1999 (39 page)

The task ahead was daunting.

 

On the twenty-eighth of January the U.S. space shuttle
Challenger
exploded on launch, killing all seven aboard, including a young schoolteacher who had trained for the mission so she could share the great adventure with her students.

When Barry returned to the house Barbara did not need to ask where he had been; she had a very good idea. He had gone to church to pray for the dead.

She asked anyway, to show him she was interested. “Did you get Mass?” Once she would have said, “Did you go to Mass?” but it was a reflection of her gradual assimilation that she automatically used the Irish phraseology.

He replied with a sombre nod.

 

In March Easter Monday came and went, unremarked in the Republic. Alone among the free nations of the earth, Ireland officially ignored her birthday yet again. The Troubles had hijacked the glorious past, replacing memories of an earlier IRA fighting a clean fight against overwhelming odds with more recent images of masked and hooded terrorists.

 

Barry was well aware that his wife was restless. The children were growing up; becoming separate entities. The new housekeeper, very thankful to have a job, was a hard worker and Barbara found herself with time on her hands. Too much time.

Never one to suffer in silence, Barbara complained to everybody she knew—one of whom was Rosaleen MacThomáis, who mentioned it to her husband. Who spoke to someone at RTE. Who rang Barbara and asked if she would like to come in for an audition. “A mutual friend tells me you have a beautiful voice, and we're always interested in finding talent.”

 

In Dublin, Eircell, Ireland's first mobile phone company, was established to general scepticism.

North and south, male and female, people were wearing shoulder pads and watching television. British soaps like
Eastenders
and miniseries from America, such as
Mistral's Daughter
, captured a family's attention the way Mass used to do.

 

On the twenty-sixth of April an undercover SAS unit near Roslea wounded, captured, and summarily executed Volunteer Séamus McElwain, who had played a pivotal role in the successful 1983 escape from the H-Blocks.

As O/C to the Fermanagh Easter Commemoration held the year before, McElwaine had said, “We call on all republicans to unite, to put petty bickering and old grudges behind them, and we emphasise that no one has the right to carry on campaigns of vilification or division.”
⁴

Barbara Halloran, wearing a new outfit bought especially for the occasion, was fifteen minutes early for her interview at Radio Telefís Éireann. The RTE complex at Montrose, on Dublin's south side, comprised several modern buildings that might have been designed to serve as factories if broadcasting proved to be a flash in the pan.

The receptionist behind the desk smiled when Barbara said rather breathlessly, “I think I'm early.”

“You're American, aren't you?”

“Well, yes.”

“That's why you're early then. Sit down over there, someone will come for you.”

 

Monsignor James Horan, who presided over the shrine to the Virgin at Knock, County Mayo, had long dreamed of establishing an airport at the little town of Knock to facilitate the devout. In 1981, against considerable opposition and sheer disbelief on the part of the majority, the monsignor had broken ground for his airport.

By 1986 commercial flights were taking place between Connaught Regional Airport, Knock, County Mayo, to Rome. Monsignor Horan had proved that in the last half of the twentieth century miracles could still happen if one had enough faith.

 

As Barbara was leaving RTE she met the monsignor on his way in for an interview. She returned to Harold's Cross alight with news. “I'm going to be a continuity girl!” she crowed to Philpott, who was unimpressed.

“What's that when it's at home?”

“You know, I'll introduce programmes on the radio. Well not introduce them exactly, but sort of say they're coming up.”

“Oh.” Philpott returned to basting the chicken.

Barry was away. Barry was always away. But Alice Cassidy was within reach of a telephone, so Barbara rang her at Switzer's, where she had recently been promoted to department manager. Alice was holding a meeting of her sales staff when the phone rang, and resented being interrupted—particularly when she heard Barbara's news. She said peevishly, “Are you not a little old to be any sort of a ‘girl'?”

Barbara had not expected spite from her faithful acolyte.

April 26, 1986

NUCLEAR DISASTER IN THE UKRAINE REACTOR EXPLODES AT CHERNOBYL NUCLEAR FACILITY. MASSIVE FIRES RAGE. NUMBER OF CASUALTIES NOT YET KNOWN.

That spring yet another breakaway group of dissident republicans emerged. Following the pattern of their predecessors, they gave themselves a name meant to imply that they were the true heirs of the Volunteers of 1916. They called themselves the Continuity IRA.

In Northern Ireland John Stalker was removed from his two-year investigation into the RUC shoot to kill policy. No specific reason was given to the public and no report of his was published.

