On the Threshold of Another Trembling World

By Peter Moran

1980's London within the Irish Catholic community, a tale of love, friendships, politics, religion, and The Troubles.
Brothers John and Michael live in Tooting, within the large Irish Catholic community that live there in 1980's London.
The church and the pub are large focal points in their lives and those of their family and friends.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Moran
• Release date: Jun 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005816551

Book preview

Prologue

I Am Standing on The Threshold of Another Trembling World. May God Have Mercy on My Soul.

Bobby Sands

On Thursday 24th March 1988 every address under the auspices of Tooting Broadway Post Office received through its letterbox an envelope marked ‘for the attention of the householder’.

It contained a piece of paper on which were written the words of a man who had died as the result of a hunger strike in HM Prison Maze just under 7 years earlier.

Friday

1. Post Office

John MacDonagh went into work as usual on the Friday. The moment he entered the sorting office he sensed it. He had been on edge, wary the previous day, waiting for the inevitable backlash, but not knowing when it would materialise or what form it would take. This was causing him excitement and fear in equal measure. Most of the men were gathered around the notice board and the ring of laughter was in the air. It was the rare and heartening joy of the workers who were enjoying the embarrassment and discomfiture in their bosses while luxuriating in the knowledge that they were not directly responsible for it and could not be expected to have to do anything to put it right. John went up to the notice board knowing what he was about to see but, despite feeling gratified and vindicated by this response from his co-workers. He made sure his response was muted. A sheet of paper was pinned centre stage it showed the signs of having been handled indelicately by more than one person. It read:

We must see our present fight right through to the end. Generations will continue to meet the same fate unless the perennial oppressor, Britain, is removed for she will unashamedly and mercilessly continue to maintain her occupation and economic exploitation of Eire until judgement day if she is not halted and ejected. ( Roibeard Gearoid O Seachnasaigh. 9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981)

Next to it, a more pristine missive. Terse and bristling with indignation.

Staff meeting. 1:45 after the first shift. All to attend. Failure to do so will result in disciplinary action.

Les Watkinson, Manager, Tooting Post Office, 25th March 1988.

To make sure that everyone was suitably impressed by the level of annoyance this dispatch was intended to convey, it had no personal signature; something it shared in common with its neighbouring communication. It removed the humane and the personal aiming instead for ominous and threatening. Intrigued, and looking forward to a little excitement, the postmen went to work.

Having completed another shift organising and delivering Her Majesty’s Mail, the men were rewarded with a tirade from Les Watkinson unlike any in the history of the sorting office. Struggling to keep his temper beneath the level of the incandescent rage he actually felt, he explained that he had been receiving phone calls all morning from the general public, his manager at Nine Elms, and one from the local press asking why thousands of ‘this piece of shit’ had been posted in his area the previous morning. John could have volunteered that the exact number had been, 16,323, and could also have explained the context and relevance. He did not. Everyone listening, although ignorant of the content, had collaborated in the proliferation of this item of propaganda. John knew he would be lucky to get away with orchestrating such a coup not only because of the inherent act of insubordination but because the subject matter was incendiary in a pervasively febrile atmosphere both inside and outside his workplace walls. If exposed, he would not only lose his job but could be on the receiving end have a good kicking from some of the men working there.

It had been six days since, in Mill Town Cemetery, Belfast, at the funeral of an IRA volunteer; Kevin Brady; two off duty British Army corporals had been dragged from their car stripped and beaten before being driven to a nearby patch of wasteland to be shot. This was as exhaustive as the British press was willing to be on any issues involving Northern Ireland. It wilfully missed an event that had taken place 93 days earlier than that. On that day as John very well knew, The Birmingham 6 had lost their appeal against their conviction. John had written his own piece entitled 100 days of British justice but thought the words of a man who had starved himself to death over a period of 66 days for what he believed to be right, would carry more weight.

John was right to be fearful of an assumption of his guilt. If Republican history had taught him anything it was that when British authorities were seeking those responsible for what they had branded heinous atrocities, it was pragmatic and timesaving to round up any group of plausible Irish suspects and then manipulate the evidence to fit the men. Despite his consciously not allowing his opinions to become generally known, he had held them for so long, that even though he did not allow himself the luxury of outbursts or vitriol, or the indulgence of expressions of outrage and indignation; his allegiances were common knowledge to those around him. It would have required him to take a vow of silence for it to be otherwise. Profound knowledge of Irish history, voluminous reading on the subject, an exacting memory, and a mind nimble and creative in its understanding and processing of argument made John capable of dispassionately presenting his views with compelling coherence when in the mood to do so.

