Our Lady Of Greenwich Village (35 page)

So that was the history of the gravestone up in Glasnevin. The research room was beginning to fill up with Americans. O'Rourke sat, utterly deflated. He couldn't get his grandmother, Rosanna, out of his mind. He could see the picture he had at home of her. There she sat in sepia at a table with the grandfather. She was on the right. A book in her hand. Looking at the camera. She had that wide Conway mouth that his mother had inherited. There was no smile, just a line. But she was not cross in the photo, which was obviously taken in a studio. Her eyes smiled and you could see that they must have lit up when she was happy. The grandfather, with the splendid handlebar mustache, sat to the left, his mouth slightly ajar. O'Rourke guessed it was about 1911. She had four years to live. O'Rourke thought about Patrick Pearse, who lived yards from this very office, and the Dublin of his grandmother came into focus.

Rosanna died in 1915, a pregnant year for Ireland. In May, the RMS
Lusitania
sets sale from Pier 52 at the foot of West 12th Street—oddly enough, the border separating the parishes of St. Veronica's and St. Bernard's. The queen of the Cunard Line meets the U-20 off the Old Head of Kinsale in County Cork. Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger peers through his periscope, shouts “Torpedo loose!” and the gravediggers work overtime. Dublin is a city full of revolutionaries waiting for the next Easter. Big news that summer was the death of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa, the mad Fenian who had died on Staten Island in June. On Tom Clarke's order, the indefatigable John Devoy dug Rossa up and sent him home for show. “The fools, the fools, the fools!” said Pearse—who would face the wall at Kilmainham and earn a quicklime grave himself within nine months—“they have left us our Fenian dead.” But Grandmother Rosanna did not hear Pearse, for she had already made Glasnevin the previous February. She lived somewhere on Aungier Street, according to his mother. But that was not true. She lived and died in the scatologically named Piles Buildings, Arthur's Lane. She had four sons in addition to his mother. Joe and Frank would be IRA gunmen, one boy, Charlie, his mother had repeatedly misinformed him, would choke to death on a Friday fishbone and the other one, Dick, would grow up in an orphanage, like O'Rourke's mother. Did Charlie's death grieve Rosanna into tuberculosis? Did she give up hope? Did she stop believing in the Virgin Mary? When she was dying did she wonder if she would ever see summer again? Did she wonder who would take care of her children? Did she wonder, “why me?” Did she ask why her Blessed Virgin had deserted her?

It was time to get moving, but O'Rourke had a hunch. Because his mother always made a big deal out of Uncle Joe's birthday—October 10, 1901—he decided to try and find his grandparents' marriage certificate. If there was one thing the poor the world over did for nothing, it was fuck and fuck often. O'Rourke made a wild guess and asked for the marriage index for 1900. He immediately went to the quarter beginning July 1 and searched. A Kavanagh showed up on September 17, marrying a Conway. He filled out the slip and waited for the verdict.

Ainm agus Sloinne
/Name and Surname: Joseph Kavanagh. Rosanna Conway.

Sollúnaíodh an Pósadh
/Marriage Solemnized at: the Catholic Church of St. Michael & John. On Wood Quay, facing the Liffey.

Staid
/Condition: Bachelor. Spinster. O'Rourke smiled at the spinster notation. It was a word that, pronounced viciously enough, could stick in the craw of an unmarried Irish woman.

Gairm Bheatha
/Rank or Profession: Hairdresser for him. Blank for her. Rosanna must have done
something
, but the state, British at that time, thought it unimportant.

Ionad Cónaithe
/Residence at the time of Marriage: the groom, 40 Camden Row. The bride, 26 Temple Lane. There was the Temple Lane reference again, just as in Uncle Joe's death certificate. That must have been Rosanna's home. Camden Row was only blocks away from Temple Lane. This was beginning to sound like a neighborhood romance.

Ainm agus Sloinne an Athar
/Father's Name and Surname: Joseph Kavanagh (deceased). Richard Conway (deceased). So that's how Uncle Dick got his name. And for the first time O'Rourke knew his great-grandfathers' first names.

