Death on the Holy Mountain

15

Father O’Donovan Brady had made Cathal Rafferty tell his story of the strange goings-on in the Head Gardener’s Cottage three times. He made copious notes. He wrote the names of the two participants in a small black book in large capital letters. He knew he would return to reread this material over and over again in the days ahead. He gave Cathal ten shillings with instructions to keep watching. Cathal, after all, was carrying out the work of the Lord. Then Father Brady poured himself a generous glass of John Powers and sat down to plan his campaign.

Central to this strategy was the Protestant parson, the Reverend Giles Cooper Walker, the man who had read the prayers at the concert party at Butler’s Court. Ordinary Protestants, the Father had been taught at theological college, were little better than heretics. Protestant clergymen were worse, much worse. The priest wondered if he should consult with his bishop about the move he was planning, actually calling on the rector and, much more difficult, being polite to him, something he knew he would find much more taxing. Nevertheless, he told himself, unusual times need unusual measures. Our Lord would never have succeeded in His mission here on earth if He had carried on according to the ancient principles of the Pharisees. It was time to seize the hour and tackle the vicar in his own quarters. So it was that at eleven o’clock a few days after Cathal’s visit Father O’Donovan Brady was knocking on the front door of the Protestant rectory, a handsome early Georgian house with roses blooming in the small front garden.

The two men were as different in appearance as they were in religion. The Catholic was short and round. The Protestant was tall and very thin, as if he didn’t have enough to eat. Father O’Donovan Brady was ministered to by his striking twenty-three-year-old housekeeper. The Reverend Cooper Walker was ministered to by Sarah, his wife of fifteen years, who might not have had the bloom of youth of the housekeeper but was still a handsome woman, regularly admired by other clergy at diocesan conferences. The Catholic had no children. The Protestant had three, two boys and a girl, who were only a trouble to him when he contemplated the expense of educating them and bringing them out into society. Father Brady had never left Ireland, indeed he had only once visited the north where his visit accidentally coincided with the parades of Orangemen on 12 July, where hatred of Catholics was a central feature of the proceedings, and left him determined never to return to such a place again. The Reverend Cooper Walker had been attached to a parish in Oxford for a time – he had been a noted theologian in his youth, and his professors had tried with all their might to persuade him into an academic career, but Cooper Walker turned them down, saying his version of God called him to the service of real people in what he naively called the real world rather than that of the saints and sinners of the second and third centuries AD. Among the rich of North Oxford and the poor of Jericho the Reverend Cooper Walker had seen the pain caused by unhappy marriages, the damage that could be done by a love that went wrong or alighted in the wrong place. Father O’Donovan Brady’s God resembled Moses on top of the mountain, tablets in hand, entrusted by a fierce and unforgiving God with the salvation of his people, however harsh the punishment. The Reverend Cooper Walker’s God resembled Christ feeding the five thousand and saying blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

The two men had never met before. Father Brady struck the Reverend Cooper Walker as rather coarse, with a crude but effective faith. The Reverend Cooper Walker struck Father O’Donovan Brady as a Protestant intellectual – both words of extreme condemnation in his book and, taken together, virtually the same as heretical – who would be prepared to argue for tolerance rather than rigour, for forgiveness rather than punishment, for turning the other cheek rather than inflicting the wrath of a jealous God. The Catholic Church in Ireland, Father Brady felt, would never have reached the position of authority and power it held today if it had had truck with doubt or uncertainty.

In spite of their differences the meeting went well, the two men of God circling each other like boxers at the start of a fight, each reluctant to enter into what might be dangerous territory. Sarah Cooper Walker fed them with tea and some of her special scones that always did well at church fetes and harvest festivals. Surprisingly quickly, they agreed on a plan of campaign to be put into action the following Sunday. Their methods might be different, but the message would be the same. As Father Brady walked back to his house, past the queue at Mulcahy and Sons, Grocery and Bar, and the drinkers already assembling outside MacSwiggin’s, he felt he had scored a notable victory. He had brought the Protestants, even if only for one occasion, into the orbit of the true faith. The Reverend Cooper Walker had too subtle a mind to think in terms of victory or defeat. He thought of the words of the Bible and felt he had little choice.

Mass in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows in Butler’s Cross began at eleven o’clock. Father O’Donovan Brady had processed up the nave and genuflected. The Father kissed the altar and the congregation rose.

‘In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.’ Father Brady felt oddly nervous as he began his service.

‘Amen’ said his congregation.

‘Gratia Domini nostri Iesu Christi et caritas Dei, et communicatio Sancti Spiritus sit cum omnibus vobis. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.’

‘Et cum spiritu tuo, and also with you,’ came the response.

