Return to Killybegs

10

The kids arrived yelling, throwing rocks and smashing their bottles against the walls.

— The peelers are coming! They’re moving into our streets! shouted a wee boy in a football jersey.

He was smeared in soot and sweat. I stopped him. He was shaking.

— Let go of that, quick!

He looked at the brick he was holding in his hand and let it fall.

— And run! Get home to your father!

— My dad’s in the Crum! he shouted as he tore off.

You could hear explosions very close by. The police were throwing tear gas and firing tracer bullets towards the sky. The youths were surging back in greater and greater numbers, hundreds of them, milling chaotically, led by a few out-of-breath Fianna. They had been throwing stones at a police station and several armoured vehicles. They were being pursued. Usually, the police would give up the chase at the enclave threshold, but on that 14 August 1969 they were pushing right through.

— Bogside! Bogside! Bogside!

The crowd was chanting the name of the Derry neighbourhood where nationalists had been clashing with police for four days.

— Go back home! For the love of God, get yourselves under cover!

I was forty-four years old, standing with arms stretched out wide in the middle of the street, telling the children to stop running, to walk, to find shelter.

— And the IRA? Where’s the IRA? Why aren’t they defending our street? asked a woman in a dressing gown standing in her doorway.

— What are you doing standing there like that? Are you playing musical statues? shouted a young guy as he knocked into me.

— They’re coming! The peelers are here!

Residents were running about in every direction to protect their children. Some were carrying pick handles, hurleys, metal pipes. One woman was waving a ladle around in the darkness. In a few minutes Dholpur Lane was blocked off with a cart, mattresses, an armchair, junk dragged from a ruin and a cast-iron cooker carried over by some men. The first barricade of the night, just before the one on Kashmir Road farther up, and others after that in other streets. You could hear the noise of the riot everywhere. That clanging of scrap metal, broken glass, heavy thuds and shouting.

— Tyrone!

Danny Finley arrived at a run, a blanket under his arm, with six guys from C Company. He beckoned me over. He was out of breath. He knelt down.

— We’re taking the street, Tyrone! We’re securing it and taking it!

He wasn’t speaking, he was shouting. He was articulating each word loudly enough to be heard over the din, like a ship’s captain on a deck being pummelled by the wind. He unrolled the tartan blanket on the pavement, just behind the barricade.

A Thompson M1921 submachine gun, two Lee-Enfields, two Webley revolvers, a grenade, and ammunition in a paper bag.

— IRA! The IRA is back! a man shouted.

He was standing on a barrel, he jumped down and embraced me, laughing.

— The IRA! For fuck’s sake! Protect us! Show them who we are!

IRA! The cry travelled up the street. People were no longer pushing back, but turning around to attack with bare fists.

— Go back! Leave the street clear for the combatants! Danny ordered.

— IRA! IRA!

The neighbourhood paid no heed to our orders. Women were emerging from their houses, infants in their arms. Others were banging pots on the ground, frying pans, iron bin lids. A priest was running around between them, his Bible in his hand. The youths were gathering their discarded stones. A girl tossed a flaming bottle over the barricade. We were only six volunteers, but the ghetto was as enthused by our presence as if a liberation army had appeared. A few streets away, the sky was alight. Houses were burning on Bombay Street. When the gas canisters hit the ground, the crowd rushed forward to smother the smoke. Bowlfuls of water passed from hand to hand. Suddenly we found ourselves in broad daylight. The first armoured car had just turned the corner and its white headlight was pointed down our street. The chlorine of grenades and the smoke from the fires formed a thick fog. I was on my knees, my face protected by a tea towel. A young girl was cutting a shirt into strips and handing them out to the rebels to cover their mouths. Springing up behind me, a kid swooped down to grab our grenade. I snatched it away from him. He shrugged his shoulders and left at a run.

— Fianna! Evacuate the civilians! Danny roared.

The scouts formed a scrawny chain. There were a mere fifteen of them, moving back up the road step by step and begging the people to back away.

Then Danny let off two shots towards the sky.

— The IRA orders you to disperse!

The IRA orders you! We’re taking back the street! We’re finally going to fight.

