1999 (46 page)

At first slowly, but with gathering momentum, the queues of the unemployed at the Social Welfare offices shortened. New department stores and shopping centres opened. The plain people of Ireland were becoming less poor.

Sprawling housing estates sprang into being around Dublin; every house as identical as if cloned, but
new
. Some people actually bought new cars, with or without the complicity of their banks. The plain people of Ireland were becoming financially comfortable.

Credit cards proliferated, and with them the desire for more. More of everything! Some of the plain people of Ireland were becoming wealthy for the first time in centuries.

Ireland, once the Poor Man of Europe, was moving up the scale of national wealth. People referred to the Celtic Tiger with growing pride.

Emigration slowed, reversed, became immigration as the children of the Irish Diaspora began returning home to take part in an economic miracle—bringing their skills and abilities with them.

 

In January of 1994, and despite objections from John Major's British government and the U.S. State Department, President Bill Clinton granted a forty-eight-hour visa to Gerry Adams following intense lobbying on the part of prominent Irish Americans.

Even this achievement was a mixed blessing. The republican movement was once more dividing itself: the theorists versus the practical. The split was ideological, but with their guns and bombs the latter, the dedicated physical force men, were reacting to a physical situation and not a political situation.

The bombings and shootings continued in the north.

On both sides.

But the Irish government announced that the order which banned representatives of Sinn Féin from appearing on radio or television would not be renewed.

As Gerry Adams had become more prominent in the political news Ireland's national television service could hardly ignore him, but had reached a farcical compromise. Until 1994 film of Adams had been shown with his voice dubbed by another actor.

Now the people of the Republic heard the man himself. His unmistakable Belfast accent; his thoughtful, articulate speech. Neither strident nor bellicose, he did not engage in the name-calling that was so much a part of northern politics. He talked about sacrifice and possibilities.

Gerry Adams speaking rationally to them from their television screens was a bit of a shock to the plain people of Ireland.

 

In May President Mary Robinson was greeted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. It was the first official contact ever between an Irish president and a British monarch.

A month later Mrs. Robinson was viciously condemned north and south for shaking hands with Gerry Adams during a private reception for community leaders in West Belfast.

 

The Heights Bar, a Catholic pub in Loughinisland, had purchased a big new television set to allow its patrons to watch Ireland play Italy in the World Cup. On June eighteenth the crowd was enjoying the game when three men entered the bar wearing balaclavas and boiler suits and carrying guns. They opened fire on the crowd, killing six men, then made their getaway in a red car that had been waiting outside.

Six weeks later a holdall belonging to the RUC was accidentally discovered by sanitation workers. It contained three balaclavas, three boiler suits, three sets of gloves, and three pistols.

When the getaway car used in the attack—a distinctive Triumph Acclaim—was found and identified by a number of witnesses, it emerged that the automobile belonged to an RUC Special Branch agent who was also a member of the Mount Vernon UVF and an explosives expert. After taking custody of the car the RUC destroyed it. No forensic evidence was retained.
⁴

 

Later that summer IRA veteran Joe Cahill was granted a U.S. visa to prepare Irish Americans for the possibility of a sustained IRA ceasefire.

When Cahill returned to Ireland Barry was on hand at the airport to take his photograph. The grand old man of Irish republicanism looked tired.

“We're all tired,” Éamonn MacThomáis remarked later. “Do you really think there could be a longer ceasefire?”

“Do you?” Barry retorted.

“I'd like to think so—and then again I wouldn't. Not unless it really accomplished something.”

“A ceasefire alone won't bring about a united Ireland, Éamonn.”

“What will?”

“I wish to God I knew. Sometimes I think I'm mistaking politics for real life,” Barry said ruefully, “and idealism for common sense.”

The two old friends sat in a deepening twilight and pondered on possibilities.

