Chapter Twenty Six
All Things Now Considered
Since 1820 the records of all domestic and estate staff in service at Downton Abbey had resided in a series of leather bound ledgers which reposed on the top shelf behind Mr. Carson's desk in the butler's pantry. If Mr. Carson ever had the inclination, or indeed the time, to take down from off that shelf the ledger for the year 1878, kept and written in beautiful copperplate script by Mr. William Edley his predecessor as butler, Mr. Carson would undoubtedly have been astonished to find that young Tom Branson former chauffeur to the Crawleys, now the rising star of the Irish Independent, and shortly to be His Lordship's son-in-law, was not the first Irishman to be in service with the earls of Grantham.
That honour, if indeed it could be so described, fell to a certain Gerald Donnelly from County Limerick, to be more precise from near Castleconnell, whose own father Tadgh had been a tenant farmer of the Stathums of Mountgrace House. In the autumn of 1878, on the death of his father, surrendering his position as under keeper on the Downton Abbey estate, shaking the dust of England firmly from off his boots, Gerald Donnelly returned home to Ireland to wed his childhood sweetheart Maria McNamara, and, taking on the farming tenancy previously held by his late father, settled on the Mountgrace Estate. Thereafter, and for the rest of his life, Gerald devoted himself in equal good measure to Maria, to the land, and to the bottle. The result of his devotion to the land was somewhat mixed owing to his devotion to the bottle, but the earnest devotions he paid to Maria in due course presented them both with a large family of some eight children, the youngest of whom was Jeremiah, known to the family as Jerry.
Born in 1895, in search of employment, in 1911, then aged 16, young Jerry made his way to Dublin, and much like Tom Branson, Jerry Donnelly found himself living on the streets and also on his wits. Like Tom Branson, Jerry Donnelly was a good looking lad, but unlike Tom, Jerry was definitely not a ladies' man. Not surprisingly, Jerry soon found that he could put both his youth and good looks to practical use by being of service, principally, but not exclusively, to those so inclined members of the large Dublin garrison of the British army who wished to avail themselves and pay handsomely for the privilege of doing so, for what it was young Jerry had to offer. Eventually settled in lodgings off Talbot Street, in the heart of the Monto, Dublin's notorious red light district, young Jerry Donnelly soon had an extensive, but very select, clientele which, in a very short space of time, began to provide him with the ample means with which he was able to indulge his newly acquired taste for many of life's little luxuries.
With the outbreak of war in August 1914, like many other Irishmen, Jerry Donnelly found himself seduced, albeit in completely a different way to that which he was used to hitherto, this time by the rhetoric of the Irish politician John Redmond who claimed that those seeking Irish independence could best achieve that aim by helping to ensure "the speedy and overwhelming victory of England and the Allies". Although there was then no conscription in Ireland, and no requirement for him to do so, with his extensive experience of most things military, it seemed only natural that Jerry Donnelly enlist in the 16th Irish Division and do his bit for King and Country. This young Jerry duly did, was sent over to France, and there gained extensive experience, especially in and around Messines, in yet more matters military, but this time of an entirely different kind: the use of all manner of explosives.
As things were eventually to turn out, Jerry Donnelly might have been interested in learning that in going overseas and being trained in the use of explosives, he was following in the footsteps of someone he would undoubtedly have much admired. The individual in question was a certain Guy Fawkes who, as a soldier of fortune in the Low Countries in the late sixteenth century, had proceeded to put his experience gained with explosives to good effect when he made a spectacular, albeit ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to blow up the English parliament in the notorious Gunpowder Plot in 1605.
Discharged from the army at the end of 1918, a world weary Sergeant Jerry Donnelly returned home to Dublin. But, since the failure of the Easter Rising, the Dublin to which he returned now looked askance at those who had served with the forces of the British Crown in the Great War, many of whom found themselves ostracised and unwelcome.
Through a chance meeting, ex-Sergeant Donnelly, late of the 16th Irish Division, found his way to Phil Shanahan's public-house in the Monto, a well-known meeting place for those seeking the creation of a new and independent Ireland, to be achieved by whatever means were deemed necessary to make the dream a reality. Desperate to play a part in Ireland's new bid for freedom, in an attempt to re-integrate himself into the community, to make new friends, with his unrivalled knowledge of the use of explosives, Donnelly soon found himself welcomed into the ranks of the nascent Irish Republican Army which had established several safe houses for members of its Flying Columns seeking a bolt hole in Dublin here in the very heart of the same area.
Donnelly approached his military targets here in Ireland, just as he had approached similar objectives on the Western Front over in France. Part of his preparations involved, insofar as was at all possible, a thorough reconnoitring of the intended target. This he did calmly, methodically, objectively, and with complete and utter indifference as to what would befall anyone unlucky enough to be in the vicinity when his carefully placed explosive charges were duly detonated. As far as Donnelly was concerned the attack planned on officers of the Dublin Metropolitan Police in the vicinity of the Shelbourne Hotel was simply another such enterprise.
Founded in 1824, the luxurious Shelbourne Hotel, on the north side of St. Stephen's Green was the haunt of both the upper echelons of the British administration and the wealthiest members of Dublin society. Unbeknown to its guests, which was hardly surprising, beneath the magnificent building, there lay a veritable warren of cellars and store rooms, the existence of which would have remained equally unknown and inaccessible to Donnelly too had not another fortuitous chance meeting revealed their existence to him. And that meeting took the form of Donnelly, while walking down Amiens Street, running into a former client Francis (known to his friends as Frank) Brennan once a corporal with the Royal Irish Fusiliers, rather down on his luck, and now employed in a menial capacity, and detesting it, as a lowly porter at the Shelbourne Hotel.
It was after a particularly convivial evening, where one thing led to another, spent in part at the Volta Picture Theatre on Mary Street watching Charlie Chaplin in both "Shoulder Arms" and "A Dog's Life" followed by lengthy sojourns in a couple of bars, before finally ending up in Donnelly's bed in his old flat that Jerry now learned from Frank of those rooms beneath the Shelbourne Hotel and the existence too of an old, abandoned culvert which ran part way out under the street at the front of the building. Thereafter, all things now considered, there began to form in Donnelly's fertile mind the kernel of an idea as to just how he might be able to realise his latest objective...