“I went to my house and learned that my son was here,” Hercules replied evenly.
“He is. Indeed he is. Come here, William,” he cried, “and greet your father.”
But it was too late. Hercules’s gaze had already started to travel down the table. His eyes rested, just long enough to register disgust, upon old Doctor Emmet; then, ignoring the clergyman and one of the moderate politicians, they reached young William and Patrick and stopped, fixing them both in a terrible, adamantine stare.
“William, get up,” he said coldly. “You are leaving.”
The table froze.
“You are in my house, Hercules.” His father’s voice broke the silence in a growl. Hercules continued to stare at his son, ignoring Lord Mountwalsh entirely. He beckoned to William.
“I said,” his father repeated, somewhat more loudly, “you are in my house, Sir.”
“And I do not care,” Hercules did not deign to look at his father, but continued to gaze at Patrick, “for the company I find here.” Then, as young William, blushing with embarrassment and confusion, began to rise, Hercules suddenly turned to glare accusingly at his father. “Nor do I care for the manner in which you entrap my son into such company when you believe my back is turned.”
“Hercules,” his mother cried out, “that is quite unfair.”
“I consider it,” Hercules’s voice rose, as he enunciated the word with venomous fury, “dishonest!”
Patrick saw Georgiana wince, but Lord Mountwalsh was not disposed to be so put upon. His face was puce.
“Do you come here, Sir, to insult your father and your mother in their own house—and in front of their guests? Leave us, Sir, at once.” He rose to his feet. “Leave us, Sir,” he shouted at the top of his voice, “and pray do not come here again!”
Making a contemptuous bow to the company, Hercules turned and stalked out of the door, followed, miserably, by his son.
After that the dinner continued, but not quite so well.
A quarter of an hour after midnight, while still pacing up and down furiously in his dressing room, Lord Mountwalsh suffered a sudden apoplexy and dropped dead on the spot.
When he went to Trinity College that autumn, young William Walsh made one request. “I don’t want to live at home like the Emmet boy. I want to live in college like my father did.” This was granted, and William was glad.
On the day of his departure, his father called him into his dressing room for a private word.
The death of old George had meant a change of status for Hercules. He was Lord Mountwalsh now. He would no longer occupy a seat in the Irish House of Commons, where the fact that he had to submit to election—albeit by three family friends and a dozen docile freeholders—had always offended his sense of propriety. Now he would sit in the Irish House of Lords by the ultimate sanction of hereditary right. From the day of his father’s funeral, servants and tradesmen had addressed him respectfully as “your lordship” or “my lord.” Even better, perhaps, he had received a letter from a fellow aristocrat, which charmingly began, “my dear lord.” When he walked, his brutal stride had, in some indefinable way, become stately; when he talked, he had the comfort of knowing that his opinions were right—not on account of mere, vulgar reason, but because they proceeded from himself. If he was not a man to practise the soft speech of aristocratic courtesy, it could nonetheless be said that, in the space of only a few short weeks, the ermine mantle of pomposity had descended upon him and fitted, very snugly, around his shoulders.
He looked at his eldest son kindly.
“So William, you are off to Trinity.”
“Yes, Father.”
“I had happy years there myself, and I’m sure that you will, too.” He smiled. “Before you go, William, there are one or two things I want to say to you, as a father.” He motioned to a couch against the wall. “Sit down beside me, my boy.”
William had never had a heart-to-heart with his father before, as Hercules had never been inclined towards intimacy. With a sense that he was about to discover something important, he listened attentively.
“You are going to be a young man soon,” his father said. “Indeed, I think you are a man already. And I know you have a good heart.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“One day, I expect you’ll go into Parliament, as I did. And eventually, of course, you’ll succeed me.” He rested his hand on William’s shoulder for a moment. “These are the privileges of our position, William. But they come with responsibilities. And you and I have to be ready to accept those, too. I’m sure you’re ready, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Very well. There is no one that I trust more than my own son, and I hope you know that you can always trust me.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“From now on, you and I shall work as a team.” He paused. “There are some things that, for the time being, I cannot tell even you, William. But the latest information, I can promise you, is alarming. There is a body of men, many of them here in Dublin, which plans a course of action that would destroy this island. These men talk of freedom, and some of them may believe that is their object, but if they were ever allowed to succeed, the consequences would be entirely different. I speak of invasion by our enemies, of blood in the streets, and the death not of fighting men, William, but of thousands of innocents. Women and children. It has happened here before. It can happen again. Is that what we want?”
“No, Father.” So far, William was a little disappointed, for he had heard such things before.
“Fortunately,” his father continued, “our information is better than they think. All over Ireland, good men are keeping watch: gentlemen, honest tradesmen, even the poorer sort—men with good hearts. We know much of what is being done, and how, often as not I dare say, simple people are being led astray. And we also know, William, that there is a group of men connected with the university who are eager to entrap any young men they can. They mean to recruit amongst the undergraduates. They will approach with a friendly face, but in the end, their object is to make use of the unfortunate young men and finally to destroy them.”
