Chapter 6

Chapter 6 7/25/99

 

August ?, 1962 continued

 

The drive back to Westport gave Caitlin a chance to look at the remainder of their itinerary and make adjustments to allow for this extra day in Westport. They would return to Ballina this afternoon, she figured, and, at Uncle Peter’s insistence, spend another evening with Dineen relatives and friends, then depart, first thing in the morning for Dublin. They would have to sacrifice a planned trip to Arklow and Waterford to buy chinaware and crystal, Caitlin explained, but they could buy the same pieces in New York—at a much higher price, of course. Instead after they visited her relatives, they would drive directly from Dublin to Shannon and be able to depart Ireland for home on schedule. Brian concurred.

When they arrived at the cottage, the Dineens were greeted at the door by a housekeeper much older than Mrs. Stanton at St. Aiden’s , and, at first glance, much more protective of her employer.

Brian introduced Caitlin and himself to the woman and explained briefly that they had come to see the monsignor at the suggestion of Father Barr. She asked them to wait at the front door while she went to see if the monsignor was resting. Several minutes later, the housekeeper returned and announced that the monsignor would see them in his study. “Don’t make it a long visit,” she cautioned.” “The monsignor has a bad heart and cannot take too much excitement.”. Beyond the stone wall at the end of the garden area, the water of Clew Bay sparkled in all its majesty, its gentle waves rippling west to east, reassuring the viewer this was not a painting.

Her warning issued, the housekeeper turned and led Brian and Caitlin to a sunny study at the rear of the cottage overlooking a well manicured herb garden enclosed within a low stone wall

“Monsignor, Mr. And Mrs. Brian Dineen from America are here to see you.”

“Thank you, Mrs., Hanley.” The monsignor answered. “That will be all for now. I’ll ring if I need you. Thank you.”

The gray haired cleric, stooped slightly and stiffened from many years of living, reached for Brian and Caitlin’s hands together and bid them sit down.

“Would you be the son of Martin Dineen of Kilcummin, may I ask?”

“I am, Monsignor, and Caitlin’s family – the McLaughlin’s come from Carracastle.”

“Oh it’s lovely in Carracastle. Far nicer than in Kilcummin, but I don’t think I know any of the McLaughlins from there. May I ask to what I owe this delightful visit?” Mrs. Hanley said Father Barr sent you to see me.”

A sudden cloud drifted between the sun and Clew Bay as the pastor spoke and the view beyond the garden darkened considerably.

“Well, Monsignor, I came to ask you a bout my father. Father Barr said you often spoke of a Martin Dineen and when he checked the parish records he found out you and my father were born a few months apart and…”

“Would you and your missus like a cup of tea and maybe some biscuits?” the old pastor interrupted. Brian and Caitlin indicated they would and the old man rang for Mrs. Hanley.

When she left the study to return to the kitchen, Monsignor McReady said he grew up and went to school with Martin.

“Oh, yes. We played together, walked to school together every day and received the sacraments together in the very church you visited with Father Barr. Your father was a dear friend.

“I remember so well, one day we were picked out of the class by Father Lenihan to be trained for the altar. We were thrilled because in those days to be selected for altarboy training was quite an honor for a boy’s family.

“We studied with Father Lenihan one hour every day after school and at the end of every session, he would give us a sweet and tell us what to study for the next time. Your father and I learned the Latin quickly enough. Your father picked up the Latin faster than I did, I have to admit.. But because of the sweet, the two of us agreed to slow our learning down, or make it seem so, so that we’d drag out the lessons and get more sweets. You’d have to know that in rural Mayo sweets were an almost unheard of luxury in those days and would only be given at Christmas or at a birthday. And, I might add, even then, in short supply.

“After a couple of weeks of this malingering, Father Lenihan told us, sorrowfully, that he had run out of sweets and wouldn’t be getting any more until Christmas, eight months away. Well, on our next visit the two of us knew our Latin responses and were given our first assignments as altar boys.

“Many years later after I had finished the seminary and had been assigned to Father Lenihan at St. Aiden’s, he reflected back to our altar boy days one evening at dinner and told me that he had caught on to the game we were playing. And, although he had a worthy supply of sweets left in the pantry, he decided he needed two new altar boys more than he needed the amusement they were providing him.

“That’s a wonderful story, monsignor, and I’m sure my mother will love hearing it when we get home,” Brian said, “but what I want to find out is what he did during the Troubles. Both my mother and my Aunt Kitty said many times over the years that my father served in the IRA, I guess, and left Ireland with a British price on his head. Do you know anything about that?”

