Return to Killybegs Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Copyright

  THE LILLIPUT PRESS

  DUBLIN

  PROLOGUE

  Now that everything is out in the open, they will all speak in my place – the IRA, the British, my family, my close friends, journalists I’ve never even met. Some of them will go so far as to explain how and why I ended up a traitor. It incenses me that books may well be written about me. Do not listen to any of their claims. Do not trust my enemies, and even less my friends. Ignore those who will say they knew me. Nobody has ever walked in my shoes, nobody. The only reason I am speaking out now is because I am the only one who can tell the truth. After I’m gone, I hope for silence.

  Killybegs, 24 December 2006

  Tyrone Meehan

  1

  When my father beat me he’d shout in English, as if he didn’t want his language mixed up in that. He’d strike with his mouth twisted, yelling like a soldier in combat. When my father beat me he was no longer my father, just Padraig Meehan. War-wounded, stony-faced, Meehan the ill wind people crossed the street to avoid. When my father had been drinking he’d batter the ground; shatter the air. When he’d come into my room, the night would shift. He wouldn’t light the candle. He’d breathe like an old animal and I’d wait for the blows.

  When my father had been drinking he’d occupy Ireland the way our enemy had. His hostility was widespread. It extended from under our roof, across his threshold, along the lanes of Killybegs, over the bog and the edge of the forest, covering day and night. Far and wide, he’d take over areas with sudden advances. You’d see him from a long way off. You’d hear him from a long way off. He’d trip over his words and movements. In Mullin’s, the village pub, he’d slide from his barstool, approach tables and slam his hands down flat between the glasses. That was his response when he didn’t agree with someone. No words, his fingers in the spilt beer and that look of his. The others would fall silent, caps lowered and eyes hidden. Then he’d stand up straight again, challenging the room with arms crossed, waiting for a response. When my father had been drinking he’d frighten people.

  One day, on the lane down to the port, he punched George, old McGarrigle’s mule. The coalman had named his animal after the king of England so he’d be able to boot him up the backside. I was there, following my father. Still intoxicated from the previous night, he walked with jerky, staggering steps and I scurried along in his wake. On a street corner, opposite the church, old McGarrigle was struggling. He pulled at his motionless donkey, one hand on the saddle, the other on the halter, and threatened him, calling him every name under the sun. My father stopped. He watched the old man with his baulking animal, the distress of one, the obstinacy of the other, and he crossed the street. He pushed McGarrigle aside and stood facing the donkey, talking to him roughly, as though speaking with the British sovereign. He asked him whether he knew who Padraig Meehan was, if he’d any idea who he was dealing with. He was bent over him, forehead to forehead, menacing, waiting for a response from the animal, a movement, surrender. And then he struck, a terrible blow between the eye and nostril. George swayed and keeled over on his flank. The cart tipped out its pieces of coal.

  —Éirinn go Brách! shouted my father. Then he pulled me by the arm. Speaking Irish is resisting, he murmured once more. And we continued on our way.

  As a child, my mother used to send me to fetch him home from the pub. It would be dark out. I’d be too afraid to go in so I’d wander back and forth in front of the pub’s frosted door and its windows with their curtains drawn. I’d wait for a man to emerge so I could slip in to the odour of sour beer, sweat, damp overcoats and cold tobacco.

  —Looks like you’d best go home for your tea, Pat, my father’s friends would joke.

