Authors: Anne Bennett
‘Don’t worry about us, for we are well looked after. We had a big bag of vegetables and another of potatoes dropped in only yesterday, enough for a few pans of stew. There is no meat; any to be found is commandeered by the military and yet Sister Miriam, who does most of the cooking, found a couple of dead rabbits outside the kitchen door today.’
She took Rosie’s coat, basket and bag and put them in an alcove off the hall and then, with her arm through Rosie’s, took her down a corridor into a room where nuns sat on benches either side of a large, dark wood, refectory table. They had steaming bowls of stew before them and a nun stood at a side table with a cauldron before her and a ladle in her hand, doling out generous portions.
Rosie felt light-headed with hunger as the savoury smell rose in the air. All the nuns’ eyes were upon her as Sister Cuthbert led Rosie to the head of the table, where the Reverend Mother sat in an upholstered chair. Rosie dropped a curtsey before the older nun as she was introduced and knew instantly that, despite the smile on her face, little would get past this woman.
Her manner, though, was sympathetic towards Rosie as she bade her rise and said, ‘Now, Mrs Walsh, my name is Mother Therese and Sister Amelia has told us a little of why you are here in Dublin. Everything else can wait until we’ve eaten. We are happy to share what we have with you.’
Seldom, Rosie thought afterwards, had food tasted as good as that rabbit stew: the meat succulent and juicy, the vegetables cooked to perfection, the dumplings helped soak up the gravy. They were an unusual colour and had an equally unusual taste, but were more than just edible and Rosie did the meal justice. A few of the nuns asked her questions, but
Rosie answered anything she was asked politely although she could barely eat fast enough, such was her hunger.
Her main thoughts, though, even as she ate, was where she would have to go and who she’d have to ask to get news of Danny. After the meal was finished, Mother Therese asked, ‘So my dear, I’m sure you are anxious for news of your husband?’ and she nodded eagerly.
‘The Franciscan Fathers would be the ones to contact,’ the nun went on. ‘They’ve been dealing a great deal with the prisoners in Kilmainham Jail. One of them would surely know if your husband is there or not and once that is established, we can go on from there.’
‘Oh, thank you Reverend Mother,’ Rosie said fervently. ‘How do I find them?’
‘You don’t find them, my dear,’ Mother Therese said. ‘You can’t walk around the streets without a pass: I’m surprised you weren’t challenged on the way here. Sister Amelia and Sister Cuthbert will go.’
It was as Rosie was saying goodbye to the two nuns at the door that she heard a shell burst louder than any other had been. It was followed by another and another, whistling through the air and exploding with a thunderous crash. Rosie knew that if the riflemen in the house weren’t dead before, they surely would be now. She closed the door sadly.
Only a short while after the nuns had left, they were back and had with them a Franciscan friar who introduced himself as Father Joe. ‘I was on an errand of my own,’ he said in explanation to Mother Therese and Rosie, who’d come into the hall to see the cause of the commotion. ‘And then I was asked to see to the two young fellows who’d barricaded themselves in the house on Mount Street.’
‘Are they dead?’
‘The one is, the other won’t be long following him,’ the monk said softly. ‘I said a wee prayer, but I had nothing with me to do anything else. I told someone to go for the parish
priest and when he came just a few minutes ago I was about to be on my way again, when I came upon your nuns.’
He came across to Rosie and said, ‘You must be Mrs Walsh, I’ve been told your story. You’re looking for your husband, I believe?’
‘Aye, Father. His name is Daniel Walsh,’ Rosie said. Her voice was little more than a whisper. Already she was afraid of the answer the priest might give her. She was suddenly aware of the silence in the room and of Sister Cuthbert edging nearer to her, catching up one of Rosie’s tensed fists in her hand.
It seemed an age before the priest said, ‘I believe your man is being held in the jail. He was with de Valera’s lot in Boland’s Mill, after being routed from the house in Mount Street. De Valera was the last to surrender. I was with Father Augustine at the jail when they were brought in and I remember the names being read out – Daniel Walsh was on the list.’
Rosie felt the breath she hadn’t even been aware she was holding leave her body in such a rush that she felt light-headed and would have faltered had it not been for Sister Cuthbert. Her Danny had not been blown into a million pieces, or riddled with bullets and thrown into a makeshift grave in St Stephen’s Green. He was alive!