There was always a large congregation at Mass at eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings. At the front Pronsias Mulcahy sat in his pew with his wife at his side. She was a formidable woman in her late forties, Mrs Mulcahy, dressed as ever on Sundays in a dark blue suit that had once been fashionable for a slightly younger clientele. Sylvia Butler and Young James had spotted her once months before wearing this same suit on her way to the service. Sylvia had nudged James in the ribs and pointed to the grocer’s wife. ‘Would you say that was mutton dressed as lamb, James?’ Young James carried out a lightning inspection. ‘No, I would not,’ he had replied quickly, ‘I should say that was mutton dressed as mutton.’

Behind the Mulcahys was a platoon of Delaneys, the solicitors, and the Delaney wives, all growing over time to look remarkably like their husbands. For the only time in the week MacSwiggin’s Hotel and Bar was closed while the owner and his wife heard the word of the Lord. O’Riordan the bookmaker and his wife were there in their Sunday best, bets forbidden on the Sabbath. The agricultural machinery man Horkan was there in a new suit that was slightly too large for him, and his wife in a spectacular hat. Behind the Catholic aristocracy was a great throng of servants from Butler’s Court, farmers, blacksmiths, farriers, stable hands, horse dealers and small tenant farmers, most of them working land that belonged to Richard Butler in the Big House. All the children had been sent to the Church Hall for instruction in Catechism and Commandments.

‘There is a green hill far away,

Without a city wall,

Where the dear Lord was crucified

Who died to save us all.’

The Protestant congregation in the Church of St Michael and All Angels were singing a hymn written by one of their very own. The green hill far away was the work of a Mrs Frances Alexander whose husband went on to become Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. The few, the very few in the church that day gave it their best.

‘There was no other good enough

To pay the price of sin,

He only could unlock the gate

Of heaven and let us in.’

The church had been built in times when the Protestant population of Butler’s Cross was much greater. If Father Brady had been faced with so few worshippers in Our Lady of Sorrows he would have thought that a catastrophe must have struck, a second famine come to decimate his flock. Richard Butler was there, of course, Sylvia by his side. Several other members of his family and friends come to visit managed to fill up a couple of pews. Johnpeter Kilross was there, feeling rather hung over, and Alice Bracken in a summer dress. There were some more Protestants from outlying districts who travelled miles to come and show the flag at Sunday Matins. Behind them stretched row after row of empty pews, dust gathering on the wood, the prayer books unopened, the hymn books abandoned.

‘O dearly dearly has he loved,

And we must love him too,

And trust in his redeeming blood

And try his works to do.’

At the back of the Catholic church the young men were trying to attract the attention of the girls who looked so unattainable in their Sunday best. Father Brady moved on.

‘Kyrie eleison,’ he intoned, Lord have mercy.

‘Kyrie eleison,’ replied the congregation.

‘Christe eleison,’ continued the Father, Christ have mercy.

‘Christe eleison,’ came the response.

‘Kyrie eleison,’ boomed Father Brady.

‘Kyrie eleison,’ said his parishioners.

The Reverend Cooper Walker had resolved to read the first lesson himself. He had changed the reading, which was meant to come from the Book of Isaiah, to one from the Book of Samuel.

‘Second Book of Samuel, Chapter Eleven,’ he began. The lectern was magnificent with a great gold eagle on the top. ‘“And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from his bed and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.

‘“And David sent and inquired after this woman. And one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?

‘“And David sent messengers, and took her; and she came in unto him and he lay with her”.’ The Reverend Cooper Walker looked directly at Johnpeter Kilross for a fraction of a second. The young man’s face had turned bright red. The vicar carried on. ‘“And she returned to her house. And the woman conceived and sent and told David, I am with child.”’

Maybe it was the colour of Kilross’s face or Alice Bracken hiding her head in her hands, but a current of excitement was running through the tiny congregation now. What was going on? Did the vicar know something they didn’t? The Reverend Cooper Walker carried on, outlining the device used by David to have Uriah the Hittite killed in battle so Bathsheba might become his wife. The vicar paused before the final words of the chapter: ‘“But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”’

At twenty minutes past eleven Father O’Donovan Brady climbed the steps to his pulpit. He stared at the young people whispering to each other at the back of the church. He paused until there was complete silence in the Church of Our Lady of Sorrows.