“I’ll be careful, Father.”
“You, of course, would never be taken in by them. But others might. So I want you to be more than careful, William. I want you to be vigilant. If you see anything that you think suspicious—and you never know what may be of significance—I want you to say nothing. But you should quietly tell me. I shall know how to make the right enquiries. Just by doing that, you may perform a great service for your country.” He paused, looked at William earnestly, then put his hand again on his shoulder. “It might seem to you that this is not an honourable action. The person concerned might even be a friend. But we owe a higher duty, you and I. And I can promise you, the best service you could do for any friend is to save him from a course of action he would later bitterly regret.”
“I see.” He waited. “Is there more, Father?”
“No, William, I think that is all.” He nodded and then, probably remembering what his father had once said to him, added: “God bless you, my boy.”
Ten minutes later, his younger brother found William sitting on his bed, staring moodily out of the window.
“What is it, William?”
“Father wanted to talk to me.” William continued to stare out of the window.
“Oh. What did he say?”
“He said that while I’m at Trinity, I am to spy on my friends.”
“Oh, William. You would never do such a thing.”
“I’m to be a government informer. It’s my duty, he says.” William was silent for a moment. “That was all he had to say to me, you know. Nothing else.” He turned to his brother. Tears were welling up in his eyes. “That’s all there is, I think. That is the love of my father.”
During the months that followed, William enjoyed the life of the college and attended to his studies. These occupied a good deal of his time because, although the young m
en at Trinity knew how to amuse themselves, the courses at Dublin were often said to be more demanding than those of Oxford and Cambridge.
As for the situation of Trinity, it was unrivalled.
For by now, after St. Petersburg, Dublin was the most splendid Roman capital in northern Europe. The great courtyards and buildings of Trinity itself were magnificent; step out of the main gate onto College Green, and the grandeur of the Parliament building greeted you immediately opposite. Past that, Dame Street led past the theatre towards the Castle and the Royal Exchange, another fine, classical structure. Stroll a few yards to the banks of the Liffey, and there, just across the stream, stretched the imposing façade of the completed Custom House. Look upstream, and your eye would rest upon the rotunda and dome of the Four Courts. And all around, on both sides of the water, the wide streets and squares of Georgian Dublin spread, in their gracious assemblage, beside the harbour and under the timeless gaze of the Wicklow Mountains.
Professors and politicians, government officials and lawyers, clergymen, merchants, actors, fashionable gentlemen and ladies, they all converged on the area round College Green, and the Trinity College men were in the centre of it all. There was no better place to attend university in the world.
From time to time he would catch sight of his father coming from the Parliament. Two or three times, his grandmother Georgiana came to see him. She would walk round the college with him. If they encountered any of his professors or acquaintances, she would ask him to introduce them; and it was obvious that her reputation preceded her, for even those of his fellows who usually avoided him seemed to smile when they saw the rich and kindly old Lady Mountwalsh.
Unfortunately, there were quite a lot of people who avoided him.
Not all the undergraduates had clear political opinions—about half of them, he guessed. He wasn’t sure he had himself. But the two most fashionable camps were those who supported the French Revolution and its ideals, and those who opposed it. These were the great questions argued over at the Historical Society, as the university’s debating club was known, where arguments were passionate and, this being Ireland, eloquence was prized. It had become the fashion for those who most passionately espoused the revolutionary cause to follow the example of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and crop their hair short. “Croppies,” their conservative opponents contemptuously called them. With most of the students, however, their affiliation was not so obvious.
But as the weeks went by, he began to realise that there was an easy way of telling where someone’s sympathies lay: if they were revolutionaries, they avoided him. In the end, he decided to ask Robert Emmet about it.
Despite the embarrassing incident at his grandparents’ house, Emmet had been very kind, sought him out when he first arrived, and shown him around. Every week or two he’d have William round to his rooms, and he’d introduced him to a few pleasant fellows. When they were alone, he’d always talk to William in a very easy way, and even share personal confidences. “I’m still foolishly shy sometimes,” he might confess; or, smiling ruefully at his hands: “Why do I bite my fingernails?” William noticed, however, that he always kept these confidences to trivial things. If ever William introduced any subject that might lead to a philosophical or political discussion, Emmet would deflect him with some light remark and turn the conversation to another topic. Nonetheless, towards the end of November, he did manage to pin him down on this question, when he asked him bluntly: “Emmet, why do so many people avoid me?”
“Well,” Emmet had responded after a pause, “why do you think it is?”
“I suppose they think that, because Lord Mountwalsh is my father, I must share his political views.”
“And do you share your father’s views?”
“I don’t know,” William answered honestly.
Emmet regarded him curiously.
“You’re telling the truth, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to know what they really think? They think you’re a spy. Anything they say to you will go back to your father, and from him, straight to the Castle and the Troika.”
William blushed and looked down.
“I see.” He sighed. “And do you think that of me? Do you imagine I would do anything so low?”
