The Rising

by Bairbre Toibin

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

When Margaret Dempsey, daughter of a prosperous town merchant, falls in love with Michael Carty, son of a Fenian farmer, her family strongly disapprove. Bound closer by adversity, the couple enter their married life idealistic, yet innocent. Soon, however, their idyll is threatened, as Michael finds himself drawn into the struggle for Irish independence. Revolutionary movements bring the outside world crashing in on them, threatening all they hold dear. In 1916, Margaret fights to keep their growing family safe against the odds. Told in prose of extraordinary clarity, The Rising is a profoundly moving love story that delves deep into the mindset of Irish Republicanism, along with the complex social relationships of town and country during that era. An engrossing account of family, memory, history and belonging.

Release date: May 12, 2016

Publisher: Hachette Ireland

Print pages: 304

Sample

Michael Carty walked across the muddy yard and up the narrow lane. He was going towards the village of Ballyduff hoping to meet his father who had been in Dublin at Parnell’s funeral. It was beginning to get dark. There had been a lot of rain, and the ditches were lush with long wet grass and nettles. Brambles stretched along the sandy ground in front of him. He was sixteen years of age. He had been lonely in the house on his own while his father was at the funeral.

He came out on to the open road of the townland of Kilbride, and walked quickly uphill past Grogans’ house and the marl pond. A water hen skimmed across the pond and disappeared into bushes. He walked down the hill and turned on to the low road. He couldn’t stop thinking about Parnell who had died of a broken heart because the Irish people had betrayed him. They had called him their Chief, the Uncrowned King of Ireland, but then they had voted against him to please Gladstone and the bishops.

There was one star in the sky and when he came to the cross he was delighted to see his father coming slowly towards him on the road from the village.

“I was thinking you’d come to meet me,” his father said. There were two or three days’ growth of beard on his face. They walked back towards home.

“What was the funeral like?” Michael asked.

“I never saw such a big crowd. The people of Dublin stood by Parnell. The whole city came out to walk past his coffin,” his father said. He was moving slowly, and Michael walked slowly too.

“How did you get on without me? Were you lonely?” His father was short of breath and stopped on the road to ask the question.

“I went down to Mrs Murphy every day for my dinner, and I went to Murphys’ at night as well,” Michael said. He had been going in and out to Murphys’ since he was a child. Mrs Murphy had been friendly with his mother who had died when he was young. He couldn’t remember his mother. His father never talked about her, but Mrs Murphy sometimes did. His brother Jim, who had gone to England, would never spend as much time in Murphys’, and used often give out to Michael about going there so often.

“Mrs Murphy has always been like a mother to you,” his father said.

The wind was rustling through the trees. Michael was a step or two ahead as they turned to go up the hill. He waited so that he would be beside his father. Suddenly his father shouted in pain. “Aaaaaaaa.” He staggered sideways and arched towards the ditch. “Michael,” he shouted as he slumped down. His head banged off the road.

“What’s wrong? Are you all right?” Michael bent down over his father and then knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”

His father didn’t answer. His eyes and his mouth were closed. His right arm was lying on his stomach.

“Are you all right? We’re nearly halfway up the hill. We’ll go very slowly,” he said, moving along the ground on his knees until he was kneeling close to his father’s head which was propped up a little by a rise in the road. “Have a rest for a while and we’ll walk very slowly. There’s no hurry.”

His father didn’t move but Michael knew that he could hear him. He was probably very tired after the long journey from Dublin and all those days away. He looked as if he had fallen asleep. The best thing was to get him home. He shouldn’t be lying out here in the cold.

“Wake up. We’re nearly home.” He lifted his father’s arm. It felt limp. He put it down gently. He knelt there for a while, looking at his father, not sure what to do. There was a stone digging into his knee, hurting him. He looked up and down the hill, hoping to see somebody. He wished his brother Jim was there with them. He wished Jim had never gone to England. The sky was pink and a dull yellow around the setting sun.

