1972 (5 page)
Authors: Morgan Llywelyn
The Enemy. Barry knew who they were. Everything was simple, black and white. Like the magpie.
The column trudged along a country road. From a farmhouse chimney came a whiff of burning turf. The haunting fragrance reminded Barry of home. And Mam.
He called her Mam only in his thoughts. Aloud she was always Ursula, a preference she had expressed long ago.
A mile farther on brought them to a meadow in the lap of sheltering hills. “We'll camp here for the night,” McCoy said. “There's a farm up the road that belongs to some of our crowd, so we'll ask them for spades and a pickaxe. It's time you had practice making dugouts for yourselves.”
At first building dugouts was fun. The men made jokes as they worked. Later Barry thought he was too excited to sleep, but between one thought and the next the world slipped away
and he knew nothing until he awoke cold and stiff in the predawn dark. McCoy was prodding the sole of his foot with a rifle. “Crawl out from under that blanket, Seventeen. Things are about to get serious.”
and he knew nothing until he awoke cold and stiff in the predawn dark. McCoy was prodding the sole of his foot with a rifle. “Crawl out from under that blanket, Seventeen. Things are about to get serious.”
Barry leapt to his feet while his mind was still cobwebbed with sleep. From that day on he made sure to be the first one up. Eyes open, brain alert, ready to learn.
It was easy to tell the difference between Catholic and Protestant areas. In Protestant areas the houses were better, the roads were better, the schools were better. There were other, more subtle differences as well, such as the fact that northern Catholics said they went to chapel rather than church because
church
was the Protestant term.
church
was the Protestant term.
During the next two weeks the column was constantly on the move, roving the Six Counties and learning their way around while simultaneously practicing guerrilla tactics and avoiding the police. At night they gathered around tiny campfires and talked. Talked politics and war.
McCoy explained that the IRA had a long-standing tradition of political abstention. “Politics is a waste of time. Britain became an empire through force of arms, and that's all the British respect. There's no way for Ireland to end the injustice of partition except through the armed struggle.”
A recruit chimed in, “That means the IRA, since the current government are too cowardly to fight for the country that was taken away from them.”
“Right you are,” said one of the veterans. “Furthermore, we're fighting a monster with two heads. One is the government at Stormont, and the other's the government at Westminster that props it up. That's why the Army needs to carry the war to England.”
Stories were told, in voices hushed with admiration, of brave men who crossed the Irish Sea to attack the enemy on their own home soil. Planting bombs in Britain was a tactic that dated from the preceding century. There was rarely any real damage due to incompetence on the part of the bombers, but it served to keep the British public aware of “the Irish problem.”
O
UTSIDE Derry City the Volunteers came upon a ramshackle community known as Tin Town. Rusting Nissan huts that had been used during World War Two for housing troops in transit to Europe were filled to overflowing with impoverished Catholic families. The place was a sea of mud, stinking of cesspools and running with rats. Amidst scenes of appalling squalor, parents struggled to raise their children as best they could.
UTSIDE Derry City the Volunteers came upon a ramshackle community known as Tin Town. Rusting Nissan huts that had been used during World War Two for housing troops in transit to Europe were filled to overflowing with impoverished Catholic families. The place was a sea of mud, stinking of cesspools and running with rats. Amidst scenes of appalling squalor, parents struggled to raise their children as best they could.
“If you ever wonder what this war's really about, here's your answer,” McCoy told his men.
Two-thirds of the north's population were staunchly unionist in their views. Learning how to make contact with nationalists who wanted to see their fractured country reunited was an essential part of a Volunteer's training. “You'll be relying on the locals for intelligence and supplies,” McCoy said. “Some of the most dedicated republicans are in the north; it's their home ground they're fighting for. Be careful, though. The Brits have paid informers everywhere, often the person you'd least expect. The wrong word in the wrong ear and you could wake up in one of Her Majesty's holiday hotels.” The wolfish smile flickered.