They both knew that with the passage of time sensibilities had become eroded. Men who had joined the Army to protect Catholics and/or reunite Ireland had changed their focus to conducting an all-out war against the British. British Intelligence agents who had been recruited “to help save lives in Northern Ireland” also accepted the premise of war that justified any sort of behaviour, no matter how brutal or immoral.

Barry knew how to recognise the hard men; the real hard men. They lived in a place back behind their eyes where no one else could go. In spite of what the general public had been led to believe they constituted only a tiny percentage of the Provisionals. The real hard men gravitated to the splinter groups, which pursued a more militant policy.

 

Eurovision 1994 was held in Ireland, which won the award for the third consecutive year with a song called “Rock and Roll Kids.” But what everyone would remember was the entertainment during the interval. An original musical production called
Riverdance
used haunting music and lighting effects to introduce a breathtaking spectacle of precision tap dancing.
Riverdance
combined the traditional with the contemporary to create a new dimension in Irish dance—making it, for the first time, sexy.

 

When the
Irish Press
leaked plans being drawn up in Dublin to encourage the British government to acknowledge the legitimacy of the goal of Irish unity, Ulster Unionist MP David Trimble stated flatly, “The Unionists will not be party to the marginalisation of the unionist community.”

 

On the fifteenth of August John Bruton, the leader of the Fine Gael Party, stated unequivocally that in his opinion Sinn Féin could play no part in the political process in Ireland until the IRA called for a total cessation of violence.

Both the Ulster Unionists and the DUP promptly made similar statements.

 

Right now they're talking as if all they want is a ceasefire, but supposing they get it,” MacThomáis said to Barry. “Will the unionists raise the bar and demand something more, and something more, until there's nothing left to give and it still won't be good enough for them?”

Barry drove north. He could not say what in particular impelled him, but he
knew.
He was on hand to take the historic photograph when Gerry Adams announced that he had met with the Army Council and been told that conditions existed for moving the peace process forward.

Recognising the potential of the current situation and in order to enhance the democratic peace process and underline our definitive commitment to its success the leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann have decided that as of midnight, Wednesday, 31 August, there will be a complete cessation of military operations. Others, not least the British government, have a duty to face up to their responsibilities. It is our desire to significantly contribute to the creation of a climate which will encourage this. We urge everyone to approach this new situation with energy, determination, and patience.”

 

For Barry, the road ahead shone like a river. Ursula was less sanguine about the future. “The Volunteers have been so convinced they would win the Six back through their own efforts, and now it looks like it's not going to happen that way. It's so anticipointing.”

As usual, Barry understood what she meant. “Anticipation will probably turn into disappointment a hundred times more,” he told her, “but we're going to get there. We are.”

Denis Bradley, who helped negotiate the IRA ceasefire by serving as a link between the Army and the British government, had been the curate who gave last rites to three dying men on Bloody Sunday.

The announcement by the IRA of an open-ended ceasefire was greeted by celebration in nationalist areas of the north, and by almost immediate scorn from unionists and loyalists, who pronounced it a lie and a trick.

It was not.

The Army's guns fell silent.

On the first of September a Catholic man was killed in Belfast by the UFF.

Five days later, after a meeting in Dublin, Albert Reynolds, John Hume, and Gerry Adams issued a joint statement: “We are at the beginning of a new era in which we are totally and absolutely committed to democratic and peaceful means of resolving our political problems.”

 

In October of 1994 the loyalists, led by Gusty Spence, also called a ceasefire.

 

The materialistic influence of the Celtic Tiger was creating an apolitical generation of young people whose interests centred on what they could buy and who would be impressed by it, but Barry's children had been raised in a house where the news was still the most important programme of the day. No matter what they were doing, they were home at six in the evening and gathered around the television.

“Does it really mean there's going to be peace in the north?” Trot asked her father.

He was careful with his answer. One must not lie to one's children. “What it means is, there are brave men who are willing to risk it.”

He knew the threats that had been made against Adams, McGuinness, and other members of the Sinn Féin leadership—and not just from the unionist side. As Barry told his children, the dissident republican groups were also determined to silence the voice of peace.

