Mother Ross: An Irish Amazon

By G.R. LLOYD

Kitty Cavenaugh, later known as Mother Ross, was born in Dublin in 1667. Raped, then deserted by the young man she had hoped to marry, she was rejected by her father who left the family home to join the hopeless cause of King James II. Rebel Catholics were persecuted and dispossessed by the English.

She joined the army of King William III in 1691 following her impressed husband to the wars in Flanders, where she fought at Schellenberg and Blenheim. At Ramillies, she was wounded and her sex discovered, but she stayed with the army in search for Richard, her husband. She observed battles at Oudenarde and at Malplacquet where her Richard was killed.

Back home in the UK, she was arrested for debt and saved from the Marshalsea Prison by General Edward Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia.

Mother Ross was as strong as any man, and braver than most, enduring five serious wounds and many indignities. She bore four children but had little affection for any of them. Thoroughly disreputable in many ways, she lived to the age of seventy-two at a time when few lived beyond forty.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 29, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477219331

G.R. LLOYD

Geoff Lloyd was born in 1928, served on the lower deck in the Royal Navy (postwar), spent most of his career in the UK Civil Service, moving around the British Isles. He travelled widely in Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India and retired to Portugal. His interests include music, history, and travel. He has written eighteen novels, three plays, short stories, etc. He lives with his wife in Hampshire, UK, has three children and fi ve grandchildren.

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© 2012 by G.R. Lloyd. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/25/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-1934-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-1933-1 (e)

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Contents

PROLOGUE

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII

Chapter XXXIX

Chapter XL

Chapter XLI

Chapter XLII

Chapter XLIII

Chapter XLIV

Chapter XLV

Chapter XLVI

Chapter XLVII

Chapter XLVIII

Chapter XLIX

Chapter L

Chapter LI

Chapter LII

Mother Ross—An Irish Amazon.

EPILOGUE

I recommend that one fourth part of the infants under two years old be forthwith fattened to provide dainty bits for landlords who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have best right to eat up the children.

(Dean Swift: ‘A Modest Proposal for preventing the Children of Poor people in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or the Country.’)

For Joan

PROLOGUE

The Royal Hospital

Chelsea.

12th April, 1742.

To Lord Fielding of Bray.

Your Lordship,

You may perhaps remember a report I sent you from the Field of Ramillies on Whitsunday 1706, on the subject of the demise of Colonel Brienfield.

I would not, of course, expect Your Lordship to remember a single report out of the hundred or so you will have received from the many theatres of war: Flanders, Spain and Italy in particular, at that time. But this report was singular in that it referred to a soldier in whom you have since always shown a special interest: Mrs Christian Davies, also known as Mother Ross.

I encountered this lady on but two occasions since Ramillies: at the Hospital, where she was applying for an invalidity pension, and here again but more recently, when she was given leave to live-in, despite being an out-pensioner, to nurse her third husband Mervyn Davies.

As Your Lordship is aware, my connection with The Hospitalis now only on a consultative basis and, with light duties only, I was able to spend above two weeks in Mrs Davies’s company while, at my request, she agreed to tell me in her own words the story of her life. This story I have faithfully recorded in my book: Mother Ross, An Irish Amazon which I now commend to Your Lordship.

Her history is that of our times, a history which has been dominated by the glorious victories of the late Duke of Marlborough. She played a not insignificant part in the making of that history and should, I believe have a place in the annals of the British Army. She faced the danger and hardship of battle on foot and in the saddle, standing her ground with the best of men at Steenkirk, Landen, Namur, Schellenberg, Blenheim and Ramillies where, wounded and discovered for a woman, then discharged from the Army, she followed the drum to Oudenarde and Malplaquet—where her first husband Richard Welsh was killed in action.

Remaining with the Army as cook and sutler, she married again and lost her second husband Hugh Jones at the siege of St. Venant.

There can be little doubt of the truth of her own claim that she knew every officer and most of the men in the Army of her day, and she had a very special place in their hearts for her indomitable courage, her splendid sense of humour in adversity and her love of and undying loyalty towards the Army.