But despite the monk’s words, his face was grave, and Rosie asked, panicking. ‘What is it, Father? Is Danny injured, or sick?’
‘To my knowledge, he isn’t,’ the priest said. ‘He isn’t, at any rate, in the prison infirmary.’
‘Can I see him? Are they allowed visitors?’
‘They are indeed allowed visitors,’ the priest said. ‘In fact, I was on the way to Kilmainham Jail myself today. I have a wedding to arrange.’
‘A wedding?’
‘Aye,’ Father Joe replied. ‘One of the leaders of it all, Joseph Plunkett, is still determined to marry his sweetheart, Grace
Gifford. It will have to be done speedily I’m thinking. Joseph is one of the ones to be put before a court martial tomorrow.’
‘What will happen to them, Father?’
The monk lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Mrs Walsh, I am a simple friar. I have no crystal ball.’
‘Have you no idea?’
‘My idea might be totally wrong,’ Father Joe said.
‘Even so. Please, Father?’
The friar regarded Rosie and her anxious face and knew it would be no kindness to buoy her up with false hopes.
‘Mrs Walsh, I think they will be executed – shot.’
‘The leaders, you mean? Just the leaders?’ Rosie cried desperately as Sister Cuthbert, hearing the distress in Rosie’s voice, put her arms around her.
‘Mrs Walsh, if you’d seen how many British soldiers have been killed, you’d know the government will not be prone to leniency.’
So, Danny might be alive now, might have survived the carnage, but for how long? She felt hatred for Phelan rise up inside her and fill her with white-hot anger, so she felt as if she was on fire, even while her body shook with fear for Danny.
Suddenly, Rosie was overcome with a blackness descending around and about her like a cloak, and she slithered from the nun’s enfolding arms to the floor.
The pungent stench of smelling salts brought her around some time later and she lay on the floor where she’d been placed, a pillow under her head. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, embarrassed.
‘No need to be sorry, my dear,’ Sister Cuthbert said. ‘It was of no matter at all. If I help you, can you sit up in the chair that Father Joe has brought in?’
Rosie gave a brief nod of her head. Sister Cuthbert helped her up and she waited for a moment for her head to stop spinning, swaying slightly on her feet so that Father Joe came
to her other side and both helped her into the chair. But, once settled, she lifted her eyes and said, ‘Can you take me to the jail, Father? Can I get to see Danny?’
‘Do you think you’ll be able for it?’ Father Joe asked. ‘I will take you with me and gladly, but it’s a tidy step.’
Rosie looked up at the monk, his kindly face full of understanding and sympathy and she said, ‘That was a momentary weakness only. I must see Danny, Father. I won’t rest till I do.’
‘Well then, we’ll go along together as soon as you feel fully recovered,’ the monk assured her. ‘You will be all right in the streets when you are with me. We’ll need no passes.’
Sister Cuthbert went away and came back through with a glass of water. When Rosie had drunk it she felt much better, stronger altogether, and more able to face whatever lay ahead of her. ‘I’m ready, Father Joe,’ she said.
‘Are you sure now?’
‘Aye. The fresh air will probably do me good,’ Rosie said with conviction. She put on her coat, glad of it because though the day was fine, it always gave her confidence to wear a proper coat and she thought she might have need of confidence before the day was out.
It was when she lifted the basket that Father Joe asked, ‘What’s in there?’
‘Food for Danny. My mother-in-law packed it for him, just in case, you know…We didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, but we hoped and prayed. I washed and ironed a good white shirt, I’m sure he’ll have need of one now and a jumper in case it’s cold. I shouldn’t think prisons are renowned for their good turf fires, not, of course, that I’ve had any personal experience.’
‘No indeed,’ Father Joe said, peeling back the clothes at the top and looking at the produce in the basket.
The monk knew there was little chance of Danny having any of that food, or the shirt and jumper. He wondered whether
he should tell Rosie that, but decided not to. Let her keep her illusions for a little longer. He did, however, relieve her of the basket, for it was a weight and they had a distance to go. Just minutes later they were scurrying down Baggot Street towards the bridge over the Grand Canal.
