After the Lockout (17 page)

I intervene. ‘Listen, lads, listen, my point is, it was the working people of Madden parish built that Parochial Hall. We that built that church and that mansion Benedict is sitting in. They belong to us.'

‘Is right! Whose hall is it anyway, if not them that built it?' cries Turlough.

‘Victor is right. He's an ould misery guts and would begrudge us a bit of a hooley,' says Aidan Cavanagh.

‘You fuck up, Aidy,' says John McGrath, and everyone's surprised because they're best friends. ‘Take it easy now, John,' says Jerry McGrath to his son. ‘John is right, there's no call to be irreverent, but Victor has a point. It's a terrible thing that the bishop would lock us out of our own Parochial Hall. I remember laying some of the brickwork on it myself. Do you remember that, Pius?'

Pius nods gently. ‘Every man in the parish would try and finish up his work early so we could do an hour or two on the new hall. We weren't long married men back then,' he says with an elegiac sigh.

‘Divil the penny we asked for it,' says Jerry.

‘Or got,' says Pius.

The older heads around the room nod. What I'm saying is sinking in. The people of Madden built that hall, the people of Madden own it. They're starting to think like socialists. ‘Workers have a right to ownership over the fruits of their labours. Bishop Benedict is denying us access to a hall that is rightfully ours,' I say.

‘We should go and talk to Father Daly. He's a lot easier talked to than the bishop,' says Turlough.

‘Aye, Father Daly is a decent skin,' says Aidan.

But we can't solve the problem by running to Father Daly. The Parochial Hall is no longer the issue, it's merely the site of struggle. Benedict's authority is the issue. He has laid down a diktat, and the question now is whether he is obeyed.

‘I'm sure Father Daly is a lovely man but the fact is, if we want to do something as simple as hold a dance, we have to beg and scrape to the priest for it. You can't change that by pleading with another priest to take our part,' I say.

‘So how are we going to get use of the hall?' says Turlough.

‘What are you saying, Victor, that we should break down the doors?' says TP McGahan, his little weasel nose sniffing.

‘Forget the Parochial Hall. I wouldn't use it if he gave it to us. We should be able to have a céilí every night if we want, without a by-your-leave from anybody.'

‘We could have it outdoors, I suppose. If the weather holds,' says Aidan.

‘We need to build a new hall. A place of our own. A People's Hall. And by God, next Saturday night we'll dance till daylight in it.'

The idea percolates through the room. Practicalities arise quickly, and Sean and Turlough are the men for the practical questions. The hall can be made quickly and relatively cheaply with a solid timber frame covered in corrugated iron, and it just so happens they know a man in Emyvale who can sell them all the materials at keen prices. If they had five men with carts to volunteer, they could be back in Madden by lunchtime ready to start building. Jerry McGrath says there's no way it can be done within a week.

‘It's not impossible,' Turlough retorts. ‘We're talking about an earth floor, no foundations. Just timber stanchions driven into the ground. It'll be more of a shed than a hall. Basic, basic, basic. But it can be done.'

I reckon Turlough and Sean could almost do it by themselves.

‘If it doesn't fall down first,' says Pius gruffly.

‘Nothing that me and Turlough have built has ever fell down,' Sean says proudly. ‘We can worry about strengthening it and making it more durable after next Saturday.'

I could kiss the Moriarty boys.

Turlough scribbles some calculations on the back of a cigarette packet. ‘The Parochial Hall is about eighty foot by thirty, and our hall would need to be nearly as big. It doesn't have to be as tall but it'd need to be fifteen foot anyway. For a building that size, you'd be looking at something like twenty pound for the lumber and metal.'

‘How are we ever going to pay that sort of money?' says Aidan.

‘The man in Emyvale will give us a week's grace. We could raise it,' Turlough says.

‘Even if we got two hundred people all to give us a shilling, that's still only half of what we need,' says Aidan. ‘And not everyone can afford a shilling. I know I can't.'

‘Everyone should pay what they can afford, some should give more than others,' I say.

‘I thought socialism was about equality?' TP sneers.

‘From each according to ability, to each according to need, that's what it's about.' That shuts him up rightly, but silence descends across the room. Even if we raise half the money we need, a tenner, it'll hurt every family in the parish. Even with labour costs at nought, capital, as ever, is the problem. Twenty pounds is the best part of a year's wages for these men. Murder Murphy would spend that on a damned dinner party, but for the want of it these workers will be separated from their rights. I'm surrounded by faces looking to me. They see I have no answer. ‘Maybe we could all come up with two or three shillings?' I say, but I know it's weak.

‘I'm sure every man here will gladly give every spare farthing they have, but if you add every spare farthing in the parish together, you're still ten pound short. We have to eat, Victor,' says Turlough ruefully.

Pius grunts. ‘I'll put up the money,' he says.

I sit down beside my father and put a hand on his arm. ‘Thank you,' I say. There's a lot more I'd like to say to him, but I can't find the words. Soon after, he falls asleep.

Turlough and Sean deserve something extra for all the work that they're going to do this week. I tell them I'll give them a pound in the morning and another pound when the job's done.
It's generous, but only a fool doubts the link between loyalty and payment. They're worth it for their muscle and loyalty. Their say-so will bring two dozen men with them. They are my vanguard. Turlough protests that if they help it won't be for the money, and if no-one else is being paid it doesn't seem right that … I tell him not to go mentioning it to anybody else. ‘This is just for you and Sean. You are my main men. I'm depending on you,' I say. He's dubious but he accepts. The first thing he does is help me carry my father home.