“Will I go for Joe Grogan? Joe could bring you home on the cart.” He knew his father could hear him. His face was moving a little as if he was smiling. “Answer me. Say something. I’ll go for Joe.” He stood up. He saw his father’s hat on the grass at the edge of the road. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He could hear his own voice. It was strange to be talking like that out on the hill in the dusk with his father not answering. He stood looking down at him. It didn’t seem right to leave him, but Grogans’ house was only a short distance away, over the top of the hill. The wind was whining, and the ash trees were swaying. He wouldn’t be a minute. He ran up the hill but when he got near the top he knew that he shouldn’t have left his father. If his father was dying someone should say an Act of Contrition into his ear. He turned and ran back down the hill. He slowed down when he got close to him. He must be cold lying there on the damp ground. He told himself that his father wasn’t dying. He knelt beside him and touched his hand. It was warm, and his mouth was moving. All the colour was gone from his face. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t going to die.

“Are you all right?” He tried to sound calm. He didn’t want his father to know that he was afraid. He gripped his arm. “We’ll go home in a minute.”

His father’s face was peaceful but suddenly his mouth opened to let out a strange sound. It came from somewhere deep within him, out through his mouth. His eyes flickered but stayed closed. Michael knew that the sound was the sound of his father dying. He looked around him. The ditches on both sides of the road looked terribly dark. He touched his father’s forehead and head. He bent down close to him and began to whisper. “O, my God, I am heartily sorry for having sinned against Thee …” But he knew that his father was dead and couldn’t hear him.

“What am I going to do? I’ll get Joe Grogan. We’ll bring you home.”

He stood up and walked away. He was on his own in the world now, completely alone. His father was dead. Jim had cleared off to England. He didn’t know how he would manage on his own, or what would happen to him, but he didn’t care. He turned to look back at his father. There was just a dark shape, lying on the road close to the ditch. But he could see his father, still alive. He could see himself and his father, a few minutes before, walking along the low road coming towards the bottom of the hill. They were walking along the road talking. It was as if he was above them both, or walking towards them, as if he wasn’t just himself but another person as well, watching himself. He could see the two figures coming along the road towards the bottom of the hill, walking slowly, hunched down against the cold.

He ran up over the top of the hill and into Grogans’ yard. His father was dead. He would have to get Joe Grogan to bring down the cart. The sheepdog barked loudly and Joe opened the door before Michael knocked on it.

“It’s my father. He’s after falling. He’s down the hill. Will you bring the horse and cart?”

He couldn’t look at Joe. He turned and ran out of the yard. He knew that he shouldn’t have left his father for so long. He ran down the hill.

“Michael. Wait for me.” It was Joe’s wife, Nora. He stood on the road as she ran towards him.

“Joe is getting the horse out.” She put her arm around him.

He ran and she ran after him.

He was still lying there, awkwardly sprawled out on the hard road. Nora knelt down and touched his father’s face and lifted his arm.

“Kneel down beside me, Michael, and we’ll pray,” she said, blessing herself. “He’s dead, Michael. You know that your father is dead, don’t you?”

She gripped his arm so tightly that it hurt. He nodded and, turning away from her, he began to cry. He wanted his father to open his eyes and to talk. He wanted him to get up and to walk home. He could go to bed and he would be all right in the morning.

The cart came rattling and banging down the hill. Nora got up and walked over and began whispering to Joe. He knew that his father was dead but he wanted to stay here beside him for as long as he could. He wanted Nora and Joe to stay whispering at the cart. He didn’t want anyone to come near him.

Joe came over. “We’ll bring him home, Michael,” he said. “We’ll lift him up on the cart and we’ll bring him home.”

*

The neighbours gathered in the house as soon as word spread that his father had died.

He sat at the fire while the women laid his father out in the bedroom.

“This is terrible, Michael,” Mrs Murphy said, bending down and shaking his hand. There were tears in her eyes. “You’re on your own now but you’ll come often to visit us, won’t you?”

The house was full of smoke. Nora Grogan had lit the fire and she had put too much turf on it. Joe Grogan had gone into the village to get the priest.