‘The Devil is abroad in Butler’s Cross,’ he thundered to his congregation. ‘On our peaceful streets, in our community of Christian souls, Satan is doing his work. Let me remind you of the seventh of God’s commandments, handed down to Moses on the mountain for the guidance and instruction of his people.’ Father Brady paused again. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ He repeated it in case some of his flock had not heard, this time with a heavy emphasis on ‘not’. ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery. Do not get me wrong, my friends.’ The priest had noticed some members of his congregation looking decidedly sheepish and wondered if Cathal Rafferty might not have been better employed on his snooping missions closer to home. Still, there could always be other fishing expeditions later on. Sin was sin wherever it was to be found. ‘These are not members of our congregation here, devout Catholic souls, who are breaking the laws of God. It is two Protestants who are staining the pure air of Butler’s Cross. Even Protestants claim to believe in the Ten Commandments. They too subscribe to Thou shalt not commit adultery. But what do we find? We find two of their number doing the Devil’s work in broad daylight.’

At twenty-two minutes past eleven the Reverend Cooper Walker climbed into his pulpit. This was going to be one of the most difficult sermons he had preached in his entire ministry.

‘In the first lesson this morning,’ he began, ‘we heard the story of David and his lust for Bathsheba. We also heard at the end how God was displeased by what David had done. For he had broken not one, but two, of God’s commandments. Thou shalt not kill, by his plotting to have Uriah the Hittite, Bathsheba’s husband, killed in battle. And he had broken the Seventh Commandment, Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The vicar paused and looked round his little band of worshippers. Most of them looked bemused. But not all of them.

‘I have not come here this morning to name names,’ the vicar went on. ‘I do not think that would be helpful. But I ask each and every one of you here this morning to look into your hearts and ask yourselves if you have broken the Seventh Commandment. It should not be a difficult question to answer.’

‘Johnpeter Kilross! Alice Bracken! These are the sinners who reside in Butler’s Court and who have broken God’s holy law and commandments!’ Father O’Donovan Brady was in full flow, thumping the side of his pulpit. ‘These are the people, one a single man, the other a married woman with an absent husband, who have committed adultery in a cottage on the Butler estate! So great is their contempt for their Saviour, they didn’t even close the curtains properly! These are the wretches who have brought disgrace unto themselves and despair into their families! I bring you this message this morning. If you work in Butler’s Court, think before you serve them their food. Think before you are asked to wash their garments, befouled and besmirched no doubt with the sins they have committed. If you are asked to clean their quarters think rather if they would not be better left in the squalor they deserve. If you are a shopkeeper in the town think before serving them any sustenance that might give them strength to continue their sordid debauchery. Their behaviour might be fitting in the souks of Cairo or the brothels of Bangkok: it is not fitting here, in St Patrick’s island.’ Father O’Donovan Brady stopped briefly. ‘This is the message of God’s teaching. Abide by God’s commandments. Keep God’s word. Let not sin intrude into innocent lives. Let us work together to banish Satan from our midst for ever. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti, Amen.’

‘We are few, here in this land, we who belong to the Church of Ireland,’ the vicar went on. ‘I would not say a happy few, not today, nor would I refer to us this morning as a band of brothers. But the fact that we are few, our numbers small, means that our responsibilities are great. We must be seen to lead virtuous lives. Our Catholic colleagues may think we are in the wrong Church but they must not think we are not decent Christian souls, intent on leading as good a life as we can in this world in the hope of finding salvation in the next. When people in our faith commit adultery, they not only demean themselves, they demean all of us. I would ask you to pray for the sinners, pray that they may sin no more and be brought back into the light of God’s gracious mercy and forgiveness. If you have sinned, I would ask you to repent. Above all I would ask you to be mindful of Christ’s words to the woman taken in adultery, “go thou and sin no more.”’

It was not long before the full scale of the disaster hit Butler’s Court. The servants, with their normal invisible sources of information, learnt very quickly what had happened in the Protestant church. The steward, acting as spokesman for the footmen and the parlour maids and the kitchen staff, informed Richard Butler of the sermon of Father O’Donovan Brady. The steward felt it was only fair. Richard Butler turned pale but merely thanked the man for his news. The soup that lunchtime came in a silver tureen and was ladled into the Spode bowls by Richard and passed down to the guests. Butler himself carved the meat with a great German carving knife and handed it round. Disaster struck with the vegetables. These were being served from a large silver salver by a pretty parlour maid of about twenty years who looked very correct in her smart black and white uniform. When she reached Johnpeter Kilross she simply walked straight past him as if he wasn’t there. The same fate, accompanied by a slight toss of the head, awaited Alice Bracken. Everybody else was served in the normal way. The girl took the empty salver back to the kitchens. There was complete silence in the dining room. The blank spaces on the walls where the paintings had been stared down at them. Alice Bracken burst into tears and fled the room. Johnpeter Kilross followed her a moment later. Richard Butler stared helplessly at his wife. The rest of the meal was taken in complete silence. The boycott, or a form of boycott, had come to add to the woes of Butler’s Court.

