Just Mary (24 page)

We were about four days into our week-long stay. On the morning of Tuesday, 11 September, we were up early, having breakfast and planning our drive for that day to Hyannis Port. I was in the
kitchen with Ailish, while Kathryn was in the breakfast-cum-living room with the
TV
on. She suddenly shouted out, and when both Ailish and I ran in to join her, she was
pointing at the
TV
screen, exclaiming, ‘Look!’ There was the picture of the first plane slicing right through that New York skyscraper. All three of us decided
it was some sort of spoof film, and we continued to drink our coffee and munch our toast there in the living room. Suddenly, however, we heard a terrible note of alarm in the voice of the announcer
on
CNN
and as we looked at the screen again, we saw a second plane crash into the Twin Towers. This was for real! Immediately I knew in that lovely little seaside house in
Falmouth that this was a huge, awesome, awful moment in American history, and indeed in world history.

We immediately tried the telephone but all the lines were down. Eventually, we did manage to get through and quickly let our loved ones back in Ireland know that, as far as we could tell, it was
safe where we were — but that we were obviously part of the American scene. The rest of that day was numbing. We went into Falmouth: half of the shops were closed, half were open; there were
terrified, worried and distraught people on the streets. Everyone seemed to have someone or know of someone in the World Trade Center and we wandered aimlessly, trying in our own way to give
comfort to those we met. Back at the house, we continued to watch television throughout the day. It wasn’t long before I got word from Ireland that there was to be a special meeting in
Brussels of all of the European Ministers for Transport, so that they could form some response to the atrocities and try to plan forward. Obviously we didn’t know what was going to happen
next. The Pentagon strike had followed close on the heels of the attacks in Manhattan, and it was as if the whole of the
US
was gripped by a miasma of fear.

For us now, the main question was, how were we going to get out of the
US
? From the bulletins and updates on the
TV
stations —
CNN
, Fox, and so on — we were doing our best to keep informed about what was happening. There was a complete closure on all skies over the
US
. The only
thing which was really clear to us was that nobody knew what was going to happen next. No one knew if there was going to be more devastation from the skies, and people all over the country were,
like us, literally cowering in their houses, waiting for the next newsflash to tell them what was coming.

Meanwhile the Department of Public Enterprise back in Dublin was trying to make arrangements — via the American Embassy in Dublin and then the Irish Ambassador in Washington — to get
me out of the
US
, so that I could go to the Brussels Transport meeting within the following 24 hours. It was extremely important, it seemed, that Ireland be represented
there. I fully understood the situation and was as determined as the Department that I would get out of the
US
. Anyway, as you can imagine, by then that was all that any of
the three of us wanted — to get back home. Much as we sympathised with all that had happened in the
US
, all we wanted was out, out, out.

The calls about possible transportation arrangements, when they came, were spasmodic and attempting to be informative, but not always succeeding in that. Finally, late that afternoon, we were
told that, as early as possible the following morning, we should travel to a small airport which was nearby, and that from there, we would be told of our next steps. Our mood was sombre and anxious
that evening, as we gathered together our stuff and made ready for our departure at dawn the next morning. As you can imagine, we all got very little sleep that night.

The small airport to which we travelled the next day was in fact a defence air base. When we got there, I was interviewed and required to produce my passport and other official documentation. I
was informed that a private plane would coming to take me to Brussels, and that this would be one of the very few flights in the air that day. The sheer terror of that would not strike me until
later. We were told that there would be no room for Kathryn and Ailish: it would be a small, small plane. The
US
Foreign Affairs Information Department told them that if
they could get whatever coach they could to New York and stay there overnight, they would be able to take their places alongside those seeking to leave the
US
within the
following few days. Of course, Kathryn and Ailish were disappointed that they could not get away as quickly as I could, but they understood the protocol of the situation. Leaving me at the defence
airport, they set out on their long journey back to New York.

After several hours waiting at the small defence airport, I saw a plane arrive. It was tiny, and I felt cold dread at the thought of it up in the skies over the
US
, where
those who had carried out the terror attacks might be waiting, primed to seek anything at which they could strike. However, I swallowed hard and got on board. Other than me, the passenger list
consisted of the pilot and one female cabin attendant. That girl and I huddled together in the two seats, and away we went.

Looking back on it now, I marvel at the lack of fear which allowed me to take that flight. Oddly enough, once in the air, I felt secure. I quickly decided that the only thing I could do was to
go to sleep, which I did. I woke up within two hours of Brussels and was elated to know that we were now so close to the security and safety of Europe. As soon as we landed, I got off the plane and
made my way to the government buildings, where I had a shower, washed my hair and was ready for business. Luckily I had heeded a key piece of advice one is always given when in a government job: to
bring a dark jacket with you whenever you are travelling, even if you are going on a holiday, as you never know if you might be called to a funeral or a state occasion. I had such a dark jacket
with me, which I had brought in my overnight bag from Falmouth and so from the waist up at least, I was able to portray a business-like appearance.

When I arrived at the Transport meeting, I was, as you can imagine, the talk of my colleagues and had to tell all about my escape from the
US
— all marvelled at how
I had managed to do this. There was important business done that day at the Brussels meeting and for Ireland as an island nation it was, I think, vital that I should be there, so that I would be
party to the new strategy which was being worked out for airport procedures, such as security, vetting, the checking in of luggage, etc., and which was to be adopted at all airports in Europe. It
was a busy but fruitful day, and I was able to give all these matters my full attention.

