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We got to know each other well, Wilson and myself, after so

long together, in the darkness of his resting place. I liked him

immediately, after I had rubbed his bones together, and he had

appeared, Genie-like, sitting cross-legged in front of me. He

was young - young as I was, about seventeen - and wearing his

army uniform of khaki brown. He had a fresh, innocent face,

slightly pale, with a slender mouth and delicate, pointed

features; he had smiling blue eyes in whose depths I saw

compassionate starlight, and bright blonde hair that hung in

lank strands over his forehead. Wilson was a handsome young

fellow; his body appeared lithe and graceful, no weight of

gravity appeared to pull him down. His voice had the most

beautiful English lilt to it as if it was always on the verge of

song; I heard soldier's marching songs humming at the back of

his throat. He told me all about the Boer campaign and his eyes

darkened as he spoke. Sometimes I thought I saw a tear. He was

glad, he said, to be at rest, far away from Africa. I apologised

for being the one who had torn open his tomb, pulling away the

crumbling stone to hide myself inside; but he said that it

didn't matter; it was a long time since he'd had someone to talk

to, and anyway he liked me. I could see that. With Wilson it was

like looking in a mirror; we were that close; we looked at each

other and we saw ourselves. We had an instant, intense sympathy

with one another. Wilson wanted to know what was going on "above

board". I told him and he said, "the world is a stranger place

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

now, than ever it was before", and let a low, dark, troubling

whistle escape him.

I told him. About the Bull. About the Minotaur. No, no, I

mustn't get confused; I don't want to go into that labyrinth

again... I've been doing too much reading here; the English

grammar classes are getting to me. The Bull was my father, that

was his nickname. My laughing uncle Jack loved to tell the

story. About the Protestant farmer with the savage bull and my

father ducking across the fields with the sledgehammer hidden

under his coat. "The English were gone, the English were gone,"

my uncle would laugh, "but some of the mongrel race were holding

on!" My father emerged at last into the field where the bull was

and revealed himself by slowly walking into the middle of the

field. The bull who was at the far end of the field turned and

snorted and pawed the ground. My father waited. The bull lowered

his head and ambled towards him. My father opened his coat and

held the sledgehammer ready. The bull began to trot, then to

run, his feet pounding the earth. My father lifted the

sledgehammer up. He was only sixteen. The bull charged; he

thundered towards my father, running faster all the time. My

father stood his ground. He was steadfast. The bull sprouted

wings and flew straight at him. My father resisted him like a

stone wall. The sledgehammer came down; crack! The bull's head

opened down the middle; its brains flew out and hit my father in

the face. Carelessly, he wiped the mess away. The bull was dead

at his feet. My father left a note, a signature on the side of

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

the animal: John Bull! It was a message for the farmer. My

father was a brave man. My father would destroy anything

English. "Get to hell out of here!" the note said. Weeks later

the farmer left for Lancashire; where Wilson came from. He was

better off there. The Bull had conquered him.

There were five of us: the Bull, my broken-hearted mother,

and the three children. I was the youngest. Pat was my older

younger than they were. I was born in nineteen-sixty two and so

was seven or thereabouts when all hell began to break loose and

the Bull found his mission in life. "Oh, if only I was in

Belfast or Derry now!" he would lament. "I'd break the bodies of

them fucking soldiers in two, so I would!" I knew all the

phrases of war before I knew what they meant: "the invading

army", "the savage foe", "the eternal enemy", "the bloody

brits", "those English bastards", and so on and so forth, until

those words were draining out of my infected ears like pus. Nor

was my geography perfect. Once my father, having pulled my ears

for some stupidity, demonstrated on a creased map where Belfast

and Derry, constant source of his sadness, lay; and where we

lay. We were as distant as North from South quite literally; the

North was up there, its eminence apparent in the high corner of

the map, and we were nowhere except in the dead centre of

things, where a pinprick had savaged the tiny lettering of a

townland, and left a tiny hole through which our lives had

fallen. "Those bastards! Those Northern bastards!" my father

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

moaned hopelessly. And I repeated, "those bastards, those

Northern bastards!", just to appease him. He put his arm around

my shoulder and squeezed. He could be a kind man when it suited

him.

My father, the Bull, was an example of living history; he

had it all at his fingertips as if it was part of his own

experience. In the evenings he pounded the table and spoke for

hours on end about the "English Treachery", about "Queen Lizzy",

about "that fucking bastard Cromwell", and "the Protestants who

had ruined us". He spoke about "the plantations of Ulster and

Leinster", "the Battle of the Boyne", "the seige of Limerick",

"the Wild Geese", and "the Flight of the Earls"; about "the

Invasion of the French", "the Penal Laws", "the Famine", "the

Evictions", "the Coffinships", "the Fenians", "the I.R.B" and

"the I.R.A."; also "Lord Leitrim, "the Black and Tans", "Home

Rule", "Partition", "Churchill and the War", "Red Hugh O'Neill

and Red Hugh O'Donnell", "King James and Sarsfield", "Wolfe Tone

and Robert Emmet"; together with "Roger Casement, Padraig

Pearse, Joseph Mary Plunkett", "Bunreacht na hEireann", "the War

of Independence", "the Civil War", and last but not least

"DeValera", whom he hated with a vengeance. The tears would come

to his eyes as he told how in the thirties, after he had

interned them in the desolation of the Curragh, DeValera, had

ordered his father and my grandfather to be shot, "for wanting

to free his own country, that was all, for wanting freedom; what

was wrong with that?"

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

And then, in his maudlin rage, we had the songs and the

poems: "Kevin Barry was a young man..."; "the sea, oh the sea!