When a divorce referendum was introduced by Garret FitzGerald's government, polls showed the public supporting the proposed constitutional amendment by two to one. Then thousands of priests took to their pulpits to inveigh against such pure godlessness. The family would be destroyed, they asserted. And even more tellingly—particularly to Ireland's tens of thousands of male farmers—the land would be divided and pass out of their control.

The referendum failed.

Since 1982 the Irish national debt under the government of Garret FitzGerald had doubled. The tax rate for a single person earning more than ten thousand pounds a year reached a crippling sixty-five percent.

Emigration was still draining the country, though unlike earlier generations, now it was the well educated who were leaving. Tanaiste Brian Lenihan was criticised for commenting, “Ireland just isn't big enough for all of us.” But it was true.

“I'm so lucky,” Barbara wrote to Isabella Kavanagh, “to have a job in broadcasting. Continuity is only a beginning but it will lead to greater things. I shall have to do some networking first, of course, because Ireland is all about who you know and who you can impress, but that's the easy part. Before you know it I'll be singing on the Late Late Show. I'll have them send you a tape.”

Barbara sealed the envelope and pressed the stamp down with a determined thumb.

 

She worked hard at her new job, concentrating until she had expunged every trace of American twang from her radio voice. Her diction was perfect, her inflection correct.

No one complimented her on it. No less was expected.

She and Barry grew farther apart. Initially he had been happy about her new job because she was happy about it, but when the career she had envisioned did not immediately materialise she took her dissatisfaction out on him.

He began finding excuses to stay away from Harold's Cross, only returning at night to spend time with the children before locking himself into his darkroom and working until he felt certain Barbara was asleep.

 

At Christmas the Halloran children were excited by the arrival of McCoy's package, which was becoming an annual event. Brian bought a tinfoil star with his own money, inscribed it “Séamus,” and hung it on the tree.

 

Early in 1987 the Finn Gael/Labour coalition led by Garret FitzGerald collapsed. It was replaced by a Fianna Fáil government under Charles Haughey, who thus became
taoiseach
for the third time, equalling the record of Eamon de Valera.

The new government set out its stall with a series of radical proposals designed to turn the economy around and change the face Ireland presented to the world. Foreign companies willing to locate in Ireland were lured with a ten percent corporate tax rate. Creative artists were invited to live tax-free in Ireland to found “a new Byzantium.” An entrepreneurial spirit unknown in Ireland before began to come to life.

 

At Loughgall, County Armagh, the East Tyrone Brigade planned an attack on an unmanned RUC station in the middle of the town. They hijacked a digging machine to use in crashing a bomb into the empty station.

They did not know their security had been compromised; perhaps by an informer, perhaps through electronic eavesdropping.
¹

At the crucial moment an ambush party consisting of both soldiers and RUC men opened fire from four separate positions. Eight Volunteers were killed, effectively wiping out most of the East Tyrone Brigade. Four civilians, including a woman and her child, were injured in the withering fusillade. One man died.

 

In June the conservatives in Britain won yet another general election. Margaret Thatcher began a third term as prime minister.

 

Spearheaded by Charles Haughey, work began on a new Financial Services Centre to be built in Dublin's run-down dockland area. Haughey hoped the centre would spur an upturn in the country's economic fortunes, but also, with its stunning modern design of glass and steel, would begin the revitalisation of Ireland's shabby capital.

“This is all going to cost money,” people in the streets and pubs moaned to one another. “And Mother Ireland without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. It's mad, I tell you.”

The public criticised, complained, begrudged. Every step was met with massive resistance. Yet throughout the summer a new and different vision of Ireland slowly began to rise along the quays, hidden behind hoardings plastered with advertising posters.

At the same time and under the same government, what remained of Georgian Dublin was being sold off to the developers to be demolished.

 

Barry decided to revisit an earlier project—his photographic archive of Dublin's fast-disappearing streetscapes from another era.
Best salvage what I can before it's all gone. The Irish have never had a reputation for architecture; our finest houses and public buildings were part of our colonial legacy. But they were built on Irish land using Irish labour. And they're ours now. We should be saving them.

 

In July the Greek government announced a state of emergency when over seven hundred people died during a heat wave. Temperatures continued to soar.

 

One morning in August Barry set out to photograph the derelict Georgian town houses surrounding Mountjoy Square. As usual, Barry had done his homework beforehand. It was important to have the history to accompany the pictures.

Mountjoy Square was set on a plateau north of the Liffey, taking advantage of a stunning downhill vista of Dublin with the mountains to the south. In 1014 this high ground would have offered an unimpeded view of land and sea in all directions. According to tradition this was where Brian Boru had pitched his command tent for the Battle of Clontarf—and where he was slain in his hour of triumph.
²

Mountjoy had once been celebrated as the most beautiful of Dublin's squares, surrounded by houses of classic elegance. Former home to many of the Ascendancy. Despised symbol of Empire.

