Chapter Nine

Hell Is The Truth Learned Too Late

Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Dublin, Irish Free State, Tuesday evening, 22nd August 1922.

Tom would remember that particular moment until the very end of his life.

In fact, when Sybil had come hurrying down the path towards him, he had been thinking of nothing in particular, occupied as he was in pushing Danny to and fro on the swing he had set up for the little boy beneath the boughs of the apple tree at the far end of the garden. And, intent as he was in steadying Danny on the wooden seat, he did not hear or see Sybil until the very last minute.

"Tom, darling! There's a telephone call for you..."

Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Dublin, Irish Free State, Tuesday morning, 22nd August 1922.

For Tom, this Tuesday had begun prosaically enough, indeed just like any other day of the week, with the early morning sunshine peeping with ever pressing insistence and, at this time of the year, with ever increasing brightness, through the chink between the closed curtains and into their bedroom, followed by the usual round of blissful, pleasing, daily domesticity. Waking pleasurably in their bed with Sybil lying beside him, their customary playful, soft, early morning greetings, followed by a series of languid lengthening kisses, before reluctantly clambering out of bed, drawing back the curtains and then padding downstairs, barefoot, in his vest and pyjama bottoms, to make them both a cup of tea.

Tom was not a morning person; never had been and never would be and it was at moments like this, that he found himself thinking that if there had been a bell pull beside the bed, he might just have been tempted to make use of it. Perhaps, after all, there was something to be said for having servants! As he reached the foot of the stairs here in Idrone Terrace, Tom chuckled softly to himself. He couldn't imagine his dearly loved brother-in-law, Matthew, padding downstairs at Downton Abbey in order to make dearest Mary a cup of tea! Tom chuckled; thought it exceedingly unlikely that Matthew would even be able to find his way down to the kitchen, let alone put water in a kettle and set it to boil. Knowing he was being rather unfair, Tom chuckled again.

In the Bransons' own kitchen, standing by the range, waiting for the enamel kettle to boil, Tom heard a door slam upstairs, followed by the flush of the toilet cistern and then the patter of little footsteps scurrying down the passage, a moment later sounding on the ceiling overhead; all sure signs that young Danny too was awake, had run in to see both his mother and little sister and was, no doubt, at this precise minute, snuggling down under the covers next to Sybil.

A short while later, taking their tea upstairs, he found, as he had expected, Danny snuggled down in the bed beside his Ma and Sybil with Saiorse in her arms. A morning kiss to both of his children and then tea in bed with Sybil, before, and with infinite reluctance, dragging himself out of bed and down the passage into the bathroom, there to wash and shave. In the midst of his ablutions, the brass knob of the bathroom door turned as Danny, dressed identically to Tom, puttered into the room, to sit on the closed toilet seat for his customary morning chat with his Da, man to man.

Then, he was moving slowly about their bedroom, shedding his vest and pyjama bottoms, knowing that Sybil's eyes were upon him as he did so, she who, after some three years of marriage, knew his body as intimately as he did her own, before dressing and for which he needed his ... clothes. Come to think of it, where were his clothes? Perhaps Sybil had hidden them just so as to prevent him going into work. Tom grinned. All the same, he supposed he had better ask her.

"Syb?"
"Hm?"

Where's my..."
"Shirt? Hanging up in the wardrobe, along with your suit".

Tom sighed dejectedly as the delightful prospect of a day spent at home in bed with Sybil fast receded out of sight.

"That's not where I left..."

"No, it isn't but that's where they belong... not on the floor!"

"Oh, right!" Absent minded,Tom yawned and scratched his chest. Stark naked, modesty between them was long since a thing of the past, rubbing his eyes, he moved slowly and unwillingly in the direction of the wardrobe. There he stopped and looked about him, evidently puzzled.

"Undershorts?" he queried.
"In the chest of drawers. Left hand side. Top drawer. That's where they always are. Along with your socks. Just in case you hadn't noticed. Honestly Tom, it would be easier if I dressed you myself!" At that he seemed to perk up; had shot her a sly, suggestive look.

"You can wipe that smile off your face! And, anyway, I said dressed, not undressed!"

A little while later, finally having dressed himself, Tom sat back down disconsolately and heavily on the bed and leaned in towards her, there had followed another series of languid, loving kisses.

"Must...you...go?"

He saw her eyes glisten with tears.

"I...don't... want...to...,love. You...know...I...don't...but...I...must!".

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Mind you, it's all right for some," he whispered taking her hand gently in his. "I mean now that you're a lady of leisure!"
"Leisure? With two small children and this house to look after!" Sybil laughed. Letting go of his hand, she pummelled his chest gently, knowing that he had spoken in jest.

So as to be in time for the half past seven train, which, if it was running to schedule would get him into Dublin's Westland Row station for a little after eight o'clock and thus enable him to be at his desk in Talbot Street by half past the hour, reluctantly, Tom had broken free of the warmth of her embrace. With a fond, lingering, backward glance over his shoulder at his family, he had padded back downstairs in his stockinged feet to begin making himself breakfast. Nothing fancy; a fresh pot of tea, eggs and bacon and a round of toast and marmalade. Whistling merrily, revelling in his singular good fortune, Tom busied himself about the quarry tiled kitchen.

Moments later, upstairs, a floorboard creaked, footsteps sounded on the stairs and shortly thereafter Sybil, with both Danny and Saiorse in tow, joined him in the kitchen. Her offer to cook him breakfast while he minded the children was usually declined; burnt offerings were not his cup of tea. That was, like his earlier thoughts about Matthew, wholly unworthy. Sybil's cooking skills had improved beyond all recognition from what they had once been; although, from time to time, there was still the occasional culinary disaster.

