“Died?”
“No. Taken a ship and sailed away. O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, has gone with him, and others besides. The earls have flown, Cousin Walsh, they’ve turned their backs upon Ireland, and they won’t return.”
Walsh stared. For a moment or two, he didn’t speak. Then he shook his head in amazement and asked a single question.
“Why?”
The Earl of Tyrone. Orlando had never seen him, of course, but he had been there, a tall, dark figure in his imagination, heroic, almost godlike, the last great prince of ancient Ireland, heir to the O’Neill High Kings, dwelling up in Ulster. Orlando had an idea that Tyrone might still return and drive the English officials out of Dublin one day; then no doubt he’d resume the kingship of his ancestors at royal Tara. And Old English though he was, Orlando had found this vision of an ancient Irish ascendancy more exciting than frightening. As for O’Donnell, he was the greatest Irish prince in Donegal. The north and north-west, the remains of the ancient tribal lands; Tyrone and Tyrconnell, last of the ruling princes of Ireland: fled.
“Why?” Doyle shrugged. “The word in Dublin is that O’Donnell’s been plotting with the King of Spain, just as Tyrone did before, and he discovered that the government had got wind of it. So he ran while he could.”
“But Tyrone? The man was well set. They left him a free land in his own territory. He had no good reason to flee.”
“I would agree. But he saw it otherwise. The English officials are starting to buzz around Ulster. And no one will believe he wasn’t involved somehow with O’Donnell and the King of Spain.” He sighed. “Besides, an Irish prince like that is not bred for times like these. He’ll never be a royal servant.”
“To be Earl of Tyrone is hardly to be a servant.”
“But to him it is. The Irish are free, Martin. They have their clans, their ancient tribes, their hereditary family positions, but their spirits are free. As for their princes, they answer to themselves. Tyrone will never do the bidding of some puffed-up little English official with nothing but his temporary office behind him—and whom Tyrone regards as a heretic anyway. It’s not in the man’s nature.”
“So he’s flown.”
“Like a bird. Like an eagle, I should say.”
“What will he do?”
“Wander Europe. Find a Catholic prince he may serve without dishonour to his name or his religion. Command his armies. Remember, he knows those Catholic kings and their armies already. They will honour him.”
“That is true.” Walsh nodded and sighed. “You’ll eat with us, and drink with me tonight?”
Doyle smiled.
“It was my intention.”
They ate early in the evening in the house’s spacious hall, and Orlando was able to observe the two men as they talked—his father, with his quiet, stately manner, and Doyle, dark, somewhat shorter, more intense. Through the meal, the talk was naturally about the politics of Tyrone’s departure and what it would mean.
“Undoubtedly the government will confiscate all the earl’s land,” Walsh remarked. “The legal means can be found to do it.”
“I suspect they will end by making a plantation up there. All the men who want land on easy terms will be rejoicing tonight,” Doyle said. But the thought did not seem to give him much pleasure personally.
When the meal was ended, the two men continued to sit at the table, drinking quietly together; and though Orlando knew that his participation was not required, he was able to sit quietly at the end of the hall by the big open fireplace, where the two men seemed to forget his presence. For even if they said little, or he failed to understand what they said, he wanted nonetheless to be in the company of his father and his cousin upon such an important occasion. He observed them both closely, therefore. And, young though he was, he sensed their mood and imbibed it, and for the rest of his life it would become a part of him.
This much was certain: for both these men, the evening was full of melancholy and a sense of loss. Doyle, descendant of Vikings and generations of Dublin merchants, a Protestant in name—or Church of Ireland, anyway—and Walsh, his cousin, a Catholic gentleman whose family had been a mainstay of the Old English gentry in Ireland for nearly five hundred years; two men at the heart of the English Pale, yet two Irishmen, too: for both of them, the departure of Tyrone and Tyrconnell was a personal blow. They clearly felt emotionally closer to the native Irish prince than to any Englishman sent out from London.
“The Flight of the Earls,” Doyle mused. “It’s the end of an age.”
“May God bring them better fortune.” Walsh raised his wine goblet.
