Novel 6

 

                                                Chapter 6

                                            The Liberties.

The Liberties, in Dublin, is one of the City's oldest, historic, working class districts.

Why is it called The Liberties, and not The Liberty?

Because it joined two districts which were each called The Liberty: one was The Liberty of Saint Sepulchre, under the Archbishop of Dublin and the other was The Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore, belonging to Saint Thomas the Martyr.

The Liberties, as it is called, lies between those two jurisdictions.

It is in the centre of Dublin, between the River Liffey to the north, Saint Patrick's Cathedral to the east, Warrenmount to the south and Saint James Campus Hospital to the west.

A certain Patrick John Timothy Joseph Callaghan, lived there in the forties; the nineteen forties. He was born in the Liberties at the Coombe Maternity Hospital, and all those forenames was common practice for Roman Catholics to bestow upon their off spring -- rather like members of the Royal Families and upper class rulers of Europe, but his names were not inherited from heroes and ancestors but from the past, and mostly saints.

Therefore Patrick, as a first name, or as they used to call it, the Christian name, John as a middle name, Timothy a baptism name and Joseph the confirmation name. 

Although by the time you get to Joseph, it would be quite obvious that this was a Roman Catholic.

He was the youngest child of a family of seven children, and his eldest brother was twenty years older so Patrick must have been an after thought, to his parents, and was such a big bundle that his darling mother died in the process.

His father, Joe, was a horse trader and poet. He could play any instrument you threw at him and could dance a jig with the best of them. He bought and sold horses at Smithfield, in Dublin, and when Patrick was big enough he helped; he was a good rider but didn't follow in his father's footsteps – he tried to be a bookie's runner but most of the time he tried to sell advertising space for the newspapers.

He did this by calling on lots of businesses, in Dublin, and one time was trying in Clerys, a very fashionable department store, when Carmel Wilde walked into his life.

She lived in Dún Laoghaire, which is a salubrious suburb, or town, about seven or eight miles, or so south of Dublin. It was a lovely peaceful place on the coast, with a harbour where the boats docked from Holyhead in Wales. Emigrants, immigrants, visitors, holiday makers came to Ireland through Dún Laoghaire.

Carmel Wilde would be described as Anglo-Irish  who were mostly protestant, and described by the working class, and the very loyal and committed republican, Brendan Behan, as Ireland's 'leisure class', and ingeniously described an Anglo-Irishman as a Protestant with a horse.

Carmel could, indeed, ride a horse as she had joined a local hunt when she was attending Kylemore Abbey School for girls, in Galway, and rode for pleasure in and around Dún Laoghaire.

In adult life she would join protests against the hunt and the cruelty to foxes and the like.

In Clerys, Patrick had been following the man who was responsible for Clerys' newspaper advertising, who had disappeared into the lingerie section of the Ladies clothing department as soon as he saw Patrick enter the building.

The fact is Patrick had been there a few times that week, and each time when the galoot saw him coming, he dodged into some door.

Patrick knew that selling advertising in those days was a long time between drinks, so his persistence was understandable.

His father, Joe was in McDaids pub in Grafton Street, waiting for Patrick to buy the drinks. He was so thirsty that his mouth felt like the bottom of a parrot's cage. He looked at the door in the crowded pub with the barman looking at him, wondering if he was going to come up and settle his bar bill that day.

The Clerys advert had been published in the newspaper and the galoot who was avoiding him had taken the money from the petty cash, to pay Patrick, but had spent it at Bewley's Coffee shop, also in Grafton Street, when some young ladies, whom he knew from school, asked him to show them a good time - if you could call them ladies, as they looked like a bunch banshees in search of a death.

He wanted to cut a dash and splash the cash so Bewley's was the place. A very select place, Bewleys, and the young ladies were escorted from the building, by the manager, when it became clear they were adding a drop of mountain dew to their drinks.

That wasn't the only reason they were kicked out, but the fact that they were passing the drinks around and starting a hooley didn't impress anybody.

Joe looked at that door and thought to himself, and who else would he think to 'Where is that shite?'

Carmel was in Clerys to buy her favourite lingerie, which was from the French fashion house, Legaby and as Patrick looked around for the person he wanted he stepped back, as Carmel came out of the fitting room, and almost stepped on her “Sorry” he said.

He looked at her; she was younger, almost his size and he couldn't take his eyes off her, and he had knocked the underwear, she was carrying, on to the floor. They both stooped to lift it up and Patrick was quicker; she stood up and he joined her then he gave her what she had dropped.

“Sorry” he said, again “I hope it's okay?”

She was as besotted with him as he was with her, but she almost snatched it from him, pulling the items to her chest.

It wasn't much, but each knew they were not finished.

Joe looked at the Gothic style windows of McDaids, knowing full well, that the place used to be The Dublin City Morgue, long before it was a pub - even being converted in to a chapel, at one time, and wondering if he would die of thirst and thinking if he did he would be in the right place.