Sybil took Tom's refusal about cooking him his breakfast with her usual good grace. Instead, she sat contentedly at the other end of the table and finished slowly drinking her tea, while Tom cooked his own bacon and eggs, pulled faces at Saiorse, tickled Danny and then kissed his wife soundly, drawing the predictable giggle from his young son.

Sitting at the pitch pine table eating his breakfast, Tom happened to glance up to find three pairs of eyes were upon him; four if he counted the inscrutable yellow orbs of the tabby cat which they had adopted, or rather which had adopted them and which, having sauntered into the kitchen from the garden, was now sitting just inside the back door patiently awaiting the appearance of its own early morning meal.

"Oh no you don't young lady! Remember what happened the last time?" exclaimed Sybil.

For, on seeing the cat appear in the kitchen, Saiorse had scrambled down from off her mother's lap and had made a bee-line straight for the furry animal beside the back door. Clearly the cat had not forgotten his last encounter with Saiorse either as, seeing her heading towards him across the floor of the kitchen, he promptly vaulted lithely up on to the window cill well out of reach and from where the cat proceeded to sit looking disdainfully down upon the small child. Baulked of her prey, Saiorse promptly burst into tears until Sybil swept her up into her arms, sat her daughter back on her knees, hugging the little girl to her whereupon Saiorse's cries slowly subsided.

"There, there, that's better. Puss doesn't like having his tail pulled, remember? We'll feed him later, when Da's gone to work and we've had breakfast".

"I'm sure that cat's got fleas," opined Tom scratching his own shoulder.

"If he had, he wouldn't be given house room and if you have, then neither will you!" retorted Sybil smartly.

"Oh, that's perfect for sure! And just while I'm having breakfast!" Tom grimaced; the cat, having decided that now a wash was in order, had started licking its bottom, the sight of which sent little Danny into a paroxysm of giggles. Tom shook his head and grinned good-naturedly. After all, the cat apart, while at Downton, how often had he dreamed of this, married to Sybil, with a couple of children and a home of their own? And with a job in which he both delighted and at which he excelled. Was there a luckier man in the entire country? He doubted that very much; he became aware of Sybil's eyes upon him.

"Penny for them?"
"Eh? What?"

"You look just like the cat that swallowed the cream!"

"Never you mind for sure!"

He grinned happily at her, then averting his eyes from the cat, he cut into another rasher of bacon, his thoughts now drifting to the major article he was writing on the on-going Civil War. With Ireland having been granted her independence, whatever its flaws - they were, with good will on all sides, capable of eventual and lasting resolution - with the fighting here in Dublin long over and, according to Michael Collins, with whom he had spoken to by telephone the previous day, with the National Army now in control of all the major towns, the city of Cork having fallen a matter of days ago following the landing of troops by sea at Passage West, the Republicans who opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty would surely soon realise that resistance was pointless, lay down their weapons and negotiate a lasting settlement. Of some three months bloody duration, the Civil War would then thankfully be at an end and the business of constructing a fairer society here in Ireland could begin in earnest. With all this in mind, Tom mouthed a silent prayer that all this would now soon come to pass.

"What?" asked Sybil.

"I told you, woman. Never you mind!"

Sybil raised her eyebrows.

"Woman? Don't you "woman" me, Tom Branson!" She laughed and Tom shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Danny, darling, for goodness' sake! Let your Da finish his breakfast!" she exclaimed as Danny, who had wandered out of the kitchen and back upstairs to find his teddy bear, had now returned, not only with his bear but also carrying his father's shoes, brushes and a tin of shoe polish from the cupboard in the hall under the stairs.

Tom smiled.

"Thanks, son".

He smiled and cramming the last piece of toast into his mouth, having sat Danny down on his own chair, swiftly divested the little boy of boots, brushes and polish recalling that the last time his son had tried to be helpful in this regard, it had taken Sybil more than one attempt to get Danny's hands clean; more polish having found its way onto Danny himself than onto his father's shoes.

Thereafter, having polished his own shoes and put them on, taking the precaution too of tying his own laces - the last time Danny attempted to help he had tied them both together - having slipped on his jacket, Tom stood and waited in the tiled hallway, while Sybil straightened his tie and which, Tom often left slightly awry just for the simple pleasure of having her adjust it.

"There!" She ran her fingers along the entire width of both his shoulders, admiring their breadth; stood back and beamed at him.

"Will I do?" he asked.

"To be sure!" She laughed. "The handsomest man in all of Dublin!"

At that he kissed her soundly, said his goodbyes to the children and then reached for his trilby hanging by the door.

"Love, assuming nothing comes up, I'll be back here for six".

At that, Sybil lofted a surprised brow. After all, she had heard him make that promise to her many times before; only then to break it. Nonetheless, as Tom opened the door, she had, as was her custom, stood with the children on the step to watch him go as he sent off at a jaunty pace bound for the station but a short distance away on the other side of the road.

However, that day, nothing of particular note did arise, Tom was as good as his word and he arrived back home on the five thirty train from Dublin. It was hot in town and with the narrow, musty-smelling compartments of the wooden carriages packed with passengers, he had been very glad to reach Blackrock. Nonetheless, that evening, as Tom stepped down from the crowded train and onto the platform, there was something preying on his mind; something he had heard that very morning in a telephone call received at the Independent and which had been put through to him at his desk. The information the anonymous caller had to impart had been somewhat garbled but made mention of de Valera and also of Michael Collins who Tom knew was presently away from Dublin, down in County Cork, on a morale boosting trip, visiting units of the National Army.