“I can’t believe that he’s dead,” Mrs Murphy said to Nora. “He was in our house two or three nights ago and he was in the best of good form. You know how funny he could be. You’d never know what he’d say. I always had to listen very carefully to make sure I kept him on the straight and narrow.”

He went into the bedroom to see his father. There was a candle and a crucifix on a chair at the head of the bed, and a bowl of holy water and a leaf. He stood at the side of the bed and looked down at his father. The colour was gone from his face. It was pale now, the colour of mud dried by days of summer sun. He was wearing a brown shroud. A heavy cream sheet covered his body. His hands were joined as if he was praying, and there was a rosary beads entwined around his fingers. He touched his father’s hand but he was afraid of touching his forehead in case he would hurt his father although he knew that he was dead and nothing could hurt him.

People came in and took up the leaf and sprinkled holy water on his father. They blessed themselves and stood with their heads bowed, praying. One of the women gave out the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. Two of the men carried a bench in from the kitchen and leaned it against the wall. He sat on the bench when the rosary was over. People sat with him and he told the story of his father’s death again and again.

He could hear laughing in the kitchen. There was a huge crowd at the wake. The women started to pray again taking it in turns to give out the different mysteries of the rosary. Then he noticed that the talk in the kitchen had stopped. He could hear whispering. Maybe Father Roche had arrived.

He went to the door. He couldn’t see Father Roche, but Joe Grogan was back, standing close to the fire talking to Nora and Mrs Murphy. The people in the kitchen were watching him as he went over to Joe.

“Father Roche won’t come out,” Joe said. “He says that your father was a Fenian, and that he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He had plenty of chances to recant but he never did. He won’t allow your father to be brought to the church nor to be buried in the cemetery. It will be a lesson to all Fenians, he says.”

“It’s ridiculous,” Nora said, “but you’ve heard Father Roche yourself lambasting the Fenians from the altar. Hell is not hot enough, nor eternity long enough to punish them for not accepting the law of the land and the authority of the Catholic Church. Your father never got on with Father Roche.”

“God will be my father’s judge, not Father Roche. I think priests should stay out of politics. My father never harmed anyone,” Michael said angrily.

“I won’t hear a word said against poor Father Roche,” Mrs Murphy said. “He has to do what the bishop tells him. Father Roche is a good man. It’s all this talk about politics that caused the trouble.” Mrs Murphy always supported the clergy.

“Maybe Father Roche will change his mind,” Nora Grogan said. “If you went into him in the morning, Michael, and asked him, he might change his mind.”

“That’s the best thing to do,” Mrs Murphy said. “We’ll go into him in the morning. He’s a good man. He might see things differently in the light of day.”

Michael was shaking with anger but he knew that it was best to say nothing. He didn’t want to annoy Mrs Murphy by attacking the clergy, but there was no doubt that the bishops and priests were wrong, not the Fenians. How could it be wrong to fight for freedom and justice? Father Roche was siding with the British against his own people. He had refused his father absolution unless he renounced the Fenians and his father couldn’t do that.

“We’ll go with you in the morning, Michael,” Joe said. “Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

He nodded at Joe, but he didn’t think Father Roche would change his mind. He had deprived Michael’s father of Communion and confession for years.

“Sit down at the table, Michael,” Mrs Murphy said. “You’d want to eat something.” There were two plates of brown bread on the table and dishes of blackberry jam. Over near the hearth there was plenty of turf and big blocks of wood. People always brought things to a wake. Mrs Murphy cut some apple tart and put it in front of him.

“Forget about the funeral until the morning,” she said. “The less said about all that the better.”

“Where …” Michael began, but then he decided not to ask the question that was in his mind. He didn’t want to hear the answer. Where would his father be buried if not in the cemetery? Would they dig a hole in a ditch, or on some boggy land, and throw him into it, like an old dog?

The people around him were talking and laughing. Joe Grogan was pouring whiskey. Michael had taken money from the rent box and told Joe to buy whiskey in the village. His father would have wanted a proper wake.

