MURIEL FOUND IT hard to disguise her mounting disquiet as all day a stream of visitors called at their home on Oakley Road, seeking directions and orders and information about where to go for tomorrow’s Easter Sunday Volunteer manoeuvres. She was acutely conscious of the DMP men watching the goings-on and taking notes to report to their superiors. Visitors were given the information they needed and sent immediately on their way.
MacDonagh had still said nothing to her and was constantly away at meetings of some sort or another.
Grace arrived at the house, overwrought and upset after meeting Joe in town. ‘The wedding is postponed,’ she said tearfully.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Muriel said, hugging her sister and making her sit down.
‘I should have gone to the Metropole Hotel earlier,’ Grace reproached herself. ‘I barely had time to see Joe or talk to him.’
‘Grace, I’m sure that once the banns are read you and Joe will get married in a few days,’ Muriel consoled her. ‘You just have to be patient and wait.’
‘I don’t want to wait,’ her sister insisted, sounding strangely frantic. ‘We have to get married now, as soon as we can.’
MacDonagh returned home and Grace joined them for tea. Sitting at the table he refused to be drawn on the large-scale event that they were planning in Dublin and around the country for the next day.
‘It’s a bit of a stir to celebrate the anniversary of the Battle of Clontarf,’ was all he would say.
Muriel suspected that it was far more than that.
Later Grace went off in a car with MacDonagh and his brother John to a meeting being held in Seamus O’Kelly’s house in the hope of meeting Joe there, but she returned disappointed.
When MacDonagh came home he was in a state. He had seen Eoin MacNeill and Arthur Griffith at the meeting and it was clear there had been some terrible disagreement or falling-out between them.
‘After all our planning and organizing, Eoin wants to call tomorrow’s events off,’ he said angrily, banging the table. ‘There are admittedly problems – we’ve lost a shipment of arms down in Kerry, but I don’t believe that means that we should cancel the arrangements for tomorrow.’
Muriel tried to look sympathetic but she hoped that his old friend Eoin’s voice would hold sway. They barely got a chance to speak of it, however, as MacDonagh quickly packed a suitcase, took his Volunteer uniform and a few days’ rations then disappeared off into the night once again.
‘Every night it’s the same. The children and I miss him terribly, for he’s hardly ever at home these past weeks,’ she told Grace. ‘And I’m so worried for him.’
‘Joe’s the same. Tomorrow should be our wedding day, but instead of making our vows in the church, he is caught up in these plans with the Volunteers. It’s madness – he’s not fit for manoeuvres and should still be in hospital.’
They stayed up for hours, talking late into the night like they used to when they were younger, sharing their fears and worries. It was so strange, both of them in love with men who were such close friends and who were so deeply dedicated to the cause of Irish nationalism.
‘Perhaps we should have been good daughters and married stalwart, sensible Protestant solicitors and doctors like Mother wanted us to do,’ Grace mused.
‘Too late,’ laughed Muriel wryly. ‘We followed our hearts …’