The Drumshee Rebels
Chapter One
Tuesday 28 June 1921
That was the day when Michael Collins came to Drumshee, the little farm on
top of a hill near the west coast of Ireland.
It was the first time Bridget had seen him, although she had often heard her
father speak of him. He looked like an ordinary sort of man, and it seemed, at
first, an ordinary sort of visit. There was nothing to warn her that a terrible
time of danger and terror was about to begin for her family at Drumshee.
All Bridget saw was a tall man, even taller than her father, who had arrived
before she got up, and was sitting eating his breakfast with her father when she
came down the ladder from her little bedroom in the loft of the cottage. Both
men were named Michael, but Bridget’s father, Mike McMahon, had blazing red
hair, and Michael Collins had black hair. After breakfast they strolled around
the farm together talking earnestly and every time Bridget came near them she
was shooed away. Michael Collins was still there when she came back from; the
two of them were still talking low tones.
As the day went Bridget began to get more and more annoyed. She was the only
child in the family, and she was used to visitors taking a lot of notice of her.
By the end of the day, she was in a blazing temper. And to top all off, she was
sent to bed early; and that really annoyed her – on such a lovely June
evening, too!
Peeping out of her little window in the west gable of the house, she saw her
mother come out of the door and climb, with difficulty, up the steep slop
towards the cathair, the ancient fort behind the cottage. That meant she was
going across the fields to see Mrs Arkins, their nearest neighbour. Mam must
have been sent out, too, thought Bridget. It must be a really important secret
that Da has with Michael Collins.
Maggie McMahon had a sour, disapproving look on her face. That must mean that
she didn’t like this Michael Collins. Mind you, thought Bridget, she’s a bit
like this all the time now. Having a baby seems to be having an awful effect on
her.
Bridge went back to bed and lay very still, trying hard to hear what her
father and his visitor were saying. Se had heard many a secret this while her
father and mother were talking downstairs, but tonight she could only hear the
steady murmur of a voice. Michael Collins seemed to be doing all the talking. He
had an odd way of talking, too, which Bridge found harder to understand. He came
from Cork, her father had told her. That was why he sounded different.
From time to time, Mike McMahon put in a few word and one of these words made
Bridget prick up her ears.
‘Danger,’ he said, and the word was clear and distinct; but then he
dropped his voice again.
Bridget felt eaten up by curiosity. She had to know what they were talking
about. Very quietly, she got out of bed and crept across the floor, carefully
avoiding the creaky board in the middle until she reached the chimney-stack.
There had once been a little secret room there, just beside the chimney,
completely hidden behind a stone wall. It had been discovered when Bridget was a
baby. Some stones had fallen when a great wind had shaken the chimney. Now you
could go into the little room; it was just big enough for one person, and it was
a lovely little place, warm and cosy. Bridge had discovered that it was a great
place to listen to people talking by the fire in the kitchen downs.
‘Now she could hear them – her father’s soft County Clare accent and
the singsong Cork voice of Michael Collins.
‘You see, Mike, if this list of names is found, it will mean jail or worse
for these people,’ Michael Collins was saying. ‘I have to write down the
names and how much each man has given to the IRA, so that accounts can be kept
but this list is dynamite. I used to keep all the list under the floorboards of
my bedroom but then I had a tip-off that my house in Dublin would be raided. So
now I’m giving the list for each county to a man I can trust. Do you know any
man around here.’
‘You can trust me,’ said Mike McMahon steadily.
I know that, Mike. But this is a dangerous job. I’m looking for a single
man, a man without family responsibilities.’
‘I’ll do it,’ insisted Mike. ‘I can be sure of myself. I couldn’t
say as much for anyone else.’
‘Well. You’d be my choice above any other man,’ admitted Michael
Collins.
‘That’s settled, then,’ said Mike firmly.
Bridget was thrilled. Her father had told her so much about the great Michael
Collins and how he was one of the top men organising the struggle against
Britain – and now this man was entrusting something very important to her
father!
