“Have you seen the Staff?” Donatus asked eagerly.
“I haven’t. But a certain Father Jerome O’Neill, who died two years ago, told me that he had. Some time ago, he assured me, it was kept where you might expect it to be.”
“Expect?”
“In the centre of Saint Patrick’s ministry. I think you might expect it to be there.”
“The centre of his ministry has always been held to be in the north. At Armagh.”
“Quite so. Well, that is where it was.”
“This is remarkable.”
“I cannot tell you more. I wish I could. But I haven’t the least reason to suppose he was mistaken. He was a most precise and scholarly man. It is possible that it has been moved since, of course. But the likelihood would be, I should say, that you might find it there.”
Donatus had begged the priest to stay, but he had been anxious to be gone. “I shall take a glass of brandy, if you will be so kind, but then I must return to Dublin. I leave tomorrow.”
That very evening, Donatus sent a message to Maurice. They met in Dublin three days later.
It seemed to Donatus that his cousin was a little feverish. He wondered if Maurice was sickening for something. But when he told him the details of what the priest had said, it was all he could do to stop Maurice leaving at once. “I was going to Connacht again very soon,” he cried. “But this . . . This . . .”
“The Staff may not be there. And even if it is, you may not find it.”
“It’s more information than we’ve ever had before,” Maurice pointed out. And this could not be denied.
There was also the problem of geography. Armagh lay in enemy territory. King William’s forces were spread all over that part of Ulster now, and there was every sign that they were getting ready for battle. “If you go up there at present, looking for the Staff of Saint Patrick,” Donatus warned him, “you are courting great danger.”
“Set against that the effect upon our own troops,” replied Maurice, “if I could bring the authentic Staff to them, before they go into battle.” He nodded with satisfaction. “I shall return to Rathconan to get ready. Then I shall go north.” It was quite evident that nothing would stop him.
“At least come by my house then, when you set out,” Donatus begged. “It’s upon your road. Perhaps I shall come with you, part of the way.” This Maurice promised to do.
But in any event, his journey was delayed. Donatus had been right in thinking that his cousin was feverish. A message from Rathconan a few days later informed him that by the time Maurice got back home, his head was throbbing and his wife had to put him to bed. The next day he had a raging pain in his throat; by the sound of his sickness, it might be a week or two before he was ready to travel.
It was in the last week of May that Donatus chanced to meet Xavier O’Byrne in Dublin. He had gone into the city on some business, and was just walking by the Castle when he saw O’Byrne coming out. As they were both going eastwards, they walked together, and fell into such easy conversation that, passing an inn in Dame Street, they decided to continue their talk in there. As he took a glass of wine, O’Byrne was in a meditative mood. He expected to go north with King James before long. “For I’ve no doubt,” he told Donatus, “that the battle proper will begin within a month.” When Donatus told him about Maurice’s plan to search for the Staff at Armagh, O’Byrne smiled.
“He is a well-meaning fellow, this cousin of yours,” he remarked. “I am sorry at the thought of taking Rathconan from him, you know, even if the place is rightfully mine.” Then he grimaced. “Though if King Billie beats James, there won’t be any Catholics getting their estates back, we may be sure.”
“You think that William will win?” Donatus asked.
“It is hard to say. Last year, we had more men than we could use. Every Catholic gentleman and merchant in Ireland was turning up with recruits, none of them trained. We were turning them away. I dare say we’d take some of them now; for our numbers are down. But the troops that we have are professional. And so are King Billie’s.” He sighed. “I am a mercenary, Donatus. I have fought for years for the King of France. But I could still end my life fighting for the Holy Roman Emperor or for Spain. I’d have to fight for a Catholic, I think. I’d not fight for a Protestant. But I’m still a mercenary. I’ve a son nearly grown. He’ll probably do the same in his turn. We are mercenaries, and so are many of the professional troops in Ireland now. King Billie has Dutch and English troops, but also his Danes and Germans. We have Irish recruits, of course, but we have Frenchmen, Walloons, and our own Germans, too—who are mostly Protestants, God help us. It’s a mercenary’s war.”
