the Irish Church to become involved in politics whatsoever, on either side. Remember, when the British government offered to subsidise the Catholic Church along with the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterians, he would not take their money. And when you look at the spate of Catholic church building in the last three decades, we seem to have done very well without it. The Church will not stoop, therefore. If we are to keep our authority, we must be above such things. The fact that he spent so many years in Rome no doubt helped to give him a larger view than many of the local priests. And in the long run he will be proved right. Then the Church will take its proper place, as the higher authority, when Ireland becomes independent, which she will.”

“You think it will?”

“Without a doubt. Redmond and his IPP have eighty seats. They will press the government until the British are sick of them. And sooner or later, just as happened with Parnell before, some future election will leave them with the balance of power. Home Rule will be the price. It may take time. We must be patient. But it will come.”

“I see,” the Count remarked with a gentle smile, “that you have not entirely abandoned politics yourself. But tell me, Sheridan, is that your view, too?”

“It is not. And I will make a quite different prediction.” Their host considered. “Firstly, there is a weakness in your political case, Father. Redmond may hold the balance of power in the House of Commons and get a bill passed. That has happened before, with Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill. It’s the British House of Lords who will throw the measure out, and I suspect they will do so until Doomsday.” He glanced round them all. “But it does not matter anyway. Because the present British policy towards Ireland is going to work.”

A few years ago, when the British took local government out of the hands of the Protestant gentry and effectively gave it to local, mostly Catholic men—merchants, tradesmen, solicitors—the landowners had effectively lost their power, he reminded them. This August, a new and improved Land Act had just been passed.

“And have you looked carefully at its terms? They are quite extraordinary. Effectively, the British government is buying out the Ascendancy. Ten years from now, the Protestant Ascendancy will be over. Completely. Ireland will be a land of Catholic farmers.

“I suppose that Redmond and his men will still try for Home Rule. But if they can’t get it, I doubt very much whether many people in Ireland are going to care enough to make a fuss.”

Sheridan Smith had done. He looked quite pleased with himself. The Count nodded thoughtfully. His eyes travelled round the table. They stopped at Willy.

“And what, I wonder, does this young man think?” he asked kindly.

Willy felt himself go pale.

They were all watching him. What was he supposed to say? Was he going to offend somebody and ruin his chances here? He glanced about. Gogarty was watching him, curious. Damn it. No doubt he’d have something clever to say. He looked at Father MacGowan and the priest smiled at him, encouragingly. Encouraging him to do what, for God’s sake? He took a deep breath.

“My father is a tenant. All he wants is to buy his land.” He paused. Everybody was nodding. That was all right, then. He could shut up. But even as he relaxed, the image of his father and Mrs. Budge came into his mind. Then he thought of his mother, and of her anger, too. He’d told them the truth—but not the whole truth. Did Father MacGowan know that? Was he, as he might have been in the confessional, waiting for something more, wanting the good stuff? As if sensing his hesitation, nobody had spoken yet. He looked down at the table, and then—fool, no doubt, that he was— he let his conscience lead him. “But the truth is that neither he nor my mother will really be happy until every Protestant Englishman is out of Ireland, and Ireland is free.”

Ah. It was said. A tiny intake of breath seemed to pass round the table. Had he just destroyed himself? Certainly he’d just contradicted, and probably annoyed, the newspaperman who might, perhaps, have given him a job. He had failed before he had even started. He was doomed.

The Count, knowing nothing of such mundane matters, seemed pleased. Gogarty, understanding better, cheerfully leaped in.

“He’s absolutely right, of course,” he cried. “I’d have said the same thing. But do you know what I fear most, when we have our independence?”

“I don’t,” said Sheridan Smith with a smile, appreciating what was done, “but I know you’re going to tell us.”

“That terrible Lady Gregory,” said Gogarty with feeling.

People laughed. “Unfair,” said Sheridan Smith. “Cruel, Gogarty.” But Willy did not laugh. He knew that Gogarty spoke half in jest, yet still the jest affronted him.

Lady Gregory, the widowed Galway landowner who, all alone, had set herself to learn the Irish language.