Much of her ‘History’ covers the periods before and after the Campaigns, and I believe it stands as a valuable document of the social, as well as the military history of our times. Accordingly, I recommend this book to Your Lordship, trusting that you might perhaps agree to writing a foreword above your own signature.

I remain, Your Lordship’s most obedient servant,

John Wilson, Surgeon Inspector.

Postscript: A copy of the report referred to from the Field of Ramillies is included in Chapter XXXI of the book.

Chapter I

They tell me I was born in Dublin on the second day of May in the year of Our Lord 1667, and I have no reason to doubt it. My Father, Patrick Cavenaugh, a brewer and maltster of that city, wanting a son to follow him in his trade, named me Christian, a name which would prove a heavy responsibility for any to bear, so, except in Father’s hearing, it was changed to ‘Kit’ as soon as I was able to sit up and take notice.

Father was never unkind to me. Indeed, I seldom felt deprived of the warmth of his love save when I misbehaved—though that was a not uncommon occurrence. My Mother Kathleen was an angel: daughter to Bryan Bembrick, vicar of Wheatly in the See of Durham, she was both mother and friend, soothing my hurts, laughing at my pranks and listening always with patience to my girlish tales of joy and tragedy.

We lived for some years in an old cage-work house in Dame Street, in that ancient part of the city situate between the Castle and the River Liffey, a maze of narrow streets where dwellings rubbed shoulders with warehouses, tanneries and humble shops, our home nestling above the family alehouse which doubled for an inn. The brewery occupied the whole of the property next door, and we bought-in our malt and grist at that time. The buildings belonged to an English landlord, a cavalry officer late of Cromwell’s army, but we never met him, the rent of 40 a year being paid to an agent.

I was by this time old and wise enough to understand that we were, by the standards of the day, well-off. We were taxed for two hearths in our living quarters and, unlike other children of the neighbourhood—especially those named Kelly, Byrne, Doyle or Connor, of the Gaelic community—I enjoyed a separate bedroom while they slept ten or twelve to a room.

I attended a church school situated near Christchurch Cathedral where I learned my letters and numbers and, though I was nominally Protestant, most of my fellows were of the old religion, drawing in their Catholic faith in the evenings from an unlicensed priest who took confessional in the pot room at the alehouse, and who lived a furtive, deprived existence in the St. Audoen parish the rest of the time. As you will understand, we were not prejudiced—as were most Dubliners at that time—in religious matters, particularly if business was involved.

When I was ten years of age, English merchants raised the price of barley, so Father could no longer afford to buy from his accustomed source, but needs must grow his own. To this end, he rented a small farm with two barns at Leixlip, paying Arthur White the agent and through him, another absentee English soldier ₤80 per annum.

From that time, my life was perfect. Naturally wild—I suppose in an unconscious attempt to give Father the boy he had wanted—I delighted in country matters, following the plough, raking, flailing, pitch-forking the sheaves, and endlessly turning the malt until it was ready for the kiln. But my free time was mostly spent on horseback, mounting the animal as she stood in a ditch, and careering madly across the fields barebacked to the horror of Mother and the servants.

We saw little of Father except on Sundays, for he was heavily employed all week at the brewery, having installed Mother’s sister at the alehouse, so, on Sundays after church, we would walk up the path along the Liffey to the place where it joins with the Rye water—once the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Leinster and Meath. There stood the castle of Adam FitzHereford, a knight of the conqueror Earl Richard Strongbow and, I’ll be bound, no more beautiful scenery exists in the whole wide world than this old castle amidst the trees on the bank of the river.

My love of horses got me in fine trouble one day when I took Father’s grey mare without permission, rode her barebacked like the wind across a field of turnips and round another of murphies until I ran her into a ditch so that she climbed out lame. I confess I would have told no-one but that Flann the cowherd had seen me, and it cost me a cup of ale every night for three months to keep him quiet.