On a grey wall opposite, an old slogan smeared in black mocked: IRA = I RAN AWAY!

For weeks, the Catholic population had been begging us to react. And we were unable to do so. We were more disorganized and isolated than ever. The police and the Loyalists were in control of our streets. Since the beginning of the campaign for civil rights, Catholics were being mistreated. What were we asking for? Decent accommodation, a job, to no longer be second-class citizens. One man, one vote! Equality with Protestants. We were empty-handed and our banners were made of torn-up sheets. For the British, this anger was insurrectional. For the Loyalists, each of our complaints was a war cry. They would never share power. They clamoured for the final confrontation, the great battle. They wanted to chase the papists out once and for all. Throw us over the border one by one. They had cleared out their own neighbourhoods. This time they were attacking our strongholds, our houses, our schools, our churches.

— A Protestant state for the Protestant people!

Their shouts in the night.

Startled by Danny’s shots, the crowd pushed back. The armoured car did the same, screeching into reverse and abruptly leaving us once more in darkness.

And then the first gunshot was fired from the other side. Followed by a second.

— Real bullets! The peelers are using real bullets!

I took up the Thompson and crouched behind the barricade. The bullets were shaking between my fingers, they slipped against the steel of the magazine. I loaded it till the spring nosed up. Twenty bullets. I counted what was left in the bag. Nine. Not even enough to reload up to the hilt.

They were still shooting. Danny sat down heavily beside me.

— It doesn’t add up. Something’s not right.

He was revolving his cylinder, replacing the two spent shells.

— What are they shooting with? Those aren’t their guns! Listen! It sounds like a hunting rifle.

The street was almost deserted, hundreds of residents having headed on foot for Ballymurphy and Andytown to find shelter. Others had hidden in their houses. An IRA óglach ran up to us, bent over double.

— It’s the Loyalists! The cops are chasing people and those bastards are coming along behind them. They’re shooting at us and setting the houses on fire!

Two streets away, a shot was fired. Danny lay down between a cart and a mattress. He fired twice, then turned around. With a flick of his finger he pointed to the corner of the street behind me, and with a few more quick movements he positioned the other fighters.

— Warning shots! Don’t waste them! Danny shouted.

We were crouched beneath a hail of rocks and steel bolts. They had catapults on the other side. Their petrol bombs were hitting the fronts of our houses. I got up. I held the Tommy gun against my hip and returned fire. Nothing. The shock of the steel. I lay down on my back. I had forgotten the safety. I raised the catch to ‘fire’. I was sweating, and shaking, too. I was a block of fear and hatred. They were facing us, I could see them. A small crowd with torches, shouting. The witch-hunters, the devils from the catechism. A shadow seemed to dance in the middle of the street, a rifle in his hand. They were breaking windows, doors. The police were letting them do it. I shot to kill. Four quick shots, almost a burst. Fired into that pile of living shadows. I was surprised by the violent jolt of the gun. It had slipped against my thigh. I moved it back up. From the other side of the street, our men were opening fire with rifles. Danny was on the barricade, aiming at the darkness above our heads.

Suddenly, gas canisters fell all around us. I drew back, surrounded by white smoke, eyes burning, stomach heaving, throat constricted. No more air. No more anything. The bottom of the water. I had my mouth wide open, thumping my chest. I was dying. This was it, I was dying. I should have kept some air in a corner of my cheek, in my nose, in my pocket. And then came the crash. A violent blow to my temple. Another in the shoulder. Bullets, stones, I couldn’t tell. I had lowered my Tommy gun. I raised it again. I wanted to steady it against my hip. I coughed. There was blood in my eyes. I pulled the trigger. I think. I don’t know any more. I heard my shots. I saw the spark from the gun. Danny fell. I was behind him. Twenty metres away. I shot three times and Danny fell forward. He picked himself up. He turned around, looked at me agape. He made a gesture. He didn’t understand. He was astounded. He dropped his gun. He brought his hands to his chest. He slid along the mattress on his belly, hitting the ground with his forehead. The white light of the armoured car splashed the street. I was standing. Danny was lying down. I fell to my knees.

— They got Danny!

The voice of one of our men, I no longer know who.

— And Tyrone’s been hit!