For the preceding seven years John had been responsible for several acts of this kind. This particular action had been by far the most industrious and ambitious of a campaign that had put him in conflict with every teacher throughout school, with every adult while growing up, and had challenged every personal relationship to its limit. Increasingly realising his opinions were unpalatable even to an Irish father and among others within his republican community. His opinions were disconcerting, and he increasingly retreated into silence and solitude. One of the exceptions to this, his main outlet where he could articulate with complete honesty and allow fervid, uncensored, unrestrained passions to take wing was his younger brother, Michael. John knew his brother idolised him; absorbed his vehemence and knowledge with the unquestioning devotion of a Davidian. John was aware of the responsibility to his younger brother that went with this kind of hero-worship. He was not egotistical or cavalier, he was proud and protective of the earnestness and loyalty that defined their relationship.

John sat in the pub with Richard Morrison. The trade union branch secretary. A behemoth of a man well over 6 feet tall; excessively overweight, garrulous, informative, and sincere. They got on well and went for a drink quite regularly. Today as the shuffles of nervousness and discontent ebbed away after Watkinson’s diatribe, Richard had come to John quietly but insistently and suggested a pint.

Nice work John.

They had a Guinness in front of them. They were in an ostentatiously plush pub called the Victoria. John had a drink there after every shift, Richard joined him more often than not, and the rest of the Book Club knew where to find them if they wanted a drink.

John, I am an Irish Republican a trade unionist and a socialist and I sympathise with the sentiments on the leaflets. My only concern is looking out for the men I represent. I will never go to management and give them information about a worker. We sort out our own problems, so given that I would like to think that we are friends I'll say what I have to say. You don't have to say anything and then we can get on and enjoy a pint. I for one need a drink.

He paused for a minute, breathing torturously. It was a warm day, and he was flushed and sweating. He was confident in his role and his abilities, but John got the impression he was not finding this conversation easy.

I don't care who's responsible and I wouldn't tell management if I knew but I represent a collective and I don't want things to get difficult for everyone because one person thinks their agenda is more important than anyone else’s you know what fucking management can be like.

Richard looked at John. There was something almost pleading in his eyes. This in many ways was his nightmare scenario. At some point in every revolution, individuals are sacrificed for the common good, but Richard was in no hurry to be put in the position where he had to make such a choice.

It's all right Richard. It was me but I don't want it to cause any shit for the boys.

It was as if a monkey had climbed off his back Richard demeanour palpably eased.

To be fair it's a fine piece of work to get them delivered under the bosses’ nose but be careful John. They are really fucked off about this; not Watkinson; he's a management lacky, an idiot, but above him, you've touched a nerve. Not just that you managed to get the Royal Mail to deliver seditious material. Richard was almost laughing as he said this, but the IRA thing has got the chain of command wanting a head on a plate. They aren't going to let it go till they get one.

Richard downed this point in two gulps. Just watch your back.

John responded genuinely, Thanks, Richard.

Now that the subject was on the table, and he was with someone he knew he could trust he continued. You remember the London Marathon in 1981?

Not really, I'd given up running marathons by then. Not a trace of irony in this remark but there was the resignation of surrender about it.

I was 16. It was the first one, I think. I just remember the television being turned on, must have been a film on or something. It was the end of the race; I think it was raining but maybe it's just because I remember it as a bad black and white picture. These two athletes are running for the line side by side, they actually crossed the line together holding hands. John was at ease now, talking as if to himself but deliberately trying to create a drama, a tension.

I remember the names, Dick Beardsley of America and Inge Seamonson who was Norwegian, or Finnish, I think. Anyway, before they crossed the line two men ran out from the crowd towards the finishing line carrying a banner saying victory to the Irish hunger strike. They just look like a couple of lumpy Irish blokes, and they get bundled away by the police in about 30 seconds, but I always remember thinking how brilliant it was. Sands was about 30 days into his hunger strike and these two had cared enough to do something. They couldn’t do much to change anything, but they felt they had to do something, and this was it. I feel like that all the time.