She was not alone. There was quite a movement, nowadays, to celebrate the rich Celtic heritage of Ireland. The image—the magnificence of the old illuminated books, the Celtic crosses and artefacts with their echoing designs—that was easy to admire. But the word: that was harder. The Irish language was not an easy thing to learn, unless you had it from birth. It had been prevalent in the west, but the great exodus and dislocation of the Famine had reduced the Gaelic tongue to the corners of Connacht and the wilder places nowadays. Many had thought that the language might be lost.

Yet dedicated men had rescued it. Yeats, the poet, had caught its inspiration and mined its lore. Hyde, a Protestant son of the manse with a German wife, had founded the Gaelic League—Conradh na Gaeilge, to save the old language from extinction, and now it was promoted widely. He’d even scandalised Trinity College when he’d announced his mission “to de-Anglicise the Irish Nation.”

Yet it was Lady Gregory, only a woman, and outside the charmed circle, who’d performed, it seemed to Willy, the most important task of all. Delving not only into the spoken language, but into the often obscure and complex forms to be found in medieval manuscripts, she had collected all manner of ancient texts and from them culled ancient Irish tales that had first been written down, quite likely, not long after the time of Saint Patrick. Then she had translated them into English. The first collection, concerning the great warrior Cuchulainn, had been published a year ago. He had been lent it by a friend, and read it avidly. Another collection was due shortly.

“She has given us back our ancient heroes,” he said quietly.

“I don’t deny that,” said Gogarty. He smiled slyly. “Have you noticed, by the way, that the greatest enthusiasts for the Irish language all seem to have English names: Yeats, Gregory, Hyde? But I will tell you my objections to Lady Gregory, for I have two.

“The first objection is to her idiom. She says it is the idiom of the local people of Kiltartan. It may be so. But when you take the syntax of Irish and translate it directly into English, the effect is unnatural. I do not say: ‘There would be great grief on me indeed’ if some disaster occurred. Nor can I feel much for a hero who declares: ‘It is not trusting to a woman’s protection I am in this work I have in my hands.’ It is stilted. Page after page, it becomes cloying. I have the right to make this complaint, for my own name, Gogarty, is certainly Celtic. And I do not want my ancestors to be Kiltartanised. Now Yeats, who is quite as well versed in ancient Irish as Lady Gregory, never plays such games. He writes in modern English. But he is a great poet.”

Willy was silent. He did not know what to say to this. But Father MacGowan had the authority.

“Fair, up to a point,” he said. “But I take note from your own excellent verses, Gogarty, that you abhor the usual, dull pentameters of English as spoken by the English. The English spoken by Irish people has a special richness, and a rhythmic beauty that have yet to find a champion. Nonetheless, Lady Gregory, whatever her limitations, has performed a remarkable service to Ireland, and is to be applauded, not mocked.”

“I accept what you say. Hear my second objection, then. I fear this Gaelic revival, that she is part of, because it is not Ireland.” He waited a moment, for effect.

Willy frowned. The Gaelic revival went far beyond things literary. For most people, indeed, it meant the promotion of Gaelic sports, like the ancient and noble game of hurling. The Gaelic Athletic Association had attracted a large following in the last twenty years.

“You dislike the GAA?” he asked.

“Not as such. But why is that, if a member of the GAA is seen, even once, playing a game like cricket, he is expelled?”

“You must allow some natural reaction against the domination of England,” said Father MacGowan.

“I am Irish,” replied Gogarty. “I couldn’t be more so. But I do not care to be so circumscribed. What is it to be Irish anyway? Is it to be Celtic, whatever that is? I should think half the blood of the Irish was Viking anyway, before the English came. Do you know that one in six Irish names is Norman? But what really concerns me is the desire, in turning away from England, to look inward into this small island, instead of outward. Through all our history, we have been involved with wider shores, with the great culture, the religion, and the trade of Catholic Europe. I fear that this Gaelic fixation demands that, as an Irishman, I become something less than an Irishman is.”

And now a most remarkable thing occurred. The Count rapped his hand on the table.