When we got back to Ireland that night, as you can imagine, I was wrung out and exhausted. I spoke by mobile phone to Kathryn and Ailish, who were staying in New York as planned. I was happy to
learn that they had just heard that within 48 hours, they would be able to get a flight from Newark airport to Dublin with many, many others whose travel plans had been completely disrupted by the
terrible events of the previous day.

I was back in Dublin for the day of mourning for America. Ireland was the only country who undertook such a day of mourning — and why not, given all the links we share and the 84 million
direct and indirect descendants of Irish people who live in the
US
, as well as all of those who had been lost in the Twin Towers? In the long and tragic catalogue of
victims, there are many Irish names, which raises a chill of recognition and an awareness of the extent of the evil which was perpetrated on the American people on that awful day.

Of course, we know the aftermath — Bush’s ‘War on Terror’, the enlistment of Tony Blair to his cause, the utter disregard for the resistance of the
UN
who had not approved of all-out war, and the gung-ho behaviour of Bush, which ensured that war there was to be, a war which has never ceased to this day.

I think it was difficult for us then and it is still difficult now to comprehend the sheer terror that Americans felt and the deep, deep anger at having war perpetrated in their own homeland by
this unknown, elusive and evil figure, Osama bin Laden. A sheer terror evoked in George W. Bush a primitive urge to destroy and wipe out this evil. And in that sense, it was hard to fault him at
the time. He had the full support of the American people in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and it was only much, much later that the full repercussions of this sheer atavistic response would begin
to emerge.

When Kathryn and Ailish got back home, we met up soon afterwards to talk it all over at some length. I related to my friends and others at Cabinet the whole tale of my escape to Brussels and, of
course, this was a foolish thing to do. Within ten days, there were front page headlines in a certain Sunday paper, talking of the extravagance of Mary O’Rourke and the privately commissioned
flight out of Cape Cod. The story failed to mention that I had gone into the skies that day in sheer terror so that I could do my job in Brussels. That never emerged, naturally, and it took the
publication of a strong and accurate, fact-filled letter from the Press Office of the Department of Public Enterprise to put things in perspective. I didn’t want to cost anyone anything, but
I got the call that I had to go to Brussels and my feelings didn’t come into it. It was a matter of doing my job.

I have been back to Boston since, but I have never again been to the Cape Cod coastline. What we saw of it during our short stay was beautiful, but it will be meshed forever in our minds with
the terror unleashed on the people of America that day, the stark horror which struck us in that small beach house in Falmouth, and the way we clung together — three Irish women on an
innocent holiday, caught up in the maelstrom of those terrible events.

Chapter
14

F
or a while after Enda died, I thought that life was over for me and in a way, it was. There was never again to be the surety and serenity of love,
of comfort, of sustenance and of support which he gave to me so freely and generously for all of the years we were together. I was bereft. I was back at Cabinet within four or five days of him
passing away and back in the Dáil within a week, but nevertheless, I thought for a while of resigning completely from public life and devoting myself to misery, so to speak. But then I
rallied, and friends and family around me urged me to get back up and get going, and I did, sustained by the belief that this is what Enda would have wanted me to do. I had great friends —
Hugh and Celine Campbell, Mícheál and Maura Ó’Faoláin, Niall and Angela McCormack, Seán Rowland, and so many others — who kept me going in those
darkest of days.

On 17 May 2002, barely 18 months after Enda’s death, there was to be a General Election. From the outset of that election period, I was very doubtful of the outcome. It seemed that Fianna
Fáil, in the guise of P.J. Mara and Bertie Ahern, wanted to get three seats out of four in Longford–Westmeath. Or this is what Bertie and P.J. Mara told me, at any rate. Peter Kelly
had emerged as the replacement for Albert Reynolds. There was myself in Athlone; and Bertie and Mara were, they said, keen to push Senator Donie Cassidy to become the standard-bearer in the
Mullingar end. The night that Donie won that convention and became the approved candidate for that area, I knew that it was a bad omen for me.

Why so? It wasn’t that Donie Cassidy was any bright, young, shining star — far from it. But I knew that there was an agenda to put me out and put him in. It was a political agenda,
activated by P.J. Mara and by Bertie. It was being done under the pretext that they wanted three seats in my part of the country, and that they could get three seats. But I knew there were never to
be three seats and there never could be. There had perhaps been a time, some fifteen years earlier, when this might have been feasible but we were now in very different times.

I rang Bertie Ahern and arranged to see him in his office in St Luke’s in Drumcondra one morning. Now remember, at this point, I was deputy leader of Fianna Fáil and I was one of
his Ministers at the Cabinet table. And I just couldn’t believe how the political ground was shifting beneath me and shifting me decisively
away
from him. When I met Bertie that day
face-to-face, he was what I can only describe as evasive. Shifty would be too strong a word, but evasive is about right. ‘Oh no,’ he assured me, ‘that is not my agenda and never
would be.’ He went on to say that of course I had ‘a great reputation as a high-profile Minister’, that of course I would ‘sweep the county’, and so on and so
forth.