From what Michael had told him, Tom knew also that while once they had been comrades in arms, considerable animosity and ill feeling now existed between the two men; that while de Valera continued to oppose the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Collins was much more of a realist and considered that the Treaty, imperfect as it was, should be upheld, thought too that de Valera, who had been away in America for many months on a fund raising trip, was hopelessly out of touch with the realities of both the political and military situation here in Ireland. Indeed, in their telephone conversation the previous day Collins had expressed to Tom the belief that he thought de Valera envied him his easy rapport with the troops and his ability to mix with one and all. Tom, who had met de Valera on but a couple of occasions would readily have attested to the fact that of the two men, Michael Collins was the far easier with whom to establish a rapport. With him the words amiable and approachable immediately sprang easily to the mind; with de Valera, aloof and austere.

At the time the caller's comments about de Valera, his present whereabouts and with whom it was said he was meeting had struck Tom as singularly odd; if true, then something didn't quite add up but for whatever reason, the caller had rung off with his tale half told and another matter had claimed Tom's attention. Now, unlike Ma, rather like Collins himself, Tom himself was a realist; he did not believe in Second Sight and so was not given to flights of fancy. Yet, for all that, as he climbed down from the train at Blackrock, he had a grim sense of foreboding that something singularly unpleasant was about to happen. Nonetheless, he was still none the wiser as to what that might be when, having sauntered up the path to his home, he turned the key in the lock and walked through the front door to be met in the hallway by both Sybil and the children.

Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Dublin, Irish Free State, Tuesday evening, 22nd August 1922.

"Thank you," said Tom haltingly. "Thank you for letting me know". He replaced the receiver in its cradle just as Sybil came into the hallway. He looked up; she saw his face and gasped. He looked ashen; utterly drained.

"My God, Tom! Darling, whatever is it?" Seeing his obvious distress, in an instant, she had moved swiftly towards him.

"It's Michael Collins," he said softly. "He's been shot and killed... in an ambush, down near Cork," he added brokenly and then promptly burst into tears.

Skerries House, County Cork, Irish Free State, July 1924.

As he watched the Tourer drew to a stop in front of the blackened, charred ruins of Skerries House and then those inside the motor clamber out, when he saw who it was they were, Fergal could not believe his good fortune and, if only for an instant he found himself thinking back to that moment back in April 1921 when he had found out the truth regarding his parentage then afterwards when, his thoughts in a complete whirl, utterly disconsolate, he had sat on the edge of Union Quay staring down into the grey waters of the Liffey.

That he was the son of Miss Maeve Branson, his father being her cousin, Tom Branson, the well-known Dublin journalist. That his father had abandoned his mother for another woman and that as a young girl his mother had been sent away to have her baby elsewhere; that he had been adopted by a local family, the Ryans then tenants of Miss Maeve's own parents. For Fergal, everything had then fallen into place; the interest Miss Maeve had taken in him as a boy, the many kindnesses she had shown towards him and then as a young man, leaving to him in her will, her fine house on North Mall over there in Cork, along with certain leases and rents; although some of the last were now worthless as they had been payable from properties in the Munster Arcade on the south side of Patrick Street and which had been destroyed in the burning of Cork.

Nonetheless, with the monies which were now at his disposal, Fergal was undeniably a man of independent means. Having learned from his mother's letter to him of how cruelly she had been treated and with fond memories of the kindness she had always shown towards him, he felt nothing but compassion for her. So it was, that following her interment, in the shadow of the ruins of the great house, in the small grave yard here at Skerries and which Fergal had thought to be an exceedingly shabby affair, in due course and believing himself to be her only living relative he had seen to it that a decent memorial stone had been erected to mark his late mother's final resting place.

Despite the sudden and startling improvement in his prospects, Fergal remained on excellent terms with the Ryans who had raised him; still looked upon them as his Ma and Da, paid for long overdue repairs to the farmhouse and outbuildings and continued to help out at the farm which was what had brought him out here to Skerries today. While the rents from the properties on Patrick Street were irrevocably lost, others elsewhere in the city being still extant provided Fergal with a more than adequate income, as indeed did the property on North Mall and which, at least for the present, he rented out, preferring instead the amenities of a spacious third floor flat on the Glanmire Road close to the railway station and where, with the improvement in his fortunes and social prospects, personable and good looking, he was presently carrying on a pleasurable association with Margarethe Rieck the younger daughter of a retired German professor and who lived close by on Summer Hill.

Bringing with him at the time his wife and young family, Margarethe's father had come over to Ireland in 1905, from Heidelberg in Germany, to teach philosophy at the University College in Cork. A pleasant academic career and a comfortable middle class existence were both cut short by the Great War when, as an enemy alien, in May 1915, in the aftermath of the sinking of the Lusitania, Professor Rieck and his two sons by then aged seventeen and eighteen had all been interned at Douglas on the Isle of Man for the duration of hostilities. An experience which in due course affected the professor's health also left his family in straightened circumstances and Margarethe with an abiding hatred of the British, something which Fergal himself also shared. At the end of the war her two brothers had gone back to Heidelberg and were now pressing their widowed father and Margarethe to do the same. It was more than likely, thought Fergal, that before the year was out, despite all the problems over there, they too would have returned to Germany, although, for now at least, little did he realise what all of this would mean for him.

With the granting of independence, dissatisfied, as indeed were many others with the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Fergal had thrown in his lot with the republicans, resuming his old contacts within the local IRA and it was this which had taken him up to Dublin in the spring of 1922, there to play his part in helping to defend the Four Courts and with the siege over, believing his natural father to have been killed in the burning of Cork, to a wholly unexpected chance encounter with someone he had assumed was long dead. And, if he had compassion for his late mother, then for the father he had been told had abandoned both her and himself, Fergal felt nothing; except an intense and burning hatred.