Of friends I had a-plenty, especially four girls of my own age: Ann, Mairead, Helen and Rosie of whom I was the leader. They lacked my daring and feared my knotted fist should they betray any of our exploits. We were romping one summer afternoon near the road, rolling down a grassy slope until our senses reeled and, looking up, I saw we were observed—and that closely—by a gentleman of middle years in a fine coach and four.

‘’Tis His Lordship!’ whispered Ann and we were of a sudden overcome with modesty that he should have seen our frolics. Bold as ever, I shouted ‘Did ’ee want something, Sir?’ thinking anxious to make amends for my forwardness.

‘Aye!’ answered he with a smile, ‘Since you ask, there’s a crown apiece for you if you’ll roll down the hill again.’ None of us but knew what was his game: he wanted to see our naked tails once more as we rolled down towards him. The others were for curtseying and running off, but in me, avarice prevailed over modesty and, seeing me earning my money, the others joined in the sport. His Lordship was as good as his word, paying up with a merry smile and thinking the view well worth the money.

Working one day in early August 1685 on stacking the hay, I beheld a splendid sight above the hedge. A procession approached led by kettle drums, trumpets and heralds and followed by judges and magistrates clad in black and gold robes, come to proclaim the accession of King James the Second. Thinking that the King himself was there. I leapt a five-barred gate so as not to miss the glory of it all, and was rudely pushed aside by the beadle of our parish who, bringing up the rear because of his small importance, decided to take out his shame on me.

I cared not how important was the occasion and, kicking him behind the knees, I brought him down on the road to the general amusement of cowherds and the like, making off at a run before he could recover. When I reached our farmhouse, I found my Mother in tears, but never heard the reason, thinking at the time I had shamed her by my bad behaviour. On later reflection, I now believe she cried because the new Catholic Monarch would cause some fresh fall in our fortunes by restoring their lands and properties to the Papists.

For some two years past, Thomas Howell, a cousin of Mother’s, had been showing increasing interest in me and, believing him a fair match, with his studying for the Ministry at Dublin College, I tidied myself up a bit and abandoned for a while my boyish tricks—at least on Sundays while he visited.

He was a year or two older than I, which fact disposed me to regard his attentions as flattering, and he stood a full six inches taller than me, with his long black hair plaited into a peruke after the English fashion, clear grey eyes whose intense gaze made me feel he could look into my innermost soul, and gave me some concern lest he could also read my unchaste thoughts.

Away we went, walking and talking along the river path surrounded by all that beauty, my thoughts of love and marriage and of the interesting and important life I might lead as wife to a minister in Dublin. As for his thoughts.well, I could no more divine what went on behind those clear, cold eyes than I could leap the falls like a salmon.

Perhaps that day he saw in my smiles and coquettish glances some invitation to treat me as he then did, tearing my clothing, bruising me and taking my virtue as though I were a common whore, for never in all my wildest dreams had I imagined a man could use a woman so. I was stronger than any girl I had ever met but still, in his frenzy, he was too much for me and, when he had finished his sport, he ran off and I saw him no more,no more that is to talk to until I returned to Ireland after all my travels a very different person from the innocent girl I had been at the start of that warm afternoon on the banks of the Liffey.

I dragged myself home with difficulty, trying in vain to reach my room without being observed, but Mother was told and came to ask what ailed me. I would not speak, but sobbed and sobbed until later, she fetched Father who took a different stance seeing that I would not explain myself. They discussed my plight and he now told me in a manner that said they set the blame on me, that I must go away to Dublin at once and live there in the alehouse with Aunt Mairead.

So, lacking love and sympathy at a time when I most needed them, I became mistress of an alehouse, burying my feelings in my labours until my son Liam was born in June N.S. 1686.

I was permitted to visit my parents at Leixlip from time to time, but was told to leave the child in Dublin, and my relationship, especially with Father had grown cold. I saw him sometimes during the week, for his business was still at the brewery, but he never approached or spoke, so that my heart was, for several months, quite broken.