‘I have great respect for these men in the jail,’ the monk said as they walked. ‘They’ve even impressed some of the soldiers, for every man jack of them is brave, and all I’ve spoken to were, and are, prepared to sacrifice their lives for Ireland’s freedom.’
‘Foolhardy though surely, Father?’ Rosie said. ‘Many people think that.’
‘Aye, it may have been foolhardy,’ the monk went on. ‘But a noble act for all that. It brought the eyes of the world upon us. If these men are shot, they will at least have died with honour and will be buried respectfully. Masses will be said for them and their relatives will have a grave to visit.’
The priest’s words were of little comfort to Rosie for she’d heard the same sentiment expressed often and it didn’t help.
They left the city centre as they passed the bridge that Rosie had travelled over in a tram just a wee while before. One of the soldiers at Portobello Barracks raised his hand in salute as the priest passed and there was a chorused greeting when they passed Richmond Barracks on the other side of the road a short time later. No-one challenged the two, or asked where they were bound for, or demanded to see passes. Rosie was grateful and knew it would have been a different story had she been on her own.
In fact, the soldiers seemed quite relaxed. ‘I suppose the threat’s over now,’ Rosie said. ‘All involved in it are either dead or behind bars. They have no reason to be alarmed.’
‘No, indeed,’ the friar said. ‘Nor the ordinary Dublin people either, thank God, and for all my admiration for the rebels there was much hardship and poverty during the uprising and it led to lawlessness. I’ve seen children searching the mounds
of burned and bombed rubbish for anything useful, and the sweet shops and toy shops have been cleared of stock.
‘There was also great loss and tragedy amongst the ordinary people not involved at all. Men and women were taken prisoner by the army at Ballbridge and thirty-six people, men, women and children, were killed in a house in Haddington Road. A wee twelve-year-old boy was killed stone dead himself as he was giving a drink to a dying soldier.
‘I wonder if it will ever be the same,’ Father Joe continued pensively. ‘Some buildings are surely lost forever. The Hibernian Academy was burned and it had all the spring collection of paintings and other works of art, many of them just loaned. Only the good Lord knows what can be done about that. I imagine they’ll be insured. The worst of it is, they believe the curator, Mr Kavanagh, was burned to death in the building too. Then there were twenty horses belonging to Clery’s, the department store, burned to death. Only one escaped alive.’
Rosie could imagine the terror of those horses. All animals were afraid of fire. She imagined their screams would rent the air and felt her stomach turn over with the horror of it all. Afterwards, the stink of burning horse flesh would have hung in the air. She wondered why the loss of those horses had affected her more than the deaths of human beings.
There was silence as they walked along, each busy with their own thoughts. Father Joe branched away from the canal not long after they passed Richmond Barracks in to Cork Street, which led to Marrowbone Lane where he was able to point out the docks of the Grand Canal to Rosie before turning right into James Street. ‘It’s not far now,’ he said. ‘It’s in Inchicore Road just a little way along here.’
Rosie nodded her head for she was too nervous to talk much and was having enough trouble putting one foot before the other when really she wanted to run the other way and pretend all this was a bad dream. But then they turned the
corner and there it was, the massive structure, built of blue-grey brick. There were high walls surrounding it with coils of barbed wire on top of them.
Rosie turned anguished eyes to the friar and her knees began to tremble. She felt weak with longing to see with her own eyes that Danny was alive, yet she was filled with fear at the thought of entering that forbidding place.
Father Joe understood much of the thoughts stumbling through Rosie’s troubled mind and said gently, ‘Take heart, my dear. I am sure that Danny will be gladdened at the sight of you.’
It was that thought which spurred her on, and so she took a deep breath yet she doubted she’d ever have plucked up the courage to go into that building alone.
The door to the jail was arched and had a decoration of coiled sea serpents on the top of it but the entrance itself was fitted with a thick black grille. Father Joe pulled the bell pull and smiled encouragingly at Rosie.
The man who came to open the door was fat and sloppily dressed, despite the uniform he wore which was stained and crumpled. A sizeable bunch of keys was attached to his belt and he used some of these to release the grille gates, opening them with a grating sound. ‘Good afternoon, Father,’ he said, ushering them into a small passage. ‘The Governor has been expecting you this long time.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry. I was unavoidably delayed,’ Father Joe replied. ‘I hope the Governor will have time now for a few words.’