“Ah, Brian, you won’t find many people left who remember what happened in those days, and the few remaining who do remember are often reluctant to talk about it. It was a time not unlike your own civil war in which families were split over whether it was best for the country to hold out for a republic or accept British partition and the Free State.

“Not everyone supported the fighting nor wanted anything to do with the bloodshed, but as I said, among those who did, most are long gone, and those that are left are not too willing to talk about it. All that happened a very long time ago, almost in a different world,” he said. “And the wounds those troubles brought, though deep at the time, have healed slowly. Ever so slowly. There are, to be sure, the scars that will never leave, but healing has taken place over time and the old sores are better left untouched.”

The priest drifted once more into stories of his boyhood days with Martin until, at a point where the priest stopped talking, Brian once again tried to bring the conversation back to the war times.

“Well, Brian, as I said, your father and I remained the best of friends for years and when the Troubles broke out, we joined the Mayo Brigade together. We served together for a while and then, one day down in Cork, I could no longer justify the killing and destruction in my own conscience,” the monsignor explained. “That’s when I decided to enter the priesthood and devote my life to the work of God. I told my commander of my decision and was released to return home to Mayo. I talked my decision over with Father Lenihan and was accepted by the seminary at Maynooth.

“When I finished my studies I was assigned back to St. Aiden’s and served as father Lenin’s assistant until he retired. Then I served as pastor there until I retired.

“I never saw Martin again after our days in the Brigade, but I understood he went off to America. There was talk in Ballina that Martin may have had something to do with the killing of Michael Collins down in Balna…”

“How can you say that,” Brian interrupted. “If you knew my father at all, as you say you did, you’d know he didn’t have killing in his makeup. He was full of gentleness and compassion. I never saw him raise a hand to anyone, nor heard him raise his voice above a conversational level in all the years I knew him. If ever you were a friend of his you should be ashamed of yourself for saying that, much less thinking it.”

It became immediately apparent that Monsignor Charles Emmet McReady was not accustomed to having a member of the laity address him in angry tones. “I didn’t say he did it!” he blurted out in his most authoritative voice. “I said there was talk. I don’t think you father did it and I don’t know how the talk got started. But that’s what people say. Now I think it’s time for you to leave.”

Before he fully recovered his composure, the door to the study opened and Mrs. Hanley entered with a tray of tea and biscuits. “Shall I place the tray on the tea cart, Monsignor, or over there?”

“Oh, anywhere, Mrs. Hanley. Mr. and Mrs. Dineen are about to leave. Won’t you show them out?”

Without apologizing for what he knew the priest perceived as disrespect, Brian rose and issued a cold “Good day, sir,” as he and Caitlin started to follow Mrs. Hanley to the front door.

As they left the room the priest defiantly asked the back of Brian’s head “Didn’t you ever question why your father never returned to Ireland even for a visit before he died? There was a general amnesty declared when they signed the treaty, you know.”

 

On the drive back to Ballina, Caitlin broke the protracted silence by asking “Brian, if he didn’t know anything about your father since the days of the Mayo Brigade, how did he know Martin never came back to Ireland? And I don’t remembering your telling your father is dead.

“That thought occurred to me also as we left, but I was so angry at what he implied at first that I wasn’t about to engage him in further conversation or debate.”

The silence resumed until the Dineen’s were back at Whitecreek.

“I think I’ll shower before we go over to Uncle Peter’s, Brian,” Caitlin said as she closed the car door. “What about yourself. I think it might do you some good.”

“Are you calling me an opportunistic hot head, Mrs. Dineen? One whose passion can be cooled by standing under the spigot for an outrageous amount of time?” Brian retorted in feigned indignation.

“You’re a very perceptive man, Mr. Dineen.”

“And you, young lady, are beginning to read me better than I can read myself. There’s hope for us yet,” Brian answered as he took Caitlin’s hand and walked around to the front of the bed and breakfast. “Cold showers always worked before. I think it has something to do with Jesuit training.”

“That it has, me bucko, especially after the Christian Brothers of Ireland at Power Memorial Academy softened you up for the Jesuits.”

 

The lines of relationship and friendship grew dimmer that evening at Peter Dineen’s house as person after person was introduced to the young couple. Brian thought it peculiar that many of the relatives he met were introduced to him not by their own names, but as an offspring of their father. James Dineen, Brian’s first cousin who had been at a neighbor’s house rebuilding a tractor when Brian and Caitlin first visited Peter Dineen, was introduced to “the Yanks” as Peter James. After a while, Brian and Caitlin gave up trying to sort out the relationships, and simply enjoyed the company. Although many of the new faces Brian met were still involved in one aspect of farming or another—cattle or sheep raising, crop growing or equipment, he was surprised at how many persons “worked in town.” A banker, a postal clerk and a veterinarian provided the music on a guitar, an accordion and a fiddle respectively, as others put words to the music Brian had been listening to since his days as a toddler. Visitors arrived and left all evening long, staying and enjoying the Dineen’s hospitality for differing amounts of time, but all anxious to meet the newlywed couple. Every time Brian would bring up a question about his father or “the troubles,” the subject was brushed aside with a smile or with a plea of ignorance. The question, more often than not, marked the end of a particular conversation as the person Brian was speaking with would develop a great hunger or thirst and wend his or her was to the sanctuary of the kitchen.