Of King James I heard no more until, in 1689, Father announced that His Majesty had been thrown off his throne by William of Orange and had fled to Ireland where, so Father imagined, he was sure of the love of his loyal subjects. Father was much preoccupied at this time, coming home one Sunday on a mighty stallion wearing a new saddle and pistols upon his back. He tripped importantly into the house wearing a broadsword with basket hilt. He remained closeted with Mother for some time during which I fed oats to this splendid beast and, so winning his favour, was allowed (by him at least) to mount. Drawing and snapping the pistols at the labourers, I cantered through the yard and into the stubble fields, the power of the stallion taking my breath away as he tried to frighten and unseat me.

He had chosen the wrong rider to intimidate and I rode him still faster round the lanes and up the path by the river until he had had enough. He and I were thereafter the best of friends and I never after feared any horse.

The following week, Father raised a troop of horse, naming them ‘Cavenaugh’s Horse’ after himself, and was shortly after gone off to the wars in support of his Catholic King.

Life continued unchanged for a while and Mother allowed me back to the farm to help with the harvest. It was peaceful enough, though we had our own little battles at Leixlip. Unknown to Mother, Father had sold his standing corn to a neighbour, Mr Ascham,most likely to raise money for his grand career in the military, and we and the servants, cutting that corn early one morning were attacked by a party of Mr Ascham’s workers, each army’s sickles causing many a cut and bruise. At length, Ascham himself arrived and the matter was cleared up, but I could see Mother was sorely hurt by Father’ deception.

After King James had landed and a French army was investing Derry, the local Catholics declared themselves and became uppity with us Protestants, thinking to recover all the lands they had lost at the time of Cromwell. One Sunday, with Mother praying in the church, the Papists blocked the door with blocks and boards and, hearing the noise, I grabbed a spit and ran to her aid. Removing the blocks, I was dragged off and struck by a sergeant of the Militia while others replaced the barrier, so I turned on the sergeant, driving my spit through his calf. The Reverend, his clerk and others were also wounded in the struggle and, an officer of the law arriving, I was arrested and put in a temporary gaol.

At the hearing, Mother and I made much of the interference with divine worship and of the fact that Father was, even at that moment, risking his life on behalf of the King to whom they all said they owed allegiance, and I was discharged.

News travelled slowly to Leixlip, but I heard it sooner in Dublin and, by degrees, we learnt that King Billy had relieved the siege of Derry, and the army of King James had been defeated at The Boyne, but later, they were said to have reformed under the Frenchman St. Ruth, and Ireland’s own Patrick Sarsfield and were about to give battle at Athlone. The siege of that town led to flight to Aughrim in County Galway and, this time, the rout was such that the King’s troops were destroyed apart from the garrisons at Limerick and Wexford. After they fell, the French took ship to France accompanied by many native Irishmen who were called ever after ‘The Wild Geese’.

There was no news at all of Father, who had fought with the King’s men, and Mother in her anxiety, neglected the affairs of the farm, leaving much of the running to me—burdened as I was already with the alehouse in Dublin and the rearing of my son Liam. Liam was a strange child, and I put down his coldness and seeming indifference to those about him to the character of his father whom I encountered from time to time in Dublin, and who seemed anxious to make amends, but each time, I turned my face away from him and hurried away.

A badly written note arrived at the alehouse in August 1691 telling me that Father was ill at Naas, in Kildare.

*     *     *     *     *

Chapter II

I found Father in a dirty roadside inn at Naas Na Riogh which, being translated, means ‘The Meeting Place of the Kings’. He was bearded, ragged and, to my inexpert eye, close to death and, when I cradled his emaciated body in my arms—for old time’s sake rather than out of love—he turned his gaze on me and managed a smile.

Encouraged, for I had not cast eye upon him for nearly two years, I bade them carry him to a room where I washed and shaved him and fed him bread and broth. Two years! When he had eaten a little, he lay back and studied my face.

‘I got her letter, y’know’ he croaked, trying to raise his head, so I put another pillow behind him and he went on.

