The Death of an Irish Lass (10 page)

“You mean the infighting.” Factionalism had long been the special curse of the I.R.A. In recent months it had led to open fighting. Over a dozen men had been assassinated, and they were the lucky ones. Several others had lost their kneecaps or other parts of their bodies. McGarr knew of a man who had been crippled from the neck down by a bullet that had been fired purposely into his backbone.

“That and the bombing.”

“But you knew about the bombing plan when you joined.”

Dineen’s expression was more than pained; it was agonized. McGarr could tell he was in a quandary and wanted to talk. “I thought I was joining at the least a paramilitary organization. I was approached by a certain ex-officer who shall go nameless. He’s quite a bit older and couldn’t carry on anymore. He’s got money and said he’d pay my rank and allotments and such and, in spite of my grousing, he’s done it after a fashion. He said he was buying leadership, but here I sit, smack on my duff in some outback ‘garrison,’ trading in smoke and shadow. Every day I pick up the newspaper I’m embarrassed. Some nut has chucked a bomb
into a crowd of civilians in the name of the cause.
My
cause. It makes me sick.

“Then the other news is the way we’re chopping each other up, when all along I thought we were fighting for the same thing.”

McGarr took a sip of the poteen. It was clear, colorless, and had a peaty flavor he enjoyed. “And what would that be, Phil?”

Dineen looked up at his friend. “Don’t you know?”

McGarr returned his gaze. “I’d like you to tell me.”

Dineen blinked once. “A united Ireland, of course. And a functioning egalitarian democracy.”

“And you think fighting can bring that about?”

“Everything else has failed. The way the Stormont government had it, Ulster was the South Africa of Europe, only it was Paddies like you and me, Peter, who were the niggers. We could only work the most menial jobs, if we were lucky enough to get one. We had to carry passes, couldn’t go into certain areas, either were kept from voting, or had our electoral districts so devised that our votes wouldn’t count. And at every turning we were insulted and vilified—had an army of bigots armed to the teeth marched through our neighborhoods on King Billy’s birthday, and him the very one who first installed those mercenaries here three hundred years ago. And us native sons and daughters in our own country!” There was a flush in Dineen’s cheeks now.

“But hasn’t everything you’ve done only made the majority more sure that’s the way they want it?” McGarr asked, referring to the clause in the Act of Union that committed Britain to maintain Ulster’s firm relationship until a majority in the Six Counties should vote otherwise. The I.R.A. contended that Ulster was a
part of Ireland and thus the majority of all the Irish people should determine its political destiny.

“Which just makes what we’ve done the more necessary, doesn’t it? When England disallowed any other political solution, she must have wanted us to have no alternative but violence. The Act of Union is a political dead end. What other option have we?”

McGarr tilted the paper cup and looked down into the poteen. To him the I.R.A.’s policy was as blind a dead end. They were demanding nothing short of a united Ireland. The majority in Ulster would sooner see a civil war far hotter than the present hostilities there. The Dublin government hadn’t gone out of its way to make itself attractive to the North, and some people in Ulster were more determinedly English than the English themselves. Some middle ground had to exist—another intermediary and independent Six Counties in which social, political, but also economic rights were guaranteed to all and time, the great healer, could bind the new wounds opened during the current spate of violence. Then perhaps years and years later some other political accommodation might be made.

McGarr said, “It seems to me you’ve got to identify the opposition. I don’t think the I.R.A. has ever done that. The British people aren’t your opposition, nor British politicians, nor even the British army. Most Englishmen wouldn’t bat an eye if Ireland, all thirty-two counties of her, sank into the sea. And the R.U.C. and the U.V.F. and the B Specials aren’t the opposition, either. The real opposition is the habit of mind that thinks of us,” here McGarr meant Irish Catholics, “as the enemy, and vice versa. Then we’ve got to realize that the habit of mind is a form of ignorance, that
there’s no beating, bullying, or bombing it out of existence. If anything, that makes matters worse. What we’ve got to do is appeal to the better sides of the people who feel that way. And we’ve got to give them an alternative to our way of thinking, some middle ground. And if not to them, then to their children.”