“Ah,” he cried. “Aha!” Even Sheridan Smith started in surprise. Nobody knew the high-born personage could become so animated. “That is right, young man. Do not forget us, the Wild Geese, the great Irish community of Europe.”

Willy gazed at him. He’d always heard of the Wild Geese, those gallant men who had flown away out of Ireland two centuries ago, rather than live under English rule. But he had never thought to see one. So this strange, aristocratic figure was a Wild Goose. Somehow, it wasn’t what he’d expected.

The Count, however was waxing eloquent by now.

“There’s not a Catholic country, not a city where you won’t find us. Military men and counsellors, priests and lawyers, merchants and traders, too, no doubt, but always men of honour, held in respect. And we never forget. We are still Irishmen. You will find us at the Irish colleges in the capitals. It was émigrés who founded the Irish Franciscan College of Prague, you know. And, if I may say it, no nation has garnered greater honours. Numerous Irishmen have worn the Order of the Golden Fleece—that which there is no higher. Two hundred knights of the Spanish Order of Santiago. As for titles . . .” His eyes assumed an almost dreamy, mystical expression: “Burkes and Butlers, Leslies and Taafes, Kavanaghs, Walshes— the Counts von Wallis, you know, are the Walshes of Carrickmines. There are so many. As for my own family, there are numerous barons Byrne. We ourselves, the counts Birne, as we spell it now, were O’Byrnes originally, before we left.”

“And which of the many O’Byrnes would that be?” asked Father MacGowan.

“We had quite modest lands,” the Count replied. “You probably won’t know of the place. It is called Rathconan, up in the Wicklow Mountains. A family called Budge has it now,” he remarked with an aristocratic shrug. “I know nothing about them.”

O’Byrne of Rathconan? Willy stared in amazement. It had never occurred to him to connect this fastidious nobleman with his home. And then another realisation hit him. Damn it. And we thought that the place was ours.

So awesome and exotic was this aristocratic catalogue that, even here in the not-to-be-sneezed-at surroundings of Wellington Road, it reduced the table to silence.

Until, Willy could have sworn, there emanated from old Mrs. Smith, who so far hadn’t said a word, a distinct sniff. But now that she did speak, she spoke quietly.

“It’s strange to me,” she said, “that no one has mentioned the most important place of all. For there are two Irelands, not one.” She was an old lady, in comfortable circumstances, but it seemed to Willy that under her pale old face, there was something calm, yet strangely cold, and absolute. “If my husband, God rest his soul, had not saved me, most of you wouldn’t be here. I’d have died in the Famine in Clare, along with the rest of my family.” She looked at Willy. “Do you know how many left Ireland for America in the decade of the Famine?” She did not wait for a reply. “Three quarters of a million. And in the ten years after? Another million. And a constant stream since then, year after year. There are two Irelands: Ireland in Ireland, and Ireland in America. And America remembers the Famine.” She glanced at Sheridan. “Your cousin Martin Madden in Boston collects money for Ireland. Did you know that?”

“I didn’t actually.”

“My brother William’s son. He is quite prosperous now, I believe. He collects money. And it will be collected and given as long as there are people in Ireland who want to be free of England. The English may try to kill the Irish in Ireland with kindness, but they will never appease the Irish in America.”

“Or those in Australia,” added Father MacGowan, softly, “but they are too far away.”

“To whom does Martin Madden give money, might I ask?” said Sheridan Smith.

“To those who need it,” his mother answered, with a grim finality.

“Oh.” He looked embarrassed.

The Count glanced at the old lady curiously.

“I’d better go and see to my daughter,” said the Countess.

“We’re all done, I think,” said Sheridan’s wife.

“Perhaps,” said Father MacGowan, “I’ll stretch my legs. Gogarty, have you a moment?” He gave Sheridan Smith a meaningful look as he and Gogarty went out, and indicated Willy.

“Oh yes,” said the newspaperman, glad to change the subject. And a moment later he drew Willy aside.