Suddenly he needed to get away from everyone. It was too hot in the kitchen. He slipped out into the yard. The wind had died down and the moon was high in the sky. He felt a huge surge of anger towards his brother Jim. Jim was five years older than him. It was Jim who should be here to deal with all of this.

He walked across the yard to the top of the lane. There were puddles here and there, and the ground was muddy. There was a bank of grey cloud, low in the sky. He could see part of the road, and then blackness. The trees on the lane looked unreal, like shadows in the darkness. He could hear a buzz of talk from the house. He would have to go back inside or it would look as if he didn’t care that his father was dead. He went slowly back across the yard although he wanted to walk and walk, to walk anywhere away from the house where his father was being waked.

*

Clouds raced across the sky and smoke from Father Roche’s chimney billowed down towards the village. Michael was walking behind Mrs Murphy and Joe Grogan when his father’s death hit him again, taking him over, filling him with hopelessness and a kind of rage. During the night of the wake he had almost forgotten at times that his father was dead, and when he had remembered he had kept the thought of it away from him, at arm’s length, out of his head. But sometimes, without warning, the horror of it came rushing through him. As he walked past the oak front door of Father Roche’s house he wanted to howl out loud because his father was dead.

They walked around the side of the big, two-storied house. The greyhounds in the outhouses began to bark ferociously. Father Roche’s greyhounds were well-known all over County Wexford. They often won prizes at coursing meetings in Enniscorthy. The back door scraped along the kitchen floor and Father Roche came out into the yard.

“Go away down,” he shouted at the greyhounds, turning around to face the outhouses. He was wearing a black soutane which was blowing in the wind. “Go down.” The saplings quietened but the pups in the outhouse nearest to them continued their squealy barking. “Shut up. G’up.” His voice was hoarse and rough. They heard the thump of the saplings landing on the timber bed. The barking stopped as Father Roche walked towards them.

“I’m sorry for your trouble,” he said, shaking Michael’s hand. His face looked red and almost scalded as if he had got a bad burning from the sun. “I’ve been praying for you. I remembered you this morning when I was saying Mass.” He gripped Michael’s arm but his bright blue eyes moved their gaze from Mrs Murphy to Joe, and back again. “It’s hard to understand why your mother was taken from you first when you were young, and now your father, but God’s ways are not our ways. These good people here are helping you. God often shows His love for us by giving us good neighbours.”

“We came to ask you could the funeral come to the church tonight, Father,” Mrs Murphy said. Her voice was gentle and quiet. She held her head sideways. There was a slight smile on her face.

“But I told you about that last night, Joe,” Father Roche said, frowning. “The funeral can’t come to the church. I’m sorry but I’m only following instructions. I have to do what the bishop says.”

Michael wanted to walk away and never see Father Roche again.

“It’s very hard on young Michael, Father,” Mrs Murphy said.

“It is indeed.” Father Roche nodded. He bustled forward and then backwards. He was getting cross with them for challenging him so much. “But I’m sure God will give Michael the grace to be strong at this time. I know the difficult time he’s going through. I offered up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for him this morning.”

“You’re very good, Father,” Mrs Murphy said.

She was different when she was talking to the priest. There was no one else that she would give in to like that. Father Roche wasn’t good. He was getting his revenge for all those Sundays in the churchyard when Michael’s father had refused to acknowledge him. Father Roche walked among the people after Mass on Sunday. Everybody wanted to talk to him. The women would bow their heads as they saluted him, and the men would doff their hats and caps as they wished him good day, but everybody knew that Sunday after Sunday Jim Carty walked proudly past as if the priest was a man of no importance. Michael had seen the anger on Father Roche’s face after he was shunned like this in front of everybody and he had asked his father would he not speak to the priest, would he not pretend that he liked him?

“No. I won’t,” his father had said, laughing. He laughed every Sunday as he talked about how much he loved ignoring Father Roche.

“Shut up.” Father Roche had turned his head towards the outhouse where the greyhound pups had begun to bark again. “Fenians cannot be buried in consecrated ground,” he said, jutting his mouth and jaw out in determination. “I’ll have a hole dug in that patch up past the cemetery between the two parishes where the unbaptised babies are buried. He can be buried there whenever ye like. Good day to ye, now.”