And now, here was the very man himself.

Wrenching open the door of what in former times here at Skerries had been the gardener's cottage Fergal strode purposefully out across the gravel and towards the stationary motor. Fumbling for the Mauser pistol lying within the pocket of his jacket, having now found it, he promptly released the safety catch.

In the light of what he knew, what he had now just heard, a calmly reasoned defence of as he saw it the indefensible, a red mist of blind rage descended upon Fergal – directed entirely at the man now standing before him and quietly denying everything; just as his mother had said he would. Well...

"Yous feckin'bastard! Yous had her and then… then yous abandoned both her and me!"
"I did no such thing! Lad, I've already said, I'm not your father! You're her br…" Tom's voice faltered. He was bone weary. How could he tell this distraught boy that he was the product of an incestuous liaison between his mother and her very own brother? It would, for sure, only make things worse.

"She said yous would say that!"

"Jaysus! Whatever it was your mother wrote and told you about me, it's not true" said Tom with mounting frustration. Even so, he knew that he was wasting his breath.

"I don't believe yous!" yelled Fergal. At that he reached quickly inside the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the revolver; seeing what it was the boy now held in his hand, without hesitating for a moment, Tom moved instantly to shield both his wife and children. Then, for one brief moment, time itself seemed to stand still; the ensuing silence lengthened, broken only when, behind him Tom heard Saiorse begin to whimper, while Danny buried his face against his mother's side.

"I'm a good shot and even if I wasn't, at this range I can't miss!" scoffed Fergal.

"No!" screamed Sybil, both horrified and appalled by what was happening.

For his part, without once turning his head, instead both keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the angry young man standing a few paces away from him and his voice level,Tom spoke calmly and clearly.

"Sybil, darlin', do as I tell you. Get the children and yourself back into the motor," indicating for her to do just as he had said with a backward sweep of his left hand.

That he had positioned himself directly between his family and Fergal came as no surprise to Sybil. Tom's courage had never been something which she doubted. She knew already how brave a man he was from what had happened five years earlier at the ceilidh held to celebrate their wedding when she had watched with pride as, single handed, Tom had faced down the might of the British army.

"Ma, why's that man pointing a gun at Da?" asked Danny with a child's unconcern and now lifting his head from her side.

"They're just playing a silly game, darling," said Sybil coolly and trying to keep her voice sounding normal. "Now, darling, please do just like Da's asked you and get into the motor". Fortunately, Danny did exactly as he had been told. A moment later and Tom heard the door of the motor close; knew then that Sybil and the children were safely back inside the vehicle.

"You won't pull that trigger," he said softly, shaking his head.

"Oh, won't I?"

"No, you won't. If you were going to, you'd have done so by now".

"You think so?"
"I know so. It's not easy, is it, to kill a man in cold blood? You haven't got it in you!" Unwittingly, here, Tom had struck a raw nerve; completely unaware as he was of Fergal's part in the botched IRA attack at the Imperial Hotel in which his own mother had been killed.

"Then feckin' think again!" yelled Fergal taking deliberate aim at Tom with the Mauser. He had run from the debacle at the Imperial; this time he would see it through.

More or less instantaneously, three things now happened.

Tom froze.

Fergal squeezed hard on the trigger.

There came the faintest of clicks but nothing else; the magazine latch had jammed.

"Feckin' hell!" screamed Fergal struggling frantically with the faulty pistol.

However, before the boy could take aim again, Tom had thrown himself into the driving seat of the Tourer and putting his driving skills to good effect, in a manner which would have drawn admiration from Count Louis Zborowski himself, with gravel flying in all directions, twisting and turning, now reversed the motor at high speed back down the overgrown drive, with little Danny, completely uncomprehending of what really it was that had just taken place, clapping his hands excitedly from the back seat.

"Da! Go faster!" he giggled.

Beara Peninsula, County Cork, Irish Free State, July 1924.

He had thought the state of the roads around Cork to be bad enough, but if anyone had bothered to ask him what he thought of those over here in the far south west of Ireland, Tom Branson would readily have conceded that they were even worse. Nonetheless, even Sybil, who since childhood had grown up used to the stark beauty and grandeur of the West Riding of Yorkshire had to admit that there was no denying the fact that the rugged, unspoilt scenery hereabouts on the Beara Peninsula in the far south west of County Cork was truly magnificent.

For the most part, a wild, untamed landscape, of crystal clear lakes, tumbling streams, cascading waterfalls, brooding mountain ranges, sandy bays, hidden coves and sea girt cliffs; dotted with all manner of prehistoric remains, along with reed thatched cottages and a smattering of villages and little towns, where many of the trees were stunted, bent and twisted by the force of the prevailing westerly winds. But, as they were shortly to find, even here in this remote, beautiful spot, reminders of the recent troubles which had so recently torn Ireland apart were never very far away.

After the wholly unexpected and frightening encounter with Fergal at Skerries, having brought the motor to a stand several miles down the road from the ruins of the house, once they had both recovered somewhat from the shock of what had happened, Tom had then driven the Tourer quickly back into Cork, straight to the Imperial Hotel, where, as they intended, they all had spent the night.

Once the children had been put to bed, both of them seemingly no worse for what had happened - Saiorse was still too young to comprehend and Danny believed the whole incident to have been nothing more than a game, having eaten their supper in the hotel dining room, once back in the privacy of their bedroom, ironically, had they but known it but a few doors along from the very spot where Maeve had been shot and killed by the Black and Tans, Tom and Sybil sat up long into the night debating what should be done. They went round and round in circles; should they do this, should they do that? Clearly Maeve had not told the young man the truth about his parentage but what good would it serve to try and convince him otherwise? Both were firmly of the opinion that no useful purpose would be served by reporting the matter to the police and so it was that, after a decidedly restless night, in the end, the following morning they decided jointly to let sleeping dogs lie.