Richard Butler and his wife held a crisis meeting in his study after lunch. ‘Did you know this was going on?’ he asked her.

‘Certainly not. Do you know precisely what was going on?’

Richard Butler made a disagreeable face. ‘From what I was told just before lunch, Father O’Donovan Brady named Kilross and the Bracken female as having carried on in broad daylight in the Head Gardener’s Cottage. He told his flock, if they worked here, that is, to think before they served their food or washed their clothes, that sort of thing.’

‘My God, Richard, this is terrible! So soon after the paintings and everything. What are we going to do?’

‘I don’t think we have any choice,’ said Butler. ‘They’ll have to go away. They’ll have to go almost at once before things get out of hand.’

‘We can’t do that. They may have misbehaved, those two, but they’re our kith and kin. We can’t let them down. What will people say? That Father O’Donovan Brady, that horrible little man, preaches a sermon at half past eleven and the Protestants cave in first thing in the afternoon? You can’t take a high and mighty line with the blackmailers, Richard, and then betray your own after they miss out on the carrots and the cauliflower!’

‘Ah, but there’s a difference,’ said her husband. ‘We’re in the right over the paintings. We’re in the wrong, very much in the wrong, about the adultery. Would you have the locals say our house is a refuge for adulterers, that the people who break God’s commandments can find sanctuary at my house? It won’t do. My mind is made up, Sylvia. They’ve got to go. You might tell them to pack their bags right away. I wish Powerscourt was here. He’d have something sensible to suggest. I’m going to speak to the vicar. Maybe he’ll have some thoughts about where they could go. I don’t think anywhere in the south of Ireland is going to be safe for them. The word will shoot round the Catholic grapevine at lightning speed.’

Five days after his escape from his captors on the Maum road Lord Francis Powerscourt was sitting in the reception area of Messrs Browne and Sons, Land Agents and Valuers, of Eyre Square in the heart of Galway.

The dinner at the Leenane Hotel had been a riotous affair, graced with lobsters and champagne. The Major had indeed attempted to sing a song, ‘The Ash Grove’, deemed too English by local taste and drowned out by Dennis Ormonde and Johnny Fitzgerald belting out ‘The West’s Awake’ and ‘The Wearing of the Green’. The dining room, the landlord observed to his wife, was little better this evening than the public bar on a Saturday night. Ormonde had brought some correspondence for Powerscourt, the letter from Inspector Harkness that had arrived at Ormonde House just ten minutes after he left in search of the missing women. It was cryptic. ‘It is as you thought. Here are the dates and the figures for the person you mentioned. H.’ And there was a note from the Archbishop’s Chaplain reminding Powerscourt that the Archbishop of Tuam was anxious to see him before he left Ireland. An appointment had been fixed for later that day. Johnny Fitzgerald had been dispatched on a fishing expedition to locate and investigate Pronsias Mulcahy’s brother, Declan Mulcahy, believed to be a solicitor somewhere in the west of Ireland.

Richard Browne, senior partner in the firm that bore his name, was a small, silver-haired man in his middle sixties. He was wearing a very elegant dark suit that Powerscourt did not think had come from a Galway tailor with a cream shirt adorned by ornate silver cufflinks. He carried about him an air of great respectability. The room was large, with a fine marble mantelpiece, a desk by the window, a sofa and some easy chairs loosely grouped round a Regency table. Powerscourt was relieved to see that there were no stuffed animals in sight.

‘Lord Powerscourt, a very good morning to you. How can I be of assistance?’

‘Dennis Ormonde of Ormonde House suggested I call on you, Mr Browne,’ Powerscourt began. ‘Let me give you a little background, if I may. I am an investigator, sir, summoned to Ireland to look into a delicate matter of stolen paintings. So far there have been two deaths and a serious kidnapping during the course of my inquiries. I need to know about land, who is buying, who is selling, the general state of the market. Land is always central to what goes on in Ireland, I think. Dennis Ormonde said you would be the best person to consult in the whole of the west of Ireland.’

The old man laughed and began filling his pipe. ‘He flatters me, Lord Powerscourt. I shall be happy to oblige though I find it hard to detect the link between land and pictures. But tell me, didn’t your people once own a huge estate in County Wicklow? And Powerscourt House itself? All sold now, of course, but in its day, surely, it was one of the finest of its kind in Ireland.’

‘We did own it, Mr Browne. It was I who sold it, for reasons I won’t burden you with. There are no lands or houses owned by Powerscourts in Ireland now, I’m afraid.’

