The Troubles Read online

  “I’ll give anything for a bet to say we’ve arrived at the Velvet Strand Beach, eh,” Lanary declares, astutely recognizing the smooth pearls of sand that blanket the land and the white beads being the catalyst for this shores defining nickname.

  “Aye yer right on that, Lanary.” I engage the millennia formed rough terrain valiantly and begin a descent down the ragged rocks onto the famed silken sand. I can hear a sibilating of Lanary’s familiar bemused laughter.

  “Alright Son. Yer gatch is mighty foolish, be careful! Always acting the maggot, huh, Alastar.” I am breathing in the ocean’s mist that is vaporizing up from the seabed seeping into the green fauna that I am directly in front of. The pungent scents of salt and sea life shower the shore after such a night’s effort and the illuminating effects of the water’s salty shower refreshes and invigorates me from my night’s lack of sleep.

  “Hear that, Lanary?’’ Soft, billowing notes of wooden pipes are being carried from the north on what must be a hefty gulf stream of wind, further enhancing the enchantment of the shoreline.

  “Ya know in me advanced age, me hearings not so fine, lad.” Lanary strains his ears anyway to the faint sound. The emoting, powerful octaves of the uillean pipes can be heard from afar as we simultaneously hear the melody of an Irish funeral tune in the wind from further up the shoreline at a more private beach.

  Respectfully, Lanary quietly observes. “Aye. I am remembering one of me most endearing memories of childhood when me Da, it must have before me mother had gone, was attempting, but failing to teach me how to play the uillean pipes. ‘Son’, he had said, to the letter, ‘uillean’ means 'pipes of the elbow’ not pipes of the shoulder. How do ya mean to inflate it with that hefty breath of yers if ya cannot hold the bag proper?” Lanary recounts his story with an open sentiment I am not accustomed to.

  The Irish wake can be overheard in the distance coming to a grand billowing finale; the final act of the ceremony to be the burial of the departed. This wake is such an integral part of Irish funeral traditions but as the nation is contending with such astronomical numbers of the dead, the cities are no longer acquiescing to the ancient traditions. The countryside, as Lanary and I are discovering, is still observing the ritual of physically watching over the deceased from the time of their death to their burial. This observance, perhaps, a bit of Irish lore, has reasoning in that there were many people who had frequent lead poisoning caused by drinking stout from pewter tankards. The symptoms would resemble a catatonic state resembling death. Therefore to stand vigil by the sufferer’s side was a necessary one. If this was the truth or more folklore, to further establish our national pastime of alcoholism was now irrelevant, because the result was a wake that was an opportunity to celebrate the life and say goodbye in person. The delayed burial marked the departed member into the fabric of society and eternalized them in the memories of their loved ones.

  ‘’T’is lovely here, right now in this very moment, eh son.’’ Lanary has unceremoniously undressed, revealing his untold story upon his half naked body; there is a sickle shaped scar that has woven two sections of aging skin tightly together. Time has yearned to bury it along with Lanary’s shaded secrets, but gazing at the jagged etch across the shoulder blade making its way down his spinal cord to sit perfunctory upon his lumbar, I know the brutal mutilation must have been a near fatal one. He has dropped his final undergarment and briskly, with engrained military march, makes his way into the surf that is forcefully breaking perilously close to the shoreline.

  ‘‘Mind ye self, old man. I wouldn’t like to lose ya at sea.’’ Delighting in the revelry my companion was sporting this morning, I too undress, perhaps more slowly and shyly, but once I am fully naked, I strangely feel perfectly calm and shameless. “Aye here goes nothing.’’ I lunge into a break of unimaginably freezing surf and with grains of sand between my toes, I brace for the impact to take my breath.

  The pause has passed almost as quickly as any other mundane non-event in my humble life, but this bonding one I have locked away in my fortress of Celtic memories. The truly unique experiences that have entwined me with this fine land have been ebbed as though in iron ore deep inside my medial temporal lobe and as I have grown older, my storage of profound experiences become my refuge, when I cannot bear to witness to the calamity and turmoil that seems to be churning around every citizen, which ever religion, which ever class, the green fertile land hearths and provides altruistically for us all to live.

