“Would you ever! That’s a grand distance to go.”
“Two months by ship if the wind is right.”
“You’re not from Dalkey.” A statement, not a question. Ireland was, as ever, one big small town and everyone knew everyone else’s business.
“No, I’m not. But my cousin is.”
“Get away with you!”
“It’s true. Name of Francis Kearnan.”
“Him that’s married to Bridget?”
“The very one. Does he come in here?”
“Usually. But you’ll find him at home now. Down the hill, first turning on the right. The cottage there, the one that needs rethatching.”
“Good man.”
After more crack about the weather, the last potato crop and the sad political state of affairs, the publican went to serve another customer in the grocery. Meagher drained his glass and went looking for his cousin.
Who really was his cousin on his mother’s side. When the Fenian Circle had decided to rebuild the revolutionary movement in Ireland it was decided that, for now, only relatives would be contacted. There would be no betrayal this way. Politics was one thing; family ties completely another.
He found the cottage, knocked on the door and stepped back. There was a shuffle of footsteps inside and the door opened.
“Is that you, Francis?” Meagher asked.
The middle-aged man blinked near-sightedly, nodded. Behind the wrinkles and gray hair, Meagher could see the lines of the boy he had known so well. “Still swimming at the forty-foot, are ya’?”
“What? Who are you?”
The street was empty, nevertheless he leaned forward and whispered. “Name of Meagher…”
“Mother of God! Is that you, Tommy?”
“It is. Now — how long are you going to keep me standing out here?”
It was a warm reunion. Bridget was out, so Kearnan made the tea himself. Rooted about in the cabinet and found some poteen to sweeten it. They talked of family and the years that had passed, and Francis was refilling their cups before Meagher got around to the purpose of his visit.
“The papers in the United States had news that the Fenians had been penetrated, the leaders arrested—”
“Betrayed the lot of them! Can you imagine a man, an Irishman, betraying his own neighbors? Anyone who would do that is a gobshite of a lower order than the Englishman that buys him.”
“I am in agreement there. But the people of Ireland will not be stopped. The freedom movement will arise from the ashes like a phoenix. I am here to see that happen — and if you are the man I think you are — then you are going to help.” He dug the wad of ten-shilling and pound notes from his pocket, dropped them on the table between them. He smiled at Francis’s wide-eyed stare. “And I’ll tell you just what you can do with it.”
“Jayzus, it’s not for me, is it?”
“No — but you can use what you need for the work I want you to do.”
“Will it be dangerous?”
“Not if you keep your Irish cakehole shut and not go wording about how you came into the money. This l.s.d. is for men you trust — men in our family or Bridget’s. Here, let me tell you exactly what must be done.”
It was Gus Fox who had explained how the new Fenians should be organized. Officers of the Fenian Circle would visit Ireland separately. They would speak only to members of their immediate family, recruit them to the movement. No strangers would be contacted; no old friends either, no matter how close they had been. It was
the mass recruiting in the past, when anyone could join, that had destroyed the Fenians. This new way of recruiting was called the cell organization, Fox had explained. Members of a single cell would know only one another — as well as the officer who had recruited them. No members of one cell would know of any members of a different cell, even in the same city. Meagher himself was the only person who would know all the cell leaders. He would supply the money and they would supply the information. Skilled laborers would be encouraged — and paid — to cross the Irish Sea and obtain work in Britain. In shipyards, on the railroads, in the steelworks. And they would report back anything they could learn. Troop movements, ship movements, any bit of information that would be important to Fox. When he had assembled all the small pieces he would be able to see the big picture that they could not. With this he could write the intelligence reports that would be so vital for the military to have, military intelligence that was vital in modern warfare.
Also — the fact that he would be reviving the Irish revolutionary movement at the same time would only be of aid. Anything that discomfited the British could only help the war effort.