  He’d raise his hand to me behind closed doors, but when I entered his world he’d welcome me with open arms. I was seven. I’d lower my head and stay standing against the bar while he finished his song. His eyes would be closed, one hand on his heart; he’d mourn his divided country, his dead heroes, his lost war; he’d beseech the Great Legends, the 1916 rebels, the funereal cohort of our defeated and all those who came before, the chiefs of the great Gaelic clans and Saint Patrick to boot, with his curved staff for driving out the English snake. And I’d watch him from below. I’d listen to him. Observing the other men’s silence, I was proud of him in spite of everything. Proud of Pat Meehan, proud of that father, despite the marks from his brown belt across my back and my hair torn out by the fistful; when he’d sing about our land, heads were held high and eyes filled with tears. Before becoming mean, my father was an Irish poet and I was welcomed as that man’s son. As soon as I came through the door I felt the warmth, too. Hands on my back, a squeeze of the shoulder, a man-to-man wink though I was only a child. Someone would let me sip the ochre froth of a Guinness. That’s where my bitterness began, and I had a taste for it. I drank that mixture of earth and blood, the thick blackness that would become my eau de vie.

  —We drink our earth. We are no longer men. We are trees, my father would sing when he was happy.

  The others would leave the pub, putting their glasses down and their caps on their heads. Not him, though. Before passing through the door, he’d always tell a story. He’d capture their attention one last time. He’d get up, slip his coat on.

  Then, we’d go home, he and I. Him staggering, me telling myself I was supporting him. He’d point out the moon, its light on the path.

  —It’s the light of the dead, he’d say.

  Under its pale beams we already looked like ghosts. One foggy night, he took me by the shoulder. Before the swirling mists he promised me that after life everything would be like this, calm and beautiful. He swore to me that I’d no longer have to fear a thing. Passing in front of the crossed-out sign, ‘NA CEALLA BEAGA’, which marked the edge of our village, he assured me that they spoke Irish in paradise. And that the rain there was soft like this evening, but warm and tasting of honey. He laughed and pulled up the collar of my jacket to protect me from the cold. Once on the way home he even took my hand. I felt ill, knowing that this hand would become a fist again, would soon change from tenderness to metal. In an hour’s time or tomorrow and without my knowing why. Out of malice, pride, fury, out of habit. I was a prisoner of my father’s hand. But that night, with my fingers curled into his, I made the most of his warmth.

  My father belonged to the Irish Republican Army. He was a volunteer, óglach in Irish, a simple soldier of the Donegal Brigade of the IRA. In 1921, he and several comrades opposed the ceasefire negotiated with the British. He refused to accept the border, the creation of Northern Ireland, the tearing in half of our homeland. He wanted to drive the British from the whole country, fight to the last bullet. After the War of Independence against the British, we had the Civil War amongst ourselves.

  —The traitors, the cowards, the sell-outs! my father would
hiss when he’d talk about his former brothers in arms who had supported the truce.

  These felons were armed by the British and dressed by the British. They opened fire on their comrades. The only thing Irish about them was our blood on their hands.

  My father had been interned without charge by the British, sentenced to death and pardoned. In 1922 he was arrested once more, this time by the Irish who had chosen the compromise camp. He never told me about it, but I knew. After six years he found himself back in the same prison, the same cell. After mistreatment by the enemy he received the same from former comrades. He was knocked about for a week. The soldiers of the new Irish Free State wanted to know the whereabouts of the last IRA combatants, the insubordinates, the dissenters. They wanted to find the rebel arms caches. During hours, days and nights of violence, those sons of bitches tortured my father in English. They steeled their voices with the enemy tongue.

  —Are you English? an old American asked my father one day.

  —No, the opposite, my father replied.

  When my father beat me, he was his own opposite.

  In May 1923, the last of the IRA óglaigh laid down their weapons and my old man grew even older. Our people were divided. Ireland was cut in two. Pat Meehan had lost the war. He was no longer a man but a failure. He began drinking a lot, roaring a lot, fighting. Beating his children. He had had three of them when his army surrendered. On 8 March 1925, I joined Seánie, Róisín and Mary, all of us crammed together like sardines in the big bed. Seven others were still to emerge from my mother’s belly. Two wouldn’t survive.

