1999 (35 page)

So my dear Ella lives on in a new generation,
Ursula thought. Although the knowledge gave her comfort, sadly it did not make Barbara herself any easier to like.

 

In the autumn the INLA successfully planted a bomb at the offices of the Ulster Unionist Party. The resultant explosion caused extensive damage.

“So much for politics,” Séamus McCoy commented with some satisfaction.

That autumn Lenny Murphy, the psychopathic leader of the Shankill Butchers, was killed by the IRA. Members of the Belfast Brigade drove to the house of Murphy's current girlfriend in the Upper Shankill. They found Murphy outside. The Volunteers, who were armed with a 9mm submachine gun and a .38 special, did not waste time in dialogue. They opened fire, hitting Murphy with twenty-six rounds and killing him instantly.

 

Barry Halloran sold several photographs of Murphy to the wire services, but refused to furnish pictures of the man on a slab in the morgue.

 

On the twentieth of October an election was held for a new Northern Ireland Assembly—the first election to be contested by Provisional Sinn Féin. The SDLP won fourteen of the seventy-eight seats but previously had announced it would not take them, maintaining the republican tactic of abstentionism. The Ulster Unionists took twenty-six seats to the DUP's twenty-one.

By winning 10.1 percent of the poll Sinn Féin claimed five seats, though they also planned to abstain from taking part in the Assembly. Two of those elected were Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

Sinn Féin's surprisingly good showing in the election caused consternation among the British establishment. Claiming that the republican movement was a criminal conspiracy with no support amongst the ordinary people was no longer possible.

There were demands from the more moderate amongst the unionists for Sinn Féin to cut its ties with the IRA.

“How can we even think of decoupling the IRA from Sinn Féin,” Barry asked the Usual Suspects, “when the nationalists have nothing else to protect them? The unionists have the British government stoutly on their side, plus the RUC as their military wing. While the British government turns a blind eye the RUC openly colludes with loyalist murder gangs. If they weren't at least a little afraid of IRA retribution, God knows what they might do to our people.”

The northern elections were not uppermost in the minds of politicians in the Republic. In November Charles Haughey's government collapsed following a wiretapping scandal involving the telephones of journalists, amongst others.

Meanwhile three unarmed Volunteers were shot dead by the RUC at a checkpoint near Lurgan. Their deaths sparked claims that the police and army were pursuing a “shoot to kill” policy, and requests that the Irish government demand accountability from Britain.

The following month Garret FitzGerald reclaimed the prime ministership of Ireland.

 

On the sixth of December seventeen people were killed by an INLA bomb at the Droppin' Well Pub in Ballykelly. In the House of Commons Margaret Thatcher said, “This is one of the most horrifying crimes in Ulster's tragic history. The slaughter of innocent people is the product of evil and depraved minds and the act of callous and brutal men.”
⁵

 

Whether Barbara liked it or not, political discussions had become a fixture in the yellow brick house. Even the most transient boarder had an opinion about what should be done in Northern Ireland, though none were as articulate, or as convincing, as Barry Halloran.

“Maybe I'm just getting old,” McCoy said to Ursula on one of their outings together. The weather was cold and grim but neither could stand being indoors a minute longer. “Maybe I'm just getting old,” he repeated—hoping she would disagree—“but it's hard for me to imagine republicans going into politics. Can you see me sitting down around a conference table with men who hate my guts? And me hating their guts too!”

Ursula reached back to pat his hand. “I know, Séamus. But it may never happen; Sinn Féin and the SDLP aren't taking their seats in the Assembly.”

“Not now they're not, but I have an itchy feeling at the back of my neck.”

“My son seems to think it might be a good idea.”

McCoy stopped pushing the wheelchair and crouched down beside it. “Does he? For sure? I don't know about that. Your son's a born soldier: he's strong, disciplined, and clever. When a man like that goes into the Army he finds what he was made for. Seventeen couldn't possibly do a one-eighty; I know him too well.”

“Does anyone ever really know anyone else?”

“I know him,” McCoy averred.

During the Christmas holidays Barry paid a call on Éamonn and Rosaleen MacThomáis and their young family. “Do you not miss being editor of
An Phoblacht
?” Barry asked his friend.

“Yes and no. I enjoyed the work but the unpaid holidays weren't so good.”

Rosaleen said, “We were all happier when he started making those films for RTE; you know, his walking tours around Dublin.”

“I've bought them all on video,” Barry assured her. “Tell me, Éamonn, do you still learn the news before anyone else?”

“I still have my sources, if that's what you mean.”

“The other day I heard through my sources that a body had been dumped near the Tyrone border. Shot through the back of the head.”

MacThomáis nodded. “I can confirm that. He was an informer.”