He didn’t need to know much about him, he told the young man, to set him at ease. A recommendation from Father MacGowan was quite enough. Did he know what he wanted to do with his life? Well, nor had he at that age. “How can you possibly tell,” he asked obligingly, “until you’ve tried a thing or two?” There were some small jobs at the newspaper where a young fellow could get a look at things, so to speak. Not much pay, of course. Could he continue to live with his uncle and aunt? Good. Hmm. He’d never sold anything of course. “But you might find a talent for it. I’ve a good man who sells advertising space for the paper. To tradesmen, mostly, and that sort of thing. Advertising is very important to a newspaper, you know. You might go round with him for a bit. Learn the ropes.” There would be other things to do about the place, as well. Would that suit him?

Indeed it would.

“Splendid then. Come into the office tomorrow morning. Oh.” The newspaper man’s eyes were suddenly riveted on the doorway. He stared. So did Willy.

The little girl who had just come in with the Countess must have been five or six. She was pale and slim; she had a cascade of raven hair. And a pair of green eyes, emerald green, that seemed to generate a light of their own. Willy had never seen any eyes like them.

“She’s better,” said the Countess.

“I’m hungry,” said the child. “Hello Great Granny.” She ran over and kissed the old lady.

“I’m your Great Uncle Sheridan,” said Sheridan. “You were tiny when I last saw you. Do you remember me?”

“No,” said the child. Then she gave him a brilliant smile. “But I shall now.” She turned to Willy. “Who are you?”

“I’m just Willy,” said Willy.

“How do you do, Just Willy. My name is Caitlin. That’s because I’m Irish.”

“Just Caitlin?”

“Oh.” She laughed. “I see. I am Countess Caitlin Birne.”

“I am Willy O’Byrne.”

“Really?” She glanced at her father for guidance. “Are we related?”

Sheridan Smith intervened smoothly.

“Father MacGowan is outside, he’s just sent in word that you should accompany him back. Come, I’ll take you to the door.” At the door, however, he detained Willy for a minute. “Going round Dublin, of course, you’ll meet all kinds of people. Some are better to know than others. You can always ask me, if you wish.”

“Thank you,” said Willy.

Sheridan Smith nodded.

“One small word of advice, perhaps. Not to be shared, you understand? Not even with Father MacGowan.” He paused, while Willy listened respectfully. “Do you know his brother? He keeps a bookshop.”

“Only by sight.”

“Good. Well, take my advice. Avoid him.”

As he walked back through the mist which, with the hint of coolness developing in the autumn afternoon, seemed ready to close in upon them again, Willy was lost in thought. So many sensations, so many discoveries in a short space of time: his mind was still trying to take them in. Then the strange shock of meeting the most beautiful child he’d ever seen; and the unexpected warning: he hardly knew what to make of it all.

And how curious that the old lady should be a Madden from Clare. His grandmother, he knew, had been a Nuala Madden from that region. But he’d seen a photograph of her, and she looked nothing like the old lady he’d just met. Well, Madden was a common name in Connacht. He was no more likely to be related to the old lady than he was to the Count.

Yet still, in the misty afternoon, he could not escape a sense that the whole world were covered by some hidden skein of relationships, under the ground perhaps, or above the mist, like flocks of birds, eternally migrating back and forth.

“What are you thinking?” asked the priest.

“I was thinking, Father,” he replied truthfully, “of the strange interrelatedness of things.”

“Ah. Indeed. It is one of the ways, you know, by which we may discern God’s Providence.”

“Yes,” said Willy. “I suppose so.”

“And the further proof,” the priest added cheerfully, “is that you have a job.”

The months that followed were exciting ones for Willy. He did as he was told, toured the city looking for advertisers, and made himself useful to Sheridan Smith, who after a few months pronounced himself satisfied. He was even given a small increase in wages. His aunt and uncle were glad to receive his rent.

Sheridan Smith also kept an eye out for him in other ways. “Here’s a book I reviewed. I don’t want it myself. Give it to someone if you don’t want to read it,” he’d say casually. But he noticed that his employer always chose well for him. He obtained the next volume of Lady Gregory’s work in this manner and, Kiltartan English or not, immersed himself joyfully in the stories of the Children of Lir, Diarmait and Grania, the Fianna, and many others. And when the good lady and the poet Yeats opened their new Abbey Theatre, he would push a ticket at Willy and remark, “They send us these complimentary tickets sometimes. Go along if you want to.”