‘Pity, that,’ said Richard Browne. ‘The family went back a very long way. Now then.’ He forced a final lump of tobacco into his pipe and began fiddling with his matches. ‘Land, Lord Powerscourt, land in Ireland. Dear me. Where should I start? Two years ago, I tell you, I was going to retire. My wife and I had spent over a year planning a great journey round Europe by train. It was going to take three months. I have always wanted to see some of the great art galleries. My wife is very keen on gardens and great chateaux. We had the route planned, we even had the names of the hotels where we were going to make reservations. Then I heard about this Wyndham Act, the one that encourages the landlords to sell out and gives them a bonus of twelve per cent on the price for doing so. You know about this Act, Lord Powerscourt?’

Powerscourt remembered William Moore talking about it. He nodded.

‘Mabel, I said,’ the land agent went on, thin wisps of smoke beginning to curl out of his pipe, ‘in forty years in this trade I have never seen an opportunity like this. Business for a while will be brisker than we have ever known. I could not sit happy in Gstaad or Portofino and think of all those missing profits. So we postponed the trip. I had to buy Mabel a new house to make up for it, mind you, a Georgian place out near the coast, cost me a packet but it was well worth it.’

‘Did business boom, Mr Browne? Were your expectations justified?’

The land agent laughed. ‘It has been better than my wildest dreams, Lord Powerscourt. These Anglo-Irish landlords, you know, they’ve never been very good with money, most of them. They’re extravagant. If a neighbour builds a Gothic extension to his property, then you have to do the same. Most of those estates are lumbered with loans and mortgages of unimaginable size. Sometimes half or even two-thirds of the income goes on servicing the debts. If agricultural prices are good then the rents can be high. But they’ve not been too good for a long time with all these foreign imports of wheat and so on. So when George Wyndham proposed this Act, the landlords thought it was manna from heaven. Sell some of your land, sell all of your land, collect the bonus, and it’s a golden opportunity to pay off a lot of those debts and still be left with plenty of money. I’ve had people coming in here at a rate you wouldn’t believe, as if I was the bookmaker round the corner.’

‘So you have lots of sellers,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Who is buying? And might I make so bold as to raise the religious question? Dennis Ormonde said you dealt with all the Protestant sales. But it doesn’t sound as if there are many Protestant buyers on the market.’

Richard Browne puffed vigorously. ‘Good question, my lord, good question. Very rarely will a Protestant enter the market to buy. Some of the most efficient farmers have increased their holdings, it is true. But most of the time the land is offered to the existing tenants. That’s only fair, after all. It’s after that the business really takes off. Many of these people – we’d have called them peasants in days gone by – didn’t have very much land. If they sold it they might have enough money to emigrate or to pay off some of their debts. Or they could stay on and work on the land for the new landlord. Some of the larger Catholic farmers have amassed enormous amounts of land by buying out their co-religionists. Sometimes, I understand, they’re even harsher landlords than the ones who sold up. The key point is this shift in the ownership of land towards the native population and, in particular, the acquisition of these huge holdings. It’s history running backwards, my lord. Out go the Protestants who acquired or stole the land from the Catholic population hundreds of years ago, in come these great Catholic speculators buying up the Protestant land with the help and encouragement of the British Government in London. It could only happen in Ireland.’ Browne’s pipe had gone out. He began again the difficult search for matches, never to be found in the pocket where you thought you had put them.

‘Is that clear to you, my lord, the general picture, I mean?’

‘Admirably clear, Mr Browne, you have explained the situation very well. Might I trespass on your knowledge yet further and trail a couple of names before you, names of Catholic gentlemen who might be buying up the land in the manner you adumbrated so well?’

‘I’m afraid, my lord,’ Richard Browne had finally managed to relight his pipe and was now blowing great lungfuls of smoke in Powerscourt’s direction, ‘that at certain points the priorities and preoccupations of investigators, however distinguished, diverge from those of humble land agents like myself. We have a duty of confidentiality to our clients. It is not as rigorous as the duty that binds the priests in their confessionals, but we break it at our peril.’

‘Goodness me, Mr Browne,’ said Powerscourt, ‘forgive me, I was not thinking of anybody with whom you might be doing business here in Galway or Clare or however far your remit runs. I was thinking rather of somebody in the Midlands, somebody whose land agents would probably come from Athlone rather than Galway.’

‘It’s very unusual, my lord. I’m not sure I could countenance giving out any information where I was not in the full possession of the facts.’

Powerscourt threw his hat into the ring. ‘Mr Mulcahey, Mr Pronsias Mulcahey of Butler’s Cross – does that name ring any bells, even distant bells, with you, Mr Browne?’