Arms lifted me. I’m fine. I’m alive. I’m fine. I was whispering to myself. A hand took the weapon from me. The armoured car was retreating behind the barricade with its engine roaring. No more shots. Not one single rock more. Just the breath cut short. The smell of fire. The grey ash floating in the sky. The cries of men and women.

— Murderers! Murderers!

Children’s rocks for nothing, pecking at the steel of the armoured car.

— Tyrone? Can you hear me, Tyrone?

I’m fine. It’s nothing at all. I had killed Danny Finley. I had closed my eyes. I let myself be taken away. I wasn’t wounded, not really. It was only rocks. I had caught my breath by now. I was dragged along the ground, carried by arms and legs, then hoisted up on someone’s back. A door. A living room. A couch. There was something under my waist, like a forgotten child’s toy. Somebody placed a cushion under my head. A hand behind the nape of my neck. A warm cloth on my face, water from a glass against my closed teeth. The icy liquid on my neck, running as far as my shoulder like a snake. I had killed Danny Finley. Fever. I started shaking again. In the street, a police loudspeaker was spitting out orders.

I saw Danny’s startled look once more. He fell forward. He’d been shot in the back. His brother had been killed by Loyalists, he’d been killed by a Republican. I had murdered Danny Finley, 14 August 1969.

It was the end of us. And also the end of me.

I stayed in bed for almost a week. Some Fianna and men from the Belfast Brigade took turns keeping a lookout on the street corner. Jim O’Leary, an explosives engineer from the 2nd Battalion, remained at my bedside night and day. When I opened my eyes, he welcomed me as though I was on his doorstep. Jim was a close friend. His wife Cathy loved Sheila like a mother.

On the third day, I drank a cup of tea and ate half a slice of toast. I wasn’t in my own home. Neither the room, nor Lise, the old lady looking after me, was familiar. On the fourth day, I found out that my mother, brother and sisters had taken the path of exile. Sheila had brought them to an aunt’s place in Drogheda, on the other side of the border. Róisín, Mary and Áine had been crying. They said they didn’t want to flee like that. Wee Kevin tried to hide in the workshop and Sara vomited on the journey. Mother told them that they wouldn’t go far. Swore. They had left Killybegs, they’d been driven from Sandy Street, from Dholpur Lane, and their Station of the Cross would end in Drogheda. When Sheila asked her if she’d go back to Belfast some day, once everything had calmed down, my mother crossed herself and said she’d only go back when Christ the King arrived in the city in all his glory.

So Sheila came back across the border alone.

There were riots across dozens of towns. For the first time since the war, London deployed the British army to Northern Ireland. Not the RUC, not the ‘B-Specials’, not the auxiliary Northern Irish armies, but the British, the real deal. The Royal Regiment of Wales had taken control of the Falls Road, my hostess explained to me. The residents there were offering tea and biscuits to the soldiers. I looked up at her.

— Tea and biscuits?

She smiled.

— They’ve got nothing to do with the killers.

While straightening my bedcovers, she said that they’d prevented the worst. That without them the Loyalists would have chased out or killed all of us.

My mouth was dry, my throat like cardboard.

— And Danny?

The woman locked her brilliant eyes on mine with a look of pride and compassion.

— He’ll be buried on Wednesday.

She sat on the edge of the bed. She was smiling sadly.

— There’s nothing left of Bombay Street. Everything burned. If our street is intact, it’s thanks to him and thanks to you.

The door opened and two men came into the room. I knew the taller one, an officer of our high command. Jim stood to attention.

— Leave us, Lise. And you, too, O’Leary.

He waited for the door to close. My stomach was leaden. I suddenly longed for a sea breeze. I thought of Tom and his asthma. The officer sat down on the bed. I looked at him. He was searching my eyes. He inhaled slowly.

— I know what you’re feeling, Tyrone.

I didn’t answer. I let the silence speak for me.

— When one of us falls, he who was by his side always wonders why he is alive.

He was looking around the small room. The dry palm fronds behind the crucifix, the picture of a white cat in a basket of wool.

— There is no justice in death, Tyrone. Danny died, it could have been you.

He looked at me again. His hand on mine.

— And he would be asking your questions now.