Gairm Bheatha an Athar
/Rank or Profession of Father: Kavanagh was a Labourer; Conway a Cabinet Maker. Not only did Uncle Dick get his name from his grandfather, but he also inherited his grandfather's carpentry skills which he used to make altars dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

In ár bhFianaise
/in the Presence of us: John Kavanagh was best man; Elizabeth Reilly was maid of honor. O'Rourke knew his grandfather's brother, Jack, lived in Dun Laoghaire and had lived into his 80s, dying in the 1950s after the family had immigrated to America. He was clueless about his grandmother's friend, Elizabeth Reilly. He made a note to tell Cyclops.

So many of the family secrets had been revealed and O'Rourke, after only an hour's work, felt exhausted, but in a way exuberant. He now knew where he had come from. He didn't know if it helped him in any way, but he felt more complete. There were literally hundreds of relatives on the O'Rourke side, stretching from Dublin into Meath and Louth and down to Wexford, but it was this little Kavanagh family of seven that had caught his fascination. Now all dead, but not forgotten. At least not in this moment.

T
he following morning O'Rourke was back at the Registar's Office in Lombard Street. He started collecting birth certificates for the Kavanagh children. He knew both Uncle Joe's and his mother's birthdays and got the certificates. He backtracked with Charlie the ten years the gravestone said and sure enough found him in January 1904, the year of Joyce's
Ulysses
. Did Joyce and Nora Barnacle ever come across the Kavanagh clan as Rosanna wheeled Charlie's pram across St. Stephen's Green? Did Nora see little Joseph clutch onto his mother's skirt or hold his da's hand in the Bloomtime summer of 1904?

He knew his Uncle Frank was born on November 2nd, All Souls Day. O'Rourke searched the index books for 1902 and 1903 and only came up with a Myles Francis Kavanagh. He got the certificate, but it was not the right Frank. “Myles,” laughed O'Rourke. Boy, was that the wrong fucking name for Frank Kavanagh, the meanest son-ofa-bitch O'Rourke had ever encountered in his life—and that was saying something.

Frank Kavanagh, after his IRA troubles, somehow got to America in the early 1920s, probably illegally, probably as a seaman. He had Hollywood good looks that would put Clark Gable to shame. He loved booze and women and plenty of both. His habit was to work for six months at sea, come back to New York and drink and whore until his money ran out, and then go back out to sea. During World War II he shipped out with the merchant marine and his ship was torpedoed by the Japanese in the South Pacific. He spent nearly three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He lived on rice and fishheads. Then it was POW bait. Today they call it
sushi
.

The only thing Frank hated more than the Japanese were the British, who had, in effect, chased him out of his own country. One of the great indignities of his life was being liberated from the Japanese by the British army. Even after twenty-five years, the IRA man inside remained belligerent. As he came out of the camp, dressed in a thong, a British Tommy in sympathy said, “How are ya, mate?”

Frank Kavanagh took one look at the soldier and let out a well directed, “Go fuck yerself, ya British cunt!” The Tommy almost collapsed, he was so shocked. Frank may have weighed only ninety pounds, but his malicious Irish memory was perfect.

After the war he lost a leg at sea in an accident and moved to Greenwich Village—in St. Veronica's Parish—to be close to the O'Rourkes. He expected young Tone to come and do his grocery shopping every day after school. Tone wanted to play ball like his hero Willie Mays of the New York Giants. He wanted to perfect the basket catch that Willie used at the Polo Grounds uptown. Tone stopped showing up to do the grocery shopping. Frank got madder than usual. When Frank passed away a few years later, Tone was out of Frank's substantial will. O'Rourke smiled, thinking of the hard life lesson that Frank Kavanagh had taught him early on.

As usual, Frank was continuing to be difficult. O'Rourke was sure of his birthday, November 2, but could not find him in either 1902 or 1903. Charlie was 1904 so O'Rourke went to 1905—and there was Frank. The first surprise was that Charlie was between Joe and Frank.

O'Rourke's mother was next in 1907 and then he had to look for Richard, his Uncle Dick, after her. He went to 1909 to give Rosanna a year's break and found Richard on October 16.

