The Road to McCarthy (34 page)

In 1668 legislation was passed “to restrain several odious distinctions used by the English, Scots and Irish reflecting on each other (English Dog, Scots Dog, Cavalier, Roundhead and many other opprobrious, scandalous disgraceful terms).” The Act made no mention of the African population.

Slaves stolen from their homes in Africa began to arrive shortly after the Irish. What resulted was a three-tiered colonial society. The British owned the island, and ran it for their own financial interests. Shrewdly they appointed a series of Irish governors who were also Protestants, and so had one foot in either camp. On the second tier were the bulk of the settlers, Irish Catholics who were forbidden land grants and the subsequent ownership of large plantations because of their religion; they became a white underclass engaged in fishing and subsistence farming, occupations in which they would have received a good grounding under British rule in Ireland. In Montserrat they found themselves in the unaccustomed situation of not being at the bottom of the British-dominated pile, because at the next level down came the Africans: “the slaves of slaves” as the Montserrat poet and historian Howard Fergus has described them.

Although the Irish had themselves suffered under the heel of oppression, there is no reason to assume that the treatment of slaves in Montserrat was any less brutal than in other colonies. Irish and Africans lived in close proximity, but this might have been due as much to topography and economic necessity as to solidarity between the races. What is certain, however, is the savagery of the punishment meted out to black slaves. The cutting off of ears and burning with hot irons were commonplace; so were executions by hanging and dismembering, and also by burning “at the usual place in Plymouth,” as in the case of a slave burned to death in 1695 for stealing a cow. The slave’s owner received £3,500 of sugar from public funds as compensation for his loss.

In 1768 the slaves planned a rebellion. The day chosen was March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. Though Irish Catholics still did not enjoy equal status, weight of numbers meant that their national feast was always celebrated. During the festivities the slaves inside Government House would seize their masters’ swords while their fellows launched an attack from outside. Their plans were overheard and they were betrayed “by a white seamstress noted for drunkenness,” according to Howard Fergus, or “by a drunken old prostitute from Liverpool,” according to a guy I met in a rum shop last night. Either way, the rebellion was suppressed and its nine ringleaders publicly executed. This week’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations are therefore a two-edged sword, celebrating both the island’s Irish heritage and the attempted overthrow of white rule by slaves now hailed as freedom fighters by many of their descendants. The Irish have always enjoyed a good argument, so the embodiment of two conflicting traditions in one St. Patrick’s Day celebration seems entirely apposite.

I’ve been studying Montserrat’s history for the day and a half since I arrived. I’ve established an office at a table in the shade of a mango tree, with the unrealistically blue Caribbean to my right and the volcano constantly belching smoke and ash away to my left. It’s an office in the sense that, as well as a chair, there’s a small table piled with books, and a bottle of cold Carib beer. Behind me is an empty swimming pool, because I am the only tourist. The only other guest is a civil servant from the UK, here to help referee the contentious distribution of funds.

The Vue Pointe is a hotel with an air of Ian Fleming chic. It is the Caribbean before it got Michael Winnered and Del Boyed, before All-Inclusives and Couples-Onlys and Kidz-Klubz. There’s just an open-sided lobby and bar opening onto a pool, and eighteen little cottages set in a huge tropical garden that slopes down to the sea. It used to slope down to Montserrat’s only golf club as well, but that’s now just a scar on the landscape, the fairway buried under millions of tons of mud and ash. The dark gray beach I can see below me is twenty yards wider than it was five years ago, due to the build-up of volcanic material.

As well as books, my office is equipped with the official program of the St. Patrick’s Day Week of Activities.

I think I’ll go to them all.

Except the Freedom Run.