‘Mairead’s letter. She told me all about it.’

I dropped my head, having supposed he might die without hearing of my shame.

‘Your Mother had guessed of course, and she wrote too saying it was not your fault.’

A fresh agony racked him now, a torment of the mind which compelled him to work his face in search for words of entreaty. He had always found it difficult to ask for forgiveness when he was unjust, and the words of love and kindness were buried deep in the recesses of his mind—if they were there at all!

‘I thought at first ye’d encouraged him, till Mairead’s note reached me at Athlone. I should never have left you to go to war.’

He was thinking of Mother now, and how his vanity had led him into this disastrous career in the military which had cost him his life and us our prosperity.

‘I’d have ridden after the swine and killed him had I known!’

It was too late for that now: my son Liam was walking already.

Father was weakening now after the emotional effort, but appeared calmer in his mind. I gently nodded my head and made shushing noises, as I did to Liam when he fell on the cobbles. Was it pity I felt? It certainly wasn’t love, for that had departed the day Mother sent me to Dublin. I told myself he was dying and the least I could do was to give him comfort, to let him believe we forgave him and, if possible in these godless times, find a priest to shrive him. Now the anxious, desperate look was back again. He gripped my hand and I helped him sit up. Perhaps it would help him to talk.

‘Oh, I’ve missed you so, my darling girls, missed those Sunday walks and working in the fields. His face lit up, ‘And then, in eighty-five, it seemed all had changed for the better: a new king on the throne, Dick Talbot an earl, our own parliament…’

His face filled out and became almost radiant with remembered joy. It would be better did I humour him. It was little short of a miracle I had found him before he died, because the message from the innkeeper had been unclear. What did he mean to me though, now I was a married woman with a son at foot and another on the way?

Mrs Richard Welsh!

*     *     *     *     *

It mattered not that Richard had been a potman in my employ. I needed a man about the place after Aunt Mairead died and, seeing me inheriting the whole business, Richard had been happy to take on Liam as his own son. Though he was feckless and, at times a roisterer, I loved him dearly and welcomed his lewdness as long as he saved it for me alone and preserved the decencies in public.

*     *     *     *     *

Father was slavering now, his eyes staring crazily through and beyond my face as he relived his brief spell of glory.

‘Tyrconnel called for all true Irishmen to rally against the Prince of Orange, and, after that business at Derry… .’

I knew the whole ignoble story of defeat and dishonour, but he asked little of me save to listen to it all again, this time from a dying man who had been there.

‘Cavenaugh’s Dragoons they called us. Thirty-four brave lads most with horses, some with mules. Ten muskets, four pistols, a dozen or so swords and a pair of raparees.’

He paused and laughed, as though his rabble of mounted yokels stood before him now on parade.

‘We trained ourselves as well as we could with so little powder and shot, but we learned fast from the professionals, Germans and Walloons and, later on, six thousand French veterans under the Duke of Lauzun. The first of July it was, and you should have seen us! Just the day before, we moved down from Drogheda to Donore Hill, and set up our guns above Oldbridge, The sun came through after all that rain and we saw the King, the French Duke and Sarsfield, and gave them a cheer. On the day, we were grand, but our infantry couldn’t hold the Dutch, and the Frenchies did nothing much but hold the Hollanders back while we retreated.’

He began to sob, and I mopped his brow with my kerchief, but he spoke no more, and I knew it was time to send for the priest.

The innkeeper entered the room without the courtesy of a knock and I could see from his shifty, awkward manner that, unless I made it worth his while, he’d do nothing for us. When I asked about the priest, his thin mouth twisted into a smile.

‘Now that would be a dangerous thing for me to do, Missus.’ he said, wringing his hands. ‘You see,I’ve heard him tell his story before. He was at Aughrim too, and that was even worse for the cause, was it not? The Dutch and English are on their way even now making for Dublin, hangin’ the rebels as they go, so you’d best be on your way to Rath Sollein, or anywheres off the Dublin road, and takin’ him with you,’ I was tired and by now, growing desperate, but we still hadn’t discussed money.