“Were you ever arrested yourself?” a recruit wanted to know.
“I've been lifted once or twice. Can't say I'd recommend royal hospitality. Being kept in a darkened cell for weeks on end plays hell with your eyesight.”
Suddenly Barry understood McCoy's constant squinting.
In spite of his damaged vision, McCoy usually saw the bright side. He often said, “Don't worry, lads, everything will come right in the end.” And made them believe it.
Such optimism was essential. The winter of 1956 was cold. Rain fell almost every day, turning overnight to frozen mud. Physical discomfort was a constant and hunger was never far away.
Training sessions did not include weapons practice because the sound of gunfire could draw the RUC,
l
but McCoy directed mock attacks and ambushes, advances and retreats. The men memorised maps and practiced infiltrating areas under cover of darkness. During the day they hid out in dugouts in the woods.
l
but McCoy directed mock attacks and ambushes, advances and retreats. The men memorised maps and practiced infiltrating areas under cover of darkness. During the day they hid out in dugouts in the woods.
Barry and Feargal usually shared a dugout. Sitting side by side in a damp, dark hole that smelled of earth, they used conversation to ease the tedium. They told each other silly things and serious things, laughed at jokes that had meaning only for themselves, and exchanged dreams and hopes and fears they would admit to no one else.
They enjoyed comparing their childhood foibles. “I would do just about anything for the pure divvil of it,” Barry admitted without shame. “And I was a fearful dreamer. I spent more time gazing out the window than I ever did learning my lessons.”
Feargal said, “I was sports mad. Mitched school every chance I got to play ball. Used to steal a few coppers from the old man's pocket to buy bits and pieces of equipment. He never even noticed.”
Barry began to boast, “My mother never knew what I ⦔ then stopped in mid-sentence as a more mature realisation dawned on him. “I thought my mother never knew what I was up to,” he amended. “But looking back now, I believe she did.”
E
VERY move the Volunteers made carried an awareness of imminent danger. “Even the dogs in the street are watching you,” McCoy stressed. “Up here the IRA's the enemy.”
VERY move the Volunteers made carried an awareness of imminent danger. “Even the dogs in the street are watching you,” McCoy stressed. “Up here the IRA's the enemy.”
At a rural crossroads in County Tyrone, McCoy raised his hand to signal a halt. “At ease, lads. We'll be waiting here for Commandant Garland, if the bloody RUC haven't picked him up. He'll be your permanent O/C.”
McCoy sat down by a signpost that gave directions in English only, and in imperial miles rather than the longer Irish mile. Grunting with pleasure, McCoy scratched his back against the signpost while his men lounged along the verge at the side of the road. The recruits began removing their shoes to examine their feet for blisters.
Barry was unlacing his boots when Seán South put out a staying hand. “I wouldn't,” he advised. “Wait until we camp for the night. If you take them off now your feet will be too swollen to put them back on.” Barry tried to pass the warning on to Feargal but the young man from Monaghan was too involved in a discussion about the fine points of Gaelic football to hear him.
Barry took out the slim volume of Ledwidge's poetry and began to read. By now he knew all the poems by heart, but revisiting them was like talking with old friends.
McCoy smoked a cigarette until it burned down to his fingers, then got to his feet and brushed off his pants. “Listen up, lads.” Barry put his book back in his pocket. “Seán Garland's a good skin,” McCoy went on. “He has an orderly mind and a good eye for the lay of the land. A few years ago GHQ decided to send a member of the Dublin brigade up to Armagh to enlist in the British Army, and they chose Garland. He made a very convincing recruit, and the Brits accepted him into the Royal Irish Fusiliers without question. Almost at once he began passing valuable information to GHQ. Documents, maps, even photographs taken with a mini-camera.
“The intelligence Garland provided was responsible for one of the most successful arms raids we ever had. Our lads lifted two hundred and fifty new rifles, thirty-seven Stens, nine Brens, and a bunch of training rifles from the Armagh barracks and got them safely back across the border. The British Army was left with egg on its face.”