  I witnessed my father’s courage one last time in November 1936. He was coming back from Sligo. He and some old IRA members had attacked a public meeting of Blueshirts, the Irish fascists, who were going to fight in Spain under General Franco. After the pitched battle of bare fists and broken chairs, my father and his comrades had decided to join the Spanish Republican cause. For several days, he talked of nothing but leaving for combat. He was handsome, standing tall, feverish, marching around our kitchen with great soldier’s strides. He wanted to rally the men of the Connolly Column of the International Brigades. He said that Ireland had lost a battle and that the war was still being played out over there. My father wasn’t just a Republican: Catholic by happenstance, he had fought his whole life for the social revolution. He believed the IRA ought to be a revolutionary army. He revered our national flag but admired the red of the workers’ struggle.

  He was forty-one, I was eleven. He had packed his bag for Madrid. I remember that morning. My mother was in the kitchen; they had been talking all night. She had cried. He had his face of stone on. She was peeling potatoes and saying our names one after the other, whispering them. It was a prayer, a sorrowful litany. She was there, at the table, her body gently moving back and forth, reciting us like the beads of a rosary. ‘Tyrone ... Kevin ... Áine ... Brian ... Niall ...’ My father stood at the front door with his back turned to her, his forehead pressed against the wood. She told him that if he left we would go hungry. That she’d never be able to look after us all. She told him that without her man, the earth would no longer provide for us. People’s eyes would turn when we passed. She told him the Sisters of Notre Dame of the Compassion would take us away. That we’d be sent to Quebec or Australia on Father Nugent’s boats, along with the street children. She told him that she’d be alone, would let herself fade away. And that he would die, would never come back. And that Spain may as well be farther away than hell itself. I remember my father’s movement. He punched the door, just once, as if calling on the fallen angel. He turned around slowly and looked at my mother with her lips shut tight, at the table covered in peelings. He took up the bag he’d made ready for the next day and hurled it across the room, into the fireplace. The fire itself seemed surprised. It drew back under the blast of air, and then the blue flames enveloped the cloth pouch and you could smell the peat and the fabric.

  My father was transfixed. He sometimes lashed out like that, without grasping the meaning of what he was doing. One day he kicked me in the small of my back and then looked at me lying on my stomach, my arms folded under me, not comprehending what I was doing on the ground. He set me back on my feet, brushed down my legs grazed with gravel. He took me in his arms, telling me he was sorry, but that everything was my fault all the same, that I shouldn’t have looked at him with a challenge in my eyes and that smile on my face. But that he loved me. That he loved me as best he could. Another time, he saw blood in my mouth. I recognized the acrid taste and let it run down my chin and made my eyes roll like someone about to pass out. I think he was scared. He wiped my lips and neck with his open hand. He repeated ‘My God!’ over and over, as if someone other than him had just hit me. Sometimes, in the darkness, after having struck me, he’d run his fingers under my eyes. He wanted to check whether I was crying. I knew he’d do this. From the first blows, I’d know it. He’d always conclude his punishments by ascertaining my grief. But I didn’t cry. I never cried. ‘But cry, why don’t you?!’ my mother would beg. While I protected my face, I’d slide my fingers into my mouth, wet them with saliva and smear my cheeks. Then he’d take my spittle for tears, sure that his devil of a son had finally learned his lesson.

  That morning in front of the hearth he had that same surprised look on his face. He didn’t understood what he’d just done. He looked at his bag, all his belongings, his life. His trousers, his collarless shirts, his two cardigans, his spare pipe. It was an abrupt inferno. The bag was smothered by the flames. Spain burned, along with his hopes of revenge and his dreams of honour. My mother didn’t move, didn’t say another word. Silence. Just the sound of my father’s shoes crackling like wood. And his Bible, which gave off a very blue flame.

  My father took me by the arm and pulled me out of the house by force. He dragged me along like that as far as the lane and then let me go. He walked, and I followed him in silence. We headed towards the port. His eyes were nearly closed. When we came across McGarrigle and George the donkey, my father spat on the ground. The animal was braying under the old coalman’s shoves.