Dineen was smiling now.

And McGarr felt foolish. He knew the question Dineen was going to ask.

“And what middle ground is that, Peter?”

“An independent Ulster.”

“Ah, yes—that old tuppenny upright, an Independent Ulster. Ulster itself wouldn’t have her. Dublin wouldn’t allow her out of the back alley.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a politician. We’ve talked about this before. I just hate seeing you all jammed up here.” He glanced about the empty room. “Like this. Involved with a bunch of hooligans and psychotics.”

“You mean you’d prefer to think of me as Major Dineen, your officer friend in the British army.”

Now McGarr was feeling uncomfortable. “Yes, if you must know, that would be preferable.”

“Well then, answer me this, Peter. Is it because you yourself feel guilty, being ensconced in your swell job in Dublin Castle, knowing what’s going on in the North and knowing that people like me have thrown over similar cushy posts to do something about it?”

McGarr finished the drink of poteen. His job was neither swell nor cushy, but maybe Dineen had something there. To be very honest with himself, McGarr did feel guilty about what was happening in the North. But his guilt wasn’t so much involved with not having joined in the I.R.A. fight as it was in not having done something about his idea for a middle ground. True,
McGarr disliked politics, but he had not been a good citizen. He was perhaps as well informed as anybody in the country, he had an opinion about what should be done, but he had neither contacted his T.D. to let the man know his position nor had he tried to convince others of the rectitude of his plan. He had rationalized that by saying he could be a much more effective police officer if his political opinions were not known. That was true, but did he not have another obligation to his country as well? At least Dineen had come to a conclusion about how events should proceed in the North and was doing something about it. “Could be,” he said sheepishly. “Could be.”

Dineen pulled the bottle from his overcoat and added to the cups. “Does that mean you might be willing to help us in the future?”

McGarr said, “Consider my not having roused the Galway barracks tonight an act of assistance that contravenes the very spirit of my commission in the Garda Soichana.”

“Touché,” said Dineen.

“And my face is tired from winking at the antics of some of your hooligans.” McGarr took another sip. A warm glow was making him forget his responsibilities. “And then, what other Garda officer would hand deliver all that cabbage,” he said, pointing to the fat brown oak tag envelope.

“Anyone who was in need of a bit of information, I suspect. You mentioned Hanly and Schwerr. Hanly I know about. This is Schwerr’s delivery. What happened to him?”

McGarr then told Dineen about May Quirk’s murder. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a simple case of homicide
if
”—he tapped the folder—“I can keep these other com
plications out of it. That’s why I’m here.” McGarr met Dineen’s gaze and held it.

Dineen said, “Hanly was acting under orders.
Not
to go and drink himself stupid, mind you, but to keep an eye on Schwerr. He’s a new boy and, you know, something of an ideologue.”

McGarr cocked his head.

“Wait—all of us are ideologues, I guess, but Schwerr had no real stake in the army.”

Again McGarr seemed to object.

“I mean—he’s wealthy, a kraut, been educated all over Europe. I wondered why he chose our cause. At first I had the idea his approach was romantic, so we gave him some pretty rough jobs.”

McGarr didn’t care to inquire what the jobs had been.

“He acquitted himself well. So we gave him the cash funds job with an eye to his replacing Hanly. Schwerr was just right—nobody would connect him with us—and Hanly is having big troubles with the devil in his throat. He’s a good man, loyal and trustworthy when sober, but drunk he’s different entirely.”

“And what was his attitude to Schwerr?” McGarr asked. “No doubt he knew Schwerr was going to replace him. From what I can gather, it’s a soft spot. Plenty of money, no way to account for it, lots of booze and companionship. I don’t see Hanly doing anything more exacting for the cause.”

Dineen shook his head. “He’s been well provided for. And he’s done more than his share in the past. At one time he had a Midas touch and earned plenty for us. Some of his investments were his own. He won’t suffer for much.”

“What were his orders in regard to Schwerr?”

“Just to follow him last night. The regular tail we put on Schwerr blew his cover, and we had nobody else available in that area over the weekend.”