Barry's expression was grim. “Well placed, was he?”

“Well enough. MI5.”

Conversations like this tore Rosaleen's heart. Excusing herself, she went to make the tea.

 

At Christmas it had become a Halloran tradition for every member of the family and any guests who were in the house to take part in the entertainment. Barry usually recited a poem—and it was usually Yeats. Barbara sang; requests a specialty. McCoy kept the boys enthralled with selected, carefully edited anecdotes from his own experiences. Trot preferred to hear the stories her grandmother had learned in her childhood.

For Christmas 1983 Ursula gave Brian a framed copy of the Proclamation. “Your father used to be able to quote this by heart,” she said, casting a meaningful glance in Barry's direction.

“I still can. Shall I recite it for him?”

“I want him to read it for himself,” she replied, “but first he must understand what it is.

“Brian, this document was the Irish Declaration of Independence. Your mother's people have theirs enshrined in Liberty Hall in Philadelphia, I believe.” For confirmation she glanced at Barbara, who shrugged. History had never been one of Barbara's strong points.

Ursula continued. “The Proclamation was written by Pádraic Pearse, with a few suggestions from James Connolly and Thomas MacDonough. It was printed on an old hand press in the basement of another Liberty Hall right here in Dublin, which was trade union headquarters. A print run of twenty-five hundred copies was intended, but because the machinery was dilapidated and paper was scarce they were barely able to print a thousand. Pearse read the Proclamation aloud under the portico of the GPO on the day the Rising began. Copies were pasted up all over the city.

“My uncle Henry was in Dublin that Easter Monday. He took down two copies of the Proclamation and kept them. I think he gave one away, but when I was a little girl he still had the other one. Sometimes he would unfold it—carefully, because the paper was not of good quality—and read it to me.”

Brian's eyes were huge. “What happened to it? Can I see it?”

Suddenly Ursula was very tired. “I don't know what happened to it. Things…simply disappear, as years go by.”

“Do people do that too?” Patrick wanted to know. “Simply disappear?”

“Sometimes,” his father told him.

Although Barry was trying to throw light on the situation in Ireland with his photographs, he was painfully aware that no camera could capture the crucial, subterranean details. Plans were being formulated far from the actual battlefields. Deals were being made in unlikely places and among unlikely people. There were secrets that might someday come crawling out like maggots.

Maggots in the cells in H-Block 5. Not lice, but maggots so big and fat they crunched under a man's feet. The limit of a man's horizon was six paces up and six paces down. Orders from the O/C were printed in minuscule writing on cigarette papers and hidden in a man's anus.

The terrible legacy of inhumanity.

Yet life went on. On St. Stephen's Day Ursula began teaching Patrick to read. Grace Mary had a fall on her new roller skates and chipped a tooth. By the sixth of January—
Nollaig na mBan
, the Women's Christmas, when traditionally the husbands did the work in the house—Brian was talking about the next All-Ireland to be held in Croke Park.

He had discovered the GAA.

In Northern Ireland the oppression of a rigidly Calvinist society had resulted in an explosion of Protestant violence aimed at those even more vulnerable—the Catholics. The situation in the Republic was markedly different, in spite of the fact that the south was, for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a repressed society dominated by the Catholic Church. Thanks to the farsightedness of its founders, the Gaelic Athletic Association provided young men with an acceptable physical outlet for their frustration. Like the warriors of old, young Celts went out to challenge their opponents in honourable battle.

At nine years old Brian Halloran knew the names of all the heroes of the GAA, both hurling and football.

Ursula made sure that Trot knew the names of the great racehorses.

 

On the seventh of February, 1983, six heavily armed Iranian divisions crossed the border into Iraq. A full-scale war had begun.

 

February eighth was bitterly cold in County Kildare, but the thoroughbred stallion Shergar was warm under layers of blankets. His roomy loose box was piled knee-deep with golden straw. Irish-bred Shergar, who had won the prestigious Epsom Derby and been named European Horse of the Year in 1981, was owned by a large syndicate headed by the Aga Khan. With his splendid pedigree and glittering career on the race track Shergar was worth millions. Upon retiring the horse from the track the Aga Khan could have sent the stallion to any one of his many breeding farms. Instead he had chosen to keep him in Ireland as the star of Ballymany Stud, just outside the village of Newbridge. His decision had been a catalyst to attract still more horse breeders to Ireland.

Shortly after eight-thirty that evening a gang of masked men forced their way into the cottage of Ballymany's head groom, Jimmy Fitzgerald. By holding his family at gunpoint they forced him to lead them to Shergar. It was breeding season, which meant the horse was even more highly strung than usual. The ancient imperative was coursing through his veins.