Among the books in my alfresco library is a copy of the Montserrat telephone directory, a slim volume that’s got a lot slimmer since 1997. When I asked for one this morning, the woman at reception told me about her friend who finds it hard to look up a phone number without crying. “The book is so thin now, it reminds her of everybody who’s gone.” A quick flick through the pages reveals some familiar surnames: Carty, Cavanagh, Collins, Daley, Farrell, Fergus, Halloran, Hogan, Macnamara, O’Garro, Os-borne, Riley Ryan—lots of Ryans—Sullivan, Sweeney and Tuitt. There are also some Paddys, and twenty-one families called Irish. This may prove nothing about genetic makeup—though it’s hardly credible that the Irish, and also the English and Scots, didn’t intermarry with African slaves and their descendants—but establishes beyond any doubt a significant Irish cultural connection among the West Indian population.

As well as the names, I’ve unearthed various supposed Celtic connections that I hope to investigate while I’m here. Chief among them is the accent, which according to some linguists, and many casual observers, has distinct Irish influences, among them a proclivity for ending sentences with the expression “at all at all.” On the face of it this sounds ridiculous, though there’s a story that’s been in circulation locally for many generations concerning the settler who came over from Ireland, and chatted to the first black man he met on the beach. “Jaysus, paddy,” he said, feeling at home
with the familiar accent, “haven’t you got yerself a fierce tan while ye’ve been here.”

Other alleged Irish influences include a percussion instrument related to the bodhran, a wind instrument descended from the tin whistle, and a heel-and-toe dance called Bam-check-a-lay Chuga Foot Myer that is said to be related to Irish step dancing, and predates
Riverdance
by centuries. In addition, an academic from Ohio University claims to have traced the recipe for the national dish of goat stew to Connemara. The Roman Catholic religion is thriving, and there is said to be a flexible, Irish-style approach to the concept of time. I am looking forward to a week of rigorous anthropological research. First, though, I will have another cold Carib, and a siesta. Reading in the tropics can be a very grueling business, especially when there’s a volcano at the end of the garden.

The radio is on
in the taxi as I head north in the dark on the island’s only road on my way to the Pentecostal church. My limited experience so far suggests that the radio is always on in Montserrat, broadcasting a continuous output of upbeat, feel-good island music, soca, jump-up, calypso and reggae. There’s no trace of the gangsta rap and machine-made music that has swamped other radio stations across the world. Unlike young whites in England, black Montserratians don’t seem to want to pretend they’re black New Yorkers. The song that’s on at the moment has a fiendishly catchy riff, and a chorus that goes:

I’ve just decided to buy the CD and take it back home when the song ends and I realize it was a public health announcement. As we pull up outside the church, it’s followed by another ad: “Come to St. Patrick’s Day at Festival Village. Enjoy yourself, Irish stylee!”

It’s not yet five to eight as I enter the church, but the event has already
begun. I’d been warned that nothing ever begins on time, but hadn’t realized they meant it might start early. Still, at least it’s unpunctual, and that’s the main thing; it’s always good to be reminded that you are time’s master, and not vice versa. Howard Fergus—who is a professor, and also now a Sir, so I’m not quite sure how to refer to him, because they don’t seem big on formality over here—is reading one of his poems about the volcano, “Irish Landfill”: “For St. Patrick’s Day,” he says.

When he finishes, he hands over to Chedmond Brown, who will give tonight’s lecture, which is also being broadcast on radio here and in some of the neighboring islands. Brown is a slim man with luxuriant, gently curling graying hair and light brown skin. The introduction says he is an elected representative to the island’s government, and makes it clear that he has a reputation as a bit of a firebrand and a radical. His text this evening concerns race, religion, conflict and culture, and is an impassioned plea to turn away from Montserrat’s colonial, Eurocentric and white heritage, and embrace its people’s African roots. I’m intrigued. I’m also aware that mine is the only white face in the room, apart from a couple sitting in the pew at the front, well-dressed, in their fifties, who must be tourists as well. It’s only when Mr. Brown makes direct reference to them that I realize it’s the British governor and his wife. As Chedmond warms to his task, the governor’s body language becomes increasingly agitated. He’s grinning at Cheddie in a we’re-all-colleagues-here-even-if-we-don’t-always-agree kind of a way, but looks as if he could do with a stiff G and T. I can’t find fault with most of what Chedmond has to say, particularly the way he’s encouraging people to read the history of their island and understand where they come from.