They would not be returning to Skerries, ever.

Let the past bury the past.

It was a fateful decision and one which they would both live to regret.

The following morning, after breakfast, having paid their bill, Tom drove the Tourer down as far as Albert Quay, past the burnt out ruins of the City Hall and the Carnegie Library as far as the railway station from where, a lifetime ago, or so it seemed, they had caught the train out to Skerries Road. Today they were met by the genial Mr. Kelly. While a porter from the station saw to their luggage, Tom handed the keys of the motor back to its owner who, once again, promised faithfully that he would ensure that Tom's beloved motorcycle was sent up north by the first available train to Dublin.

This time, the Bransons' journey by train would take them much further, south westwards as far as the wild waters of the Atlantic Ocean, travelling by way of Bandon, Dunmanway - close to the scene of the Kilmichael Ambush which had presaged the burning of Cork and Drimoleague - passing through a whole host of villages in between, ever onwards towards Bantry on the far west coast, nestling at the head of the bay of the same name and where they would be staying the night at Canty's Hotel on New Street not far from both the harbour and the railway station.

"Why not Vickery's, Tom? It sounds very modern. Listen..."

And, as their train steamed through Durrus Road, the last station on the line before Bantry, with Danny now kneeling on the seat looking excitedly through the window of the compartment for the very first glimpse of the approaching sea and with Saiorse on her lap, Sybil now quoted from a guidebook to the amenities on offer in distant Bantry:

The establishment is designed throughout on modern principles, the general arrangements and style of furnishing being of a very superior order... the bedrooms are airy and comfortably furnished. Special attention is directed to the most scrupulous celanliness, and visitors may indulge in the luxury of hot and cold plunge and spray baths.

"You'll see" was Tom's enigmatic reply and with that she had to be content.

A short while later, after their train had drawn finally to a stop alongside the little wooden station at Bantry overlooking the sea, having clambered out of their compartment and with Tom carrying their suitcases and Sybil minding the children, beneath a cloudless, blue sky they all set off on foot from the station, round the curve of the harbour, to find the little town bustling with all manner of people. Here in Ireland, unless the journey they were making was a long one, they nearly always walked, so, it was probably nothing more than the sight of Tom's back as he strode slightly ahead of them which set Sybil to thinking that if this had been Downton then the chauffeur driven motor from the abbey would have been there in good time to meet the train, waiting in the station yard ready to convey them all up to the house.

Not that any explanation was really necessary but, said Tom, as they wended their way slowly across Wolf Tone Square, through the busy, noisy market, it was Fair Day here in Bantry. Along with two wheeled carts and ponies, the carts loaded with vegetables and farm produce, the square was a veritable sea of both people and livestock, with herds of lowing black cattle and flocks of bleating, woolly sheep having been brought in for sale from the surrounding countryside from the top of Borlin, from Durrus, from Colomane and from Kilcrohane; with buyers pouring into the town from as far away as Dundalk, Galway and Mayo at least to judge by their accents. Not only the square but also the narrow streets were positively thronging with people and all of the bars were doing a roaring trade.

"Da, why's that little cow got that mark on his back?" asked Danny as they all stood to one side so as to allow a small herd of cattle to pass by on their way down to the railway station. Tom followed his son's gaze; saw part of the hide on the calf's back and on those of its companions had been shorn away.

"That's just to show he's been sold," explained Tom. He chuckled. "Shall I do that with your hair when I sell yous?" He laughed.

"Yous wouldn't ever sell me for sure, Da!" exclaimed Danny. "Would yous?" he asked timidly as an after thought.

"Never!" chuckled Tom. "But I might just sell your Ma!" He glanced round to see that Sybil was smiling; had overheard what he was saying.

"Not if I sell you first!" Thinking just how easy were they in each other's company compared to some couples they knew, Sybil laughed; she was still doing so as moments later they made their way out of the fair and walked up New Street in search of Canty's Hotel.

"And that's why we aren't staying at Vickery's!" proclaimed Tom indicating the hotel on their right, the reason for which was now all too obvious. The building was heavily shrouded in scaffolding and was clearly in the throes of being rebuilt having, as Tom went on to explain, been set on fire by the IRA back in 1921 when there had been every likelihood that it would be taken over and used by the Black and Tans.

As it was, the amenities on offer at Canty's Hotel proved entirely acceptable and having been shown upstairs to their first floor room overlooking the street, they washed and unpacked. Then, after a cold luncheon served to them in the hotel dining room, they wandered into town, to see what Bantry itself had to offer, pausing at Dillons on Main Street where Sybil purchased some ribbon for Saiorse's straw bonnet. Thereafter, they strolled slowly back into the square to look at the market stalls erected there for the duration of the fair; bought the children an apple each from a dark haired, cloth capped boy, but a few years older than Danny, sitting on an empty chicken coop, selling apples from out of a chipped earthenware bowl.

They walked on again, this time as far as the railway station and the harbour. Here, while Sybil sat with Saiorse on a bench out of the sun and looked at the fishing boats riding gently at anchor in the calm waters of the bay, Tom and Danny stood and watched as a small green tank engine marshalled a line of wagons loaded with cattle from the fair. When Danny had asked whence they were bound, for once, Tom had not known what to say. How did one explain to a four year old boy the concept of sending animals for slaughter? Instead, Tom demurred and simply said he wasn't sure and which was true enough. Then with the engine having finished its shunting for the day, they had walked the short distance out to the pier used by the steam ships serving Glengarriff and Castletownbere, to look at the tramp steamer berthed alongside and which, said Tom, reminded him of the Irish Rose on which he had sailed to Nova Scotia.

