Excerpt
“Thank God she didn’t break her back. Or her neck,” said Mother Ross.
“Uncle Finnegan is very good with young Dermot apparently and takes him to the strand every day. But it seems the troubles are bothering everybody down there.” Caitlin opened up the letter. “Let me see now. ‘Flynn’s gained three pounds in less than a month,’ Nora writes, ‘ most of it in this past week in Dublin. He has bought a new jumper.’”
“That sounds like Nora,” said Mother Ross.
“Here we are,” Caitlin said, reading the letter aloud. “‘It would be perfect here, Caitlin, if it wasn’t for all the trouble in the country, and people going about their business as if living in a bad dream and not knowing if it’s going to get worse or better before they wake up. All they seem to be able to talk about is Sinn Fein, Eamon de Valera and the possibility of civil war, together with the latest outrage. Altogether a hundred incidents were reported yesterday from all over the country, mostly the burning of vacated police barracks and income tax offices. There was one murder, three mail-van robberies, a bomb explosion, the burning of a courthouse and I can’t remember what else. During the past couple of days no less than six police officers have been murdered in circumstances of revolting cruelty. I won’t go into details.’”
Caitlin turned to another page with a quick glance at the serious face of Mother Ross. “‘Last night we were visiting some friends of Uncle Finnegan’s—Flynn has never called him by his Christian name, which is Aloysius, because he could never say it properly when he was a little boy. Anyway it was a good night in this friend’s house, but a bad night around the city. Five unoccupied police barracks were set on fire. One was Bessborough Barracks near Phoenix Park, close to where the attempt was made to murder Lord French last December. Another was the old RIC barrack at Ballybrack, less than a mile from where we are staying. At the party last night there was a very nice man called O’Rourke, Eugene O’Rourke, I think, a head gardener for a man called Muldoon. Just after he left for home we heard shots. Poor Mr O’Rourke’s body was found lying on the Strathmore road at the foot of Dalkey Hill. I just couldn’t get over it today. No one knows how he came to be killed. The speculation is that he failed to answer the challenge of one of the sentries posted by the Republican terrorists who were lighting the fires and so got shot. Flynn tries to argue that all these things are bound to happen in a war situation but even he, I could see, was upset by Mr O’Rourke’s death.’”
Caitlin lowered the letter. “Isn’t it just awful? What’s happening down there.”