James, the relative closest in age to Brian, was quiet and reserved at first and talked with several of the visitors about local concerns. As the hours wore on and the crowd became smaller, James loosened up and in between songs, nudged his cousin and said “If it wasn’t for the troubles, Brian, you’d be here having to work your arse off like the rest of us instead of practicing law in New York.” As he turned to his cousin, Brian realized James had had a few Southwicks and, although not drunk, was more gregarious than he had been two hours earlier.

“Ye’re lucky in America with no fields to work. If I could ever get the money together, I’d be there myself,” he said with conviction. “I’d like to get away from the whores of priests and politicians that are running this country into the ground, and keep the likes of me from ever making anything of myself.”

Brian, surprised by James’ remarks, answered that he could believe it of the politicians because politicians are politicians where ever they are. “But the priests? Aren’t you being a little harsh? Do you still go to the sacraments, James?”

James answered that, of course, he still goes to the sacraments. “I have to. If I don’t, I run the chance of losing what little I have.”

“The priests and all forms of local politicians have too much to say about who gets to buy land and a lot of other matters that effect how we live. I’m not saying they get very public about it, but I’ve seen than ruin a man’s auction by deciding who can bid on a piece of property and how much he can bid.”

“I can tell you, James, that is not my experience at home. I’ve spent my prep school and college years with the Jesuits and all my life I’ve been involved with priests in parishes. They pretty much keep to their own business and leave the political work to the bishops.”

“You also keep your priests and ministers in their place with the separation of church and state,” James answered. “If we had a law like your First Amendment in Ireland, we’d be years ahead of where we are now.”

“I think you’re being too harsh on them, James,” Brian replied. “But then, we’ve only met two of your priests, Father Barr, over at the parish, and your former pastor, Monsignor McReady. Father Barr seemed all right. Monsignor McReady – well he’s a different case. Caitlin and I took a ride over to Westport this afternoon to see Monsignor McReady. He’s the only one we’ve spoken with so far – apart from your father—that even acknowledges my father even existed and was part of the life around here before the Civil War. He told me a lot about my father that I didn’t know.”

“Did he tell you what happened?” James asked as he accepted another glass of beer from a young lady.

“He said they grew up together and served together in the Mayo Brigade until his conscience wouldn’t allow him to continue what he came to see as senseless killing and destruction,” Brian said. “And that’s what prompted him to enter the priesthood.”

“Is that all the bastard said?” James asked.

“More or less,” Brian replied. Here was one thing more but it sounded insane.”

“Well, why don’t you and your lady go back and ask him why good men lose honor and the cowardly momma’s boy gets to live out his life in luxury none of the rest of us will ever get to enjoy?” James answered with an anger in his voice that Brian had not noticed until now.

“What do you mean by that, James?”

“I’ve shot my mouth off too bloody much already. It must be the drink. I’m not that used to it and that’s what got me. Good night Brian.”

“Good night, James. I’m sorry you’re leaving. I’d go back to him if I thought it would do any good, but Caitlin and I are leaving for Dublin sometime tomorrow morning and we won’t have time to go back and see him. And I doubt he’d want to see us again anyhow.”

As James went upstairs to his room, Caitlin motioned Brian from the fireplace that it was time for them to go back to the bed and breakfast. As he joined her she whispered “Some of these people won’t leave until we do. And most of them have to be up in the morning just the same as us. So for their sake, if not our own, let’s go and find some rest.”

 

When they returned to the Whitecreek, Brian and Caitlin showered and got ready for bed. Brian showered first and while Caitlin was bathing, he began to pack his luggage for the next leg of the trip. As Caitlin dried and brushed her hair, Brian told his wife of the conversation he had with James Dineen.

“I have no idea why he became so intense about it,” Brian explained. “He said it probably was the amount he had to drink, but I doubt it.”

Caitlin finished her hair, jumped into bed beside her “Let’s sleep on it, Brian. I’m exhausted.”

“Good night, my love,” Brian said as he turned out the light. “Rest well, for Dublin awaits our visit on the morrow.”