1949 (45 page)

Ursula's world had rocked on its axis and left her momentarily stunned. She needed to reestablish contact with something solid—and Seán Lester was the most solid person she knew.

Ursula rang the Lesters and invited herself to Ballanagh House to say good-bye before returning to Clare.

“By all means come down!” Elsie told her eagerly. “Some other friends will be here for luncheon and you'll fit right in.”

With her usual deft hospitality, Elsie set up a picnic under the trees. Two tables were covered with crisp linen cloths. Platters of cold ham and chicken were accompanied by bowls of salad and bread hot from the oven. Seán introduced Ursula to his other guests, four men from the Department of External Affairs. Ursula had met none of them before, but found them all intelligent and personable. To her disappointment, however, they were not forthcoming about John Costello and the new administration, though she asked as many leading questions as she dared.

When the meal was almost over it began to rain, and the party hastily adjourned inside. Ursula took the opportunity to visit the toilet. As she was returning down the hallway, she overheard raised voices coming from the library and halted in her tracks.

“I beg to disagree!” one of the guests was saying with some heat. “It would be a great mistake to repeal the External Relations Act. De Valera himself proposed an external association when drawing up Document Two, his suggested alternative to the Treaty. The idea was to avoid accepting an internal association that would require the swearing of an oath of allegiance to the king. If we were to set aside the External Relations Act it would mean leaving the Commonwealth and breaking the Treaty.”

“Nations break treaties all the time,” said another man. “Look at the war just concluded, for example.”

“My point exactly. If we don't honor our commitments where does that leave us? On a par with Hitler?”

Ursula strained to hear.

“The act is a statute repealable by the legislature,” Seán Lester pointed out in a dry voice, “not a fundamental law. It was a makeshift, a compromise, and I suspect that Dev was planning to repeal it eventually.”

The first speaker said, “With Costello as taoiseach there'll be no repeal of the act, I assure you. Fine Gael's not a republican party.”

The second speaker replied derisively, “You're right there, me lad. It's the party of the status quo.”

Ursula gritted her teeth.
The status quo. Why is Ireland so damned predictable? Expect the worst and it happens, every time
.

As she was bidding the Lesters good-bye later, she leaned forward and asked Seán in a low voice, “Did de Valera really intend to get the republic back after all?”

He smiled a sad smile. “Did Michael Collins really intend to get the north back? Some questions can never be answered, Ursula.”

 

E
xistence
, thought Ursula on the train going home,
is made up of bits and pieces and unfinished stories. We're surprised by birth and thrust into life unprepared. We enter a world filled with beauty and horror; we want to live and we have to die. Every aspect of life is a paradox. How can we ever hope to make sense of it?

 

At a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in Ottawa, Canada, in September of 1948, John A. Costello described the External Relations Act as being full of inaccuracies and infirmities. At a Canadian press conference a week later he confirmed a story carried by a Dublin newspaper, which claimed that his government intended to repeal the act.

He did not consult his cabinet before making the statement. They had no choice but to agree.

The world press was rocked by the unexpected announcement. Politically outmaneuvered, the British government could do nothing to keep Ireland in the Commonwealth any longer.

The apron strings were cut.

How well he knew that quick light step! Ned turned an eager face toward the door of his bedroom. “Síle?”

“It's me, Papa.”

“Oh. Of course.”

Ursula heard the joy fade from his voice. “You have a visitor, Papa,” she said. “Shall I bring him in?”

“Him?”

“Just a minute.”

She ran back down the passage to where Henry was waiting. Behind his smile, his face felt stiff. “Will he see me?”

Ursula winced at his choice of verbs. “I think he will, Henry. His room's right down here, just follow me.”

The walk to the bedroom door seemed very long.

 

Ursula had brought Henry from Shannon Airport in the farm's new motorcar. The black Ford was her pride and joy; something she could barely afford but had to have. The future.

“You drive a car like you ride a horse,” Henry had complained, hanging on white-faced as the machine rocketed around curves and bounded over ruts.

When they reached the farmhouse he set his suitcase down just inside the door. “I want to go to Ned before anything else,” he said. “Bite the bullet, so to speak.” While Ursula took him upstairs, Eileen kept the children in the kitchen.

The door creaked open again. Ned felt a draft on his face. Someone entered. Heavy footsteps; strangely uncertain.

They stopped beside his bed.

“Hello, old-timer,” said a deep voice.

The cracking sound in Ned's chest was that of the ice breaking around his heart.

Without saying a word, he opened his arms to his friend.

 

Ursula paced about the kitchen, picking things up and putting them down. Smoothing the oilcloth on the table. Moving the saucepans around on the range. “You'll ruin the dinner if you keep on,” Eileen complained. “Would you ever sit down and calm yourself?”

“They've been up there together for a long time. I'd give anything to know what's happening.”

“When were you ever backward about earwigging?” Eileen wanted to know.

Ursula grinned. Slipping off her shoes, she carried them in her hand as she tiptoed up the stairs. She could not hear anything until she stood outside Ned's room. The door was slightly ajar. She flattened herself against the passage wall and listened.