  —Éirinn go Brách! my father roared after hitting the creature. ‘Ireland Forever!’ The war cry of the United Irishmen, the sacred phrase decorating their green flag with its golden harp. It was Friday, 9 November 1936. Padraig Meehan had just raised his hand to an ass, and I had simultaneously lost a father and a hero.

  In Killybegs, my father ended up ‘the bastard’, a nickname whispered when his back was turned. The senior IRA member, the legendary veteran, the magnificent orator, the evening storyteller, the pub singer, the hurler, the greatest stout drinker ever born on this Donegal soil. He, Padraig Meehan, had become a feared man, avoided in the street, ignored in the pub, abandoned to his forgotten corner between the dartboard and the men’s toilets. He had become a bastard, that is to say, in the end, a man of no importance.

  Pat Meehan died with his pockets full of stones. That’s how they knew he wanted to end his life. He left us alone in December 1940. He dressed in his Sunday clothes under one of my mother’s endless silences. He left the house one morning to sit in his spot in Mullin’s. He drank as he did every day, a lot, and wouldn’t let anyone clear away his empty glasses. He wanted them to pile up, packed together on the table to show what he was capable of. He drank alone, didn’t read, spoke to nobody. That night, we waited for him.

  At dawn, my mother wrapped herself in her shawl to protect baby Sara asleep in her belly. She searched the deserted village for her husband. I went to the pub. The barman was rolling beer barrels along the pavement with his hands. My father had left the pub towards one in the morning, one of the last. Just before closing, he had wandered between the tables, trying to catch someone’s eye. Nobody would look at him. The owner showed him the door with a tilt of his chin. When he went out, he turned left, headed towards the port. He bumped against the walls of his village as he walked. Two witnesses saw him bend down close to the quarry and pick up something from
the roadside. It was very cold. They found him on the village outskirts in the early hours, on a road leading to the sea. He was grey, lying on the frozen ground, ice for blood. His left arm was raised, fist clenched as if he’d been fighting with an angel. Before moving him, the gardaí thought his death an accident. Drunk, fallen over, unable to get up again, sleeping it off till morning arrived.

  It was only when they turned the body over that they understood. My father had died on his way to death. He had filled his pockets with rocks. They filled his trousers, his cardigan, his jacket, his blue woollen overcoat. He’d even slipped stones into his cap. These were the shards of rock he was gathering the night before in the quarry. He was walking towards his end when his heart had stopped. He wanted to die like the ordinary men of Donegal, to walk into the sea until the water took him. He was leaving, stuffed with his earth, without a word, without a tear. Just the wind, the waves and the light of the dead. Padraig Meehan wanted this legendary end. My father left the world a poor wreck, his face pressed against the frost, and his rocks, for nothing.

  2

  When my father died, people turned away. Misery was contagious. It was bad luck to watch us walk by. We were no longer a family but a pale, straggly herd. My brothers, sisters and I made a pitiful troupe, led by a she-wolf on the brink of madness. We’d walk in single file, each of us holding on to the next by the end of a coat. For three months we lived on charity. In exchange for cabbages and potatoes, we helped out at the presbytery. Róisín and Mary used to scrub the floors of the corridors on their knees. Seánie, wee Kevin and myself used to wash windows by the dozen. Áine, Brian and Niall would help in the refectory and my mother would sit on a bench in the corridor, baby Sara nestled against her, hidden between shawl and breast. I wasn’t miserable, or even sad, or envious of anything. We lived off the little we got. In the evenings, my brothers and I used to fight the gang led by Timmy Gormley, the self-titled ‘king of the quays’. A dozen young lads, broken like us, pieced together. They were nasty, hot-tempered, and about as tough as toy soldiers, shocked when their noses would bleed. They called us ‘the Meehan gang’. Father Donoghue used to break us apart with a hazel rod. He had no time for our laughter and was even less tolerant of our after-dark shenanigans.