Several Volunteers sniggered. “I wish I'd been there to throw the eggs,” Barry whispered to Seán South, who nodded agreement.
McCoy continued, “Eventually the IRA withdrew Garland from the British Army before they could sniff him out. Now he's going to be in charge of you lot, and I expect you to make me proud of you.
“Your second in command will be David O'Connell. Dave's only nineteen but don't let that fool you. He joined Sinn Féin in 1955 and then the Volunteers. He was appointed over Vincent Conlon, the former quartermaster general of the IRA, so that tells you how highly he's regarded at headquarters.”
The Volunteers waited with heightened anticipation. For a long time nothing happened. At last a redheaded man on a motorbike
appeared around the bend in the road. A second man was riding pillion with his knees drawn up to keep his feet from dragging the ground.
appeared around the bend in the road. A second man was riding pillion with his knees drawn up to keep his feet from dragging the ground.
Séamus McCoy gave a relieved shout: “Hullo, you two! I was beginning to think you'd got lost.”
The bike growled to a halt. The pillion passenger unfolded himself and nimbly stepped aside so the driver could dismount.
The redhead strode up to McCoy. “Shay, you old rogue,” he said in a hard Dublin accent. “What d'ye have for me?”
“You're looking at them, Seán. This unlikely lot sprawled all over the road.”
Seán Garland gestured toward his former passenger. “This isâ”
“Dáithà à Conaill, in the Irish,” the man interrupted, stepping forward. “My friends call me Dave.”
O'Connell had a domed forehead and receding hairline that gave him the appearance of a much older man. But this was not the reason the Volunteers were staring at him.
Dave O'Connell was six and a half feet tall.
“They must feed'em good where he comes from,” Feargal murmured in awe.
S
EÃN Garland took over the column with smooth professionalism. “We're getting you out of sight as soon as possible,” he told the men. “I don't want to lose you to the RUC before I've had time to learn your names. Down the road now, and on the double.”
EÃN Garland took over the column with smooth professionalism. “We're getting you out of sight as soon as possible,” he told the men. “I don't want to lose you to the RUC before I've had time to learn your names. Down the road now, and on the double.”
Barry cast a pitying glance at Feargal, who winced as he crammed his swollen feet back into his shoes.
Within an hour the Volunteers were snugly billeted in a barn belonging to a republican family. “From now on you'll take your orders from me or Dave,” Garland told them, “and no one else. Each column is relatively autonomous. The Army wants to keep them as separate as possible because the less one group knows about another, the less chance there is of an informer giving out valuable information.”
The mention of informers gave Barry a jolt. His vision of the Irish Republican Army was pure and noble. Ned Halloran had never said anything about informers within.
“Our primary mission,” Garland continued, “is to disable and demoralise the enemy. That will involve cutting their communications, obstructing roads and railways, and putting their facilities out of commission. In short, making matters as difficult as possible for the occupying forces. We'll use explosives to gain entry to their military installations and ⦔
“And blow open the odd prison door?” McCoy suggested.
Garland gave him a wintry smile. “The only explosives we have right now are gelignite and paxo. Paxo's made from potassium chloride and paraffin wax and it's pretty volatile stuff. Of course we can always make Molotov cocktails with glass bottles and petrol,”
like the freedom fighters in Hungary,
thought Barry, “but they're almost as dangerous to the man who throws them as they are to his target.
like the freedom fighters in Hungary,
thought Barry, “but they're almost as dangerous to the man who throws them as they are to his target.
“Our friends across the pond are buying American war surplus for usâanyone with dollars can buy American war surplusâbut we don't have any mortars. Other weapons are coming on stream, though. We'll take whatever we can get. So let's have a look at your ordnance.”
Frowning, Garland had examined the column's small stock of rifles and pistols. “Is this all you brought, Shay?”