The only difference in all the birth certificates was that Dick was the only one not born at 40 Camden Row. It was the grandfather's home when he got married and apparently, Rosanna had moved there and raised the family. Dick was born in the Rotunda Hospital in Parnell Square. O'Rourke wondered at the reason. Was it a tough pregnancy or was it becoming the fashion to have babies in hospitals by 1909?

The family was complete and O'Rourke felt rather proud. Rosanna and Joseph had been prolific the first nine years of their marriage:

Joseph, October 10, 1901

O'Rourke was one of those people who looked for significance in everything. He truly believed that serendipity meant something. The dates jumped out at him. His mother was born on March 18, the day after St. Patrick's Day. St. Patrick's Day was always a two-day celebration to O'Rourke because of his mother. He also noticed that his Uncle Dick was born on October 16. He shared his birth date with Michael Collins. O'Rourke smiled. Somehow, he couldn't see Michael Collins building temples to the Virgin Mary in each room of his apartment.

Charlie's birthday was the oddest. January 17. It must have been a date of immense joy in 1904 when he was born. And O'Rourke wondered if his grandfather was aware of it when he died 20 years to the date of Charlie's birth in 1924?

In a strange, benign way O'Rourke was suddenly curious about the mating habits of his grandparents. Kids in 1901, 1904, 1905, 1907, and 1909. What the hell was going on in 1902 and 1903? He doubted they had come up with some amazing form of birth control, which left the question, was there a miscarriage or an infant death, or even a stillbirth? It was a distinct possibility considering the fertility of this young, robustly sexual couple. O'Rourke thought of going through the birth and death books one more time, but he just wasn't up to it. For now, at least, he would let his imagination dictate what was going on over at 40 Camden Row.

O'Rourke left Joyce House and walked down Pearse Street to the Dublin City Library and Archive. He had used it before when he was working on Mary Robinson's campaign for the Irish presidency in 1990. He went upstairs and headed for the Thom Directories, a great source of information on Dublin going back to the mid-nineteenth century. It listed every business in the city, by street name. He decided to look in the 1900 book and searched for Camden Row, #40. There it was: Joseph Kavanagh, hairdresser. He continued going backwards until he got to 1893 and found another barber had the business in that year. Did O'Rourke's grandfather buy that business? Now O'Rourke went forward. Nineteen-ten was the last listing for Joseph Kavanagh at 40 Camden Row. Since all but one of the children were born there, they must have also lived in the building. After sixteen years of business on Camden Row why did he suddenly move? Why the economic downturn? Too many mouths to feed?

The librarian directed O'Rourke to some maps of Dublin City and he immediately checked the key for the Pile's Buildings. To his astonishment, they were there in postal code Dublin 8, and it also gave the street name Golden Lane, which was just to the south of Aungier Street, very near St. Patrick's Cathedral. On the map he could see Golden Lane, right next to Arthur's Lane. And the Adelaide Hospital was just around the corner. On the map, O'Rourke could see it was only a block from the beautiful park at St. Patrick's. He wondered if Rosanna ever took the children to romp in the park on a sunny summer's day. He rechecked the Thom's Directory and found that #1 and #8 Golden Lane were tenements, worldwide nomenclature for the poor.

O'Rourke had one more thing to do. Sam had not been a complete failure teaching him about strange technologies—like cell phones and the Internet. She showed him how to use Google by putting his name in the search engine. He was surprised by the number of items that came up with his name on them.

“How do you like being Googled?” she asked.

“Feels good,” replied O'Rourke.

“Is that all you think of?” replied Sam, not all that upset at the innuendo.

O'Rourke loved Sam's humor and was a bit surprised to catch himself laughing out loud as he typed in “diphtheria” into the search engine. The description was surprising: “Diphtheria is a very contagious and potentially life-threatening infection that usually attacks the throat and nose. In more serious cases, it can attack the nerves and heart.”

Throat and nose. O'Rourke's mother had been right, in her own way. As Charlie succumbed to the diphtheria, O'Rourke's mother thought he had choked on a fishbone. Nineteen-fourteen. Eighty-six years ago. It was strange. O'Rourke worked in a profession—politics—where truth was never spoken and seldom thought. Yet his mother spoke her version of the truth to him about Charlie's death, so long ago. And that tombstone up in Glasnevin spoke the truth too, giving clues to a family that had been forgotten for almost a century.