“I’ll drink to that,” said Doyle.
And young Orlando, silently watching, understood that, in ways not yet clear, the world in which he lived had just changed forever.
It was the following morning, after Doyle’s departure, that his father called Orlando. “You’re coming with me,” he told him; and when Orlando asked where they were going: “Portmarnock.”
The little seaside hamlet of Portmarnock lay by the road strand of sand dune and beach that stretched southwards for several miles along the edge of the ancient Plain of Bird Flocks. Orlando supposed he would be required to saddle up his pony, but his father told him: “No, we shall walk.”
There was a light breeze. Clouds drifted across the sky, which changed accordingly from blue to grey. Orlando contentedly went along, side by side with his father, speaking a little from time to time, eastwards towards Portmarnock. As they left their own land, they passed the little deserted chapel where he had waited for Patrick Smith. “It’s shameful that our own government forbids us to use it,” his father remarked.
As they walked, evidence of the Old English medieval occupation was all around: fields of wheat and barley; high, dark hedgerows; stone walls; here and there a stone church or a small fortified house. But soon they came to a somewhat less tidy terrain where the cattle grazed—the open seaward sweep down towards the coastline, which still possessed the echoing bareness of the days long ago when Doyle’s ancestor, Harold the Viking, and others like him had laid out their Nordic farmsteads on the plain of Fingal.
Their destination, however, which they reached in less than an hour, was older by far than any of these. It stood alone, just apart from the hamlet of fishermen’s cabins.
“Your brother does not approve of this place,” Walsh remarked with a small grimace, “or of my coming here.” It was the first time Orlando had ever heard his father say anything that hinted at the friction between himself and Lawrence. “But I come here by myself from time to time.”
It was nothing much to look at. Orlando had often passed within a quarter mile of it on his way to the beach. An old well, surrounded by a little stone wall. At some time a conical stone roof had been built over it, though this had now fallen into disrepair. The well was quite deep, but leaning over the parapet, Orlando could see the faint, soft gleam of the water far below. The well at his own house was nearly as deep but had never seemed especially interesting; this well, however, was different. He didn’t know why—perhaps the relative isolation of that lonely place—but there was something strange and mysterious about that water down below. What was it? Was it a glimmering entrance to another world?
“The well is sacred to Saint Marnock,” his father’s voice spoke quietly behind him. “Your brother Lawrence says it was a pagan well long ago. Before Saint Patrick came, no doubt. He says such things are superstition, unworthy of the faith.” He sighed. “He may be right. But I like the old ways, Orlando. I come here like the simple folk to pray to Saint Marnock when I am troubled.”
Saint Marnock: one of scores of local saints, their identities half forgotten except in their own localities, but often as not with a saint’s day, and a well or sacred place where they might be remembered. “I like the old ways, too,” said Orlando. He was sure he did, because it made him feel close to his father.
“Then you can say a prayer for your sister, and ask the saint t
o give her guidance.” And moving round to the other side of the well, Walsh himself went down on his knees and fell into his own silent prayers for a short while. Orlando, having knelt also, did not like to get up until his father did; but once Walsh had done so, Orlando went round to his side, where, to his surprise, his father put his arm around his shoulders.
“Orlando,” he said gently, “will you promise me something?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Promise me that you will marry one day, and have children— that you will give me grandchildren.”
“Yes, Father, I promise. If it is God’s will.”
“Let us hope that it is, my son.” He paused. “Swear it to me, here by this well, upon Saint Marnock.”
“I swear, Father. Upon Saint Marnock.”
“Good.” Martin Walsh nodded quietly to himself, then, glancing down at his son, gave him the sweetest smile. “It is good that you have sworn. I should like you always to remember this day, when your father took you to the Holy Well of Saint Marnock. Will you remember this day, Orlando?”
“Yes, Father.”
“All your life. Come.” And, still with his arm round his son, Walsh led him along the path through the dunes and out onto the broad, sandy beach. It was low tide and the beach extended far out into the sea, which was glittering softly in the sun.