  We are finally in Leinster county, as the electric current that is felt before one even sees a city, both Lanary and I are experiencing, as silent glances between one another forge us into a companionship that I, at this moment, trembling slightly with anticipation in the passenger seat, am deeply thankful for. One never truly knows ones courage nor his comrades ‘til they are facing fear of death.

  “Ya all right Alastar?”

  “Aye just boggin’ on!” My voice cracks nervously and I know when I meet with Cathal Goulding I must will my ability to deceive and not reveal my cowardice at any cost. The green outer landscape of Dublin is at initial encounter, breathtaking, as it is of common local pride, that the city has more green space per square kilometer than any other European capital city.

  “I’ll keep on the sketch by the door while ye having yer chat.” Lanary asserts himself as my ranking caretaker as he perhaps more than anyone else understands the dangerous exposure we are both in, as we face our rendezvous. Not only are we entrenching ourselves fully with the Official Sinn Feinn Workers Party of Dublin which in this newly appointed leadership, appears to be precarious in itself like a poorly built house of cards, but if the location of the meet is not covert enough and the paramilitary sees us, we will be thrown without trial, into Her Majesty’s Prison Maze. The inevitable lethality that I would die there, in Northern Irelands’ most infamous Gulag, is exhibiting itself with the same noxious acidic bile that has burned my gullet periodically over the previous weeks. The encounter a few days ago, of witnessing Reardon’s dead body had pushed the searing liquid past my throat and this moment it seems that my reflexes are reflecting the same damning behavior.

  The A1 road, which is the major route in Dublin from the North, has now changed into the N1 road and shortly we will be travelling onto the M1 Motorway. Mary McAleese Boyne Valley Bridge is a squall of architecturally astounding form and to now have crossed it, symbolizing for me, traversing a moat of sorts and entering a lair of with which there is no escape.

  “We’ll take the next junction to St. Anne’s and we’ll be met by an associate. We’ll then be given directions and proceed.”

  “Aye, we must be covert and unassuming, Lanary.”

  “Always am, Alastar Taggart.”

  CHAPTER 16: Beidh la eile ag an bPaorach (We will live to fight another day)

  Kiera Flanagan…There is a morphing face in the shadows as the faded dark shapes close in on me. I know this person before me as I am welcoming his lush, warm embrace. His lips touch mine, hot, I instantly wither and melt as though I have been seared. “Kiera, my love.” Breathless susurrates are coming from the shadows and with trepidation, revealed from them, are the living, vivid green eyes I prize.

  I am alive; I must be because if I were not I wouldn’t be in this much agony. My last visceral memory is having completely lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. My eyes are still shut and I worryingly question why can I not open them? I will them to open with all my might yet I cannot! Begrudging, I move on to my fingers and I agitate them with the same might I had willed for my eyes and they as though mechanically, with little fluidity, all bend and close. I bring my right hand to my face and with my fingers, as small torture devices, I instantaneously feel the blistering heat of my immensely swollen shuteyes. The pain dissipates from one body part to another allowing one crucial mystery to be solved, which I promise myself to deal with later. Methodically, and with consternation I rarely exhibit, I attempt to curl my strangely absent feeling toes. There is no move
ment and perhaps more fear inducing no pain as I question, am I paralyzed? Panicking, I cry aloud pitifully, “Help, dear Lord of mine! Ena are ya there by me side?” Tears are now fissuring like sprung leaks from my encased eyelids.

  I am anxiously growing impatient as nothing but silence greets me. The heat that my ear lobes are throwing off seem to be emitting a repetitive buzzing sound and I now, don’t know, whether I am deaf as well as blind. As I cry with presumptive fear for my future, a warm, tender hand takes mine and strokes it. It is Ena’s caress and a flood of joy and relief quickly absolves my terror. She and I are safe and whatever condition we are in, suddenly seems irrelevant. ‘’Quinn? Did he get his leg seen to?” I croak impatiently.

  “Aye Kiera. Patrick and Philomena McGurk have rung the doctor.” Her voice sounds strong as she emotes a commanding spirit. “We are all fine, but bloody knows these days with all the turmoil, it could be God awful worse!”