O'Rourke came out the Pearse Street Library and started walking back towards City Centre. He thought of the Kavanagh family gravestone up in Glasnevin and how that new statue of the Virgin Mary seemed to be stalking him from over in that other plot, as if beseeching him to write down the information that was chiseled into the stone. It was all so curious.

When he got to Westland Row, he stopped. He made a left and, for some reason, headed for St. Andrew's, the church where he had been baptized as Jude Wolfe Tone O'Rourke. Life had taught O'Rourke's mother many lessons and she was a big believer in St. Jude, the saint of hopeless causes. It was as if the church, which would have saved him from the nothingness of limbo if he had died in infancy, was inexorably pulling him towards it.

In
Ulysses
it was called “All Hallows” as Mr. Bloom paid a visit. He saw a woman coming out and decided to go inside for the first time in nearly thirty years. He genuflected and took a seat in a pew in the almost empty church. Up ahead was the baptismal fount where his christening into the Catholic Church had taken place. He didn't know it for a fact, but he assumed that this was also the place where the revolutionary Pearse Brothers, Padraic and Willie, had also been baptized. They were born only paces away in Great Brunswick Street, which was now named after them. And they had gone to the Christian Brothers School next door. He still didn't know what to make of Patrick Pearse, the wall-eyed poet. He was a lousy revolutionary, a miserable politician, and, by all accounts, a terrible businessman. Someone had even written a book about him called
The Triumph of Failure
. He was an odd duck who ran a school for boys, which sent a red flag up for O'Rourke. But he was an excellent motivator. First at the grave of O'Donovan Rossa in 1915, then later at the GPO on Easter Monday as he read the declaration of independence he had authored,
Poblacht Na h Eireann.
Next to Yeats, he might be one of the oddest people ever to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Collins observed Pearse in the GPO and took notes on how
not
to run a revolution. Whatever he was, he somehow succeeded in getting the Irish off their asses after seven hundred years of obsequiousness to Britain.

The baptismal fount reminded him not only of his own beginning, but what was going on with Sam and the baby. There hadn't been a word out of her for the last month. He had called her a few times in Tortola, but she never returned his voicemails.The Luddite in O'Rourke scoffed at the notion that all the new technology was helpful. If it was so fucking helpful, why didn't Sam call him? What was to become of their baby? O'Rourke didn't know what to do. Time was becoming tight for the baby's survival. Maybe he should go straight to London and hop a flight to the British Virgin Islands?

Then he thought of the other Pearse brother, Willie. Pearse the sculptor and occasional revolutionary. He went into the Mortuary Chapel and looked at his
Mater Dolorosa
, Christ's sorrowful mother, standing. Our Lady of Sorrows. O'Rourke grunted. This was getting personal. His mother had been married at Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow in Foxrock in 1945. Ireland's “emergency” over—and hers about to begin. If there was ever truth in advertising, thought O'Rourke, it was his mother getting married in Our Lady of
Perpetual
Sorrow. His parents' marriage still served as a warning to O'Rourke, the eternal Irish bachelor.

O'Rourke looked at Willie Pearse's sculpture and wondered how it had affected his mother, the very political Mrs. Margaret Pearse, in the years after his execution. The Via Dolorosa was the route Christ took to Calvary after Pontius Pilate washed his hands of him. It was where St. Veronica wiped the sweating face of Christ and was rewarded with his image on the cloth. It must have been difficult for Mrs. Pearse. Although she didn't live on Pearse Street after the Rising, she probably came to mass at St. Andrew's on the occasional Sunday, and the old church must have been a constant reminder of her dead sons. They were baptized here and they should have been buried out of there, but the British were not about to have any more Fenian extravaganzas, like Rossa's funeral. It must have been agony for Mrs. Pearse to stare at the
Mater Dolorosa
and think of her two sons. It was the grief of an earthly mother, sharing in the pain of the Blessed Virgin.