“Maurice sees it as a Catholic crusade. Actually, I thought I did, too,” said Donatus.
O’Byrne took another sip of wine, stretched his legs, and gazed towards the window through half-closed eyes.
“For Ireland, it is. I agree. For England, too, you might say. This little war will decide whether Ireland is to be Protestant or Catholic, that is certain. But a crusade?” He paused. “Consider the chief participants, Donatus. King Louis of France seeks to dominate Europe. Against him is ranged a grand alliance of countries: King William with his Protestant English and Dutch; Austria and Spain, both devoutly Catholic; even the Pope, do not forget. The Pope, in this conflict, is not on King James’s side at all: he supports Protestant King Billie. This business in Ireland is just a little skirmish in that wider war. There will be Te Deums sung in Catholic churches all over Europe if King Billie wins. I can’t call that a crusade. Can you?”
“Well, at least we and King James are fighting for Ireland,” Donatus said.
“It would be comforting to think so.”
“You will not allow me even that?”
“Oh, the Irish are fighting for Ireland.” O’Byrne smiled. “The Old English like yourself included, of course. Perhaps I am fighting for Ireland too, Donatus. I think that I am. King James, however, has a different mind. He is Catholic, of course. But why is it that he has been so insistent on granting complete religious freedom to Protestants ever since he came here? He is courting the English. Even as we speak, there’s a plan being considered for James to take part of the army to England as soon as King Billie arrives, while Tyrconnell keeps Billie at bay here in Ireland. I know it from Tyrconnell himself. The French think he’s mad, and they’ll stop it, I’m sure. But King James wants England, not Ireland. He can’t wait to be gone.”
“So does nobody care about Ireland?”
“Nobody. Neither King Louis, nor King Billie, nor King James.” He nodded thoughtfully. “The fate of Ireland will be decided by men not a single one of whom gives a damn about her. That is her tragedy.”
Donatus parted from O’Byrne an hour later, on the most friendly terms. But he returned to Fingal with a sense of sadness and misgiving. He hoped that the cynical soldier was wrong.
Maurice Smith arrived at his door at the end of the first week in June. He was fully recovered from his illness, and eager to go into Ulster. Proudly he showed Donatus the Deposition, which he kept in a special pocket he had made, hidden inside his coat. With his sword at his side, he had an almost martial air. His eyes glowed with enthusiasm and excitement. Donatus tried to persuade him to rest at his house for a day, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“I will ride with you, then,” Donatus said. They left early in the afternoon.
How happy Maurice looked as they rode along. His face was radiant with a sense of purpose. He truly believes, Donatus thought to himself, that he will find the Staff. His heart went out to him.
What was he to say? Had he hoped to dissuade Maurice from his quest? Most certainly, it was madness. With the armies gathering now, there wasn’t a chance of Maurice getting safely through. He was sure of it. Was there even any point? He thought of his conversation with O’Byrne. Should he share that with Maurice? Would his cousin even pay attention if he did? Probably not.
And what if, by some miracle—and one should ne
ver turn one’s face away from such a possibility—God should grant that Maurice found the Staff and brought it safely down to the army of King James? Would it make a difference? Yes. Whatever O’Byrne might say, it probably would. The conflict would become a crusade. Who knew what the effect upon Ireland might be? Not only the Staff itself, but the fact of its being brought forth, the fact of the Deposition being found at such a time, would be taken as signs. In his way, Maurice was right. Dreamers and visionaries had won battles before. The chances were slim, the dangers obvious; but he had a feeling that Maurice did not really care about that.
“Your chances are not good, you know,” he did bring himself to say. “You are courting great danger.”
“No greater than my father faced,” Maurice replied, with contentment, “when he fought alongside Brian O’Byrne.”
Donatus nodded. He thought he understood. They rode all afternoon together and camped that evening within sight of the Hill of Tara. The night was warm. Early in the morning they continued, until they came in sight of the River Boyne. “I shall leave you now,” said Donatus. And he embraced his cousin warmly. He watched, for a short while, as Maurice rode northwards, then he abruptly turned his horse’s head and made his way back. He had a strong presentiment that he would not see Maurice again.
