The Rebels of Ireland Read Free Page B

of the quays, where he had noticed a tall building with a crane standing before, there was now a broken stone stump, while the houses in the street opposite were blackened ruins.
    Pincher took the stranger’s proffered arm gratefully as he stumbled to his feet. His leg hurt.
    â€œYou are just arrived?”
    â€œYes. For the first time.”
    â€œCome, then, Sir. My name, by the way, is Martin Walsh. There’s an inn close by. Let me help you there.”
    Having left Pincher at the inn, the obliging gentleman went off to inspect the damage. He returned an hour later to report.
    â€œThe strangest business. An accident without a doubt.” It seemed that a spark from a horse’s shoe upon a cobble had ignited a keg of gunpowder, which had set off a large gunpowder store by the big central crane. “The lower part of Winetavern Street is destroyed. Even the fabric of Christ Church Cathedral up the hill has been shaken.” He smiled wryly. “I have heard of strangers bringing bad weather, Sir, but an explosion is something new. I hope you do not mean the Irish any further harm.”
    It was gentle banter, kindly meant. Pincher understood this very well. But he had never been very good at this sort of thing himself.
    â€œNot,” he said with grim satisfaction, “unless they are papists.”
    â€œAh.” The gentleman smiled sadly. “You will find many of those, Sir, in Dublin.”
    It was not until after this Good Samaritan had conducted him up to Trinity College and seen him safely into the care of the porter there that Doctor Pincher discovered that Mr. Walsh himself was of the Roman faith. It was an embarrassing moment, it couldn’t be denied. Yet how could he have guessed that the kindly stranger, so obviously English, so clearly a gentleman, could be a papist? Indeed, as Walsh had warned him, he was soon shocked to discover that many of the gentlefolk and better sort in Dublin were.
    But this very discovery only showed, he was also to understand, how much work there was to be done.
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    1607
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    A midsummer evening. Martin Walsh stood with his three children on the Ben of Howth and stared across the sea. His cautious, lawyer’s mind was engaged in its own careful calculations.
    Martin had always been a thoughtful soul—old for his years, people used to say. His own mother had died when he was three, his father Robert Walsh a year after. His grandfather, old Richard, and his grandmother had brought him up and, used to the company of older people all the time, he had unconsciously taken on many of their attitudes. One of these had been caution.
    He gazed fondly at his daughter. Anne was only fifteen. It was hard to believe that he must already make such decisions about her. His fingers clasped the letter in the hidden pocket in his breeches, and he wondered, as he had been wondering for hours: should he tell her about it?
    The marriage of a daughter should be a private family affair. But it wasn’t. Not nowadays. He wished his wife were still alive. She would have known how to deal with this. Young Smith might possess a good character or a bad one. Walsh hoped that it was good. Yet something more would be necessary. Principles, certainly. Strength, without a doubt. But also that indefinable and all-important quality—a talent for survival.
    For people like himself—for the loyal Old English—life in Ireland had never been more dangerous.

    It was four and a half centuries since the Norman-French king Henry Plantagenet of England had invaded and, taking the place of the old High Kings of Ireland, bullied the Irish princes into accepting himas their nominal lord. Apart from the Pale area around Dublin, of course, it had still been Irish princes and Plantagenet magnates like the Fitzgeralds—who were soon not much different from the Irish—that had ruled the island in practice ever since. Until seventy years ago, when King Henry VIII of