Something in the land agent’s face told Powerscourt that he had scored a direct hit.

‘I couldn’t say, my lord, I really couldn’t say. Pronsias Mulcahey, grocer and moneylender of Market Square, Butler’s Cross. I couldn’t say, but you might be on to something there.’

Jameson was unwell. His owner, Charlie O’Malley, was very worried about him. He was not old, for a donkey. He still worked for his living but his performance was sporadic. Occasionally he sat down in the middle of the road and refused to move. He was not eating much. After their heroic efforts building the chapel on the summit of Croagh Patrick, Charlie and his animals were currently employed building a new hotel and bar near the beach at Old Head, a few miles from Louisburg. The land was flat and the effort involved for donkeys bringing materials out to the site was minute compared with the long haul up the Holy Mountain. Charlie had consulted widely among his cronies in the bar of Campbell’s public house. One had recommended large doses of whiskey, another great helpings of vegetable soup, another swore his granny had cured a dying donkey by feeding it a diet of potatoes soaked overnight in stout. The goodness of the Guinness, according to Charlie’s informant’s aged relative, soaked into the spuds and effected the cure. Charlie had tried them all. He had mentioned to his wife the possibility of the vet and been soundly berated for his pains; how were the children to have clothes on their backs and shoes on their feet if all their hard-earned money was to be squandered on a delinquent donkey?

Charlie had virtually decided to have Jameson put down. The two of them and Bushmills had finished early for the day and Charlie was thinking of celebrating his release with a glass of refreshment in the public bar at Campbell’s when it happened. Jameson stopped at the bottom of the track that led to the summit. He stared upwards. Then he began trotting purposefully up the path.

‘Jameson!’ shouted Charlie. ‘Jameson! Where are you going, you stupid animal?’

The donkey did not deign to turn round. He continued, at a regular pace, in the direction of the statue of St Patrick. Charlie tethered Bushmills to the post outside Campbell’s and set off in pursuit.

‘Jameson!’ he shouted, spying the beast some two hundred yards further up and cruising steadily past St Patrick. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’

Jameson gave every indication of having a very good idea of where he was going. He was going up and nobody was going to stop him. By the time Charlie caught up with him, the donkey was almost at the first station and looking as if he might break the All Ireland Donkey record for the summit of The Reek. Charlie himself was panting heavily. The fitness established on those trips up and down to the chapel had long gone, eroded by the flat lands of Old Head and the stout of Campbell’s public bar. Anybody looking at the two of them now would have said that Jameson was the healthy one and Charlie the invalid. Onwards and upwards went the animal, five hundred yards from the summit, then three hundred, then eighty. Charlie was feeling rather unwell and had taken to reciting a series of Hail Marys. Jameson gave one triumphant bray when he reached the chapel he had helped to build and he peered out into Clew Bay, master of all he surveyed.

‘For Christ’s sake, Jameson,’ said Charlie, sitting down by the edge of the chapel, ‘won’t you take a rest? Sit down, in God’s name. You’re bloody well killing me.’

Jameson took no notice. He trotted past Charlie without even a glance and set off back down the scree. Charlie floundered after him, slithering on the rough stones, and once sitting down very uncomfortably. Charlie knew he had to stop Jameson disappearing off down the road at the bottom and escaping into some kind of donkey liberty. He redoubled his efforts but Jameson was too quick for him. By the time Charlie eventually reached the bottom, holding on to his side and panting heavily, Jameson was next to Bushmills. They appeared to be having a conversation in donkey language on the inadequacies of humans. Charlie tied the donkey up and staggered into the public bar. He had to be helped to a seat. He was too exhausted to speak. A variety of remedies were proposed.

‘Plain water, that’s what he needs,’ said a farmer from nearby Murrisk.

‘Plain water?’ said a carpenter from Westport. ‘You must be mad. When did plain water do anything for anybody, for God’s sake? Stout, that’s what he wants.’

‘No, no, not stout. It’ll puff him out like a football,’ said a small farmer. ‘whiskey, that’s the thing.’

‘Brandy,’ said the landlord, who had left his seat of custom for a close inspection of Charlie. ‘Here, take this very slowly. Don’t rush it or you’ll be ill.’ He handed over a large glass half filled with cognac and Charlie sipped it gently, like a man taking his medicine after a long illness. Gradually he felt himself returning to something approaching normal. Certainly the state of semi-inebriation brought on by the brandy was a condition well known to Charlie. And when he outlined the recent events concerning Jameson, he had the attention of every single person in the public bar.

‘He’s mad, the animal,’ said one. ‘Who ever heard of a mountaineering donkey?’