“But why?” Patrick wanted to know.

“Because when men have fought very hard for a very long time, it can be hard for them to give it up. They may have learned to define themselves by war. They may even enjoy it.”

Trot said, with the vast superiority her sex enjoyed over mere males, “That's ridiculous, how can anyone enjoy war? If women ran the world it would be different.”

“What about Boadicea?” challenged Brian. “What about Margaret Thatcher? They were
warriors
!”

“Da's a warrior,” Patrick said loyally. “You were in the Army, weren't you?”

Barry nodded. “I was in the Army. For a long time.”

“Why aren't you in the Army now then?”

Against his conscious will, Barry's gaze slid past his children. Looked back at a faraway place.

Why did I never return to active service? God knows I had adequate reason. I would have given anything to go up the road with Séamus when he was seeking revenge for Ursula.

He knew the answer well enough. Had carried it hidden inside him for so many years. There are secrets of conscience and secrets of the heart, and this was both.

Barry longed to be alone in the cool clarity of a summer dawn in Clare. To wait, holding his breath, for the first sweet distant music of birdsong that affirmed the unbroken chain of life. To escape from his memories of 1957 and the Brookeborough Raid.

But they were right there where they had always been, just below the surface. When he let his guard down they came flooding back.

After abandoning his post to be with his company, Barry had vaulted over the tailgate of the lorry that brought them to Brookeborough. At that moment a snapshot was forever burned into his brain. Inside was a scene from a slaughterhouse. On the bullet-riddled walls of the truck blood was splashed as high as a man's head. Seán South sprawled motionless across the Bren gun. Beside him lay Paddy O'Regan, gasping with pain. Phillip O'Donoghue sat cross-legged with his face bathed in blood. Seán Garland's trousers were soaked with it, though he was still on his feet.

Barry's best friend, Feargal O'Hanlon, lay on his back. A bullet had smashed his femur. Blood fountained in spurts from a severed artery.

The driver of the lorry threw it into gear and tried desperately to get the injured men away. A single constable ran after them, shouting, “Come back, you fuckin' Fenians!”

Kneeling beside his friend, Barry saw Feargal's eyes go blank.

Barry gave a terrible cry and leaped to his feet with his rifle in his hands. Just beyond the tailboard was the constable in hot pursuit.

Barry shot the man in the face. The thunder of the rifle rang through his living bones.

And he loved it.

God help me, I loved it. Loved the power of watching another man's face bloom into a terrible red flower for an instant before it dissolved into a bloody mush.

What sort of man did that make me?

Appalled by the feelings he had discovered in himself, Barry had set the rifle aside and chosen a different weapon. The bomb.

He could build a bomb and be miles away when it went off; he did not feed the monster inside him by watching death take place.

Then he learned that a bomb had killed his father, and a different bomb had crippled Ursula, and he was left with no weapon. Only the terrible knowledge that a killer lived in his skin.

He had dedicated the rest of his life to holding that killer at bay.

In what might have been peace, in what would have been peace if there was enough goodwill on both sides, Northern Ireland waited to see what would happen next.

In the Republic the economic boom continued. New middle-class housing estates blossomed around Dublin and overflowed into the countryside, devouring farmland. “Bungalow bliss” became a euphemism for unchecked growth.

As identical characterless houses began to spring up like toadstools in Clare, and especially around Galway, with no infrastructure to support them, Ursula was scathing in her denunciation of the government's lack of forward planning. “Our so-called politicians are the cream of Ireland,” she complained to Breda, “rich and thick. And they're getting rich by selling off the country!”

“They say growth is good for the country. All this building is creating jobs and we have to have jobs.”

“We have the sort of government that would urinate down your neck and tell you it was raining,” Ursula replied scornfully. “I'll make a prediction about the new millennium. You're going to see politicians using weapons of mass deception against their own people as never before.”