To their right, the strand stretched away in a pale swath towards the Ben of Howth, whose hump rose high out of the waters. In front of it, the little island of Ireland’s Eye rested like a ship at anchor. Far away in the other direction, hazily visible in the northern horizon, the blue Mountains of Morne, guardians of Ulster, seemed asleep.
Orlando glanced up at his father. Martin Walsh was staring out to sea, apparently lost in thought. Orlando looked down at the litter of broken seashells at his feet. A cloud gently cut out the sun, and the sparkle left the sea.
“The end of an age, Orlando.” His father’s voice was no more than a murmur. Then he felt his father’s hand gently squeeze his shoulder. “Remember your promise.”
It was a wet, wintry day in Bordeaux, early the following year, when Anne Walsh received the letter from her father.
My dearest Daughter,
You must prepare yourself, for I have news of great sadness to impart. Two weeks ago, Patrick Smith embarked from the port of Cork on a merchant ship, on which he had arrived the week before. The morning they left, the weather was calm. But that same day, towards evening, a great storm arose, and having swept the ship back towards the Irish coast, overwhelmed it and dashed it against the rocks. In this wreck, it is my grief to tell you, all that were aboard were lost.
I know, my dearest Anne, how sorrowful these tidings must be to you, and can do no more than mourn with you and tell you that you are never out of my thoughts.
Your loving Father.
It was over, then. Her love had departed and was lost forever, without hope of recall. She burst into tears and wept, without ceasing, for over an hour.
After the first spasm of grief, however, came rage. Not at her father—he had not done this—but at Lawrence. It was he, she thought bitterly—Lawrence with his interference and his conniving, self-righteous Lawrence with his sneaking ways—who had killed Patrick. Had it not been for Lawrence, he’d never have gone away, never have been in Cork, not have been drowned. And leaving off her tears, in a paroxysm of hurt and fury, she cursed her brother and wished him dead in Patrick’s place.
Then she gazed out, as the rain outside pattered and ran down the windowpanes, pointlessly, and stared at the greyness, and felt a great desolation. She scarcely cared what happened to her now.
1614
Tadhg O’Byrne was ahead of them all. He knew because he had been watching. “There’s been drinking at this wake,” he told his wife, “But I’m ahead of them. I am at the front. I have such a head on me—like a rock.”
“You have,” she said. “So.”
“I am a mountain,” he proclaimed, although in stature, and in strength of body, he was somewhat less than most other men.
Tadhg, or Tadc as it was often written: a common name. The English often made it Teague, although it was usually pronounced like the first syllable of Tiger. “There have been some great Tadhg O’Byrnes,” he would say, “powerful chiefs.” And indeed there had. The problem for Tadhg was that he himself was not. And, in his eyes at least, he should have been.
And not Brian O’Byrne.
Sixty years had passed since Sean O’Byrne of Rathconan had died and been succeeded by his son Seamus. When it had come to choosing a successor to Seamus, however, his eldest son, by the universal agreement of his own family and every significant person in the area, was deemed worthless. The choice of the clan had fallen upon the third of Seamus’s four sons, a splendid fellow, who under Irish law and custom had therefore come into Rathconan and the somewhat shadowy chieftainship which it represented. Brian O’Byrne was the grandson of the splendid fellow. Tadhg O’Byrne was the grandson of the worthless one.
The wake was for Brian’s father. People had come from all over that part of Wicklow and beyond: O’Tooles and O’Mores, MacMurroughs and O’Kellys. And, of course, O’Byrnes: O’Byrnes of the Downes, O’Byrnes of Kiltimon, O’Byrnes of Ballinacor and of Knockrath; O’Byrnes from all over the Wicklow Mountains. All had come to pay their last respects to Toirdhealbhach O’Byrne of Rathconan and to welcome his handsome young son Brian into his inheritance. And scarcely one of them had taken the least notice of Tadhg O’Byrne, who was, by universal acknowledgement, of no account.
“Look at that.” Tadhg was staring so bitterly at young Brian O’Byrne that he didn’t even know if his wife was still listening. He didn’t care anyway. “There’s a boy,” he sneered, “that sleeps in a feather bed.”