Part of Ireland.

Poverty-stricken and in an advanced state of decay, Mountjoy Square was still part of Ireland. A sad testament to the failure of the Irish to succeed in their own land.
The Irish have no reputation for architecture,
Barry thought,
yet they have a great reputation for poetry. Why could the two not somehow be married?

He went from one building to another, photographing lovely architectural details like the last few curls on a dying woman.

One house in particular stopped him in his tracks. He could not say why. But he stood in front of it for a long time with his feet firmly planted on the broken paving. And the ground beneath.

“Here,” he said aloud. For no particular reason. “Here.”

A visit to the estate agent whose name was on the faded “For Sale” sign assured him there were no sitting tenants in the house; no tenants of any kind. “Except for the rats,” the agent said with a laugh. “It's been on our books so long I thought it would fall down before we sold it. But I have to say, you can get the house for a song and a dozen more like it, if you want. No one's buying property. Are you thinking of renting out flats? That's all those old places are good for: tenements.”

 

Barry spent a sleepless night adding up columns of figures; chewing the end of the pencil; striking through and starting again.
You think you have enough until you find out you need more. How much is “enough”?

The following day he visited a splendid marble edifice whose three-sided, colonnaded front faced onto College Green. The bank occupied the former home of the Irish Parliament, dissolved with a stroke of the pen by the Act of Union with Britain in 1800.

A conversation with the bank manager ensued while sweat puddled unseen in Barry's armpits. The manager was less than encouraging about a venture into Ireland's severely depressed property market. “Very risky for a private individual, Mr. Halloran; very risky indeed. Perhaps you would be better off investing the same amount in shares—bank shares, for example?”

Barry assumed his most confident air and engaging grin. “We can talk about that some other time. Right now I feel like taking a bit of a risk; after all, it's my money. But…ah…we don't have to discuss this with my wife, do we?”

The bank manager tapped a finger against his nose. “No need to bother the women with business they don't understand, eh? Eh?”

There followed days of waiting. Then a flurry of activity: solicitors to contact, papers to sign.

And at last she was his. His and the bank's. A derelict house on Mountjoy Square. A grand old Georgian girl with tall windows—boarded up—and a graceful fanlight—broken—over what remained of an imposing front door. Three floors over basement littered with rubbish and peeling paper and smelling strongly of urine. Piles of rags in the corners where squatters slept at night. A roof that leaked and blocked chimneys and stairs that were unsafe to climb, though the remaining banisters were elegant.

The house in Mountjoy Square became Barry's mistress, his secret passion that he confided to no one. Hugging the knowledge of her to his heart, he laid plans to reclaim her beauty.

In a rubbish skip in Marlborough Street Barry noticed part of an old front door. The timber was too rotten to be of any use, but a massive knocker and striking plate, discoloured with age, were still attached. Barry used brute force to tear them free. That evening he spent hours in his darkroom with the door closed, working with wire wool and metal polish.

Until the big brass knocker gleamed like gold.

 

Northern republican and political activist Alex Maskey was shot in the stomach when he answered a knock at his front door. The would-be killer had long since departed the scene by the time the RUC arrived.

 

On the sixteenth of October a massive storm—which had been predicted by Ireland's Meteorological Office but not by forecasters in Britain—swept across England, killing seventeen people and leaving a 300-million-pound trail of destruction.

Three days later a storm of a different sort struck as the bottom fell out of world financial markets. Headlines in New York proclaimed “Black Monday!” Fifty billion pounds were wiped off the London stock market.

The value of Irish bank stocks plummeted.

Barry drove to Mountjoy Square and parked in front of his house. He just sat looking at her and smiling to himself.

 

On the first of November French authorities seized a huge arsenal of weapons being shipped from Libya aboard the
Eksund,
bound for Ireland—and the IRA.

The eighth was Remembrance Day, when Britain commemorated those who had fought and died in two world wars. Poppies were worn in British lapels as lilies were worn by Irish republicans at Easter. While marchers were assembling for the annual Remembrance Day parade in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, an IRA bomb exploded in a disused school.

Gordon Wilson, aged sixty, and his daughter, Marie, a nurse, had been attending the ceremony. They were buried in an avalanche of wreckage. Father and daughter held hands and tried to comfort one another as they waited for rescue. Wilson kept asking his daughter if she was all right, and she said she was. But the fifth time he asked she replied, “I love you, Daddy.”

She died five hours later on a life-support machine, one of the eleven people to die that day. Sixty-three had been injured, some critically.