"Where's that Da?"
"A very long way from here son".

"When did yous go there, Da?"
"A while ago now son". Tom hugged Danny to him. He smiled at Sybil as they exchanged meaningful glances; it was a time in their lives, like the recent encounter with Fergal out at Skerries, that was best left in the past. Perhaps, when Danny and Saiorse were older...

Later that day, before they returned to the hotel, they went in search of Toomey's garage from where Tom had arranged the use of another motor, with the owner, a Mr. Liam Toomey, promising faithfully that the red, bull nosed Morris would be at the hotel early the next morning. Glancing over to where with the children, Sybil stood quietly in the sunlight by the open doors to the garage, he touched his cap respectfully, then shook hands with Tom.

"Although, not too early for sure. Lucky devil!" he said softly as, by now out of earshot, he watched the Bransons disappear out of sight around the corner of the sunlit street.

Later, at the hotel, after supper was over, back upstairs in the privacy of their room, while Sybil readied the children for bed, Tom took a bath and then while Sybil bathed, he read Danny and Saiorse a story. Whatever the febrile imaginings of Mr. Toomey, that night, after the two children had drifted off to sleep, equally worn out by the long train journey and by the invigorating sea air, almost the very moment their heads touched their pillows, snuggled together in each other's arms, Tom and Sybil also fell fast asleep, while outside a full moon arose, bathing the by now silent streets of Bantry with an ethereal, silvery glow.

The following morning, after breakfast, they set off in the Morris following the coast road ever westwards, around the wide sweep of Bantry Bay, on through Ballylickey, Glengarriff and Adrigole, bound for Castletownbere where Tom had booked the family into the Berehaven Hotel. They saw few other motors, with the narrow, twisting road, bounded on either side by stone walls, being mostly deserted, save for donkey carts taking produce to market and a herd of black cattle being driven along towards Ballylickey, the rugged, mountain landscape dotted with sheep.

The day grew ever warmer and, as the hot July sun climbed ever higher into the sky, shortly after they had passed through Adrigole, Tom turned the motor to the left, slowing the Morris almost to a crawl as they bumped along a rough track which led downwards to the north shore of the bay. And it was here, in this beautiful, remote spot, while Danny and Saiorse played happily on the white sands of the beach below the village and Tom, stripped to the waist, with his trousers rolled up, barefoot, stood at the water's edge, that, with her Box Brownie, Sybil had taken the very first of those photographs and which, some three years later, with all of them by now safely pasted into the leather bound album then lying in her lap, she had pointed out to Tom on that summer's afternoon, seated beneath the apple tree in the back garden of their home in Idrone Terrace.

That day below Adrigole, soon, other photographs followed: of a smiling, sunburned Tom standing down by the sea, Tom and Danny searching in the nearby rock pools for crabs, Danny and Tom building a sandcastle and which Danny had then swiftly demolished by jumping on it, so that its owner could not oppress the poor.

"Who suggested that I wonder?" had asked Sybil with a smile.

Further photographs, among them Sybil with Saiorse paddling in the sea, Sybil standing on her own, these pictures taken by Tom, a smiling Danny in his striped bathing suit buried in sand from the demolished castle presided over by a triumphant Tom, Saiorse held in Tom's arms, Tom attempting a handstand and failing miserably, Sybil and Tom together, and finally a snap of the whole family standing on the shore, these last two photographs taken for the Bransons by a friendly old fisherman.

With Canty's Hotel back in Bantry having provided them with a packed wicker luncheon hamper and with the children enjoying themselves so much, with no call upon their time, they spent the rest of that day down there on the beach midst the picturesque, wild beauty of the Beara Peninsula. Much later, in fact, shortly after six o'clock that evening, Tom finally brought the Morris to a stand outside the Berehaven Hotel in the little port of Castletownbere. Turning in his seat he smiled, at the sight of darling Sybil and their two children fast asleep on the back seat of the motor.

The next morning, after they had taken the children up to see the ivy clad, grass grown fragmentary remains of Dunboy Castle, which until its destruction during the reign of Elizabeth I, had once defended the harbour of Berehaven, the Bransons set out for Allihies.

And, as the Morris climbed steadily away from Castletownbere, below, out in the wide, blue, sparkling waters of the immense bay, backed by the stark grandeur of the Slieve Miskish Mountains, protected by several forts and batteries, grey warships of the Royal Navy lay riding at anchor; a brooding, threatening presence midst all the natural beauty hereabouts and another reminder, if any at all was needed, that between the Irish Free State and Great Britain, there still remained, as yet, unfinished business.

Allihies, Beara Peninsula, County Cork, Irish Free State, July 1924.

As they walked together in the direction of the reed thatched cottage, the breeze which blew towards them was from off the sea and tinged with salt.

"Is it very much as you remember? Sybil asked softly, searching his much-loved face.

"To be sure," replied Tom shading his eyes from the brightness of the sun and noting at the same time and with satisfaction that the lichen encrusted dry stone wall which he had rebuilt some three years ago was still standing. Here in this remote place, where time dripped slow, very little changed. Indeed, some would say nothing ever did.

He had parked the Morris where the un-metalled lane finally petered out completely and became unfit for the passage of the motor. So now, with young Danny running on ahead, arm in arm with Sybil, Tom holding fast to Saiorse's hand, the three of them walked slowly between thorn hedges ablaze with scarlet fuschias, along the rough stone track which led down a slight slope and towards the distant house. A faint curl of smoke showed at the lip of the chimney, then drifted languidly up into the cloudless sky, washing hung on the line and chickens clucked and scratched in the dirt.