Then he got up, slowly. He went to the window, lifted the curtain with a finger. Turned his back to me.

— Do you know what happened on Dholpur Lane on that Thursday, 14 August 1969?

I killed Danny Finley with two bullets in the back.

— You don’t know? That night the IRA demonstrated that it was capable of defending an enclave. That it was once more necessary to count on our resistance.

I killed Danny. It was me. I was coughing, I couldn’t see anything. My head ached. My eyes were confessing. My visitor listened to nothing but his own voice.

— Live with his courage, not with his death.

Shut up. Leave. You and the other guy, too. Get out of here.

— Your combat will be your revenge, Tyrone.

He held out his hand to me. He didn’t know. Nobody knew. In the dark, in the smoke, in the uproar, only Danny and I were face to face. Nobody else saw his expression the moment he died. I inhaled all the air in the room, breathed in the street, my country as far as the salty drizzle from the quay in Killybegs. The officer lifted his hand and made me an elegant salute. Warm and fraternal. Something that told me I was alive. He would never know. Neither him nor the other one, who raised his hand in turn.

— You saved your enclave, Tyrone, said the second visitor.

— Is Danny a martyr?

What had come over me? Why had I asked that? Words without thought. My mouth remained open.

— He’s a martyr of the Irish struggle for freedom, yes.

The officer looked at me compassionately.

— And as for you, you’re a hero.

At first I refused. I simply wanted to be in the crowd, just another mourner amongst all the others. To carry the coffin, but not to be any more involved than that. During the procession some men from the unit came to see me. Their hands on my shoulder, their voices like prayers.

— It’s him! It’s Tyrone Meehan!

Murmurs, people trying frantically to get a look. Gestures of recognition. As I passed by, two old nationalists straightened up to pay me respect, fingertips to their temples. A young girl gave me the kiss of the survivor and another handed me a bouquet of snowdrops. On the pavement, a group of children were mimicking the Fianna’s rhythmic step. There were no British on the route. They were posted in the surrounding streets, behind the cheval-de-frise, with their ‘pudding bowls’ covered in foliage on their heads.

At first I refused to speak, but eventually I accepted.

I was applauded as I made my way towards the microphone. For a long time, as though being thanked. I had killed Danny. I was shaking. I hadn’t stopped shaking since that day. The crowd was dense and reverential. I brought my lips to the metal.

Hundreds of faces watching. His wife in the front row. Sheila. Jim. The others.

— Danny Finley is not dead!

Cheering.

— Danny Finley is not dead, because you are alive!

I looked at the teary faces in front of me.

— Danny Finley is not dead because last Monday, Mary Mulgreevy was born in Clonard Street. Because on Tuesday, Declan Curran was born in Crocus Street. Because this very morning, Siobhán McDevitt was born in Dunville Street.

Tremors. Women holding hands. In the first row, the officer who had come to see me had tears welling in his eyes.

— Danny Finley is not dead. His name is Mary, Declan, Siobhán!

Our flags were flapping at the foot of the platform. I looked out over the radiant faces.

I killed Danny Finley.

— Our revenge will be the life of these children!

A woman dressed in red stood up. She waited till there was silence. Dozens of empty bottles and pint glasses sat on the tables. I looked around me and I knew every one of them. Jim O’Leary, the bomb-maker who had watched over my bedside, and Cathy his wife. Pete ‘the Killer’ Bradley, the Sheridan brothers. Every time my eyes met someone else’s, a glass was raised to me. Mike O’Doyle, Eugene ‘the Bear Cub’, their faces drawn after years in prison. They left those cells only to go straight back in again. They were holding on between life and death.

The woman in red brought the microphone to her lips.

— A brave son of Ireland was shot on Dholpur Lane tonight…

The pints were left down on the tables. From the first few notes, the pub fell silent. Just that voice at first, then accompanied by dozens of others, like a crowd setting off together. The woman turned to face me. So did all the faces in the room. It was for Tyrone Meehan that the residents of the Thomas Ashe were singing ‘The Ballad of Danny Finley’, dead one year to the day. That song had been written a week after his passing, then published in the Republican papers and taken up across the whole country. Some friends had heard it in a pub in London, and even in an Irish bar in Chicago, where the Americans cried as they sang of exile. So I sang it softly as well.