If Brian O’Byrne was twenty years old, a good height, fair-haired and handsome, Tadhg was even prouder of his own appearance. He was thirty-four now. His hair was dark and fell in thick ringlets to below his shoulders in the traditional Irish manner. For the occasion, he had changed his usual saffron-coloured linen shirt for a white one, belted at the waist; and he wore a light woollen mantle over his shoulders. Many of the other men wore dark jackets, out of respect for the occasion, but Tadhg would never bother with a jacket. Most of the men wore trews or woollen stockings, but as the day was warm, he had left his legs bare. His feet were stuffed into heavy brogues. He might have been a shepherd or a workman.
And there was his young cousin, the young chief, heir to Rathconan, which should have been his: young Brian with his fair hair cut short, his black embroidered doublet and breeches, his silken stockings and his fine leather shoes. He even wore a golden ring. All of which caused his kinsman Tadhg to spit and mutter:
“Englishman,” and “Traitor.”
This was somewhat inaccurate. The clothes, as such, would have been worn by a gentleman in many parts of Europe, including every native Irishman’s hope, the most Catholic kingdom of Spain. And several of the richer and more important Irish gentlemen at the wake were similarly dressed. Whether they usually dressed this way out of a general sense of what was fashionable in England, France, or Spain, or whether to make themselves more acceptable to the English administrators in Dublin would have been hard to say. Certainly, the English administrators themselves would not have assumed that the adoption of English manners was any guarantee of friendliness towards the English crown. “Several of those infernal Irish rebels in the time of Queen Elizabeth had even been to Oxford!” they remembered with disgust. But such subtleties were lost upon Tadhg. “Englishman,” he hissed. And in his heart was only a single thought: one day I’ll pull him down.
It was a notable gathering. Young Brian felt a justifiable pride—not just that so many great men had come from far and wide to pay their last respects to his father, but that they had come with such obvious affection; and he, in turn, felt full of love for them all.
Above all, he loved Rathconan. It was always the same, unaltered since the d
ays of his great-grandfather Sean, a century ago: a modest fortified house with a square stone tower, not in the best of repair, that looked down from the slopes of the Wicklow Mountains towards the distant blue haze of the sea. The untidy cluster of farm buildings nearby was the same; so was the little chapel where, in Sean O’Byrne’s day, Father Donal had celebrated Mass. Even the descendants of Father Donal were still there. One was a priest himself, though unlike Father Donal, he had no wife and children, for few priests lived in that old Irish way now. His brother, on the other hand, a scholar and a poet, hired himself out very successfully as a teacher to families in the area, which profession allowed him to keep body and soul together—and also to father children whose number was not precisely known. Priest and scholar, cattlemen and shepherds, Rathconan families and their neighbours, this was the little world that Brian O’Byrne, educated by the priest and his brother, clothed by a Dublin tailor, and guided by a wise and loving father, had come to inherit and to take pride in.
He was proud of being an O’Byrne, too. Though, with the O’Tooles, they were the most famous of the old Wicklow Mountain ruling families, you couldn’t exactly point to any of them and say: “There’s an O’Byrne for you.” Some were dark, some fair, some tall, some short. Six hundred years of breeding, even in a single region, will usually provide a variety of types. Nor could you be sure of their political allegiance. Generally, by the end of Queen Elizabeth’s long reign, the O’Byrnes in the northern section of Wicklow, nearer to Dublin, had come to cooperate with the English government, like it or not; though none of them had gone so far as to turn Protestant. Down in the southern mountain passes, however, the powerful O’Byrne chiefs had kept a magnificent independence. When Tyrone struck against the English crown, it was the chief of the southern O’Byrnes who was his most important ally. “It was O’Byrne that was his link to the King of Spain. It was he who made it a great campaign for the Catholic cause,” Brian’s father had told him proudly. “Yet you were not in favour of Tyrone’s actions,” Brian had reminded him. The O’Byrnes of Rathconan, with the northern O’Byrnes, had stayed out of the conflict.