I know John, I know. Just be careful.

John and Richard descended into relaxed silence and drank. Within the hour two men had joined them, Patrick O’Donoghue and before he had taken his seat Paul Connolly had also entered the fray. The second man was a local publican and entered every building with the flourish of someone expecting to be overwhelmed by a battalion of adoring fans.

God bless all here. (The Eagle has Landed. 1976) This was a line from a film which Paul had seen and from that day forward stated presidentially every time he entered a room. Almost a full meeting. The four men moved from the bar and slumped assuredly in armchairs straight out of gothic horror; this was an Irish pub Bram Stoker would have felt at home in; it was Count Dracula’s drawing-room. The ease with which the foursome picked up conversation with each other was testimony to a fellowship of some profundity. As soon as they were comfortable Richard described, with as much attention to detail as he could, the morning's events and Johns actions that had precipitated them. In an understated, consciously quiet voice he described the dastardly Machiavellian plot with generous good humour that had even John laughing. These were clearly a group of good friends who trusted each other. With three exceptions they were the book club.

Paul was the manager of a pub called the Horse and Groom that was a short walk from the one in which they presently sat and at the heart of a hard-working robust Irish community. Patrick was the eldest son of a local family who had known John and his younger brother Michael all their lives; his back story was every bit as traumatic and far more extraordinary than the rumours that attached themselves to him. He trusted very few people with the truth about himself but the men around this table were among that number.

So, how's the craic in East Timor?

The remark was directed at Patrick. To anyone who didn't know him, it would be oblique at best. This group of friends, who understood the reference, knew Paul was treading the fine line between genuine interest and mockery with the consideration of a tightrope walker. Patrick had been medically discharged from the British army three years previously because of a breakdown. It had been the result of a sustained period of systematic beatings which had culminated in his commanding officer finding him unconscious one morning in his bunk with the Ulster banner draped over him like a shroud. He spoke of his time in the services infrequently and without provocation and like his plans for the future he needed them to be treated with respect. He was guileless and possessed a good sense of humour but the men around this table had more than once had to physically drag him off an unsuspecting stranger who had tried to make him look foolish.

It was the embassies. Getting visas. The papers were queuing up, but I need visas from the Australian and Indonesian embassies. It was a bloody nightmare. I've had interviews arranged but they kept on cancelling on me. They just wanted to stop me going.

Patrick never went anywhere without his camera and told anyone who engaged him in conversation that he was about to do some work for the newspapers. He dropped in John Pilger's name as if the man were a personal friend and explained with plausible sincerity that once the paperwork was sorted out, he was going to this exotic, disaster plagued location to work with a journalist. Patrick was not facile or devious and his admiration for John Pilger was unfeigned. He wanted to replicate his hero’s startling documentation of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, his exposes of the abuse of its indigenous people by the Australian government and his later projects on the island country in the south-eastern Malay Archipelago which had been invaded by a combination of Governments in order to harvest its natural resources. A piece of old-fashioned colonial arrogance. There was veracity in the man’s plans, but there was a deeper truth of which those closest to him were aware. He was an outpatient at the local psychiatric hospital and these plans were symptomatic of periods of focused energy and engagement which were interspersed with others of self-imposed isolation, intermittent hospitalisation, and treatment.

This was within the remit of the book club. It was limited to an existing membership of seven; its purpose ostensibly was the digestion and discussion of literature and history but with the trade unionist and a Priest among its number, it inevitably had religion and politics as permanent fixtures on its agenda. Its motto was the quote, the truth is rarely pure and never simple. (Oscar Wilde. 16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) There was no oath of allegiance, no rules of engagement, but this septet had agreed that their meetings were to give focused attention to all, and any matters raised for consideration by any of them. All babble and prattle; all amusing anecdotes and inconsequential monologues were left at the door; everything else was on the table. With the reverence of an arcane mediaeval coterie, subjects philosophical moral and political were disassembled. Reading material exchanged and suggested, and individual pieces of writing appraised. This book club was formed, not to slothfully reside on the secure sedate plane of the abstract, but to channel their collective thoughts and energies into issues personal to them and the issues about which they cared. This was a group that could only function and serve any purpose if all its component parts trusted each other unconditionally.