It was as if his father was a dead dog, lying out on the road, in the middle of everyone’s way.

“He could have pretended he didn’t know my father was a Fenian,” Michael said as they got back on the cart at the top of the village. “That’s what the priests in Enniscorthy do. The Fenians in Enniscorthy are given absolution and they receive Communion.”

“I felt sorry for poor Father Roche,” Mrs Murphy said. “He’s only following orders. Surely you don’t expect priests to tell lies.”

“They’d tell lies quickly enough if it suited them,” Michael said.

He was worried about what the Fenians who had been gathering all the morning at his father’s wake would do when they heard that Father Roche was still refusing his father a Christian burial.

Ten or twelve of the Fenians were standing beside the ditch under the bushes when they arrived back in the yard in Kilbride. Charlie Walsh, a Fenian from Ballyduff, was among them.

“Will you look at those Fenians,” Mrs Murphy said. “They’re terrible troublemakers. Standing out in the yard, making a show of themselves.”

The Fenians came over to the cart.

“What did Father Roche say?” Charlie asked.

“He said that we can’t bring him to the church or bury him with …” Michael hesitated. He couldn’t say the words “my mother”. He never did say those words out loud. Sometimes he said them to himself, and tried to imagine having a mother. But he didn’t remember her, and saying the words would be as if he was laying claim to something that wasn’t his. “He says Fenians can’t have a Christian burial. My father can’t be buried in the cemetery.” He got out of the cart.

“God blast him,” one of the men shouted. He had a pale complexion and extraordinary bags of flesh under his eyes, like small extra cheeks. “Why can’t the clergy deal with religion and leave politics to us?”

Mrs Murphy sighed as she got down off the cart and went inside, without looking towards the Fenians. Joe turned the horse over to the corner of the yard.

“May the priest roast in hell,” the tall man said. There was a strong smell of whiskey off him. “May he never see the face of God.”

The Fenians all shouted loudly and angrily against the priest. Michael nodded in agreement at a small man with brown-rimmed glasses who said that it was a sad day for Ireland when the Catholic clergy had turned on her.

“That tall man,” Charlie whispered, turning his back on the group and facing Michael, “is Mogue McCabe, the centre of the Fenians in Enniscorthy.”

Michael had often heard his father talking about McCabe. He had been involved in the Fenian movement from the beginning. He knew all the top men, and had suffered like them in English jails. McCabe, still talking loudly, began to walk towards the ditch and the others followed him. Michael thought about McCabe being tortured, then shackled to the wall of a damp dungeon, shivering in the cold and dark, a diet of bread and water, no one to talk to. McCabe turned around, and it was his eyes that Michael looked at. They were intense and alive, like the spirit of the Fenians. The British could never break the spirit of a Fenian. Michael hoped that he too would be strong enough to suffer like that for Ireland.

“I don’t give a tinker’s curse about priests or bishops,” McCabe was saying, shaking his clenched fist. “We’ll go in after dark and give that blackguard a right fright. We’ll get Jim Carty a Christian burial. The clergy have betrayed the Irish people before and they will betray them again. We will fight the British with or without the Catholic Church and we will win,” McCabe continued. The anger and excitement of his talk lifted Michael’s mood and he wanted this speech to go on forever. “Our struggle against the British has gone on for centuries, but the day is coming when the Fenians will drive them, like you’d drive a herd of cattle, out of this land, and Ireland will take her rightful place among the nations of the world.”

He stopped abruptly and moved on towards the ditch. Michael looked after him. He wished McCabe would keep on talking. He felt let down after the speech ended as if there was something in him, or in his life, suddenly gone missing. He wanted to cry. The sun was shining behind the trees and some of the leaves looked yellow in the sunlight. A few leaves fell, twirling slowly to the ground. The Fenians had followed McCabe and they were all talking again, standing under the ash trees. He was on his own in the middle of the yard when he rememb. . .