Carn Read Free Page B

Carn Square, was to be renamed Dolan Square.
    Tricoloured posters appeared all over the town. Above the new record shop (a recent addition to the Trendy Boutique) a speaker blared martial tunes. Young children once more set about making
rifles and assembling gangs. The library set up an exhibition of photographs of the insurrection. Buildings burned everywhere and khaki men raced through rubble and devastated city streets.
Machine-guns rat-tat-tatted on the radio as the Dublin of 1916 caved in on itself. The Sapphire Ballroom was transformed into a theatre where the local people performed their version of that
Easter’s events. The Turnpike Inn resounded with songs of the rebellion, James Cooney obliging with a song of his father’s endeavouring as best he could to mask all trace of his
American accent as he sang. Eyes fell and ribs were nudged as he raised his fist and brought them all with him—oh what matter when for Ireland dear we fall.
    The new plaque was draped in green and gold.
    The day of the unveiling of the plaque Carn Sons of St Patrick marched through the streets with their green and gold banner held high, the bass drum booming. Benny’s father had consented
to being guest of honour on account of his own father, and now stood nervously beside the minister who checked his notes and straightened his tie. Then he began to speak. “The day has not yet
come in which we can write the epitaph of Robert Emmet. It has not come because the Ireland that he wished for, the Ireland in which differences between sections of our people would have been
forgotten—that day has not yet arrived . . .”
    He went on in that vein for over half an hour. Then he said he would like to call on Hugo Dolan to assist him in the unveiling of the plaque. A loud cheer went up from the crowd. Aware of the
discomfort of the police who flanked him, in particular the detective whose duty it had been some years before to arrest him, Hugo Dolan smiled as he shook the hand of the minister. Benny felt a
surge of pride as he listened to his father speak of that fateful day in 1922, of the hunger that had been in Matt Dolan to see the country free, a hunger that he himself had always understood and
shared. Men said to each other in the crowd, “It’s the same old Hugo all right. You don’t put men like him down so easy . . .” When the speeches were over, the crowd clapped
and moved back as the ritual began. There was a roll of drums as the national flag was lowered to half-mast. The crowd scanned the sky as if they expected it to darken. The minister moved forward
facing the plaque on the wall. He tugged at the cord and the velvet curtain rolled back. The band played a slow air. “Erected to the memory of Commandant Matt Dolan, North Monaghan Brigade,
IRA, Killed In Action 1922 . . .” read the minister over a whistling microphone. The crowd cheered again and banjos and accordeons struck up a tune on the stage with local musicians winking
at their families who waved proudly up at them. After a time, the people began to disperse and drift in the direction of the taverns and hotels, and Benny for the first time drank a number of
bottles of stout which were bought for him by men who told him that the name of Dolan had gone down in history. One man dragged long and hard on his cigarette and whispered out of the side of his
mouth, “Your grandfather took a bullet in the head. He died a soldier. My own father was at the funeral. And that man there, your own father, he got it from them too, both sides of the fence,
our own free state lackies and all, they gave him the treatment. That’s your breed son. And I hope you’re made of the same stuff. I know you are.”
    The alcohol was taking effect and Benny did not reply to any of this as he was having difficulty focussing on the words, the movement of the man’s lips capturing his whole attention. A
group in the corner demanded silence. From their mouths uncoiled a lament for