How did he know that his house was going to be raided? She wondered. Even as
she thought of the question, she heard her father say ‘How did you know that
you were going to be raided, Mick? Did they send you a letter from Dublin Castle
to tell you?’
Michael Collins laughed. ‘Nearly as good,’ he said. ‘You won’t
believe it, but my own cousin, Nancy O’Brien, is working as a confidential
clerk in Dublin Castle. She has the handling of all the secret coded messages.
The poor girl spends most of dinner hour locked in the toilet, making copies of
the messages. She hides them in her corset and her knickers, and then delivers
them to me after work.’
‘And no one knows that she’s your cousin?’
‘Not a sinner! Sure, I don’t know how these people won an empire!’
Bridget was glowing with excitement. What a brave girl, she thought. I wish I
could do something like that She imagined herself making copies of the coded
messages and then walking past all the guards at Dublin Castle to deliver the
messages to Michael Collins…
She was so deep in her thoughts that she missed the next thing her father
said, but her attention snapped back to reality when Michael Collins spoke.
‘I don’t want to put you in an danger, though.’
There was that word again: danger. This was no game.
‘You’re a married man with a family,’ went on Michael Collins. ‘Have
you got a safe place to hold the list?’ Somewhere no one knows about?’
‘I have,’ said Mike McMahon. He hesitated, and Michael Collins
interrupted him.
‘Don’t tell me where. It’s best if I don’t know too much. I know you’re
a man to be trusted; if you say you have a safe place, that’s good enough for
me.’
Bridget was disappointed. She wanted to know where the list was going to be
kept.
‘I’ll leave as soon as it’s completely dark,’ said Michael Collins.
‘No one saw me come and no one will see me go. It’s dangerous to have
anything to do with me. In April, the Black and Tans burned down my brother’s
farm and threw him in jail, and his eight children were thrown out on the road
on a cold night. And it was not long after their mother’s death, the poor
things.’
Bridget shivered, despite the cosy warmth of the little room. She wondered
what had happened to those eight children. Perhaps the neighbours had taken them
in. She could hear her father put more turf on the fire, almost as if he, too,
felt cold.
‘How have things been with you, down here?’ asked Michael Collins, after
a short pause.
‘Did you hear about Jamesy Ryan?’ Mike McMahon asked. ‘Jamesy Rynne of
Ennistymon.’
There was a silence. Then Michael Collins said ‘No,’ and his voice was
flat, almost as if he did not want to know, Bridget thought.
‘The Black and Tans killed him,’ said Mike. After a moment, he went, ‘They
poured boiling pitch over him and set him on fire. Then they pushed him into his
house and set fire to the house.
There was a long silence from downstairs.
Bridget felt sick. How could anyone do a thing like that? Suddenly she didn’t
want to hear any more. She was about to crawl back to her bed when the
thunderous crack of a poker on the hollow flagstone in front of the fire made
her jump.
‘By God,’ swore Michael Collins, ‘they’ll pay for that! He was a good
man, and with a young family, too. He had a daughter about the same age as
yours. Looked a bit like your girl, too – the same red hair and freckles…’
How would I feel if that had been my father?’ thought Bridget, feeling an
icy sweat start out on her forehead. Michael Collins was saying something about
the West Clare railway and something about a man called Curtin who was a spy,
but Bridget didn’t want to hear any more. She got into bed, pulled the
bedclothes over her head and stuck her fingers in her ears. I’m not going to
think about that ever again, she thought drowsily, as she began to doze off. I’ll
never remember it again. I hope that Michael Collins is gone before I wake up
and that we never seen him again.
Bridget drifted off to sleep. She only woke when she heard the click of the
latch of the half-door being raised. She heard the two voices again – just a
murmur – and then her father’s voice, suddenly quite clear. ‘Don’t
worry. I’ll go and hide it this very minute. I’ve got my tinder box and a
candle with me. I’ll walk to the gate with you, and then I’ll come back and
put it away safely.’
Bridget smiled to herself. She thought she knew where her father was going to
hide the list.
He should have given it to me to hide, she thought. She knew of an even
better, even safer place – a secret place that no one in the world, except
herself, would ever know about.
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