Redemption - Leon Uris [74]
The third prong, armed insurrection, arrived in the form of Long Dan Sweeney being slipped back into the country. He was a minor folk hero, a relic of the disastrous Fenian risings and resident of a half-dozen British prisons, where he underwent every sort of humiliation.
Sweeney had worked the world wherever a handful of Irishmen of fighting persuasion would gather. He kept the fires of rebellion fanned, dim though they were. He was the bare bones of the eternal revolutionary, created of acid. He was sloganless and loveless. He had been denounced by the church but a crucifix always hung above the cot where he rested for the night.
With the courts already in battle with the British, the political WORD and the rebel’s GUN had come back to Ireland in the form of Arthur Griffith and Long Dan Sweeney.
Into this scene Seamus O’Neill made his reentry with a fine reputation from the Boer War. He was immediately employed by the Dublin Journal, a large daily paper tilting toward the republican point of view but most interested in handicapping the horses.
Seamus took a flat at the edge of the Liberties with the Guinness Brewery on one side and the governing Dublin Castle on the other. He was an immediate and welcome addition to the revival, and Des and Atty Fitzpatrick picked up on the earlier contact they had established with him through the Transvaal Committee.
Sure, Seamus O’Neill out of Ballyutogue, a rare Catholic educated on scholarship at Queens College, a war journalist hero and a swordsman with words, was soon a real Dublin dandy.
In addition to covering his beat for the Journal he poured out essays for Irish-American papers and periodicals and served notice to Atty Fitzpatrick that a play was in the writing.
Seamus O’Neill, man about town at the pubs, the track, and the theatre, lived another life. As soon as he was able he made contact with Long Dan Sweeney and became a secret member of the illegal Irish Republican Brotherhood.
Desmond came into the dining room for a quick hello to the family, then retreated up to the library with his plate. This was par for the course at the Fitzpatricks’. Atty gave the children an extra half-hour, then sent them up to have a good-night tussle with Des, then joined him, thankful the theatre was dark tonight.
It was not always quite so hectic. Both parents made the effort to give their children companionship and comfort. They had set up a program of reading and discussing events to create a closeness.
By the age of twelve Theobald was already doing apprentice clerking for his father, able to pick his way through the law library.
Rachael played through her childhood using her sister, Emma, as her live doll and found rich hours in her mother’s theatrical wardrobe. She showed little inclination for much other than being a little girl who enjoyed being a little girl.
They were well behaved and moved in a crowd of adults with ease in the salons of discussion, debates, and poetry readings.
Supreme times were the family trips to Lough Clara, and one was always on the schedule up ahead. Horseback riding with Mom and fishing with Daddy and getting to know each other again about the fire.
When Des came in pressed as he did this night, the children always feared a sudden cancellation of the journey to Lough Clara. Theo went up to the library and stoked the turf for them. Things seemed iffy these days. Theo could tell by the radiation of tension, the quickening of their speech, and the short duration of their toleration that something was amiss.
When Rachael led the children in, their parents gave them perfunctory kisses as Des gobbled down the contents of his plate and punctuated it with a strong shot of whiskey.
“Are we calling off next week’s trip to Lough Clara?” Theo asked at the door.
“It’s still on with me,” Des said to his son’s relief.
“We’ll go,” Atty assured.
When the door shut, they slowed obvious tension with another clout from the bottle.
“Will your trial spill over into our holiday time?”
“Oh, the mood around the Four Courts seems to