 

In their bedroom Barry Halloran watched Barbara at her dressing table, brushing her hair. Mindlessly he rose from his chair and walked over to her. Put his hand on her shoulder. Felt the warmth of her skin and the ancient imperative.

 

With Fitzgerald at hand to keep him under control, Shergar allowed himself to be loaded into a horse van. Fitzgerald was blindfolded and forced into a different car. After being driven around Kildare for several hours, he was dumped unharmed within seven miles of Ballymany.

Shergar vanished as if the earth opened up and swallowed him.

The news sent shock waves through the international racing community. When a telephone call demanding a two-million-pound ransom was received, the Aga Khan refused to pay. “It would put the lives of every valuable horse in Ireland in danger.”

Although they had no proof, the Gardai said they suspected the IRA. “The ruthless efficiency of the operation is typical of that organisation,” they stated.

 

Ursula was livid with anger. “If the IRA did this I'm through with them! First the Horse Guards and now this. It's unforgivable.”

“We don't know it was the IRA,” Barry said. “It could just as easily have been the UVF. You know from personal experience what ruthless efficiency that crowd's capable of. This wouldn't be the first time a loyalist gang's committed an atrocity just to get the IRA blamed for it; it happens more often than you can imagine.”

Ursula wanted to believe him.

 

Until 1983 a padlocked gate had been the only security most farms employed. Following Shergar's kidnapping the level of security was drastically increased. But for him it was too late.

There was a flurry of phone calls from people claiming to have him, or know where he was, but they came to nothing. In spite of one of the largest searches ever held in Ireland, no one ever saw Shergar again.

 

For racehorse owners like the Aga Khan money was no problem, but Garret FitzGerald's government was struggling with a moribund economy and high unemployment. Well-educated young people were emigrating in their thousands. Barry Halloran knew how fortunate he was. When the wire services or television producers needed still photographs of anyone or anything in Ireland, they contacted him first. No other freelancer north or south had archives to equal his. Combined with the rental income, his career was keeping the Hallorans solvent. At the end of the month after the bills were paid there was even a bit left over.

“You really are becoming a capitalist,” he told the face in the mirror. Then he laughed.
No chance, I'm not even fashionable; I don't have a mullet.

The mullet was the latest fad among young Irish men. The bizarre hairstyle was a close cousin of the Americans' “Mohawk” and consisted of a ridge of hair standing bolt upright along the centre of an otherwise shaven skull. Proudly sporting mullets, boys only slightly older than Brian Halloran happily posed for snapshots that would cause them massive embarrassment when viewed years later by their hysterically laughing children.

“If you ever come into this house with a mullet,” Barbara warned her son, “I personally will shave every hair off your head.”

He believed her.

Because Barry was so often away from home, the role of disciplinarian had fallen on Barbara. She was conscientious about it and tried to match the punishment to the crime. The most severe penalty involved a stunted willow tree that grew behind the mews. If one of the children really went too far, such as talking back to an adult, he or she was given an old pocketknife of Barry's and told to go out and cut a switch from the willow tree. Having to be the instrument of one's own punishment made a profound impression, and hurt much worse than three lashes of a willow switch applied to bare legs.

 

“Barry, wake up. Something's wrong.”

Barry came out of a deep sleep to find Barbara tugging at his shoulder. “What do you mean?” he asked groggily.

“I have the most terrible pain. Here, put your hand on my stomach. Feel that? It's like labour pains only worse, so much worse. Help me!”

By the time they reached the hospital she was bleeding copiously.

“Did you know your wife was pregnant, Mr. Halloran?” asked the doctor on duty.

“Pregnant? I…no, I didn't know that. And I don't think she did either, or she would have told me.”

“She's lost the child, I'm afraid,” the doctor said. “A miscarriage this early in a pregnancy is usually not dangerous for a woman, but in your wife's case I think we should call in a consultant. There appears to have been rather severe damage to her womb at some stage. Her last child was born at home, I believe?”

“He was born at home. It happened so fast we didn't even have time to come to hospital, but she was fine when her doctor saw her afterwards.”

“I see. A woman that big and strong can have very powerful contractions, Mr. Halloran. She may have damaged herself internally at the time, and it's only showing up now.”

“Will she be all right?”

“We'll take the best possible care of her,” the doctor said reassuringly.

 

U2's big hit of the season was “In the Name of Love.”

 

Barbara came home from hospital thinner and paler, but otherwise all right. There would be no more children, however. “I don't know what I did wrong!” she said to Barry.

“You didn't do anything wrong, sweetheart. The doctors explained it's just one of those things that happens sometimes. They would have saved your womb if they could, but…”

“But. But. Life would be perfect but. Oh, Barry, I'm so sorry!”