In the second half of June, news came that William had arrived up in Belfast with a large fleet. James and his forces set out for the north at once. A week passed. Soon reports came that they had gone up into Ulster. Then, some time later, that they were being driven back, towards the River Boyne.
Donatus heard no word from Maurice. It was a July evening when the first men came riding past his house, heading south in a hurry.
“King William has broken through. At the Boyne. He’s on his way down.”
The letter from O’Byrne did not come until three weeks later. It was affectionate in tone. He was writing to Donatus, he explained, because he felt that he knew him, and he asked Donatus to convey the news, as he saw fit, to Maurice’s family.
The Battle of the Boyne had been more like a big skirmish, really. But it had been decisive. King William himself, bravely wearing his star and garter for the enemy to shoot at, had led his own cavalry against the Irish troops. They had broken through. James, having done nothing, had fled. He had spent one night in Dublin, where he had blamed the Irish for his own failure. Then he had left for the safety of France. The remains of the Irish army who, like him or not, had respected William’s courage, and felt nothing but disgust now for James, had regrouped in Limerick. It was from Limerick that O’Byrne wrote. The story he had to tell was quite surprising.
Maurice Smith had gotten to Armagh. How he had managed it, even O’Byrne could not imagine, but so he had. And there, for days, he’d searched for the Staff. “Without success, alas,” the soldier wrote. Only when William’s army was on the move southwards was he forced to ride south again. “They drove the good man, so to speak, into our arms,” wrote O’Byrne, “and the rest, I dare say, will not surprise you.”
The soldier had urged Maurice to return home. There was nothing useful, he assured him, that he could do. But Maurice wouldn’t hear of it. He had shown the Deposition to numerous people. Even to Tyrconnell, who’d mentioned it to the King. But without the Staff itself, the document could not inspire great interest.
He felt he had failed, and for that reason, I should guess, was all the more determined to fight. I kept him in my sight, you may be sure, so far as I could. But it was a stray musket ball that carried him off, during the business at the Boyne. He was, I should say, as brave a man as I have ever known; and in his own way, I believe, he died as he would have wished.
It was not until the end of the following year that Donatus heard from O’Byrne again. Without the presence of King James, the remaining Irish forces had acquitted themselves well, maintaining a resistance in the west. King William had gone about his other business, but sent a good Dutch general, Ginkel, to complete the pacification of the island. The Catholic forces were led by Sarsfield. Donatus knew him slightly. On the mother’s side, Sarsfield was the descendant of Irish chieftains; on his father’s, an Old English gentleman like Donatus himself. Conducting his campaign with considerable daring, he had kept the Dutch general busy for another year. Finally, in the autumn of 1691, he had held out in Limerick for months until he could conclude the best and most honourable terms.
Amongst these was the promise that the Catholics of Ireland might continue to practise their religion without persecution.
After this, Sarsfield and some twelve thousand men were permitted to march out of Limerick and take ship for France. Donatus had heard that O’Byrne had stayed to the end, largely, he suspected, from feelings of loyalty to Ireland. He was touched, nonetheless, that the soldier of fortune should have taken the trouble to send him a final word of parting.
It is over, Donatus, and I am departing. There is nothing more for me here. I shall roam the world, as I have done before for so long, and as my son, I dare say, will do after me.
But I am glad to have come home to Ireland, and to have seen Rathconan, and to have made the kind friends that I have.
And now we who leave Limerick—Irishmen, soldiers, Catholics that we are—will fly away on the wind, like the wild geese, and I do not believe that we shall ever return.
I am sorry that Maurice never found the Staff.
Yet if, in the years that followed, Donatus often turned to that letter, it was with increasing sadness. Within a year the Protestant Parliament had overturned the terms of the Limerick agreement— though King William was quite happy to leave the Catholics in peace. Those who had fought in the Battle of the Boyne—and alas, the name of Maurice Smith had been found—were to lose their land. The Flight of the Wild Geese, as the departure from Limerick came to be called, assumed the character of a recessional: the last, echoing cry of a noble, Catholic leadership, lost to the island forever. Of the Staff of Saint Patrick, he never heard another word.