Several times during the summer, he had been up to see his family; and during these visits, he had had some long conversations with his father. Mrs. Budge was up at Rathconan in the summer, but often in the winter months now, she would go into Dublin, where she had taken a small house at Rathmines. From there, she would make sorties into the city centre. “She has even more opportunity to be insane in Dublin than she does here,” his father remarked bitterly. His father avoided her as much as he could nowadays. But nonetheless, there was something he wanted from her; and after much discussion, it was he who finally suggested: “Go and talk to her in Dublin if you like, then, Willy. You may do better than I can.”

It was not until late the following year, however, that Willy finally ventured out to see Mrs. Budge at Rathmines. Her house was modest—two-storey over basement, with a small garden in front made lightless by some large evergreen bushes. He went up to the front door and was ushered in by a maid that he didn’t know. She must have been hired in Dublin. She asked him to sit on a chair in the narrow hall.

He wondered whether Mrs. Budge would be the same in Dublin as she was up at Rathconan. There she had developed a reputation for increasing eccentricity. “She knows what’s going on, mind you,” his father had told him. “If a cow’s not milking well, she’ll know it before you do, and God help you if anything’s mislaid.” But the turban seemed to have permanently attached itself to her head now, and she had taken to reading strange books that were reputed to be occult.

Once, about a year after she had arrived, she had gone to the nearest Church of Ireland church. Normally, the Protestant clergymen were only too grateful for any extra congregation they could get. Gladstone had disestablished the Church some time ago now, so they lacked the official backing they had enjoyed before. The number of Protestant landowners was falling, and nobody, in Rathconan at least, had ever heard of anyone being converted by a clergyman to join that church. He may therefore have looked up hopefully at the sight of Mrs. Budge, even with her turban on, sitting in his church one morning. Her conduct was not encouraging, however. She had sat, and she had continued to sit. Her face was neither approving nor disapproving. She might have been a dispassionate observer from a far-off land. Somewhat to his relief, he had not seen her since. Mrs. Budge’s Dublin residence had a front parlour, or drawing room, which connected to a dining room that faced the garden at the back. When he was ushered into the front room, Willy noticed at once that the curtains were half drawn, so that the space was shadowy. There was a fire burning in the grate, and a lamp beside her wing chair provided the light by which, evidently, she had been reading the newspaper. On one wall there was a picture, of the early nineteenth century, depicting a view of Rathconan. On another, a sporting print and, not far from it, the sepia photograph of an erotic Indian wall carving that he remembered seeing in the big house. Did she take it with her, he wondered, like a talisman? On a low table were some theatre programmes. It seemed that she went to musicals, as most people in Dublin did. But beside one of these he saw a pamphlet on which, he was almost sure, he could make out the words “Theosophical Society.” If she entertained in here, it was obviously her personal den. Perhaps her visitors were part of a coterie of some kind. His father swore she had séances. It might well be so.

She was wearing a turban, this one made of a cloth with a brownish paisley design. She had an Indian shawl round her shoulders. She had not changed much down the years, except that her face was worn a little looser now.

“You are quite a young man, Willy,” she said.

He glanced at a chair and she indicated that he should sit in it. He did not feel intimidated. His time out in the commercial world of Dublin had given him a certain confidence, and, as he had reminded himself, this was business after all. He had also developed a fairly pleasing manner. Very politely, but clearly, he explained the matter in hand. “I have come, Mrs. Budge,” he said, “on behalf of my father.”