The man didn’t answer immediately, intent on securing the door. Rosie noticed that he first dragged the grille closed with a clang of metal and the steel door was slammed shut after it before it was also locked and barred.
She was aware of the disturbing way the man was ogling her and she raised her chin and met his look steadily, determined not to show any reaction. Yet the whole place depressed and frightened her. She had the urge to beat on
the gates and beg to be let out again into the fresh air, for there seemed little here and what there was was fetid and unsavoury.
Before Rosie gave way to this impulse, she heard Father Joe say, ‘This young woman is looking for her husband, a Daniel Walsh. I believe you have him here.’
The man looked at Rosie contemptuously and shrugged. ‘Might have. We have lots of prisoners here. Anyway,’ he added as his eyes slid over Rosie with scorn. ‘If she wants to visit, she’ll have to have a word with the Governor.’
‘Then maybe you could tell him that we’re here?’ Father Joe retorted crisply. ‘And we will ask him.’
There was the merest of pauses before the man, sighing heavily said, ‘You’d better follow me.’
The door the prison warder opened from the passage led to a steep flight of stairs and the two went up after the man. The power of the cloth, Rosie thought, and guessed that without the monk, she’d not have got half so far. As it was, Governor Greene said he would be pleased to see them and they were ushered into his office.
A large wooden desk piled high with files dominated the room, with a bookshelf in one corner and a filing cabinet in the other. The governor greeted them at the door and bade them sit down in the chairs on the other side of the desk. He then sat down opposite them and asked Father Joe, ‘Have you come to talk to the groom?’
Rosie remembered the monk saying that one of the prisoners wished to marry and he was going to officiate at the Nuptial Mass in the prison chapel.
‘Aye,’ Father Joe said. ‘I am doing that, all right, but I’m here for another reason too. This young woman,’ and he indicated Rosie as he spoke, ‘is looking for her husband, name of Daniel Walsh. I have reason to believe he is here?’
‘Let’s see, then,’ the Governor said. ‘I had a fair few in over the weekend. I haven’t the names of them all yet. Was
your husband one of the rebels, madam?’ he demanded sternly.
It was useless to deny it, to tell of his love of peace, of the charge his mother made on him to find Phelan and his own filial duty as the eldest in the family. She merely nodded. ‘Aye.’
‘One of those who killed and maimed and near burned the whole city to the ground, Mrs Walsh?’ the governor went on. ‘A place where decent people couldn’t go about their lives, get to their job of work, or buy food in the shops?’
‘Come, come,’ Father Joe chided. ‘None of this is Mrs Walsh’s fault. The family need news of him. Is he here or is he not?’
Governor Greene looked down a list in the front of one of the files. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘We have a Daniel Walsh here. He says his home is in Blessington, County Wicklow.’
‘Aye, that’s him.’ The cry burst from Rosie’s lips. ‘I’ve travelled from there today. Can I see him?’
The governor seemed to give the matter some thought, leaning back in his chair and drumming his fingers together. It seemed an age before he said, ‘I should think that could be arranged. We have a room set aside. Come, I’ll show you the way and have your husband sent for.’
Rosie stood up and bent to lift the basket Father Joe had placed on the floor beside his chair. The Governor had assumed it belonged to Father Joe, as he’d carried it in, but now he said to Rosie, ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s…it’s for Danny,’ Rosie said. ‘Some food his mother has packed from the farm and a clean shirt and jumper. I’m sure he has need of them.’
The Governor took the basket from her and, placing it on the desk between them, peeled back the clothes laid on top. He couldn’t see all the food, but what he did see was good enough. His eyes widened with greed, his face taking on an almost lascivious look as he ran his tongue over his lips before
saying, ‘You can leave this here. Visitors are not allowed to bring anything in that is not vetted. I’m sure you understand. I’ll see your husband gets the things later.’
Rosie, looking at the man’s face, knew Danny would never even get a sniff of what was in that basket but she also knew she could do nothing about it. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Can I see him now?’