Hang on, though. He’s just said that the whole Irish thing is an invention of the tourist industry. If it is, it’s not a very successful invention, as I’m the only tourist here; but in any case, the facts don’t support him. Erin and the harp were on Montserrat’s stamps in 1903, long before any such industry existed; and the facts of the numbers of Irish settlers, and the names in the phone book, are indisputable. All the brown and black people in the room may not have Irish blood; but it’s likely some of them have. One day someone will check the DNA, and then we’ll know. There’s a lot of guff talked about blood and race and purity anyway. Most of us come from far more mixed-up backgrounds than we ever dream or admit to, particularly in the British and Irish Isles. The notion of Anglo-Saxons being “swamped” by immigrant foreigners always raises a chuckle among those of us who have come to terms with our Celtic-Roman-Saxon-Viking-Norman racial purity.

At the end of the lecture Dr. Professor Sir Fergus asks for questions and comments from the audience. Someone makes the point that the slaves might have been encouraged to rebel by the example of the perennially rebellious Irish, but Chedmond isn’t convinced. Someone else asks who St. Patrick was anyway. Chedmond tells him, and then it all goes quiet. The guy from the radio with the headphones on looks anxious. There’s still eight more minutes of airtime to fill. “Any more questions?” Doesn’t look like it. He is in trouble here, and must be rescued from the ignominy of dead air-time. I reach the microphone in the center of the aisle, and feel all eyes in the room upon me. My forehead is sweating. All I need now is a question.

“Er …. this is my first time in Montserrat. I’ve barely been here a day, and, er ….”

Up at the front Chedmond is scrutinizing me. The governor has stopped wiggling and appears to have settled down.

“Er …. I’ve come here, really, to try and make sense of the things Mr. Brown has been talking about, you know, the Irish, and, er, er …. slaves …. and ….”

Seven minutes to go. Come on. Think of a bloody question.

“The thing is ….”

Mind you, no one said the question had to be addressed to Mr. Brown, did they?

“Er …. the thing is, I’d really like to know what the British governor made of Mr. Brown’s speech.”

Uproar. Everybody’s clapping. A lot of them are screeching with laughter as well, which suggests I may have dropped the governor in the shit here. Perhaps it wouldn’t normally be protocol for him to speak at an event like this. Tough. He’ll have to now. They’re still clapping, and clearly have no intention of stopping until he gets to the microphone, which he just has. I give him a winsome smile, as if to say, “Sorry.” He gives me a knowing frown, as if to say, “You’re dead, pal.”

He starts off well, with uncontroversial, conciliatory-sounding expressions that mean whatever people want them to mean and will bring the broadcast to a gentle, terribly British conclusion. And then he says, “To be honest, I don’t know a great deal about Caribbean history.”

There’s a pause, a split-second hiatus in which we all think, What? What did he just say? Looks are exchanged, a mouth drops open, and then he continues.

“But I have spent many years in Russia, where I learned ….” I survey the crowd, and get the distinct feeling that Russia, in Montserrat, in St. Patrick’s week, is an extremely remote concept. He finishes, and the Schools’ Quiz results are announced. Through the open church door I see my taxi driver waiting outside.

I decide to leave before the governor finds out where I live, in case he has retired SAS men on his staff who are at a loose end for something to do in the evenings. The guy who’s made the point about the rebellious Irish inspiring the slaves shakes my hand at the door as I leave, asks me my name, and says that he’s called Cecil. I get into the cab thinking that from now on I’ll try to keep a lower profile. There are 4,000 people on this island, almost all of whom are Afro-Caribbean. You never know. Maybe I’ll just blend in.