“We didn't really believe we could defeat England,” Ned was saying. “Not militarily. What we had to fight was the apathy of the Irish people. We had to arouse them to do whatever was necessary to take their destiny into their own hands. And we did. In 1916 the IRA gave Ireland her self-respect back.

“Then in 1919 Sinn Féin put political power in the hands of the people. What a weapon that was! Except we didn't appreciate it fully.” Ned gave a weary sigh. “A man has a lot of time to think when he's sitting in the dark. Sometimes…only sometimes, mind…I think you were right all along, Henry. Perhaps after 1919 there should not have been a bullet fired in Ireland. We had leaders who were as clever as Lloyd George and his crowd; they just weren't experienced at political chicanery. Is it possible we might have won the Republic without any more bloodshed if we'd had the patience to learn the game?”

“That's what I thought at the time,” Henry told him. “Had the IRA not kept fighting, the British wouldn't have sent in the Tans and…”

“And Síle would still be alive,” said Ned.

“Yes,” Henry replied in a choked voice. “Síle would still be alive.”

The air was suddenly thick with pain. Even standing out in the passageway, Ursula could feel it. But whatever the quarrel had been between them, the anger was gone.

After a time Ned asked, “Could we have gained our independence your way, Henry? Would Britain ever have responded to anything other than physical force?”

“Did you read that speech W. B. Yeats once made in the Senate?” Henry responded. “He predicted we eventually would gain a united Ireland not through fighting, but through governing well. He wanted to create a culture that would represent the whole of the country and draw the imagination of the young.”

“Draw the imagination of the young,” echoed Ned. “That was Mr. Pearse's dream too.” He fell silent again. Like Henry, Ursula waited.

Then she heard Ned say in a thoughtful voice, “If I had it to do over again perhaps I wouldn't be a soldier, Henry. Perhaps I'd be a teacher, a writer. A bard. Fight for minds instead of with bullets.”

The woman listening in the passage was deeply shaken by his words. Battle had been Ned's creed. And through him, hers.

Ursula turned and went silently back down the stairs.

Later, much later, Henry joined Ursula and Eileen in the kitchen. The tracks of dried tears were still visible on his cheeks. “Ned's fallen asleep, I hope I didn't overtire him.”

“He goes in and out of sleep a lot now,” Ursula assured him. “Sometimes when he has bad headaches he sleeps all day. But in spite of the pain he could last for months, the doctors think. He seems determined to hold on as long as he can.”

“Ned's always been stubborn,” said Henry.

Eileen had prepared enough food to feed an army, or so it seemed, but a small army of children was waiting to gobble it down so none would go to waste. Henry was introduced to each of them in turn. Ursula saved Barry for last. At almost ten years of age he already came to his mother's shoulder. Long-boned and sturdy, he promised to be tall.

The boy held out his hand to Henry. “How do you do, sir. My mother speaks very highly of you, and I'm glad to meet you at last.”

Henry chuckled. “So formal! How do you do, Barry.” He shook the proffered hand, then reached out to rumple the boy's abundant red-gold hair. “You make me feel as old as God's governess, young fella. But where ever did you get those pointy ears?”

 

The formal inauguration of the Republic of Ireland took place on 18 April, 1949. Easter Monday.

Because Ned was now too weak to leave his bed, Gerry had carried the wireless up to his room. Everyone gathered there to listen to the broadcast announcement. As Éire formally left the Commonwealth, Ned's hand groped across the quilt to find Ursula's.

The wireless crackled with magic.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the Republic of Ireland became official.

When the broadcast was over Ursula switched off the machine. “On Easter Monday thirty-three years ago,” Ned murmured, “we marched out together for the Rising…” Exhausted by the excitement, he fell asleep in mid-thought.

His family tiptoed from the room.

Some time later, Ned Halloran awoke and lay listening to the sounds of life filling the old house. Counting his blessings.

He and Henry were friends again.

Síle was waiting in a place where the horizons were limitless.

And Ireland was a republic at last. Well, twenty-six counties of it. The Boys would win back the rest in time.

Turning his face to the wall, Ned Halloran went thankfully, peacefully, into the densely peopled dark.

 

Flaming in the western sky were the banners of a salmon and gold sunset. Birds sang themselves to sleep in the hedgerows and shadows flowed like water across the hills of Clare.

The great fires that had swept the world and shaken its inhabitants to the core were over…for a time.

Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

1. It is hereby recognized and declared that the part of Ireland heretofore known as Eire ceased, as from the eighteenth day of April, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, to be part of His Majesty's dominions.
   
2. It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland remains part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom and it is hereby affirmed that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part thereof cease to be part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
   
3. The part of Ireland referred to in subsection (1) of this section is hereafter in this Act referred to, and may in any Act, enactment or instrument passed or made after the passing of this Act be referred to, by the name attributed thereto by the law thereof, that is to say, as the
   Republic of Ireland
   .