Sleep doesn't come easily and I wake frequently throughout the night, but neither my fitfulness nor my hangover prevents me from springing from the bed excitedly as morning breaks. Pius and I have tea and fried bread together, and when I thank him for putting up the cash, it seems to take him a moment to recall what I'm talking about. After breakfast he goes into his bedroom and comes back with a stack of notes, and we wait till Turlough, Sean and their convoy of carts stop by for the cash, as arranged. He gets up and goes out of the room, leaving me with the money. I count out twenty one-pound notes for the materials and a few more for Turlough and Sean's wages and sundry expenses. He'll never miss them. After the Moriartys have been and gone, Pius and I walk down to the village together. It's a beautiful autumn morning; copper leaves still cling to the trees even this late in the year, and the very light is bronzed and dream-like. When we get to the Poor Ground wall Aidan Cavanagh salutes us from across the street. ‘One o'clock,' he cries, naming the appointed time everyone is to meet up, provided Turlough, Sean and their convoy of corrugated iron and timber are back in time.

‘One o'clock.'

Pius and I hop over the wall and make for the little pile of stones under which Ma is buried. Most of the graves are in this part of the Poor Ground, where the soil is slightly softer, a marshy oasis amid unwanted acres of stony, grey terrain. We'll build our People's Hall on this barren land. Spading down through it will be like digging through iron but there'll be no subsidence, and we don't have to ask anyone's permission because nobody owns it. Pius manoeuvres himself onto his knees, blesses himself, bows his head and, I suppose, begins to pray. Obligation drags at me like cargo straps, so I drop to one knee and clasp my hands together. I don't bless myself, hypocrisy must have some boundaries, but I do bow my head and close my eyes. Not for religion or priests or some imaginary friend called God, but for my da. It'll mean a lot to him to think I'm praying for Ma, and for the money he's given me, he deserves that much.

‘Da, why are you helping me?' I say.

‘We've done a lot of work here, got the old place back to what it should be.'

‘You don't owe me nothing for that.'

‘I know. But I suppose, you know, you might think you've done what you came to do, and you might be thinking of leaving again. But maybe you'll stay a bit longer now.' He pauses. ‘Sure I have nothing only money now anyway.'

‘That's not true. Not entirely.'

The clock strikes the eleven. You pull up the handbrake and leave the tram. ‘Excuse me, my good man, this simply won't do. I must get to the horse show before half past,' says some button-down
bluenose over from England with a rose in his lapel. Top hat and silver-tipped cane. The tram is full of them. The RDS set. You don't even answer. You get up and walk off the job. The Nelson Pillar is the meeting point and you're not twenty yards from it. You rest up against the Pillar and enjoy the sunny July afternoon while you wait for the other lads to arrive. Your passengers stay on the tram for ages, gawping across the street at you as if it's all a game and you'll soon come back and drive their tram. By half-twelve, a hundred and twenty-five of your comrades are there, almost every tram driver in the city. You're giddy as a blethering fool. Mr William Martin Murphy, your boss, is everything you hate about the country and the world. Conservative. Catholic. Capitalist. But he's met his match in Big Jim Larkin. Big Jim has him terrified. That's why Murphy has put together a vicious band of four hundred bosses and issued the ultimatum: quit Larkin's union or be locked out of our jobs. But Larkin's men have the courage, the dignity and the numbers to tell the bastard Murphy to go to hell. Murphy has his four hundred thieves but we have thirty thousand men with us. It's the Belfast Dock Strike all over again. We reject his ultimatum. We strike. If there's a lockout, we'll bring the city to a standstill. We are going to crush him. This is it. Armageddon.

Forty-six men, I count. Not a bad turn-out considering the short notice. I stand on the Poor Ground wall looking down at them while Turlough and Sean sit behind the crowd on their carts, loaded with timber and corrugated iron. The crowd looks at me dubiously.

‘I'm not building nothing on top of any graves,' says Jerry McGrath.

‘There's plenty of room, we're not going to build anywhere near the graves.'

‘That ground is like iron, you can't dig that up,' says Colm McDermott.

‘The hard ground will make for a great natural floor. I have the plans all here,' I tell them. Turlough hadn't idled away his time on the road to Emyvale. He had sketched out plans and presented me with several sheaves of paper. I pass them round. Turlough reckons that with a bit of precise pick work we can erect a skeleton of load-bearing stanchions thick as mooring lines and build the hall around that skeleton, rather than dig foundations. His sketches are of a simple structure, a barn really, measuring about forty by twenty – far too small for the two hundred people we're hoping will turn up, but he says if we make it any bigger we'll need proper foundations. We will complete the basic structure with the standard timber two-by-four and dress it in corrugated iron. It'll be draughty as hell but it'll serve. Frank Vallely, who played full forward for the team, puts up his hand like some schoolboy. I nod to him.

‘Victor, I'm glad to help, you know yourself, but, well, a man has to make his own living. I've a lot of work on this week …' He's only saying what a lot of the men are thinking. Frank has three babies in the house and livestock in the fields depending on him, and of course every man's first duty is to put food on his own table.