  Warm compresses of castor oil work their medicinal wonders, as they lie encased over my eyes, which by now have reduced at least double from their inflammatory response to hypothermia. Blinking to relieve them from the slick of thick warm oil, I am somewhat more relaxed, as I take in my surroundings through a hazed circular vision. There is such poor lamp light in the pub that I have little spatial awareness, so to gather further information, I first attempt to sit up. My brain viciously throbs as though my body is attacking me and I’m exhaustively furious at my own physical symptoms. Why can’t my body just comply with my demands? I grit violently on my teeth but I have already let down my guard and shown what a poor patient and coward I am to these Catholics.

  Another hand reaches down from behind me and I know this is not Ena’s touch. I stiffen quickly and flinch 160 degrees to face the unfamiliar friend or foe. “Hun, ya and yer mate over there were whist banjaxed when ya came in. Bloody lucky ya made it in the nick of time.” A handsome woman in her mid-forties smiles, her kind, honey brown eyes reserving any pious judgment as they seem to implore their wisdom while they methodically scan my body. “Yer feet and hands will make it but by the look of things those toes were but minutes away from frostbite. This winter has been a skully perishing one as the Northern Channel has brought the icy wind upon Belfast with her squalls. Yer kin Ena, over there, told me husband and I ‘bout what ya did for Quinn. Didn’t even know the snapper. Ya could have left him to die in the street.” She is still touching my hand and with innate reasoning I question her relation to Quinn as her voice had quaked when she mentioned him.

  “That’s all right mam. I wouldn’t have let a dog die in that awful place. How is the lad by the way? Will he walk again?” She hesitates as though it pains her to think of the teenager’s condition.

  “So many questions child. Tis too early to tell ‘bout the foot but thanks to ya and yer youngwan, Ena, he won’t die. His brother would be bloody banjaxed if he did.”

  “His brother?”

  “Aye, Alastar Taggart.”

  CHAPTER 17: Briseann an duchais tri shuile an chat (The true nature

  of someone’s character is revealed through their eyes)

  Alastar Taggart…. St. Anne’s Park is a lush, expansive estate that all Northern Dublin suburbs share as their recreational fortress with its colorful history being as infamous as its proprietor Benjamin Lee Guinness who established the protected property in 1835. Whatever the Amber Ale’s tycoon’s true intentions were with the land, one cannot assume, but perhaps reality supersedes expectation, as it is truly grand in its natural beauty.

  It is at this park where we meet a lean man with the most shockingly unnatural color of red hair and a fowl grimace to match. Our conjoining spook character, ironically, stands out like a bulletin board for all that is the Irish stereotype with the obvious brazen burnt hair, the stout face of an alcoholic and the arrogant empirical stance of a righteous soldier, though intuitively, I assume this will serve in our favor. Who would be so brazen as to broadcast their disloyalty in such a public place? One would assume we are serving the Queen and not the Republic. We will do our business in the open and not draw any suspicion simply by our uniformity with the rest of the nation.

  We have relinquished our immediate need for our borrowed red Fiat and are now weaving and bowing by foot past the quaint and tranquil Naniken River, which is across, the ten follies that serve in my mind as reminders of ancient druidic temples. The far-reaching park has so many features and exhibits of copious species of fauna that someone with my romantic temperament could get absorbed here and lose passage of time. Thankfully, I have this fearsome foot soldier guiding a similarly stern Lanary and my wistful self out of the park and into the adjoining northern suburb of St. Anne’s Park.

  Ranehy enclave is past, in but a blink of an eye we are finally at the end of our harrowing journey and in the adjacent Clontarf is our daunting destination. Damn!

  Our nameless soldier has manifested more stilted trepidations than the ornery robotic gyrations of his leading march as he has lead us into the gaping mouth of a multi storied building. The evaporated remnants that coat the long past, white walls smells of moist mold and masculine, testosterone excrement and the sharp corridor that we trudge down gives our fatigued brains the illusion of a narrowing, enclosing effect, as it looms dark before us. Our silent guide abruptly stops in front of us and veers left as we go deeper into the maze of the mammoth building. We walk further and further into the awaiting catacomb. I numbly am aware that not one word has been spoken over the last thirty minutes. I peer quietly behind at Lanary and he gives me a cold, distant, twinkle of faux cheer and immediately my stomach resumes it nauseating cycle in its admonishment that Lanary may not be here to facilitate a peaceful settlement but perhaps he is here to observe my demise.

