‘God bless you,’ Father O’Connor said.
The railings were black and forbidding and the bulk of the church rose darkly against the sky. Yearling honked the horn in a friendly way and went off. The noise was ear-splitting.
In June again there was a shipping strike, followed by a building strike, followed by a strike of engineers. There were Larkinite processions, Larkinite banners, Larkinite slogans scrawled on the walls and footpaths of every street in Father O’Connor’s parish. Throughout the weeks of summer he watched them. The weather was fine and yet the air that lingered over evening thoroughfares seemed heavy not with the sun’s aftermath but with veiled and terrible anger. Men, no longer awed by his cloth, shook collection boxes under his nose at street corners; the little children begged coppers from him whenever he passed them. He had made a rule not to give charity because it only prolonged and encouraged discontent, yet he broke it on many occasions because the children had a pinched and hungry look in their faces. It was his duty, he felt, to harden his heart, but it was impossible not to have pity for the young and the innocent. These were not at fault. The air of the city told Father O’Connor that it must end badly. He could smell evil in the streets.
Pat and Joe were involved, and then they were back at work—then once again they were called out. Farrell stood idle for some weeks when the dockers refused to handle cargo. Fitz alone escaped. He set out to work each morning with growing uncertainty, yet when he returned each evening nothing had happened. The foundry workers had the rumour that a general strike was imminent, that the workers in Britain were waiting to join them in a complete close down in every part of the British Isles. In July Mulhall, back home from hospital and bedridden, sent across for him one evening and told him Willie and the rest of the messengers in Independent Newspapers had been dismissed for being members of Larkin’s Union. Mulhall was still weak. His face had a grey and bloodless pallor. But he clung tenaciously to the subject and the steps that should be taken and they sat talking until a late hour. The next day Independent Newspapers were blacklisted, shops and even railway kiosks that sold it were picketed. The distributors’ vans went about their business under police escort. The arrangement, only partly successful, added to the general tension.
The newspapers that continued to be distributed claimed that the shipping strike was a flagrant breach of an agreement only one month old. Mr. Larkin protested that he could not get the men back to work.
‘If an army rebels,’ he was reported as saying, ‘what is the commander to do?’
‘He should be hanged for a rogue,’ Bradshaw said furiously, when he read it.
‘He’s a very wicked man,’ his wife agreed, ‘think of all those poor, suffering children.’
‘And a liar,’ Mr. Bradshaw added, as though she had not allowed him to finish.
Yearling noted at the beginning of August that the men in the parcels department of the Tramway Company had been dismissed because they refused a managerial instruction to relinquish their membership of the Larkinite union. The dismissals were an obvious challenge. There would have to be a counter-stroke. Both the men in the parcels department of the Tramway Company and the boys dismissed from Independent Newspapers were employees of William Martin Murphy. He began to follow events with considerable interest, but without passion. He had no special feeling about the social order. It bored him. But he could understand the hatred it inspired in the many who suffered the brunt of its inequalities. Hunger was a great irritant. One day when a copy of the Larkinite paper The Irish Worker was offered to him in the street, he bought it and found the style fascinating. He read:
‘Every dog and devil, thief and saint, is getting an invitation to come to work for the Dublin Tramway Company. Every man applying is asked: Do you belong to Larkin’s Union?—if so, no employment.
‘Well, William Martin Murphy will know—I hope to his and Alderman Cotton’s satisfaction and the shareholders’ benefit—who is in Larkin’s Union, and who will have to be in it. Every man he is employing is known to us. What say Howard and Paddy Byrne? What say scab O’Neill? What say Kenna and Lawlor & Co.?
‘We have Them All on The List.
‘Mr. William Martin Murphy’s satellites, Gordon and Tresillian, have discharged some ten men for being in the Union.
‘Right, William the Saint. We have not moved yet and will not move until we are ready.
‘Woe betide Scabs then!’
He made a point of calling on his newsagent. There was a picket outside.
‘I wish to add an extra paper to my weekly list,’ he said.
‘Certainly sir—which one?’
‘The Irish Worker.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said—The Irish Worker.’
‘I’m afraid it is not a publication we can obtain through any of the usual distributors.’
‘In that case you’ll have to get it through the unusual ones, I suppose.’
‘It may be difficult.’
‘Not a bit,’ Yearling said. ‘At least twenty of them were stuck under my nose in the course of half an hour’s walk through the city. There are some men prancing up and down outside your shop at this minute who, I am sure, can put you in touch with the most reliable of sources. Anyway, I am assuming you will see to it.’
‘We’ll do our very best, sir.’
‘Thank you. In that case I know I may expect it regularly.’
‘Of course, sir. Regularly. You may rely on it.’
As he passed through the picket on his way out he paused to speak to the leader.
‘Interesting paper you get out,’ he said conversationally. ‘I like the style.’
They stared in unison after him.
Fitz had news for Mulhall during the same week. He went across each evening when he was not on shift work. He would bring a little tobacco and light Mulhall’s pipe for him, so that he could enjoy his one smoke of the day. He now occupied Willie’s bed, in the little room just off the living room. There were only two beds, so Willie now slept on the floor. He did not mind. Crippled, stricken, unable as yet to attend without help to any small, personal need, his father was still something of a god to him, a hero of great strength, gentle and good at home, without fear or price in the world outside it.
‘I’ve news for you this evening,’ Fitz said.
‘Pull over the chair,’ Mulhall invited.
‘On Saturday William Martin Murphy called all the tram men to a meeting in the Antient Concert Rooms. It started at midnight.’
‘They shouldn’t have gone,’ Mulhall said, getting angry.
‘Wait now,’ Fitz said. ‘Let me finish. He offered half a day’s pay to anyone who went to the meeting and when they went he offered them a shilling a week rise.’
‘Their demand is for two shillings.’
‘Wait now. The shilling was to be on condition that they’ll remain loyal and refuse to come out if Larkin calls them. He said if they go on strike he’ll spend a hundred thousand pounds to fight them.’
‘Had it any effect?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Fitz said, ‘The tram men will do what Larkin tells them.’
‘They’ll have to come out,’ Mulhall said, ‘not for the sake of the two shillings, but to stand by the messengers and the men in the parcels department.’
He remained quiet for a time. Then he stirred with impatience and said: ‘If only I could be out and about.’
‘If you’re going to talk like that,’ Fitz said, ‘I’ll never give you another bit of news.’
He found Mulhall’s pipe, filled it with tobacco and lit it for him. The small window let in so little of the evening light that he could see the tobacco reddening in the bowl. Then he helped to hoist up Mulhall so that he could smoke it.