“But Schwerr must have known Hanly by sight?”

“As I said, Hanly’s a pro. My bet is Schwerr never once saw him, drunk as he was.”

True, McGarr thought, Schwerr had never once mentioned Hanly. Nor Hanly Schwerr for that matter, but that was understandable, given I.R.A. activities. Still, it struck McGarr that Hanly had been conspicuous. The men in the bar in Lahinch had described him right down to the odd brand of whiskey he drank. There was some discrepancy between what he was now being told and what had actually taken place. And the type and number of Hanly’s lies reinforced that feeling for McGarr. “But
why
was Schwerr being followed?”

“Because of May Quirk.” Dineen paused to light a cigarette.

The band had stopped now and McGarr could hear the crowd outside the windows of the room, taking a breather in the parking lot.

Dineen continued, “She was a journalist of the worst sort. A badmouther, I’d say. The idea was to make all the little people who read her reports feel good whenever she slew another giant.”

That didn’t seem far wrong. The
Daily News
was a little man’s newspaper. McGarr himself had read an article written by May Quirk that had had such a slant.

“I had her checked out completely before I let her interview me, but we came to a decision about her I just couldn’t support. We decided that too many of the Irish-American
Daily News
readers identified with the I.R.A., and her editors there just wouldn’t let her do a job on us in the paper. I argued against it, but I was
overruled. I told them I had gotten my facts from New York.”

“Paddy Sugrue?” McGarr asked.

That knocked Dineen back. “No, somebody else; somebody closer to her.”

McGarr wondered who could possibly have been closer to her than Sugrue. He then thought of Rory O’Connor, downstairs with Noreen.

“My thought was that she’d go for all the marbles with this story—you know, personal interview with I.R.A. finance chiefs—and try to set up syndication all over the States. If she did, her story could have hurt us bad. Above all else, May Quirk was a very ambitious young woman.
But
”—Dineen raised his palm—“we did not kill her. At least, I can tell you as an old friend I saw no order, heard no rumor, and wouldn’t believe it if you told me now that we had anything to do with her death. And you know as well as I, neither Hanly nor Schwerr would have been called upon to do the job if we had decided otherwise. They are—
were
—too important to us. Cut off our money and—” Dineen let the silence carry his meaning. He pulled the stacks of money out of the envelope. A red rubber band bound each. These he removed and began sorting piles according to currency and value. “I guess I’ve been proven right, after all. Because of her, both of them are now useless to us, and we might have lost all this money as well.”

McGarr said, “I don’t see why you granted her an interview, feeling as you do.”

“Orders. And if she was going to interview anybody, I wanted it to be me.”

“And?”

“I got the distinct impression she was going to flay
us in the article. Most of the questions were something like, ‘Does it titillate your revolutionary ardor, Major, to know that your twenty-some-odd years of military expertise are being employed in the massacre of women and children?’ ‘Does your wife know she’s married to an archfiend?’ ‘What does she tell the kids when they ask if daddy’s coming home for Christmas? He’s over in London blowing Santa out of Harrod’s basement?’”

McGarr smirked.

“Not exactly that, but you know what I mean. Sure, she asked a lot of important questions, too, but every once in a while she came through with one off the wall. I got the impression she was up to no good.”

“Were you supposed to answer the important questions?”

Dineen’s forehead glowered a bit. “I had my limits.”

“About where the money was going and for what?” They both knew much of the cash donated in New York and other places was simply being stuffed in the pockets of either the intermediaries along the way or the Provo commanders who weren’t as altruistic or well provided for as Dineen.

Dineen looked away. “She kept laying on that angle. She wasn’t being straight with us. She had a hidden agenda. That O’Connor kid was different.”

McGarr didn’t say a word. He just stared at Dineen.

“Came along with her. Said he thought he’d write a book about us. I liked him. He asked questions that allowed us to put our best foot forward. He said we’d already gotten all the bad press we needed in the States. Also said the function of a critic was to try to understand a point of view thoroughly, to present it as completely as any of us would have it, and then step back
to see how the reality of our efforts matched the ideal. You can’t ask for any more than that.