‘Take him to the Alps, Charlie,’ said another, who had not excelled at geography with the Christian Brothers. ‘See if he can climb the Horn of Matter!’

‘Matterhorn, you eejit,’ said his friend. ‘Why don’t we organize a donkey race up Croagh Patrick every summer? Jameson would be hot favourite. I’d put five shillings on him now, so I would.’

‘It just goes to show,’ said a solicitor’s clerk, ‘that all donkeys are mad. You can never tell with them, they’re so stupid.’

‘The spirit of St Patrick has entered the animal,’ said a teacher who had once contemplated a career in the priesthood. ‘Jameson has taken on the mantle of the patron saint.’

Charlie paid little attention to any of these theories. Jameson had certainly returned to health. He even attained a brief moment of local fame when the editor of the Mayo News, a veteran of the journalistic profession, florid of countenance and portly of figure, heard about the mountaineering donkey and sent one of his brightest young men to interview Jameson. The reporter quickly realized that donkeys, like the dead, cannot sue for libel and that he was therefore free to print whatever took his fancy. Jameson, he informed his readers, was an avid supporter of Home Rule as he much preferred staying in the field next to Charlie O’Malley’s house to going to work. And he deduced from the considerable amount of time the donkey spent outside Campbell’s public house that Jameson would favour a relaxation of the licensing laws and a lowering in the duty on the spirit that bore his name. Parties of schoolchildren would make appointments to come and see Jameson after this, bringing gifts of vegetables and stroking him happily. Twice a month Charlie took him up to the summit of Croagh Patrick to keep his health up. Charlie rejected all the theories about his donkey’s behaviour. Charlie knew the truth. Jameson was a pilgrim.

The Archbishop of Tuam, the Very Reverend John Healey, was perusing a large pile of documents on his desk as Powerscourt was shown into his study.

‘Lord Powerscourt, how good to see you again. Please take a seat. Is your mission to Ireland nearly completed?’

Powerscourt quite liked the thought of his mission. It linked him to the saints and scholars of Ireland’s past, perhaps even to Patrick himself out here in the country where a great mountain was named in his honour.

‘I believe I am on the last lap, Your Grace. I hope so anyway.’

‘So you think you have found the answer?’

‘In this case, Your Grace, I think it will come down to answers in the plural rather than answer in the singular. So often in my investigations there has been one perpetrator, one single individual who committed the crime or murdered the innocent or forged the paintings. Here I think there may be a number of individuals. It has made it very difficult to work out the links that held them together.’

‘I’m sure you will get to the bottom of it all. Tell me, Lord Powerscourt, I have received a great many letters complaining about the shooting of a young man on the Maum road very recently. My correspondents say that the young man was totally innocent and was victimized by the soldiers for no reason. And his companion, another young man, had been badly beaten up. Do you know anything about this?’

Powerscourt smiled. ‘Is it possible, Your Grace, that some of these letters are in the same hand? Or that the words in one are remarkably similar to those in another?’

The Archbishop frowned. He riffled through the stack of letters. ‘God bless my soul! Both of those statements are true,’ he said in surprise. ‘How very strange. Do you think somebody is orchestrating this campaign?’

‘That might indeed be the case, Your Grace,’ said Powerscourt, ‘but let me give you the facts. You see, I was present, or almost present, at the time. Those two young men were responsible for the kidnapping of two Protestant women from Ormonde House. They kept them locked up in a fishing lodge near Leenane for some days. The ladies were only freed when Johnny Fitzgerald and I substituted ourselves for them, and became hostages in our turn. We were all going to Galway in the finest Ormonde coach, with Johnny and I told not to move or we would be shot.’

Dr Healey’s ample eyebrows shot high up the archepiscopal forehead. ‘Goodness me,’ he said, ‘what colourful lives you people lead. I’m sure Lord Edward Fitzgerald would have been proud of his descendant’s gallantry, mind you. Please go on.’

‘Well, Your Grace, we managed to set ourselves free by a violent assault on the young men when they were nearly asleep and kicking them out of the coach. Then they were intercepted by a party of troopers who were following our progress at a discreet distance. The young man who was shot could have allowed himself to be arrested. He must have known he and his colleague were outnumbered. But he did not. We only knew him as Mick, Your Grace. That was not his real name and he was a very excitable young man. He fired at the cavalrymen. They fired back. He was killed. I am sure he preferred death and glory to capture and a prison sentence in Castlebar Jail. No doubt there will be a ballad about him soon.’

‘I think there already is,’ said the Archbishop. ‘One of the grooms here heard it last night in the Mitre across the road. I see, Lord Powerscourt. I feel I should pay little attention to these protesters. But tell me, I only saw you on the way up the mountain, not on the way down. Did you enjoy the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage? Did it have meaning for you?’