The terms offered by the new Wyndham land legislation were really quite extraordinary. The price to be paid for land was twenty-eight times the annual rent. A landowner accepting this money, in a single, immediate payment from the government, would almost certainly be able to invest the proceeds at a higher return. The tenant was not required to make any down payment at all. And the government asked only a three percent mortgage rate, payable over sixty-eight years. Quite apart from the fact that even a modest rate of inflation would reduce these payments to trivial sums, the effect would almost certainly be a sharp reduction in the tenant’s outgoings. To all intents and purposes, the government was using some of the wealth it had acquired from its empire to buy out the Ascendancy and return its lands to Irish hands. It was hardly surprising then, that the numbers taking up the offer exceeded anything seen before by a factor of about twelve times. The prediction of Sheridan Smith looked likely to be born out: some people were guessing that a third or more of the entire island might change hands.

Carefully, and very politely, Willy outlined the legislation. He explained that the terms were so remarkable that both his father, and doubtless she herself, could hardly wish to pass them up. He stressed, albeit untruthfully, the affection his father had for the Budge estate, and how he desired to live in harmony with them. Nothing would change, except that all the parties would be better off. He did it respectfully and very nicely. She listened to him carefully. When he had done, she was silent for some time. Then she half smiled.

“Do you believe, Willy,” she asked, “in the transmigration of souls?”

He stared at her, hardly comprehending at first.

“I’d have to ask Father MacGowan,” he managed at last. “But I don’t think so.”

“You should study it,” she cried. “It is a most interesting subject. I was wondering what you might have been before this life. I myself . . .” She did not divulge what it was that she had been. Probably something too exotic for humble ears to hear. “We are all,” she glanced towards the sepia photograph on the wall, “more than we imagine. Here in Dublin, many people are taking an interest in Theosophy, you know. Mr. Yeats himself has been a student of the subject. We are all connected, you see. These things only become clear as we achieve spiritual enlightenment. Buddhism, Hinduism, even Christianity: they are all related. That is the path to the future, I do believe. We think too much of material things.”

Were her own thoughts connected? It was hard to tell. But he recognised her well enough, as a general type. Clearly she had decided to become a Dublin eccentric. There were quite a number of them. He supposed such people existed in other places, too, but Dublin, with its special leisurely pace, seemed to encourage their growth.

If you had nothing else to do, perhaps if you were a little short of money—and who was not?—then to be an eccentric was an easy passport through the rest of your life. You could get away with anything.

Then, suddenly, he saw through her. She had nothing else to cling on to, of course. He understood that. Her land up at Rathconan was what she was. She would never give it up. This talk of spiritual things was nothing but a tatty old screen to hide her real intentions.

“And my father’s land?” he asked.

“I’ll have to think about that, Willy. But we’re all very well as we are. Tell your father that. These things are quite temporal,” she cried, as if that signified something.

He bowed his head. The maid showed him out.

The old woman thinks she’s fobbed me off, he considered to himself. But she hasn’t. For now, this is war.

He was walking along from Trinity towards Merrion Square the following day, wondering how to write to his father, and what account of the meeting he could give him, when he noticed that the green door of MacGowan’s bookshop was open. He did not think that he had ever seen it open before. By its very nature, it seemed to him, it should be closed. And simply because of this unusual circumstance, he decided to go in. Why not, after all? Sheridan Smith might have told him to avoid the owner, but that wasn’t, surely, a prohibition against even looking at the books there. Besides, he was curious to see whether he would still find MacGowan as daunting as he had when he was younger. He entered.

MacGowan was sitting at a table at the back. He was examining a volume, evidently trying to decide how to price it. He was smoking a cigarette that was hardly more than a stub. Willy noticed how stained the bookseller’s fingers were with nicotine. He went to a bookshelf. In front of him was a book of sermons by some eighteenth-century divine. He took it out and pretended to look at it.

Sure enough, the single eye was upon him. He held the book in his hand. The single eye remained fixed. But he was not afraid. He felt rather proud of himself.

“Are you interested in that book?” said MacGowan.

“No.”

Willy moved along the shelf. A book on South American plants, with line illustrations. He looked at the pictures. Quite fine, in their way.

“I’m surprised,” said MacGowan, “given that you’ve no interest in books, that you aren’t playing a sport. Have you joined the GAA?”

“I haven’t.”

“Do you speak the language?” Irish. Gaelic. The language of honour.

“A little. My mother does.”

