Dublin, 8 May 1945
All evening the mood among much of the crowd had grown more outraged as people stopped in College Green to stare up at the flagpoles above the locked gates of Trinity College. Art sensed that the majority of Dubliners wished to celebrate Victory in Europe Day, but this effrontery was too pronounced. People were annoyed enough that the censorship laws – forbidding any expressed opinion on the war – had been bypassed this morning by the Protestant Irish Times who laid out the censored news on its front page in the shape of a massive V for Victory. But an hour ago when Trinity College students climbed onto the roof to raise the Union Jack on the main flagstaff, higher than the nearby Irish tricolour, this had proved too much for ardent nationalists who tried to storm the main gate and remove the flag.
The Trinity students had either been drunk or dangerously high-spirited because, in response to abuse shouted up from the street, one student had lowered the tricolour and tried to set it alight. His companions remonstrated and quickly stamped out the flames, but by now reports had reached every public house nearby from which angry drinkers were emerging. Ireland had sat out this war, maintaining such a strict code of neutrality that, with the victorious Red Flag already flying over the Reichstag, de Valera had still followed protocol by officially visiting the German Legation to express condolence on Hitler’s death.
Tonight in London and Moscow and Paris and amidst the ruins of Stalingrad people were cheering, but in Dublin there was a sense that nobody knew how to react. The risk of invasion was gone and with it hopefully a gradual reduction in rationing and censorship. But the Irish were neither victors nor vanquished. Any sense of idealism was dead. Ireland had threaded a safe passage through this war by taking decisions for cold and pragmatic reasons. To de Valera’s credit he remained his own man to the end, not joining the last-minute rush of countries like Saudi Arabia and Argentina who, with the battle won, felt it opportune to declare war on Germany. But during the past hour the crowds in College Green had remained angry and deflated, as if their noses were being rubbed in the dirt by the Trinity students who remained on the roof beside the Union Jack.
Tomorrow Art was leaving for London where an election would soon be called and he could canvass for communist candidates. But tonight he had one final duty to do because while Irish people wanted to celebrate the end of fascist tyranny, they could not be expected to do so beneath the British flag. Art could see American flags in the crowd and therefore felt it important that the true victors be represented by the Soviet flag he held folded inside his jacket.
Last week he had left Dunkineely, two days after communist partisans strung up Mussolini’s corpse from the façade of a Milan petrol station. Ignorance and prejudice had thwarted Art’s plans for a Workers’ Rest Home after the first Dublin families left early. Because of whatever slander they spread on their return, the second consignment of families never arrived in Donegal, despite Art sending money for their fares. He had spent days keeping the empty Manor House spotless while awaiting them. Long nights walking from room to room, unable to surrender his dream even though he sensed the whole village laughing at him. All that arrived were poorly written cancellations from families who had booked free holidays for the summer, so similarly worded that he wondered if Trotskyites had poisoned their minds. He had lost the will to cook for himself as the vegetables stored up for his guests began to rot in the kitchen. Art might not have eaten except that Samuel Trench’s daughter, now married, had taken pity and sent over her daughter with hot stews each evening which Art ate alone in Father’s study. On the evening when reports were announced on his wireless about the Americans liberating Dachau, Art was so sickened by the details that he had been unable to touch his stew. When the child called back for the plate, Art had returned it along with the key to the Manor House. Telling the child to instruct her mother to do whatever she wished with the house, he had closed the door behind him and walked through the night towards Donegal town, knowing that, once he caught a train next morning, he would never return.
There was a stir now among the College Green crowd as a party of students from the nearby National University marched down Grafton Street. Art had noticed them an hour ago for being the most vociferous hecklers of the Trinity students. He climbed onto the railings to wave the Red Flag, but few people noticed at first because their attention was focused on this group of students. Two students at the very rear had acquired Nazi swastikas, which they waved defiantly at the Trinity students on the roof. Some people among the crowd roared their approval at this bravado while others shouted for the swastikas to be torn up. The cultivated ignorance and tomfoolery of the Catholic students sickened Art. Millions of deaths meant nothing to them compared to the chance to taunt a few Anglophiles on the roof of Trinity.
Art lifted the Red Flag higher and shouted: ‘Long live Comrade Stalin. Salute the victorious Red Army.’ But nobody turned because a young Nationalist student at the front of the group had stopped outside the closed gates to make a speech. He seemed a natural public speaker, conveying his indignation at this affront to Irish sensibilities by Trinity College with an aura of self-possessed mocking braggadocio.
‘Good man, Charlie!’ a fellow student shouted. ‘If there’s one man to show the Brits, it’s Charlie Haughey.’
‘Do it, Haughey, do it!’ others urged and Art watched the young Haughey fellow produce a Union Jack which he hung from the college gates and proceeded to set alight. A cheer arose with other students urging people to storm the British Embassy. Dissenting voices shouted back and fistfights broke out. Scanning the crowd Art recognised two of the committee to whom he had ceded control of the Raglan Road house. To his amazement they were cheering the burning flag when they had a duty to show example by publicly celebrating Stalin’s victory. Art shouted in their direction and waved the Red Flag higher, but although he was sure they spied him they made no effort to join his demonstration. Instead they pushed further back into the crowd as people started to take notice of his flag.
‘Get that rag down, you godless communist bastard,’ a man shouted.
Art ignored him and shouted: ‘Long live Comrade Stalin. Rejoice at the victory of Comrade Stalin!’
People were torn between wishing to watch the Union Jack burn and wanting to attack Art. A hand grabbed his elbow and, looking down, he recognised Kathleen Behan’s son Brendan, the one who had gone to borstal for trying to bomb Liverpool.
‘Goold, you daft fucker, get down out of that or they’ll kill you altogether,’ Behan urged.
‘I’m celebrating,’ Art replied. ‘Tomorrow I leave for London, and Ireland can go to hell. But my country has won a victory costing millions of lives and I defy any man to stop me celebrating.’
‘Listen,’ Behan coaxed, ‘the best way to enjoy celebrations is to be fecking alive for them. Get down from there and we’ll have a drink. My ma thinks you’re a saint, but she’d sooner not be praying to you in heaven just yet.’
However, even if Art wanted to move there was no escape from the hostile crowd. Two men grabbed the Red Flag from Art’s hand although he struggled to hold on, losing his grip on the railings. Others joined in, spitting on the flag and spitting at him. Art saw it being tossed further into the mob where a man managed to set it alight. Behan was trying to drag him away, kicking out at people to clear a path. There was commotion at the college gates as riot police arrived with batons. One man threw a punch at Art who squared up to him, raising his fists in a classic fighting stance. Behan climbed onto the railings from where he could kick out at people.
‘Jaysus, Goold,’ he shouted, ‘you’re not in a boxing ring in Marlborough College. Never mind your fists. Fuck the Marquess of Queensberry. Remember poor Oscar Wilde and kick them in the balls.’
There was a flash of raised batons and the crowd scattered, with Behan jumping down to grab Art as he tried to retrieve the burning Red Flag. Dragging Art down Dame Street, Behan ducked into a cobbled alley, raising a finger to the blood on his face.
‘Where are you bleeding from?’ Art asked.
‘Russell Street. But at least I know where I’m bleeding from.’ Behan laughed and scrutinised Art. ‘Are you really heading for the Big Smoke?’
‘There’s nothing to keep me here.’
‘The Ma will miss you. You should go back to Russia.’
‘I will one day, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’
‘We’ll have a jar on the strength of that and see you onto the boat in style.’ Behan wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve. ‘I’ve been going to American wakes since I was a chisler, sure it’s about time I attended a Russian one.’