2. Church

Another member of the book club who was about his business as the foursome enjoyed a pint was one of its first recruits, Father Gerard Murphy. As he moved through Saint-Boniface; the church and parish in which he served as a Parish Priest; he was aware that scattered across the seats and pews were sheets of paper. He did not stop to see what was written on the pieces of paper but, as he went through the doors that separated the body of the church from the porch, he saw that one of them had been put on the notice board:

‘Whenever the clergy succeeded in conquering political power in any country, the results have been disastrous to the interest of religion and inimical to the progress of humanity.’

James Connolly. Irish republican and socialist leader. 1868 - 1916.

He knew who was responsible for the distribution of this quotation and had sympathy with its sentiments. As a Priest, he should have been outraged but he was not; on some level he was complicit. Father Gerry Murphy thought that if there was a God, he would be a socialist and a Republican, and if there was a heaven James Connolly would be in it. He stood for a moment and looked back across the nave of the church to the altar.

Since a child, he loved churches particularly when they were empty. It was a sensation they had always aroused in him, not the presence of God, not something supernatural, it was palpable, he could feel it envelop him. Quiet, such a depth of quiet, a quiet you could listen to intensely, could lose yourself in. The coloured light from the high opaque windows bouncing off candlesticks and altar rails making the dust iridescent. The dust itself, hair particles, skin cells, paper fibres, microbes of soil and dirt; left behind by his parishioners along with their prayers and their joys and their tears. The candle flames creating shadows that danced elegantly along the walls and between the pillars. The church retained its worshippers past and present within it, Absorbed them into its very brickwork. It was truly never empty. That is what he loved because whether there was a God or not his faith in the people was inexhaustible, he could feel them, felt a part of them. They through this church emboldened his soul. He turned and walked out of the church and towards the building next door. St. Boniface Social Club was a formidable appendage to this House of God which provided the parish with its main source of income. Desperate images wrestled for his attention as he did so, James Connolly, Barbara and Andrew, Jack, the Cruciferous Fathers of Good Death; Pat Ross, the club manager and one remaining connection with his Irish childhood.

Hello, Gerry.

Hello, Pat.

Pint?

Thanks, Pat.

The money is ready. It’s in the office.

No hurry Pat. I’ll have a pint; you carry on and do what you've got to do.

He sat with his pint and embraced the solitude. He increasingly hungered and thirsted above all else for aloneness and silence; alone and silent with a pint of Guinness was even better. The ‘Cruciferous Fathers of Good Death’, he muttered to himself, for God’s sake. He finished, got up, went around the bar, and shouted; Can I pour myself another Pat?

Help yourself.

The Priest returned to his seat and in a state almost of meditation drifted off into a memory that had been returning to him with increasing frequency. Insidiously it had installed itself in his mind as a place of comfort. Craven and self-indulgent as it was, he luxuriated in this fragment of what he assumed was a childhood memory although he wasn’t certain. In it, he was on a beach in Wexford. A few miles from his home in Killane on an improbably beautiful day. The sand was an unblemished glowingly white prayer mat rolling out to the sea, which was a cold, refulgent blue. The suns brilliance giving everything a startling clarity and its warmth dancing on a gentle breeze was a caress to his face. There was a comforting whisper in the tall grasses and the sound of a soft poem on the sea. It was a wondrous day, a vision of a day; literally heavenly. No evidence of humankind's existence to be seen. This was God’s creation, his perfect work before he gave it to man. The idyll is disturbed as a man stumbles across the dunes and onto the beach. He squints into the sun and walks purposefully but unsteadily towards the sea. In the glare of the day against the bleached sheet of the sand, he cuts a forlorn figure. Red-faced and unshaven, his hair and clothes are clean but untidy and dishevelled. At the water’s edge he stands for a moment, strained and nervous. In a burst of frenzied activity, he removes his shoes and his socks and wrestles his shirt off over his head without undoing the buttons; and he walks into the sea. Up to his thighs, oblivious to his saturated jeans he washes his shirt. Aggressively rubbing the cloth against itself providing an involuntary monotone soundtrack to the performance as he does so.

In his dream, as Gerry Murphy is witnessing this recital, he is conscious of the presence of drink. He knows this man has been drinking or has alcohol hidden somewhere in the dunes. He is aware of a drink lust rising within himself under the burning heat of the sun. He is painfully conscious of his own presence in this visitation, as an onlooker he aware that it is about drink and yet within it, drink is, elusive, beyond his grasp and at the same time pervasive as the air itself. The man stops, turns, and precariously launches himself for the shore. Steadying himself he wrings out his shirt, he flaps it wildly and holds it up to the sun.