“I don’t know. You can’t blame us,” he added.
“No.” He nodded sadly. He couldn’t. “I’d rather die than be a spy,” he burst out miserably. “What shall I do?”
“Nothing,” his friend sensibly replied. “If you try to prove you aren’t a spy, that will only make people more suspicious. You’ll just have to be patient.”
And so William went about his business as quietly as he could; and then the Christmas season came, and he spent some time at home. He still didn’t know what he thought about the great political questions, and he wasn’t intending to think about them over Christmas when, two days before the day itself, his father came hurrying back to the house.
“It’s beginning,” he cried. “I knew it would. The French have arrived. In Cork. The French fleet’s been seen in Bantry Bay.”
History furnishes many tantalizing moments—turning points when, had it not been for some chance condition, the course of future events might have changed entirely. The arrival, on 22 December 1796, of the French fleet in sight of Bantry Bay, at the south-western tip of Ireland, is one of them.
God knows, the idea that the French might invade Ireland was nothing new. During the course of the eighteenth century, as the British Empire had found itself sometimes the ally but more often the enemy of France, the fear that the French might try to stir up trouble by sending troops to Ireland had come and gone many times. But now it had actually happened.
And the results of Wolfe Tone’s efforts in France had been remarkable. So well had he impressed the Directory who governed the new, revolutionary republic that they had sent not a token contingent but a fleet of forty-three ships, carrying fifteen thousand troops. Equally important, the ships also carried arms—for fortyfive thousand men. And perhaps most important of all, they were under the command of a general, named Hoche, who was the rival of the republic’s rising star, Napoleon Bonaparte. If he could take Ireland, Hoche might eclipse the upstart Bonaparte entirely.
But the fates, that winter, with or without reason, had decided to deny the French general his chance of immortality. As the fleet made its way into the northern seas, it encountered veils of mist which soon enveloped it; the mist grew ever thicker, until half the fleet lost its way. Those who continued towards Ireland were met with gales, and by the time they came within sight of Bantry Bay, it was impossible to land. Day after day, Wolfe Tone gazed through the spray at the distant Irish hills, rolling and dipping tantalizingly upon the horizon. He even persuaded the captain of his vessel to make a run towards land, but the others would not follow him, and at last, on the fifth day, the fleet sailed away. Had the weather been better, and had so large a force landed, they might have been successful. But as it was, the forces of nature had preserved the Protestant Ascendancy that Christmas season, and the men in Dublin Castle were not slow to claim that they saw in this the hand of God.
The French invasion had failed. Yet when the news of Bantry Bay reached Rathconan, Conall was not downhearted. Quite the reverse: he felt a sense of elation.
“I never thought they’d come,” he confessed to Deirdre. And late in January, when he paid a visit to Patrick in Dublin, he learned that he was not alone.
“They have come once. They will surely come again,” Patrick told him. “The effect upon people is remarkable. Now that they see there is hope, men in every county are coming forward. By summer, we shall have an army of men right across Ireland, ready to rise. The only difficulty,” he added, “is how to arm them.”
Though the legislation of ’93 had taken away the absolute ban, Catholics had been forbidden to own arms for a century; muskets and pistols were hard to come by.
“We’ll do our best,” Conall had promised him.
And on his return to Rathconan, he had received help from a rather unexpected quarter.
For when he had mentioned this problem to Finn O’Byrne, the shaggy-haired little fellow had nodded eagerly, and a few days later had appeared at the door of Conall’s cottage proudly bearing a bundle wrapped in a blanket.
It was a remarkable collection: an old ploughshare, two scythes, an axe head, even an old metal breastplate.
“What do you want to do with them, Finn?” Conall asked.
“Find a good blacksmith. Melt them. Make them into pikes. You’re a carpenter. You could make the shafts.”
“That’s true.”
“There’ll be more,” Finn promised. And hardly a week went by without the fellow turning up with some piece of scrap metal he’d scavenged from the area. It was extraordinary what he could find. Sometimes these items could be used, sometimes not; but every month, when Conall made his run down to Wicklow, he would take the scrap metal with his furniture and deliver it to a blacksmith in the town. By the summer, there were thirty pikes secreted in half a dozen hiding places around Rathconan.
But if the threat from France had brought a new hope to the United Irishmen and their friends, it also had two other effects.
Wolfe Tone and his friends might be happy to cooperate with the Catholics for the sake of a new and tolerant state, but there were still many Ulster Presbyterians of the old school who were outraged by such a collusion with papists—who, after all, were still agents of the Antichrist. To combat this growth of papist influence, they had recently begun to form their own secret associations, which, in memory of good King Billie, they called Orange lodges. With the growing threat of invasion, these lodges were spreading even beyond the enclaves of Ulster.
Of more concern to Conall, however, was the other development. For this was local. Though their British troops and Irish militia drilled in the garrison towns like Wicklow and Wexford, the Troika wanted something more. And so a third force had been set up.