Since he had regained his memory and from even before they had returned here to Ireland, over the intervening three years, Tom had written regularly to Mrs O'Sullivan, telling her of his family, enclosing photographs of both Sybil and their children and imparting all his news. For her part, her burgeoning friendship with Tom Branson, the well-known and respected journalist up there in Dublin, had become widely known in these parts; a source of some pride down at the bar in Allihies, notwithstanding the fact that the journalist in question was undeniably a jackeen.

Having come in through the back door of the cottage, with the sun behind her, it was she who saw him first, through the open window and, having done so, she moved to stand silently in the front doorway beneath its sagging lintel, watching as the little family drew ever closer; the young boy running on ahead in front of the others. She waited too, while the man walked slowly towards her across the farmyard as the woman and the two children now remained where they were, a short way off, standing beside the rickety gate.

Moments later and he had come to a stand before her; stood her scrutiny and waited, the bright sunlight catching a gleam of gold in his fair hair. Back then, she had thought him handsome and now, seeing him before her once again, restored to both health and life, she knew that neither eyes nor memory had deceived her.

"So, you've come back," she said at length.

"To be sure. Didn't I say that I would?" He grinned happily. Still he waited.

She smiled and opened wide her arms.

In the warmth of the afternoon sunshine and with a cup of tea balanced carefully in her lap, Sybil sat companionably beside Mrs. O'Sullivan on the wooden bench outside the front of the whitewashed cottage. Across the farmyard, having taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, his thumbs thrust deep into the pockets of his waistcoat, happy, relaxed and sunburned, Tom stood keeping a watchful eye on both of the children as Danny contented himself wandering in and out of the ramshackle range of outbuildings filling his pockets with all manner of odds and ends, while Saiorse tried repeatedly, albeit unsuccessfully, to make friends with the chickens.

"He looks very well now for sure," observed Mrs. O'Sullivan nodding her head slowly in the direction of Tom.

"Yes, he does, doesn't he? And... I have you alone to thank for that". Sybil turned her head. "Thank you... from the bottom of my heart... for all that you did for him".

"Think nothing of it!"

Sybil shook her head vehemently.

"Oh, but I do! Mrs. O'Sullivan, when my husband was rescued from the mine and then brought here, if you hadn't taken such very good care of him, I shudder to think what might have…"

"There now". The older woman patted Sybil's knee reassuringly.

"Do you know who it was who found him? Were they local men? If so, while we're here, I should very much like to thank them for what they did".

Mrs. O'Sullivan shook her head.

"All that belongs in the past. Leave it so for sure".

"But surely…"

"There are some hereabouts who may not be as well disposed towards your husband as those who found and then brought him here".

"Even so, I…"

"I believe he told you that Seamus, my youngest boy, died out there, in France?"

Sybil nodded, recalling what Tom had said to her when he had spoken of Mrs. O'Sullivan's three sons; remembered also the photograph she had seen this afternoon hanging over the fireplace inside the cottage behind her with the fading, framed printed citation beneath it. Knew too that there were many here in the Free State who viewed all those who had volunteered for King and Country and had then gone off to fight and die in the trenches, as traitors. She knew also that many of those who had returned home here to what was then Ireland and part of the British Empire now suffered hatred and ostracism and that some had moved away to find a new life elsewhere in other countries and where they were not looked upon as pariahs. She saw Mrs. O'Sullivan nod her head and with her next words, it seemed that somehow she had sensed what it was that Sybil was thinking.

"Yes, but…"

"My dear girl, the plain simple truth is that we Irish have a cursed capacity for suffering". The older women paused. "Seamus was the best of them; my other two boys would have no part in fighting for the British and now..." Again she paused. "Michael, he's the eldest, was a gamekeeper for the Puxleys. No doubt you saw their house? Or rather, what's left of it down there in Castletownbere?"

"Yes" Sybil remembered seeing the blackened shell of a huge house down by the north shore of Bantry Bay and which Tom had said had been burned by the IRA back in the summer of 1921.

"When the house was fired, Michael lost his job". Again she paused; then said levelly: "Patrick, his younger brother, was one of those that set light to it. And then, when independence came, Michael joined the National Army and supported the Treaty. Patrick fought for the Republicans. They say he was involved in the killing of two Garda officers down there in Bantry and now he and the others are on the run from the Free Staters. From what I've heard tell, he's trying to get passage over to America. Michael is one of those out looking for him". She sighed, sat gazing into the middle distance.

"I'm so very, very sorry," said Sybil. However commonplace, there seemed little else that she could say.

"Thank you my dear, for sure. For centuries here in Ireland we've blamed many others for all of our misfortunes; mostly and I mean no offence, the British. And, what do we do the moment they're gone? We turn on ourselves, that's what".

Sybil stared down at the ground; what Mrs. O'Sullivan had said was true enough and it was now that she recalled a heated argument she and Tom had several months earlier on more or less the very same subject, about what the future held in store for Ireland, now that the British had finally left.

"The trouble, as you call it, Tom, is that the Irish never seem to know what they want!"

For his part, although he had always readily acknowledged Sybil's right to speak her own mind, not of course that she needed any encouragement from him to do so, Tom had been stunned by the vehemence of her outburst. It seemed that even now after five years of marriage she could still surprise him… and not only in bed.

"What? Now, wait just a minute, Sybil! How on earth…"

"You can't go on blaming the British for all of the problems over here in Ireland, Tom; it isn't fair and what's more, it isn't true! As well you know!"

"Nonetheless, he's a very fine man. A very good man," observed the kindly Mrs. O'Sullivan; seemingly once again to have read Sybil's innermost thoughts.