‘How much have you got?’ he asked, his eyes hungrily looking me over. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, not waiting for my reply, ‘take him in the waggon up the road to Rath Sollein, left at the cross, and I’ll fetch a priest directly if ye’ll wait a mile or so along the road.’

I didn’t like it, but there seemed no alternative with Father dying and the threat of the Williamites in pursuit.

The innkeeper and his woman helped me to get him down to the waggon and gave me a dirty blanket to cover him, then she started to demand money for the blanket, but he slapped her face and she shut up at once.

Something wasn’t right!

We set off to the cross just as the sun disappeared behind a band of cloud, me and Father, with Cormac the stallion keeping down to a slow walk to remind me he hadn’t been fed or watered. There wasn’t a soul in sight—and why should there be anyway, for there appeared to be no more than half a dozen houses in the Naas. To think kings had once met here to parley!

We turned left up a narrow track, the ground fairly flat, and I could see Rath Sollein a couple of miles ahead. When we had travelled about a mile, I stopped and looked at Father, lying curled-up in the bottom of the waggon. He made no sound now, but I could see his body shaking with the fever, the pallid face drawn and thin, with the fear and strain of the battles, the shame and misery of defeat and rout. He looked so small and pathetic, and I felt a deep pity for his shattered ideals, and for the man he used to be.

I knew the stories well: there had been scarce any other topic in the alehouse for days, and there’s nothing like a bellyfull of ale to embolden a coward or turn Jacobite into renegade.

William’s General Ginkel had fewer men than the King and, what was more, the Royalists under St.Ruth occupied a strong position. Sarsfield the Irish Cavalry commander never had a chance to show his talents and, when St.Ruth was killed by a cannon ball, it was too late to rally the army. Most of them fell back on Limerick, but Father must have fallen ill after the incessant rains, and had tried to make his own way back to Leixlip.

I turned my head back towards Naas and could see a small trap approaching carrying two figures, one small and thin—the innkeeper—the other bigger, wearing a soldier’s long boots, a tattered black coat and a broad-brimmed hat with one side pinned to the crown. If this was the priest, then the wretch had made a good fist of his disguise to cheat the gallows.

I dragged Father to an upright position, though he seemed pretty far gone now, then I turned to meet the occupants of the trap. The innkeeper laughed at something his companion had said, and there was that about the laugh which told me the other was no priest, and shriving my Father the last thing on his mind.

‘The money!’ cried the smaller man, ‘The father wants the money first before he says the words.’ He laughed again and winked at the unshaven brute beside him.’ He’ll throw in a burial as well if you treat him right.’

He drew rein and stepped down, approaching the waggon with his hand extended.

‘You’ll have no money till I get me a proper priest.’ says I and, with a flick of my whip, I set Cormac away at a canter up the road. The trap was lighter than my waggon, its horse younger and sprightly and I knew I could not hope to keep my lead, and sure enough, inside two hundred yards, they were close up behind us. Oh how I prayed Father would waken from his stupor and send these rogues about their business!

On sudden impulse, I turned off the road and up a narrow track—I know not why, for the slope was steep and grew rougher as we went up towards a rocky outcrop on the skyline. The light was failing now, as was Cormac’s wind and, despite my whip, he presently came to a halt.

The trap drew up ten paces below us, our pursuers descended and unhurriedly came towards us.

‘Money? You can have the money!’ said the big man for my benefit, unbuttoning the flap of his trouser, ‘I’ll take the wench!’ at which, both dissolved into peals of laughter. I gripped my whip and climbed down, resolved to sell my virtue or my life dearly. As they made no sudden move towards me, fearing the lash across their faces, I quickly unstrapped Cormac’s traces and waited.

The innkeeper made a feint towards me, then drew back, laughing as the lash snaked out at his face. The big man was content to wait, his cock in his hand now as he coaxed it to the perpendicular. This time, it was he who lunged and I struck hard at those brutal features, opening a two inch-long weal on his brow. He screamed and supported himself against the tailboard of my waggon, rubbing the blood from his eyes. The innkeeper, expecting the next stroke, joined his accomplice behind the waggon and both gave vent to a torrent of abuse and threat.

