The Troubles Read online

  The Troubles

  Dedication

  With heartfelt emotion behind every printed word I dedicate my sophomore debut into the literary world to John Tannahill. You are the reason why this book was created because you had the selfless insight to know what is best for your granddaughter. We miss you everyday Grandpa!

  Prologue

  The words appear as ragged scrawls, which I cannot yet decipher, my chest feels its breaking point and I am losing my vision as tears spill onto the pages. Is this book authentically holding the truths that have been held from me? As I look at the weary, worn pages I realize I do not want to know. Has my courage been a facade now that my history lies in my grasp?

  My mother is not here with me but I need her answers to give me some reconciliation with my concealed heritage and perhaps a more certain conviction that what I am involved with today in 1992 is not a waste of my honor and energy. I have come to expect when I read her words that I would find something, anything. She has only been gone for two weeks and still I feel as though I am trespassing. My mother, Kiera, kept her secrets tight to her breast and there was an unspoken tension that if I asked it would shatter her. I want to know who this man is behind the enigmatic person she named as my father. He will not be given impunity but perhaps a glimpse into whom I truly am.

  CHAPTER 1: Is Fear Gaeilge Briste,na bearla cliste (Broken Irish is Better than Clever English.)

  Kiera Flanagan…. It is a typically brisk late October day in 1971 and as I walk down the street in Belfast I see not of the garish British culture my Canadian cousin gushes about during the brief moments we have exchanged news with crackling long distance calls. “Oh me God, Kiera! It is just so dull here in St. John’s Newfoundland. I do wish I lived in London.’’

  Laughing in return I had replied, “So do I cousin. So do I.’’ We are in an unnamed civil war of length therefore I am so far removed from the youthful revolution that exists an isle away. Belfast is a misty hewed slate gray cacophony of violent unrest and persistent intense nationalism.

  I find my solace not from my Protestant roots but from the thrill of a secret paganism that takes me away from these hollowed streets and into the vibrant land and rich earth that makes me feel strong and anew. Strength is not in my character and I persistently feel the need to run away from this dreadful place yet I cannot for the chains of a commonplace girl bind me!

  ‘’Bout ye Kiera?’’ My mother’s voice pierces the dense low-lying clouds of fog and she appears to float into view, her edges blurred like a ghostly apparition. “Come now me dear, it’s too fearsome for ya to be walking alone at this hour.” Her handsome face is glowing as I see the admiration for her only daughter, but in short order her more familiar fearsome instinct to protect disassembles her slight kind smile.

  It has not been easy to be a Protestant here for as long as I can remember though as I look at her fine wrinkles and darkened eye depressions I can sense our plight must be worsening. “The ‘Oglaigh na hEireann’ is trying to extradite us from the United Kingdom and in doing so we’ll be sacrificed in our own beds, in our homes!” my father had solemnly warned his family on a violent eve peppered by the sounds of neighboring explosions. I understand why the IRA has been up in arms to relinquish Ireland from the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921; there is a cautious truism that I am hearing from the rebel boys and their father’s growing fatigue, but there is no point speaking this opinion aloud as everyone I love and can talk to is clinging to Britain like a victim breaks upon their abuser as though the English can remedy our island from all that is impure!

  I am nineteen years old and a woman by all accounts, but when I walk into my family’s tiny parlor room through my periphery vision I catch a glimpse in the lone mirror, the room’s focal point that echoes back, of a pale, diminutive, woman-child with haunted eyes the color of a storm cloud sky. As I make my way down the familiar narrow hallway to my small yet completely competent room, I collect myself relaxing in my refuge and with my hands quivering seek my journal, which is hidden under one of the cracked boards of my floor. I have seen the bedlam of Belfast today and without a page for my thoughts to fall onto I feel I might implode.

  CHAPTER 2: Ni Bhionn and wrath ach mar an mbionn an smacht (There’s no property without discipline/control.)