The Millennium. People were beginning to use that term, half eagerly, half fearfully. It was approaching like an express train, just a few years down the tracks.

And the IRA ceasefire was holding.

Changes were coming thick and fast; too fast for Ursula, she sometimes thought. Throughout her life she had been a rebel, a modern woman consciously breaking free from the tradition-hobbled past. Now she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by them. “Ours was the first house on our road to get electricity,” she told Breda. “In fact I know of one or two old farmers who still refuse to have their houses wired. Maybe they have the right idea.”

 

Following Albert Reynolds' resignation after the government failed to deal with a scandal involving clerical pedophilia, on the fifteenth of December John Bruton of Fine Gael became
taoiseach
at the head of a coalition government with Labour. The wealthy Meath landowner was bitterly opposed to both Sinn Féin and the IRA.

 

The cubs of the Celtic Tiger, two generations from tenement stock, four generations away from the bog, were reinventing themselves.

They began drinking Château Rothschild in posh hotels and patronising exclusive art galleries, invitation only. Buying Mercs and Beamers, chatting on their mobiles, doing deals over the Net, maxing out their new credit cards, indebting themselves to the bank for half a lifetime in order to buy a million-pound house whose actual worth in terms of bricks and mortar was only sixty thousand.

Ursula Halloran, a onetime child of the tenements who had reinvented herself, understood the Tiger's cubs very well.

“Now Ireland has its own clambering class,” she remarked one cold afternoon. A fire was blazing in the parlour where the Hallorans, replete with one of Philpott's lunches, had gathered to enjoy the blinking lights on the Christmas tree. Their number was reduced by one; Brian had departed to take a present to his girlfriend, amidst derision from his siblings.

Barbara said, “What do you mean by clambering class?”

“People scrambling over one another in their haste to get to the top,” Ursula replied.

Barry was amused.
There she sits with her glass of straight whiskey and her mobile phone
.
Not a lady; something finer than that. A person of easy quiet manners and great steadiness of character, like all the best-bred people.

His mind became a runaway horse, careening here and there, beyond reason.
I could take us all to live in Mountjoy Square. Ursula and Breda too. The entire Halloran clan, looking like we belong in this new Ireland.

Glancing up, he saw Barbara watching him. Reading the faint frown stitched on his brow. “What?” she mouthed silently.

“I'm just going to get another drink,” he told her. “Do you want one?”

Before she returned to Clare, Brian proudly showed his grandmother his new computer. “It's great,” he told her. “You should buy one, Nana. I've put all our accounts on it.”

Not all our accounts,
Barry said to himself. Thinking of the house on Mountjoy Square, and the separate bank account he had established for its rental income. The money was earmarked to pay off the mortgage. When that was done…

“Somewhere along the way,” Ursula said, warily eyeing the computer, “my machinery's slowed down. The more modern technology I see the older I feel. I'm sure computers make everything easier and faster and so forth and so forth, but I like to keep everything simple and manageable. What if I learned to rely on a computer and the electricity went? All it takes is one bad storm and a tree falling across wires someplace. I can replace the electric lights with lanterns and keep the house warm with a good big fire in the fireplace, but how could I run the farm if I couldn't get access to the financial accounts and the breeding records?”

“That's old-fashioned thinking,” her oldest grandson informed her. “Men have walked on the moon, don't you know that? And it took computers to do it.”

That night in bed Barry told Barbara, “When I listen to the kids sometimes I feel positively ancient. I was born in 1939; before penicillin, frozen foods, credit cards, and contact lenses. During my youth we never heard of instant coffee, much less pizza. There were no Italian restaurants in Ireland and no Chinese takeaway. No yoghurt. We thought fast food was what you ate during Lent. To us, a Big Mac was a large overcoat.

“I predate transistors, videos, and computers. When I was a boy hardware referred to nuts and bolts and software wasn't a word at all. We knew nothing of split atoms, laser beams, microwave ovens, or word processors. We didn't even have ballpoint pens.