This was the moment I had waited for; I threw off the brake and helped the waggon on its way with a mighty shove. Bemused at the turn of events, they held the tailboard for a while, then first one, then the other went down. The waggon jumped crazily as the heavy wheels bumped over first one, then the other shape on the path. Neither man got to his feet.

When I warily inspected them, the innkeeper began to scream for help, saying his leg was broken, but the other seemed quite dead, his head to one side like a hanged man’s.

The waggon had come to rest against a boulder, one wheel broken from its hub, but of Father, there was no sign, it being quite dark by now. I found him on the grass where he had been thrown by the impact, peaceful-looking now life had deserted him. There was no way I could lift the body into the trap, so I pulled at the turf until I had enough to cover him, said the Lord’s Prayer and made off in the innkeeper’s trap towards Claonadh, which is on the Liffey and near to country I knew.

*     *     *     *     *

Chapter III

After Aughrim and the Treaty of Limerick, there was nothing left in Ireland for Catholic landowners. Thousands departed for France, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Russia to follow their King into exile or to seek their fortunes in the Irish brigades which fought all over Europe for the Catholic cause or, more often perhaps, just for a living.

The estates of The Wild Geese were seized and sold or given to Protestants, and penal laws were introduced forbidding Catholics to hold office or to serve in the armed forces. Father’s land at Leixlip had only been rented of course, but the new tenants seized our stock and equipment and I was reduced once more to buying malt to keep the brewery going.

Richard Welsh, my husband, seeing his livelihood under threat perhaps, turned-to as never before, dismissing most of the hired help and doing all the heavy work himself. With one of Mother’s cousins looking after the boys—Liam now had a brother, Rory—and the lodgings, Richard and I worked all day, and night too as necessary, to save the business. Profits fell as few could afford to drink at the new prices and, at least in the old part of the city, Dublin became a warren of dispossessed and unemployed Irish families, and a breeding ground for crime and disease.

The native Irish were bewildered: for their loyalty to the English King, they had been turned into beggars.

Worst of all the injustices was the system of Protestant ‘Discovery’ under which informers ‘discovering’ Catholic offenders could claim their property as reward. Richard was in no danger, being the grandson of one of Ireton’s soldiers, but I had to be very careful not to make rash comments showing my tolerance, particularly to any who knew of Father’s part in the late wars, lest I be denounced and the premises seized.

One of these ‘discoverers’ had chosen my inn for his lodgings and regularly took meals and drink in the alehouse. Wanting the best instruction for my boys, I paid a priest to teach them in our own rooms, but Morris the ‘discoverer’, on questioning the boys as to the identity of their visitor, threatened to report us unless the practice ceased. I reluctantly gave my word and the priest disappeared, but Morris lived off us without payment thereafter.

This was intolerable: we knew he could oust us at any time and waited in fear and trembling for his next demands. We had not long to wait: Morris began to hover, making immodest remarks as he followed me up the stair until, in despair, I told Richard.

His reply wounded me more deeply than had Morris’s suggestions.

‘Could you not… well, you know… give him a taste, just to keep him off our backs?’

I was puzzled at first until realisation dawned on me.

‘A taste? A taste of what?’ I asked, my face clouding and a feeling of deep loathing making me shudder.

He leered, ‘Why, a taste of your love-juice of course.

You’ve never refused a dance on the mattress before.’

I wept with rage and struck him again and again across the face and shoulders, for that he should care so little for me as to urge me to lie with another man, especially with a canting hypocrite like Morris.

Richard straightened his coat and necktie, smiled and held me in his arms. ‘Just canoodling—to make him go along, that’s all.’ He laughed softly, ‘I don’t want him in our little honeypot!’

I thought about it later as I wiped the bar. Richard had some sort of plan to trap Morris into making-up to