  Alastar Taggart…. My hands are slick with an amalgam of grime and blood; wet rain rinses the wretched evidence as my eyes struggle to regain my previously lost focus. The smell that continues to assault me is something I cannot place. The rust of earthiness and honeyed perfume combine into something foreign yet it is characteristically native and therefore I must know it. My burgeoning mental faculties begin assessing my surroundings. How did I arrive here? Were my steps placed with my own cognizant accord? I think not. Once again I am a voyeur in this languid flesh and bone form.

  This has been happening more and with greater acceleration and I somehow know not to question with a word uttered aloud why I awake at an unimposing yew tree (hidden behind the gaping mouth of a cave that has scarred Cavehill Mountain’s western flank). This is my private asylum of dark green red-berried yew trees, gray sturdy aspens and lush highland meadows spotted by blue cowslips and pink meadow thistles; the earthly qualities culminating as with an auspicious occult’s primordial wisdom enticing those lost to believe.

  A glaring pain hits me with such a great force I am taken to my knees with an anchor reminiscent of fainting. I reach up to my cheek with my naked sticky fingers and feel a warm laceration in the angular structure as the muscle is clearly torn severely. The pounding consistent pain jars my memory and any amnesia that what was is no longer. The unraveling events of the previous hours have been the worst yet. How could our fellow man despise us to this level of violence? We are already outnumbered three men to one. I have the perverse realization that perhaps the only reason for the genocidal offence is simply because we are less. Not only less in numbers but lesser men. The unionists have taken it upon themselves to attack our churches, our homes with our children and made a mockery of abusing slightly disruptive civilians today in an effort to discourage any rebellious behavior. Why was I, Alastar the reserved and hesitant infidel, even there?

  The corrosive pinging fire imbedded in my cheek is spurring me with its wickedness to take action; I know I have to safeguard my kin. In the blurred one-sided brawl our hostile foes had sieged with militant force and had overtaken us quickly, yet, in a grace of wild fortune I had a glimpse of a girl who obviously was misplaced. The memory of her scared feral eyes kicks me hard in my gut as I sympathetically digest what she too must have witnessed. I fear that any moment of interest that might have kindled between us has been smothered by terrorism’s planned terror. I promise myself in this honest place miles from Belfast that I will have the chance to have her know me, I will find her and make a more honest impression of not the rebel who was caught in a tidal wave.

  I grasp the gnarled branch that is just above my head and I gather onto my feet. My vision slowly clears and I draw a long cool breath into my chest. This places visage is as wondrous as Monet’s landscape masterpiece establishing with beautiful fine lines and accentuating hues that the mysticism we believe to be real truly lies within these hills. There are as many cascading shades of green in the sweep as there are of grey in the lid above. The light hits the branches and water below as though it is anointing its majesty to all that bear witness. I come here often to find humility in repose to a greater power and to commune with the deity that I have exalted, who resides in the rocks upon which I now stand and rests within the gurgling brook below and which glides in the tree’s protecting canopy above. I reach into my heavy woolen pants, fingers searching and draw druid beads into my palm. Taking the beads into my fingers I mouth silently into the cool air:
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  “Grant 0 God/Goddess, Thy Protection; And in protection, strength; And in the love of all existences, the love of God/Goddess. God/Goddess and all Goodness.’’

  Time eludes my prayer until I am depositing the beads back into my pocket and the worn steel of my timepiece smarts my hand as though telling me to forgo this fool’s paradise and come back to the present reality that awaits. ‘’Shite…” The day has gone away with the spell of happenstance and the path of my return to Belfast will be a routine one.

  I set my gaze on the sea green river Lagan, which slices down the innards of the city like a sword. Belfast is a city divided not only politically but also very much geographically, based on the cardinal points of a compass: North Belfast, East Belfast, South Belfast and West Belfast with the only point where they meet being Belfast City Centre. I do not readily admit this aloud but the city’s subdivisions reflect the divided nature of Northern Ireland. For me to admit this is to acknowledge that I must be the rubbish my quarter reeks of. To be disposed of in any way befitting the lords of rule.