He gathered her into his arms and held her with all the tenderness he possessed.

 

June saw the Conservative Party win a resounding victory in the British general election, returning Margaret Thatcher to power. Barry Halloran went to Northern Ireland to photograph the candidates there. Amongst those winning seats in the Assembly were John Hume of the SDLP—and Gerry Adams.

One journalist had written, “All Gerry Adams has to do is not get killed and he can't lose.”
¹

 

On the fifth of August evidence given in a Belfast court by informer Christopher Black—a self-confessed bully, perjurer, robber, and failed assassin—led to sentences totalling more than four thousand years being given to twenty-two members of an IRA cell.

The Usual Suspects talked of nothing else for days. Between them they devised methods for “taking care of” Black that would have put the Inquisition to shame.

 

In September, after a bitter and divisive campaign, two-thirds of the voters in the Republic opted for adding a “pro-life” amendment to the Constitution.

Barbara was still depressed about the miscarriage. “There's no point voting for life if you can't give birth anyway,” she said to Ursula.

“One should always vote for life,” the older woman replied. “No matter what.”

 

The big political news in Northern Ireland was Gerry Adams' election as MP for West Belfast, replacing a man who had held the seat for seventeen years.

 

Barry Halloran decided to update his photographs of Adams, who obviously would be in the news for the foreseeable future. By the time he returned to Belfast there was a more explosive story to cover. He could not photograph the central figures involved, however. Like Shergar, they had vanished.

 

On the twenty-fifth of September thirty-eight members of the IRA had escaped from the escape-proof H-Blocks.

One man who had repeatedly tried to escape, not only from Long Kesh but from every prison in which he had ever been held, was Gerry Kelly. An unsuccessful attempt to escape from the Cages had landed him in the Blocks, where he was put into H7. The Block contained 125 prisoners, most of them in their twenties, serving sentences ranging from a few years to life. Many but not all of the men were guilty of the charges against them. They were guilty of being republicans.

The escape was organised as tightly and thoroughly as a military procedure. Less than half of the prisoners in H7 had any idea what was going on and it had to be kept that way. The larger the number who knew, the greater the chance of premature discovery.

Or an informer.

At two-thirty on Sunday afternoon there had been several Provos in or near the Circle. Even on Sunday the prisoners were assigned cleaning duties. Those in the Circle that day were chewing gum to calm their nerves.

While Gerry Kelly was operating the bumper—a cleaning machine used on the floors—Brendan Mead engaged senior warder George Smylie in conversation about a problem he was having with another prisoner. Mead asked if they could go into the office where it would be more private. Robert George, the acting principal officer, was sitting behind his desk in the office but paid little attention to them. Lately the prisoners had been bringing more and more of their problems to the senior warders. It was considered a sign of improving prison relations.

Gerry Kelly pushed the bumper toward the communications room. Bobby Storey and Tony McAllister approached the officers' mess as if to clean it. Seán McGlinchey and Rab Kerr were in place at opposite ends of the Block, between two gates that gave access to two wings each. Then Brendan “Bik” McFarlane headed towards the hall area that gave access to the entire Block.

Timing was crucial. The signal was given.

In the warder's office Mead produced a gun and ordered both men to hit the deck. The other conspirators leaped into action. Within ten seconds they had taken control of the Block. Ninety minutes later, thirty-eight republican prisoners, including leading figures in the IRA, had made it to the outside world. They headed in as many different directions and disappeared.

It was the biggest jailbreak in Europe since World War Two.

A huge manhunt began at once. Some prisoners were recaptured immediately, others were caught later. Some were never caught at all.

 

Like the 1981 hunger strike, the Great Escape marked a high point in the republican struggle. The operation seriously embarrassed the Thatcher government, which thought it had destroyed the morale of the H-Blocks.

Séamus McCoy reacted to the first news of the escape like a schoolteacher whose students had garnered huge honours. “Oh, those boyos!” he exclaimed gleefully.

“But how did they do it, Uncle Séamus,” Brian kept wanting to know. “How did they
do
it?”

No details were available. An immediate media clampdown had been ordered. The residents of the yellow brick house had to wait until Barry finally came home, ten days later. The information he gave them was sketchy; obtained, he said, secondhand, through a number of contacts.

“There is—or was, I'm sure they've closed it by now—a machine shop for the prisoners in the Kesh,” Barry related. “Metalworking was part of the whole ‘arts and crafts' programme. With enough time and experience, and our lads had plenty of both, they simply made guns for themselves. The Belfast Brigade and other friends on the outside supplied backup. Everything was planned to the tiniest detail, though on the day, of course, there were bound to be some slipups. It was an amazing achievement anyway.”