Creagh, County Cork
October 1843
AS MARY TIDIED HER SMALL VEGETABLE PATCH, SHE COULD FEEL THE warm autumn sun on her back. John teased her about growing cabbages, turnips and onions, saying it would be far better to plant potatoes there, but her mother had always grown a few vegetables and she wanted to do the same.
When she had married John Sullivan, Mary had moved out of Skibbereen to the holding near Creagh that John shared with his father, Cornelius. The old man had welcomed his new daughter-in-law and had insisted she and John take the room he had shared with John’s late mother, Anne. He had also been glad, she suspected, to have a woman around again to clean the place and cook the meals.
Little by little, Mary had made some changes. She had convinced John to mend the cottage’s thatch roof and wash its walls with lime, and to build a wooden pen for the pig to stop it from wandering about and destroying the place. Encouraged, she had even persuaded him to make a small hen-house to hold their hens.
‘With all these improvements, we will have the landlord down on us looking for more rent,’ John had said, worried.
‘They are only small things,’ Mary had assured him. ‘Things any bride would want.’
Old Corney Sullivan’s eyes had filled with tears when he held his first grandchild, Cornelius John Sullivan, in his arms. He was a wonderful grandfather, who loved young Con – and his little sister, Nora, who followed soon after – dearly.
Following his father’s death, John had been heartbroken. The only consolation was that his parents were finally reunited, buried together in the nearby graveyard.
Soon after, John had gone to Henry Marmion, the land agent for their landlord, Sir William Wrixon Becher, and asked to take over his father’s holding. The tenancy was agreed but the rent was increased.
‘A young man like you should be well able to work harder and earn more than the old man ever did,’ Mr Marmion had told him as he gazed about the Sullivans’ well-ordered fields and cottage.
Mary had felt guilty that her husband’s fears had been well-founded and that her few improvements had somehow caused the increase.
‘This is no fault of yours, Mary,’ John had reassured her. ‘That man has been waiting many a day for my father to die so he could do this and try to squeeze even more money and work from us.’
In the years that followed, Mary and John had worked hard, raising Con, Nora and their third child, little Tim, and tending their holding of one and a half acres. They now fattened two pigs – one for the market and one for themselves – and kept a few sheep. She even had twelve hens, and supplemented the family’s small income by selling some of their eggs.
Looking up from her work weeding the vegetable patch, Mary laughed as she watched the children play with Patch, their black-and-white collie. Eight-year-old Con was throwing a stick for him to fetch, but the dog began to bark as he spotted John and Pat returning from town in Pat’s small, horse-drawn wooden cart.
‘There is bad news,’ John called as he climbed down. ‘O’Connell’s Monster Meeting in Dublin was cancelled.’
‘The Lord Lieutenant had the military and the police surround the city,’ said Pat angrily. ‘They even had warships at the ready in Dublin Bay to attack the crowds. They are all afraid of O’Connell and the millions who follow him!’
‘O’Connell had no choice but to call it off, for many might have been injured or killed,’ John explained as he lifted a sack of oats from the cart.
‘There is talk that O’Connell himself will be arrested! Parliament and the authorities detest him and the Repeal movement.’
‘The Liberator will fight on,’ Mary insisted.
‘Then he should have fought earlier when he had the chance,’ Pat said sarcastically, urging the horse on as he headed across the fields to his own small dwelling.
Later that night, as she and John sat by the fire, Mary’s thoughts were with the proud, strong man who had stood on Curragh Hill and promised to champion the cause of poor tenants like them.
John stared into the glowing turf. ‘O’Connell may well be arrested, but he has shown us that we have the numbers. Pat and his Young Irelander friends are right. The time is coming that we should forget politics and fight properly for what is ours.’
Mary loved her husband dearly but was suddenly afraid of what he might become involved in.
‘John, we have the children and the farm. Promise me that you will not—’
‘Hush,’ he said, placing his finger on her lips. ‘I cannot make a promise I may not be able to keep.’
Even in the dull firelight she could see that he would brook no more discussion on the matter.