  The pads of my feet sense the familiar stone underfoot as I make my way to the north of the city, down Great George’s Street and to the corner of North Queen to McGurk’s Pub. As I pass through the tarnished mahogany doors, Patrick McGurk’s voice greets me before I see him. “All right ya mucker?” he sincerely queries with a deep paternal growl of concern. “I doubt ya’ll be wanting your dinner.” I allow myself to walk undisturbed through the crowded room beyond the fray of drunken choruses and greet my friend.

  “I will Patrick. Just give me a minute,” I tell him briskly. Patrick has sight now of my pale sallow-toned face and the open bloody gash on my cheeks throbs conspicuously its own greeting.

  “Let’s have Philomena see to ya.’’ He steps back from tending his bar. Patrick and Philomena, along with their four children reside in the upstairs of the two-story public house. Philomena is a handsome brunette for whom I have come to care for as a surrogate mother. She winks at me as I trudge up her stairs.

  ‘‘Ya know, Alastar, ya should not blame yerself,” she tells me in her soft lilt. “But sometimes I think ya might be a daft muppet!’’

  Her observations must be written all over my face. Yes, I had decided to go with Lochlann, Reardon and Quinn today. Had there been any notion I would not have been returning Reardon to his Mother, I would have instead told my comrades to not engage. ‘’What’s the use in us joining the faction of men as it’s always the boys they send to do their shite?” I would have said. “What can we do to contribute to the cause?’’ My scrutiny bears no weight as we were of little use to the protestation and now the harm I have caused by association puts me at an unholy precipice.

  CHAPTER 3:Dia Is Mhuire Duit (God and Mary with you)

  Kiera Flanagan…I fold the pages of my journal and bury it again in its stale tomb. It was only a matter of time before I would stumble upon the dredge that’s seeping through the belly of Belfast. I know my Mother and particularly my Father have been protecting me from the sight and brutal touch of it, but their own reactions and anger towards the IRA are the conversations that greet me every dinner. Their criticism though decent, is masked in Protestant rhetoric.

  As lethargy overcomes me so strong I am faint and my bones ache with fatigue. I pull my woolen nightdress over my bare, translucent skin and catch my reflection in the windowpane before me and watch as snowflakes of frozen ice dance across the borders. My burnt auburn curls are an untethered mass lying on thin shoulders and my eyes much too big for a delicate face are wise beyond my nineteen years, as many of my neighbors that stare back at me are. I glare direct at my reflection allowing my unnerving naked image to permeate with no visceral urge to look down in humility.

  It’s as though the events of the day have left me reeling like the young warriors I saw swinging their batons, cursing a bloody murder, howling in a primal pain. There is one that is haunting me as I recall the guilt of retreat on that man’s stricken, refined face as he was forced to abandon his friend. I, for some unknown predestined reason, desire to find this black haired young man to console and acknowledge to him that he was indeed in peril and was right to fall back.

  His fine features are continuing to rearrange themselves in my mind’s free fall into sleep as I dip into darkness. A boy with matted curls is staring at me, eyes vacant with a river of mahogany red liquid streaming down his crushed cheek. As I feel this repeating nightmare with sentient anguish, I attempt to force myself awake. I have done this before but tonight there is the presence of a virtual weight attached to my neck strangling me as if I am right there with them experiencing the boy’s fate though the chaos around me does not bear any consequence to my existence here. I am awash of my dominant senses though my power of sight remains vigilant. The batons crack down before me with such loud force I suddenly am made aware of heart wrenching screams, which penetrate the percussion; the men before me cry out as they cling to broken contorted limbs, the trumpeting complaints increase in decibel reaching a shrill feminine octave. I cannot silence the screams, as in my nightmare state my ears are not of somatic quality to seal.

  “Kiera lets get ya out of here!’’ My father’s colorless expression comes into my stupefied frame of vision, much like a cold mannequin behind a window dressing before he roughly grabs me by my small waist and drags me like a ragdoll in the teeth of a pit-bull out of my reverberating bedroom which is in an uproar of flurried fire. The curtains behind me are engulfed in a yellow light so radiant it obliterates the remnants of my nightmare in their blaze. My mother’s grim face is so remote and stressed I do not recognize her expression until I realize the screams I am distinguishing are hers. There is an acrid smell that hits me square in my face, rushing and pushing its way into my lungs and demanding me to choke on its vile death.