At the chorus, the room stood up to sing ‘Farewell my friend’.

— Slán go fóill, mo chara…

I had pushed back my chair and was standing up in the centre of the big room, my arms straight at my sides and my fists clenched. Danny Finley had joined his dead heroes, Pearse, Connolly, Thomas Dunbar, Tom Williams. He used to sing about them often, but it was him we’d be singing about from now on. I felt Sheila’s hand on my arm. Jack was there beside me. He had just turned nine. He was watching me, watching the crowd. That image of pride is what I will keep of him my whole life.

I lifted my hand at the cheer and sat down. More pints were squeezed on to the table in front of me. The Guinness my father drank had the taste of tragedy. For the past year, I was like a dead man. My name had got around too much for me to take up arms again. I was retired. It was temporary, but necessary. During the day, caps were raised at my passing, people smiled at me, offered warm words. At night, Danny gave me that look. I had lasted one year. I would last my whole life. It was too late to talk. To whom would I confess? To Father Donovan? To the IRA? To Sheila? To Jim? To my son who lived for me? To whom? And for what reason? For my soul to find peace? Or my heart? Or my gut? I had killed Danny and I had hidden it. I carried his coffin, I honoured his name, I called for revenge. It was too late for dispelling the smoke from Dholpur Lane.

Towards midnight, Frank Devlin and his wife came to shake my hand. Everyone called him Mickey. He was smiling. He handed me a pen. Nobody understood this gesture, it was a secret, just between us. Mickey had caught me out twenty-eight years ago, and he was still taking advantage of it. It wasn’t out of malice, just a kid teasing. And I was blushing. He placed his hand on my shoulder.

— It’s been a long old road, eh? he said before going back to his table.

I raised my glass to eye level to say goodbye in turn.

It was at Crumlin, the day after I arrived. My first time in prison. Before being locked up, I had asked to go to the bog. I’d kept a stub of pencil in my sock, a dusting of lead wrapped in a splinter of wood. I don’t know what came over me. I must have believed I was still free, behind the closed door of a pub urinal. The wall was a dirty grey and I wrote ‘IRA’ in large letters. And then I went into my cell.

The following day, our division could talk of nothing else. The lads were in hysterics over it. But who had done it? Who could really have boasted about belonging to the IRA when everyone in the place was there for being in it? Who had thought they were in a Dublin public toilet? Who had shown off to frighten future bladders?

Mickey was in charge of our washing. He found the pencil, forgotten in the turned-up end of one of my trouser legs. I made him promise not to tell. So he promised. But for him, Tyrone Meehan would always be that kid from the Crum who boasted about the IRA on a toilet wall because he was the only one in the place who didn’t belong to the secret army. Frank was guarding the memory of my youthful foolishness.

That evening in the Thomas Ashe I felt like I was in their club. For the first time I wasn’t at home, but in their space. I felt I had intruded on the beauty of the brave.

— We’re going, Tyrone. Do you want your jacket?

Sheila was standing. Jack was asleep on the table, his head on his arms. The Thomas Ashe was emptying slowly.

— See you, Tyrone!

— Safe home, Meehan!

Chairs were being piled up and tables dragged across the floor; there was the sound of glasses being stacked, the iron shutter of the bar being noisily lowered. The murmur of drunkenness, of laughter, of beer, of overly loud voices. I put my jacket on. My cap. I staggered across the room. On a wall was a framed portrait of Danny, crossed with a black veil. I paused. The sudden neon lights splashed across his forehead and expression.

Lieut. Daniel ‘Danny’ Finley

1924–1969

2nd Batt. C Company

Óglaigh na hÉireann

His eyes were raised. He wasn’t looking at me. He had decided to leave me in peace. I felt Jack’s hand in mine. We went out into the night that smelled of rain. I raised my collar and looked at the street, the low houses, the dark windows, the heavy shadows staggering home drunk. I dropped Jack’s hand. I raised my fist and roared.

—Éirinn go Brách!

—Éirinn go Brách! shouted my son in turn.

And then I let out a long braying. A dreadful wail, the cry of the donkey.