‘It most certainly did,’ replied Powerscourt. ‘It was, for me, a spiritual experience. I am most grateful to Your Grace for inviting us. Could I extend, on behalf of Lucy and myself, an invitation to you, Your Grace, to come and see us when you are next in London? You could meet the children. We live in Markham Square in Chelsea. Sir Thomas More lived not far away, we have the Royal Hospital close by, one of the most beautiful buildings in London, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, we have the river Thames, but we have no mountains and no pilgrimages.’

‘Thank you, thank you.’ The Archbishop beamed with pleasure. ‘Are you familiar with the works of John Donne, Lord Powerscourt? He began life in a very distinguished Catholic family and ended up as Protestant Dean of St Paul’s. I have had this quotation from him on my desk these twenty years now.’ The Archbishop opened up a little notebook which Powerscourt saw was filled with neat copperplate handwriting. ‘It comes from the passage about for whom the bell tolls: “And when the Church buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume: when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.” Donne talks of many translations, my friend. I like to think there are many mountains, too, not only ones made out of stone and rock and rough scree like our Croagh Patrick. There are mountains of hatred and bigotry in men’s hearts here in our little island which the Church must try to remove. There are mountains or lofty places of the spirit, if we are to believe Donne and the mystics and the poets, where love can take its adherents to the highest peaks of happiness or ecstasy. There are many translations, Lord Powerscourt. There are many mountains too and many different paths to the summit, whether in Mayo or Chelsea.’

Two days later Powerscourt was back in Butler’s Court, reading another letter from the art dealer Michael Hudson. ‘You will be as astonished as I was to hear of the response to our advertisements in the Irish newspapers. So far we have had eighty-seven replies! When Mr Farrell has inspected them I will let you have further details. Unfortunately not one of them is on your lists. It may be that the thieves did not steal them in order to sell them on. It may be that they are biding their time. In my experience thieves are usually anxious to dispose of their booty at the earliest possible opportunity. Yours etc.’

Powerscourt laughed out loud. For all their protestations about their devotion to their ancestors, the Anglo-Irish were queuing up to sell their forebears for American dollars in great numbers. There might, he thought, be more to come when word about the high prices travelled round the thirty-two counties. The answer to his problem did not lie with selling the stolen paintings.

He had met with the land agent in Athlone earlier that day and been given a report very similar to the one he had received in Galway. Some of these Protestant patricians, he had been told, were so happy with the Wyndham bonus that they were even building new houses for themselves, though little thought appeared to have been given to how they were to be maintained. What they ought to have done, the agent from Athlone had informed him, was to invest the proceeds from the sales in sensible stock and maintain their standard of living from the income, but that had little appeal. One single man from Tralee was believed to be working his way through the proceeds of the Wyndham Act at the gambling tables of Monte Carlo. The name Mulcahy produced the same instant frisson of recognition as it had done in Eyre Square but no details of his dealings could be extracted. Powerscourt had also met with Inspector Harkness to co-ordinate the final arrangements of his investigation. ‘If this works,’ he told the Inspector, ‘we’ll be heroes, temporary kings for twenty-four hours. If it fails we’ll be humiliated.’

Powerscourt filled Lady Lucy in with the details in the Butler’s Court gardens late on the Sunday afternoon. ‘At nine o’clock tomorrow morning, my love, Inspector Harkness and a team of eight men, all from areas remote from here in case of leaks, are going to search Mulcahy’s premises. If that fails, they’ll try his house. If that fails they’ll try the priest’s place. I’d love to see Father O’Donovan Brady’s face when they start ripping his house apart.’

‘Is all this legal, Francis? Can you actually raid those places?’

‘Oh, yes, Lucy,’ replied her husband, ‘the Inspector has got search warrants falling out of every pocket in his suit. And, at the same time, exactly the same time so there can be no tip-offs, another party of police, escorted by Johnny Fitzgerald, is going to raid the offices of the solicitor brother Declan Mulcahy in Swinford. His speciality is land and he is believed, Johnny said in his note, to have parcels of land coming out of his ears. Johnny also tells me that there is some mass grave over there from famine times with over five hundred and fifty souls in the ground but our boy Declan isn’t going to starve. Not by any means. There’s property and land and prize cattle in his empire apparently, and it’s growing by the hour.’

‘Are you sure you’re right?’ Lady Lucy looked worried suddenly.

Powerscourt smiled and took her hand. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow. Let’s go and see what’s on the menu this evening, Lucy. But, please, don’t breathe a word of any of this to anybody. If a whisper of a rumour goes down the hill, we’re sunk.’