  “Kiera are ya all right?” My mother gets ahold of herself and clamping down on my wrist with nails biting deep, she leads me down our steps with little care into the damp, freezing night before us. We collide in a heap of bodies on the cold concrete sidewalk. ‘’Yer father is he...?'' Mother weakly asks as she begins violating me with her cold hands searching desperately for burns on her only child.

  Our house is a humble yet sturdy dwelling; I can hear my father cursing loudly through the rawboned plaster walls, “This bleeding house is bogging ruined!'' as my window blinds are torn from the view and doused with a pail of frigid water. Through the decimated glass pane he frantically insists for us to call the police. “Ring the damn peelers!'' Disheveled Cambrai Streets residents are streaming out of their laid brick attached homes to inspect our damages; they placate nervously amongst themselves to resolve the panicked fear that they too have been accosted. Their quiet concerns of inaudible sympathy are replaced by jarring audible sighs of self-interested relief. I do not fault them for their obvious callousness as I too have felt the same when it has not my father who was lying prone on the slab.

  Shankill Road used to be a protestant haven with the government appointed UVF, covertly decimating separatist Catholic defectors, though not cloaked enough for me to not to comprehend their level of brutality, gossip is to this community as wood is essential to fire. The night’s boorish dreams are penetrating through the shocking episode of the eve as I sympathize that the attack on my home seems so insignificant in comparison to the retaliation I see in the vengeful eyes circled like the Masonic Freemasons with my small family ensnared in their ritual.

  CHAPTER 4: “Erin Go Bragh’’ (Ireland Forever)

  Alastar Taggart…Reardon Sloan’s mother has a malicious tone in her cold cadence as she stares down at her boy’s lifeless face. She had insisted I go with her to view and identify him. The matronly woman informs me on the way over to the morgue this morning that I am completely responsible for bringing her young son of seventeen to meet his demise. Never more feeling as though I am marching to my own impending end, I want to look in her broken eyes and tell my best friend’s mother, I too am but a fledgling
man on the precipice of true adulthood, but I am paralyzed with a fear when I look into her accusatory eyes as I have yet to encounter her true justice.

  Reardon is a ghastly mosaic of early decay, grey and white. His limbs have stiffened with rigamortous and his youthful musculature looks gnarled like a worm ridden holly sapling on the steel slab before us. His skull has been broken in such a way that the schoolboy’s once robust rounded features are lopped to one side like my uncle after his stroke and his broken neck has given his head an unnaturally bent posture. Sour vomit and revulsion rush through me and before I can stabilize myself I collapse. ‘’Away on with ye, ye dirty blurt. Don’t ya dare consecrate me lad.’’ Mrs. Sloan crisply dismisses my anxiety and I run like a coward away from my friend and one-time comrade, as it is too much for me to comprehend at this moment how he could have been alive and animated yesterday and now departed and lifeless.

  Outside on slick green grass comes a torrent of searing vicious bile. My cheeks split painfully from the brutal, repetitive, irrepressible revulsions. As I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand I muster some semblance of my outer propriety. The brave decorum I possess must return before I am to face Father and my siblings. Father will already have the biased account of what has happened; as malicious gossip is the only conversation he bears human contact for.

  As I have aged into a man I have taken on the appearance of my father but the nature of his wrath, addiction and contempt for having being abandoned by his wife and relegated with four incessant bellies there is little resemblance to. My onyx black hair carry’s youthful sheen whereas his lackluster gray has lost its candescence years earlier. My verdant green eyes still reverberate my authentic emotions before I can conceal them. My father’s dull eyes, which harbor his defeat, are the color of sea kelp, yet through all the abuses his body is still enduring, he is robust and maintains himself as my most fearsome opponent.