  The unsettling lack of trust I am feeling is instantaneously overshadowed by a bored nasal voice. “Mr. Goulding is still in a meeting. Wait here,” and as I look around I can see we are in a sterile hallway with a stark, black door to our right. There is no place to sit, so Lanary and I lean against the yellowed wall. Without much of a declaration, a ruffian proceeds, to do a full physical arms search on Lanary and myself. His huge, overworked hands search crudely through my cotton, long sleeved shirt with a swiftness that demonstrates his expertise in the task and I become somewhat discombobulated while his fingers pry into my sweaty crevices for any illicit weapons. I let out my breath in a hefty release when it is over as he moves on to Lanary and as I watch the man apply the same techniques to my companion, I notice beneath Lanary’s beard, his jaw muscle clench with his particular tell of tension. From inside his belt behind his back, the IRA subservient draws out a tarnished black handgun; a particular model that has recently been made illegal by our government for fear of vigilantism during these terrorizing times.

  “Lanary! What the hell are ya doing with that pistol?” I hiss blind-sided, as I am completely dumbfounded. How could he be so daft as to carry an illegal weapon? It would surely jail us had we been searched by the paramilitary at any of our preceding junctions. Furthermore, why was he being discreet and potentially treacherous with me? I do not have time to interrogate him on yet another one of his quirky offenses to my trust.

  Two men, or perhaps in the dim light, boys, recede abidingly and timidly out of the dark, small room with its door that now sits ajar as I pick up haggard breathing from within. “All right ya two. Be gone with ya! Do the deed and be done with it finally.” As we clumsily cross paths I ascend forward into the poorly lit, approximately fourteen by twelve foot room. There is a desk of laminate splintered wood placed in the furthest corner and in an unassuming chair is Cathal Goulding. The air has all been but vacuumed from the enclosed space and my eyes dart fastidiously around in search of a ventricle to alleviate my anxiety driven claustrophobia. I am left alone, as Lanary, from his lapse in judgment or perhaps intentional oversight, has been sidelined to wait outside. The chief of staff of the Official Sinn Feinn Worker’s Party of Ireland is seated guardedly before me, motioning
with apathetic movement for me to sit before him. My eyelids are heavy with supplicant humility and perhaps the fatigue from my hefty voyage is finally weighing heavy on my young metabolism.

  “Sir I…” Again the overgrown, middle-aged man gestures with a posturing hand and immediately I shut up. The years that this man has spent imprisoned are worn on every inch of him, as I finally am emboldened enough to consider his appearance. It is not only the hardening and strength that prison burns into you, but also the animalistic predatory alertness that one must assume for survival. This Cathal Goulding is a consummate criminal and it is apparent from his boorish prowess how his title came to him. The labored breathing that had greeted me earlier becomes more forceful as he deliberately pronounces my name, eschewed at the mercy of his once broken jaw.

  “Alastar Taggart.” It comes out neither threatening nor introductory, just cold and distant.

  “Aye sir. Tis I. Ya summoned me to Dublin.” The words tumble from my lips in one failed swoop and I grimace at my young sounding voice.

  “Tis true I did. Ya have a fair idea why that is?’’

  “Well, I suspected it had something to do with Reardon Sloan’s death and me involvement with all that.’’

  “Is that what ya think?” Well, I think what else could it be? He looks at me and I stare reticent back at the man because I understand his violence and do not wish to be on the earning end. “Do ya know who Bobby Sands is?” The question darts at me prematurely and my face reddens with acknowledgement.

  “Aye Sir, me brother and I are mates with him.”

  CHAPTER 18: Vi Thuigeann an Seach an Seang (You can’t understand what you haven’t experienced)

  Kiera Flanagan…I am in an audience with Ena and the McGurk’s, warm and sheltered, before a charismatic and poetic Quinn Taggart. Our vestiges are lost memories and as the introspective recollections dissolve with the pain, kindly human nature is to regulate oneself back to normalcy. “So Quinn ya think that all the bloodshed has been worth it?” Ena politely questions the teenager without judgment being genuinely curious of his conclusion. He has been regaling us with tales of his infamous, pacifist friend, Bobby Sands, and conversely, his highly contentious acquaintances in the rebellion.