She was eventually shown into a stark bare room, cut in half with a metal grid ending at a solid wooden counter that reached to the floor. On either side of the grid were set hard wooden chairs and Rosie sat down on one as the Governor indicated. She heard the click of the door as he left the room and she waited.
Afterwards, she wasn’t sure how she prevented the cry from escaping from her lips when she saw Danny come in. He’d not shaved for a week and she’d half expected to see a beard and moustache forming. What she didn’t expect was the red-rimmed ravaged eyes, nor the split lip and vicious bruise scarring one side of his face. Nor did she expect his shambling gait, his hands manacled together, his arms folded across his stomach. His clothes were in tatters and stained with blood, sweat and dirt and a rancid smell emanated from him.
Rosie hadn’t seen her husband for eight days, that was all. It might have been eight years, eighteen years, the change was so great. His voice when he spoke was husky. ‘Rosie, you shouldn’t have come here.’
Rosie looked at the warder who’d followed Danny and stood by the door, his face implacable with eyes staring straight ahead, but able to listen to every word spoken. Well, she thought angrily, let him bloody well listen. ‘I had to come, Danny. We knew nothing and I was going mad with worry.’
‘Did Phelan make it back all right?’
‘Oh aye,’ Rosie said with bitterness. ‘He and Niall came
home without a scratch. And your mother is killing the proverbial fatted calf as if he was some sort of favoured prodigal son.’
‘It’s her way.’
‘Aye, I know,’ Rosie said with a sigh. ‘He could tell us nothing of you. Nothing of any value for all he hung about in Dublin till the surrender. I wanted to kill him.’
‘I told him to go straight home. I knew you would be worried.’
‘Well the news he would have brought would hardly have made us worry less,’ Rosie said. ‘Oh, Danny, you’ve no idea what it was like. I love you so much and I couldn’t rest, none of us could, till we found out what had happened to you. And now to see you here like this…Oh, God, Danny. What happened to your face?’
Danny was glad Rosie couldn’t see his bruised and battered body which was damaged far worse than his face. His eyes slid over the guard and he said with a shrug, ‘We lost.’
Rosie didn’t pursue it. She’d seen the sideways look Danny had given and understood: she had no desire to make things worse, but she longed to put her arms around him, to put soothing salve on his bruised and grazed cheek, to look after him. It was breaking her heart to see him in such a place and in such a condition. ‘Oh, Danny,’ she said in a whisper. ‘I miss you.’
‘And I you. More than I can say,’ Danny replied, tears glittering in his eyes.
Their hands on the counter moved towards the wire and their fingers touched softly beneath the tiny gap. ‘No contact,’ rapped out the warder. They sprang apart as if they’d been stung. Rosie valiantly swallowed the lump in her throat that was threatening to choke her and said, ‘Your mammy packed some things for you in a basket, and I put you in a clean shirt and jumper, but I had to leave it with the Governor.’
‘And that’s where it will stay,’ Danny said in a low voice.
‘But don’t worry about it. That’s the least of my problems.’
‘What will happen to you?’
Danny shrugged. ‘Some of the leaders go for court martial tomorrow. They said they’ll be shot, but no-one knows for sure. When they’ve got rid of them, maybe they’ll start on us.’
‘Oh, God, Danny, no,’ Rosie cried brokenly for she couldn’t prevent the tears seeping from her eyes then and trickling over her cheeks. But hadn’t she faced this fact already? Even as the priest had given her hope that her husband was alive, his grave face and voice had spoken of further heartache to come. But now, to hear Danny speak of it so calmly…
‘Ssh, Rosie,’ Danny pleaded. ‘Don’t cry, please. I knew what I had to do and knew too that there could only be one outcome. I said that from the beginning.’
‘Phelan was a bloody little fool,’ Rosie said through her tears. ‘If I had him in front of me this minute, I would choke the life out of him and take pleasure in it.’
‘Ssh, Rosie, Rosie, don’t cry, please. This doesn’t help,’ Danny said. ‘We have to take the situation as it is. It’s you I worry about, you and wee Bernadette, and Daddy working the farm with only Phelan to help him, and Mammy fretting about me all the days of her life. These are the things that drive sleep from my mind at night.’