“It's everything GHQ sent us, plus one old rifle and a sawnoff shotgun that two of the lads brought with them.”
“What, no pitchforks?”
“Not unless we steal some from this barn.”
Garland chuckled. “We won't need to, thank God. Every attack group's being supplied with machine guns. We've two Thompson submachine guns and a Bren tucked away a few miles from here.”
“What's a Bren?” asked one of the recruits.
“An infantry weapon really, and more reliable than the Thompson. Thompsons have a tendency to pull to the left unless you know how to allow for it. You fire a Thompson standing up and spray the bullets around, but the Bren's mounted on a bipod and you lie on your belly to shoot. It's much steadier, and can take the same ammunition as the Lee-Enfield .303.”
“I have a Lee-Enfield .303!” Barry cried. “I could handle a Bren.”
Garland slanted a look in his direction. “Keen as mustard, are you? Ever used any class of machine gun?”
“Not yet, but I can ⦔
“Halloran's quite a marksman with his own rifle,” McCoy commented. “He could be a sniper.”
Sniper. Me! I told Gerry Ryan I was going to shoot vermin. That's what the enemy does to our crowd, kills them like vermin. It's only fair they get back what they give.
Sniper. Barry liked the sound of the word. Adventurous and heroic.
Seán Garland was saying, “In the finish-up, we can't hope to defeat the enemy through conventional warfare. Britain will always be able to supply more men and more weapons. But we can do what Michael Collins did: we can break down the machinery of administration until the British are unable to govern. Then they'll have to withdraw from Northern Ireland.”
“However long it takes, we'll get our country back,” Séamus McCoy added. His voice rang with conviction.
This is for real.
Sitting on a barrel in a barn. Legs aching. Stomach rumbling. Adrenaline prickling beneath the skin.
However long it takes, we'll get our country back.
Sitting on a barrel in a barn. Legs aching. Stomach rumbling. Adrenaline prickling beneath the skin.
However long it takes, we'll get our country back.
The barn smelled of hay and chickens.
“One more thing,” said Garland. “Up here labels are a matter of life and death. Keep that in mind. You have Catholics and nationalists and republicans; Protestants and unionists and loyalists. Those are, broadly speaking, the two sides, with the government soundly on the latter. Within those two divisions there's a lot of crossover. All Catholics aren't nationalists; many are just people who want to work and bring up their families in safety. Nationalists may or may not be practicing Catholics, but they want to see this island reunited.”
“A nation once again!” whooped one of the recruits.
Garland suppressed a smile. “Exactly. I don't have to explain who the republicans are: that's us. We want the Irish Republic we fought for in 1916 and again in 1921, not some diluted version like the Free State.
“Now about the unionists: Only a small percentage are members of the Ulster Unionist Party, but the vast majority of
northern Protestants would describe themselves as âunionist' because they want to remain within the United Kingdom. âLoyalist' refers to an extremely sectarian group that's developed in the Protestant working class. You could call them supremacists, like the Ku Klux Klan in America. Loyalists bash and bludgeon Catholics and claim they're doing it to protect their Protestant heritage. Many loyalists belong to the Orange Order, one of the most virulent anti-Catholic organisations in the world. They consider themselves above the law with some justification, since the RUC lets them get away with murder. Sometimes literally. A lot of RUC men belong to the Orange Order too, you see.”
northern Protestants would describe themselves as âunionist' because they want to remain within the United Kingdom. âLoyalist' refers to an extremely sectarian group that's developed in the Protestant working class. You could call them supremacists, like the Ku Klux Klan in America. Loyalists bash and bludgeon Catholics and claim they're doing it to protect their Protestant heritage. Many loyalists belong to the Orange Order, one of the most virulent anti-Catholic organisations in the world. They consider themselves above the law with some justification, since the RUC lets them get away with murder. Sometimes literally. A lot of RUC men belong to the Orange Order too, you see.”
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