“You should join the GAA. Though I suppose you get enough exercise,” he remarked, “running errands for Sheridan Smith.” He saw Willy start with surprise. “I know who you are. My brother has told me about you.”

“Father MacGowan’s been very good to me.”

“No doubt. He is a kindly man.” He took a drag on the remains of his cigarette. “But mistaken.” He continued, almost miraculously it seemed to Willy, to find combustible weed in the ragged paper leavings between his fingers, drew upon the stub twice more, then, indifferently, let it drop into a small, stone ashtray, pressing the last life out of the little glow, somewhat cruelly, with his thumbnail. He glanced up, as if to check whether Willy was still there. “A good man, certainly. It’s a pity,” he added regretfully, “that he’s a priest.”

Willy looked at him in great astonishment.

“I assumed all his family would be proud . . .”

“My mother was. My father, too.” He glanced down at the book on the desk, wrote “Ten shillings” in pencil inside the cover, and closed it. “Personally, I’ve no great use for priests. It was the priests that destroyed Parnell.”

“A special case.”

“The men of ’98 knew how to keep the priests in their place. Emmet, too.”

Willy nodded. There were plenty of men in Dublin with similar opinions. He had not felt impelled to join any political cause himself, but you had only to go into any Dublin pub to hear strong opinions voiced. A few were extremist—out and out socialists. Then there was the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenians—ultimate heirs of the French Revolution and of Young Ireland, it might be said—but secretive, shadowy. Most of them had little patience with Church interference. Then there was Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party, of course, dedicated to Home Rule by more patient, parliamentary means. But you could seldom be sure where people really stood. The GAA was officially dedicated to sport, but it was quasi-political really. There were Fenians in the GAA all right. Evidently the priest’s brother belonged somewhere along this spectrum— towards the radical end of it, perhaps, if it put him so at variance with his Father MacGowan.

Deciding that some response was required, but that he’d better leave Father MacGowan and the Church out of it, he remarked:

“I’d be glad to see the English out of Ireland.” He thought of Mrs. Budge. “But I sometimes wonder if it will ever happen.”

The bookseller stood up. He was somewhat corpulent. But the surprising deftness of his gait suggested he could move very fast if he wanted to.

“I sell newspapers here, as well as books,” he remarked. “Old issues.” He pulled down a broadsheet from a shelf. “This is the first issue of The United Irishman. Arthur Griffith produced it for the centenary of 1798.” He nodded. “A remarkable thing to have done.” He showed it to Willy. “You should read it,” he said. He turned and stared towards the open door. Apart from the two of them, the shop was quite empty.

“The trouble with Sheridan Smith,” he said, “is that he and his like—not to mention the Catholic farmers who don’t want to be bothered with anything but their land—will give away Ireland’s birthright. Our nationhood. In another twenty years we shall all be living as West Britons, which is exactly what the English want. The only way to stop that is to drive them out: when the time is right, when we are ready for it. That may come through Parliament. Or more radical means. Fenian perhaps. With the help of Clan na Gael in America, of course.” He smiled. “America is where the money comes from. I lived there once, you know. Many years ago.”

“When I was a child,” said Willy, “the Clan na Gael sent men over to plant bombs in England. It did no good at all, and most of them were caught.”

“I know.” MacGowan sighed. “Twenty years in jail, some of them got. A particular friend of mine . . .” He stopped himself. “They’ve learned since.” He paused for a few moments. “Well.” He returned the newspaper to its shelf. “Do you know what the Church said about the Fenians. Bishop Moriarty, it was. He and Cullen were thick as thieves. ‘Eternity is not long enough,’ he said, ‘nor hell hot enough to punish them for their sins.’ There, you can think about that,” he concluded. “But don’t tell my brother.”

“No,” said Willy, “I won’t.”

“Come again,” said MacGowan. “You should read that newspaper. I have postcards, also, from France.”

As Willy continued on his way, he thought of Sheridan Smith’s injunction. He had not deliberately disobeyed it. He couldn’t have foreseen that the man would talk to him. In any case, the encounter had taken place, and there was no harm done.