‘I can’t bear it, Danny.’
‘You must, because I can do nothing to change it,’ Danny said softly. He remembered telling Rosie once that she should fear nothing while he was with her. He’d promised her he’d never do anything to hurt her but now he found it hard to bear the helplessness reflected in her eyes. He shut his own eyes for a moment and then opened them and said, ‘Tell Sarah that Sam is in with me in this hell-hole, and Shay too.’
‘Time’s up!’
There was so much Rosie still wanted to say. She wanted to tear down the grille and enfold her husband in her arms
and tell him how much she loved him and would continue to love him till the very breath left her body.
‘Goodbye, Rosie.’
‘Can I not come again?’ Rosie asked bleakly.
‘It would serve no purpose,’ Danny said. ‘Go home and raise my daughter to be good and honest and upright and tell her of her father.’
Danny was almost pulled from the room and Rosie’s last vision of him was through a mist of tears. She leaned her head on the counter and cried broken-heartedly.
All the way back to the convent, Father Joe talked. He’d seen the sorrow etched on Rosie’s face and he knew it went too deep for her to make small talk for politeness’s sake. But he chatted away anyway as they walked back, that lovely, springtime evening.
They were almost back in Baggot Street when Father Joe said. ‘Are you returning to Wicklow tonight?’
‘No,’ Rosie said. ‘Connie was certain the nuns would be able to find a room for me somewhere.’
‘They will, surely. You won’t be the first person they’ve sheltered,’ Father Joe said. ‘So you’ll go home tomorrow?’ he ventured, anxious that she spend no longer than she had to in Dublin.
‘Aye. Danny…well he doesn’t want me to visit any more. He…he says there’s no point.’
‘Write to him,’ Father Joe advised. ‘I’m sure he’d be glad of that.’
‘Aye, I will do that, Father,’ Rosie said. ‘And thank you for your kindness to me. I don’t think I’d have got so far without you.’
The priest smiled. ‘Aye, God gives us some privileges,’ he said. ‘Now, go in and rest yourself – I’m sure you’re worn out with the emotion of today.’
Rosie was bone-weary, but tired as she was, she didn’t want
to go back to the convent just yet. She wanted to walk through the streets and see for herself the damage to the city, see what Danny had had to endure. It made her feel closer to him, somehow.
She knew she’d probably never be allowed to wander free in this way without the priest as her escort and so she said, ‘I am tired, Father, you’re right, and low in spirits, but I have a yen to see the damage to the place and it will be what they’ll ask me about at home. Have you time to come with me?’
Father Joe had a million and one things to attend to and had been wondering, as he’d walked back, how he’d fit them all in. But he felt sorry for Rosie and so he pushed his own concerns to the back of his mind and said. ‘I have nothing to do that won’t keep. I’m at your disposal, Mrs Walsh, and I’ll be happy to accompany you.’
Rosie followed Father Joe as he turned away from the ‘House of Mercy’, back up Baggot Street, past the square where the army’s field gun still stood. It was silent now and guarded by soldiers who looked at them dispassionately as they passed, but didn’t challenge them.
‘We go up here,’ Father Joe said, turning left at the top of Merrion Street.
As they walked on, the streets became more crowded and Rosie realised many were doing what she herself was: assessing the damage to their city. They continued up between Trinity College and the Bank of England and over the bridge spanning the grey, torrid River Liffey.
Once over the bridge, Sackville Street was before them and Rosie was appalled at what she saw. The remains of a barricade stretched across the front of it, parts burned to cinders, so it was easy for them to clamber over. The street itself was full of rubble and charred beams, smashed roof tiles, cardboard boxes and glass that splintered under their feet. Over everything was the stench of smoke and cordite that swirled
in the air and caught in Rosie’s throat when she breathed in.
So much was destroyed and so many buildings reduced to piles of scorched and blackened masonry. And those not burned completely to the ground were locked up and barricaded to guard against looting.
‘See, that used to be Hopkins, a silversmiths,’ Father Joe said, pointing to a pile of masonry debris littering the pavement. ‘And that,’ he said, pointing, ‘was once the Hibernian Hotel.’ Rosie noted the buckled iron girders were the only things left of it, sticking up through the mounds of rubble.