"He is indeed," agreed Sybil passionately.

"And he loves you very much".

"Is it really that obvious?"

"For sure!" Mrs. O' Sullivan smiled. "My dear, you only have to see how he looks at you; the way he's looking at you now".

Sybil glanced up to see that Tom's blue eyes were upon her; saw him wink and grin broadly. Sybil smiled and waved her hand in happy acknowledgement.

"And truthfully now, your father's an English lord?"

Sybil nodded.

"The earl of Grantham; my parents live in Yorkshire, at Downton Abbey. It was where we met, while Tom was in service. He was my family's chauffeur".

"So he told me, in one of his letters. And your parents, did they approve?"
"No, at least not to begin with and neither did my sisters, but like you, they all now see the true worth in him; love him dearly. Not of course that my father would ever admit that!"

"And you?"
"He means everything to me," said Sybil making unconscious use of the very same words she had spoken some five years ago, to Ma, on her first evening here in Ireland.

"That's only as it should be. And one thing more…"
"Yes?"

"Don't linger here in Beara. There are some wounds that time doesn't heal".

A short while later and with heartfelt promises that one day they would return, Mrs. O'Sullivan stood at the door of the cottage to watch the Bransons go.

As for the photograph, taken on Sybil's camera by the village postman from Allihies, of Mrs. O'Sullivan and the Bransons standing outside her cottage, after their return to Dublin, having arranged for a copy to be posted to her, Tom had the original framed and kept it in pride of place on his desk at home for the rest of his life.

They took her kindly meant warning to heart and, instead of staying the night at Castletownbere as they had intended, at Sybil's insistence, Tom drove straight on to Bantry, stopping once again at Cantry's Hotel. The following morning they caught the express to Cork where they changed trains and later that same day found them all safely back in Dublin.

Some months later, in December 1924, close to Allihies, with soldiers of the Free State army having surrounded the abandoned mine workings where several republicans had been found holed up, a fierce gun battle had then ensued, with both sides sustaining casualties. By a cruel twist of irony, the abandoned mine had once belonged to the Puxley family. Thereafter, following their surrender, those republicans who had survived were taken under armed guard to Cork, among them, Patrick O'Sullivan aged twenty eight and who, a month later, was hanged in Mountjoy Gaol in Dublin for his part in the murder of the two police officers in Bantry.

Three weeks earlier, in the military hospital in Cork, aged thirty, Sergeant Michael O'Sullivan of the National Army died in hospital at the former Victoria Barracks, of wounds sustained in the fight at the old Puxley mine.

A month later, Mrs. O'Sullivan was laid to rest on a windswept hillside in the little cemetery beside the small ruined church at Kilcatherine, overlooking the sea. On the Death Certificate, the cause of her demise was given as pneumonia but privately it was said locally that she had died of a broken heart. It was only when, following their return home to Dublin from Downton where they had been spending Christmas, with his letters to her continuing to go unanswered, that belatedly, Tom Branson found out the sad truth of what had happened.

And with no-one left to pay for a headstone, with Sybil's full agreement, it was Tom who provided the necessary monies for one to be erected.

Skerries House, County Cork, Irish Free State, October 1924.

Two months earlier, in the pouring rain, beside the burnt out ruins of Skerries House, a young man stood bareheaded by a grave. He had been married the previous day. Now, shortly before he and Margarethe both sailed from Cobh on board the SS Seydlitz bound for Bremen in Germany, while his wife waited for him in the motor, standing by his mother's grave, Fergal swore vengeance on Tom Branson and all he held most dear. It was a heartfelt promise; one which he had every intention of keeping and which, eight years hence, would lead to a terrifying denouement upon the Ponte Vecchio Bridge in Florence.

Author's Note:

The position in Ireland at this time was as is described.

As with the assassination of President Kennedy, there are all manner of theories as to why Michael Collins was murdered and speculation continues as to whether or not de Valera knew of the planned ambush on the military convoy in which Collins was travelling or indeed even sanctioned it.

During the the Great War two internment camps, one for prisoners of war and another for enemy aliens, were established on the Isle of Man.

Vickery's Hotel was blown up by the IRA and for the reason given. In 1924, the then owner, Mrs. Vickery, had just received compensation to pay for the rebuilding of the hotel. The description of its amenities is taken from an earlier guide.

Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, three deep water ports on the coast of the Irish Free State - Berehaven, Queenstown and Lough Swilly - were retained by Great Britain for use by the Royal Navy. The ports eventually passed into Irish control in 1938.

Jackeen - a rather unpleasant term used to describe someone from Dublin by those living elsewhere in Ireland.

Until very recently those 200,000 Irishmen who, during the Great War, served in the British Army and of whom some 50,000 were killed, were officially forgotten by a post-independence Ireland. Many of the men who had fought and survived to tell the tale, the living embodiment of an inconvenient truth, decided to leave the country of their birth in which they found themselves no longer welcome simply because they had served in the British Army. The divisions caused in Ireland by the Irish Civil War also ran very deep and were equally long-lasting. It is all of this that I have tried to encapsulate in the sad tale of the fictitious Mrs. O'Sullivan and her three sons.

The family that owned Puxley Mansion made their fortune out of copper mining. In June 1921 the house was indeed burnt out by the IRA. It remained in ruins until a few years ago when it was bought and restored with the aim that it should become Ireland's first five star hotel. Unfortunately, with work almost complete, the money ran out and at the moment the newly restored mansion remains boarded up.

The little ruined church at Kilcatherine and its cemetery also exist, occupying a beautiful spot on the Beara Peninsula overlooking Coulagh Bay.