For fucks sake, he curses, screws the garment up into a bundle and throws it petulantly back into the sea. He picks up his shoes and stalks, bare-chested and angry from the beach. One sock lies abandoned, black against the wilderness of the sand. Gerry is troubled by what has happened to the other.

Gerry. Gerry.

The Priest is hauled back to reality by Pat. The money is there, the bank slips filled in. I’m off. Let yourself out. I'll see you later.

Alright, Pat. Thanks. God bless.

He heard the back door slam, got up once again went behind the bar and refilled his glass.

Gerry could never work out who the man was in the memory. His father; one of the Brothers, one of the staff. He did not trust the authenticity of his recollections which masqueraded as memories. Beyond some rudimentary facts, he consciously did not rake over the unverifiable coals of his early years. A mother dead too early to remember and a chaotic disturbed, alcoholic father who handed him over to the Christian Brothers when he was a child. Promising him to order in exchange for providing a cheap education and a chance at life. Somewhere buried deep in a corner of his mind there was a sister. Dead. He didn't know how he knew this or even if it was true.

As he had walked through the church the Parish Priest had not given the impression that he had noticed Barbara MacDonagh sitting in a shadowed recess of the church, but he had. She was still sitting there with a book on her lap sometime later. This woman was not reading to be entertained or transported, she did not need to experience vicarious adventures or outlandish fantasies she consumed books with the dependency of a suffering patient taking her medicine. She read books by Christian philosophers and thinkers, whose apparent understanding of humankind and of God, nourished her own. She needed to read as she needed to pray, to assure herself that she was not alone. She sought vindication, justification, and purpose. She sat having read a passage she knew by heart; one of many such pieces of writing to which she would turn to quell the rising panic within her. The words of holy men and women about the nature and meaning of suffering, the insight of the sainted long dead whose relationship with God was better than her own. Barbara MacDonagh compulsively absorbed the reflections on the faith journey of these percipient acolytes to ease a visceral, physical ache, it was no longer a matter of choice for her. It gave her temporary respite from increasingly tormented feelings; her books for a while subdued the banshees wailing in her head.

It was unsurprising, given her predisposition to meditation and prayer, that Barbara passed a lot of her time in church. Her inclination for contemplation meant that this was the place in which she felt most at peace. Once her duties as a housewife and mother had been dispatched; time was her own and she chose to spend it in the tranquilly of this surrounding. This had always been the case even before the new curate arrived; but since then, she had demonstrated as much free will in visiting Saint Boniface church as a planet does in orbiting the sun.

Andrew walked onto the altar from the vestry to make sure everything was ready for evening mass at 6 o’clock. There was a piece of paper on the altar and, assuming it was a note from Father Murphy, he read it only to discover it was a quotation from an Irish socialist and revolutionary. His reaction was an instinctively human one, he looked about him wildly as if he expected to see the dark shadow of the courier of this blasphemy disappearing through the building; he glared balefully across the body of the church as if he believed he would find a genie to explain the meaning of the enigmatic epistle he held in his hand. In many ways what he did see provoked a reaction which was as effective upon him as if he had beheld a phantom sitting in one of the pews. A real spontaneous, impulsive elation. The soaring of the spirit, a compelling desire to touch. A feral heightening of sensitivities and of awareness. An instinctive adrenaline burst, coupled with a contradictory survival instinct that preferred the safety of shelter and shadow. They felt they were doing nothing wrong and yet as they smiled at each other they craved a place to hide. Andrew came down from the altar and sat next to this woman for whom he had become both refuge and respite. This was the helpless, hopeless communion of two souls unable to move forward or to retreat. Beyond an emotional symbiosis, they had common ground on much more mundane levels. They were both English and were comfortable and comforted in this. They shared a background that was pristine, delicate, and reeking of middle-class Methodism. Neither had been born into families that meaningfully nurtured in them a faith, yet both had converted to Catholicism after study and a conscious search for a set of beliefs that mirrored their own. In any situation they would have gravitated towards each other, sensing the mutual desire to demonstrate their