It was when his son Fortunatus was a boy of seven that one day, after going to the well at Portmarnock and remaining there longer than usual, Donatus returned and made an unexpected announcement to his wife. Their second child had been a boy also, whom they had named Terence; but there had been no more children after that. Looking at the two boys now, he quietly announced: “I have promised the saint—and my dear father also—that Terence shall always be brought up a good Catholic.”
“I should hope so,” his wife replied.
“There is something more, however, which may at first be harder to bear, yet which I believe, for the preservation of the family, and of the faith itself, may be necessary.”
“And what is that?”
“Fortunatus shall be brought up a Protestant.”
ASCENDANCY
1723
YOU’RE VERY GOOD to offer,” Terence Walsh said to his brother Fortunatus. “But I should warn you that he may cause trouble.”
The sun was dipping over St. Stephen’s Green. There was a soft glow in the air.
“I’m sure,” Fortunatus replied with a smile, “that young Smith can’t be so very bad.”
You’ve no idea how bad he can be, Terence thought, but he didn’t say so.
“If only I weren’t going away.” Terence had been promising himself this little retreat to the monastery in France for a long time now, and they both knew it. “You’re so good-natured that it’s almost a fault,” he continued. “I really shouldn’t be asking you.”
“Nonsense.”
How delightful the evening was, thought Fortunatus. Dublin was certainly a pleasant city—so long, of course, as you were a member of Ireland’s ruling elite. And even if my dear brother is not, Fortunatus reflected, that is what I am. A handsome city, too. For in Dublin, at least, the Protestant Ascendancy over Ireland was expressed in bricks and mortar.
It was astonishing how the place had changed in his own lifetime. Inside the walls of the old medieval city, the narrow str
eets and alleys, and the landmarks like Christ Church and the old Tholsell town hall, were not much changed, except for a few repairs. But as soon as you looked beyond the walls, the change was striking.
For a start, the River Liffey was not only crossed by several stone bridges, but it was noticeably narrower. The marshes that had started just downstream from the Castle, and skirted the ancient Viking site of Hoggen Green where the precincts of Trinity College now lay, had been reclaimed and the riverflood contained within walls. Upriver on the northern bank, the Duke of Ormond had encroached on the water further when he laid out the Ormond and Arran quays, with lines of warehouses and buildings that would have graced any city in Europe. Outside the city’s eastern wall, the former grassy common of St. Stephen’s Green was now surrounded with fine new houses, with subsidiary streets leading down to Trinity College. The curving line of the little stream that had run from the common down to Hoggen Green and the Viking long stone, had disappeared under the roadway of one of these, a pleasant crescent called Grafton Street. On the western side of the city, not a mile from Christ Church, the huge Royal Hospital at Kilmainham had been modelled on the stately, classical Invalides of Paris; and on the northern riverbank, opposite, stood the gates to the Phoenix Park—the enormous tract that Ormond had landscaped and stocked with deer. The Phoenix Park was bigger and grander than anything London had to offer.
But what was truly striking was the appearance of the new houses.
The British might not be original in the arts, but in their adaptation of the ideas of others, they would often show genius. And during the last decades, in London, Edinburgh, and now Dublin, they had perfected a fresh method of urban construction. Taking simplified classical elements, the builders had discovered that they could endlessly repeat the same brick house, in terraces and squares, in a way that was both economic and pleasing to the eye. Elegant steps led up to handsome doors with fanlights above; outside shutters were not needed in the colder northern climes, so nothing broke the stern brick surface of the outer wall; severe, rectangular sash windows stared blankly out at the northern skies, like the shades of Roman senators. Over the doorway, like as not, there might be a modest classical pediment, for decency’s sake—to omit that might have seemed like a gentleman emerging without a hat— but all other external ornament was avoided. Austere and aristocratic in style, yet domestic in scale, it satisfied lord and tradesman alike. It was, without doubt, the most successful style of terracing ever invented and would make its way across the Atlantic to cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. In time, it would come to be known as Georgian.