Long may it flow between England and me!"; "Sean South from

Garryowen"; and on and on and on! I could recite dozens of them

for you. When my father was tired of singing he'd put on the

records: "The Wolfe Tones", "The Rifles of the I.R.A.", "The Men

behind the Wire." He had an old battered mono record player and

the only music that was allowed on it was rebel music and rebel

songs. Bursting with emotion my father would leave the house and

start sawing timber in the back yard, singing his songs and

shouting, "Up the Rebels" at the top of his voice. That was the

only entertainment we ever had. I only discovered the Beatles

when I came here, to prison. I always found it strange to

imagine a world which was not pointed like a compass needle to

the North. In our world, the Bull's world, we needed the North

to make sense of anything and everything. Without it life would

have had no meaning. No wonder that I too, before long, began to

think about the North, and to give it the place of honour in my

imagination. I had never seen it but little by little I began to

recreate it in my own mind, to piece it together bit by bit,

until it stood impressively whole and solid in front of me, as

impenetrable and unknowable as a tombstone; as strange and

mysterious as the lives of those English buried in the English

graveyard in Kilscreggan; lives forever shut away, and hidden

behind stone.

For some reason I was a disappointment to my father; he

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

called me a "slow, fucking eejit!" And, he used to say: "You'll

never be able to wipe your own fucking arse, that's for sure!".

I think it was because of my mother. I think I remember during

the first years of my childhood she was quite fond of me.

Cissie, poor Cissie, always said I was her favourite; but as I

grew older, and as if my father's wrath frightened her away, she

shrank more and more from me, until I noticed that she seemed

almost afraid to touch me or to address a single word that was

not a question or a command to me. In the end, I asked nothing

from her; I needed all my wits about me to keep the Bull at bay.

Strangely, my brother Pat, who shared a bedroom with me, got on

great with my father. They were drinking buddies and would come

rollicking home late at night, to sit by the fireside and curse

the English. "They took our Land!" my father would say. Pat

would nod. "Aye, Aye!" he'd answer. "They took all we had!" my

father would say then and Pat would nod again and answer, "Aye,

Aye!" "They left us with nothing at all!" my father would say

next and Pat would nod his head more vigorously and answer,

"Aye, Aye!" And my father would spit bitterly in the flames and

crush a fallen, smouldering ember with his foot. "I'd crush them

under my foot like that!" he'd say, pointing at the crushed

ember. Pat would nod, consider the ember a moment, then answer

pensively, "Aye, Aye!" The great, fucking fool! Later Pat,

unable to find his own bed, would fall into mine, and get sick

on top of me. If I complained, he'd warn me, "I'll kick the

fucking shite out of you, laddie! I'll kick the fucking shite

out of you!" And he had done once or twice; such kickings, till

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

my arse bled shite all down my legs. "I'll take the fucking

sledgehammer to you, one of these days!" he used to whisper in

my ear before I slept. "I'll get you first!" I used to promise

myself, and dug him as hard as I could with my elbows while he

slept.

When I was about ten, Pat left school and went to work and

live "someplace else". Up North I think it must have been, but

everytime I asked my mother said, "Sssh, don't ask!" and so I

stopped asking. My father was happy though. "I'm so proud of

Pat," he would say. Once he lifted me on the edge of the table

and said, "I want to be proud of you too, Sonny!" It was one of

his rare moments of gentleness. He pushed with his hands towards

me as if he was pushing some invisible, intangible object out of

the way. "We're going to push the fucking English out!" he said.

"We're going to push them fucking out!" And then with a single

blow of his hand he sent me reeling back over the table-top,

scattering all the delft arranged for tea, and almost sending me

into the fireplace. "Just like that!" he roared and laughed.

"Just like that!" I lay on the broken heap of delft waiting for

my mother or Cissie to lift me up but neither even looked to see

if I was alive or dead. At ten, I still had no idea how the

politics in my house worked. They didn't dare help me; they

didn't want to know. I was marginalised, excluded, shut out,

hated... To be in anyway associated with me was to invite the

wrath of the Bull. "I only want to teach him a lesson!" the Bull

explained. "I only want to make him strong!" I was not

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

convinced. I suspected the Bull's hatred of me had a much deeper

root. "How will he make his way in the world if he can't be

strong?" I was weak, terribly weak. I picked myself up off the

ground as I had done so many times before. I brushed the

fragments of broken delft out of my clothes, and then, quick as

lightning, my head down and my arms over my head in case

something was thrown at me, I shot out of the room and away from

him. I ran and ran and ran, until I felt safe. I'd climb a tree

somewhere and shelter in its branches and wait for nightfall. I

had to be back before nightfall. The Bull demanded it. If I came

back later than that, he would roar and bellow, and half-kill

me. "I was a dirty, little, disobedient bastard!" he would say

as he clattered me good and hard. That was what I was! "A dirty,

little, disobedient bastard!"

I was little, by any standards, but no one picked on me at

school, not my fellow pupils, not my teachers. In fact, I

inhabited a strange kind of isolation hemmed in by wry smiles

and cold silence. I was left to myself; I did not participate,

and was not invited to participate in any of the school

activities. The rest of the kids avoided me, I see that now.

"What do you expect?" Cissie used to say brutally. "Do you

expect them to like you? You!" She was unhappier than I was

because she couldn't get a boyfriend. Poor Cissie! I was not yet

old enough for sex to be a problem so I adapted more easily to

my permanent state of quarantine. I amused myself during class

and I was ignored totally. During the breaks I climbed over the

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

stone wall at the back of the school and examined the tombstones

in the English cemetery. They were nearly all soldiers, their

graves covered in moss, their tombstones tangled with thick,

winding creepers. The names were nearly always illegible. By

diligently scratching with a sharp stone I uncovered the names

of one or two. That's how I found Wilson's name; Private Wilson,

born in eighteen eighty one, died in nineteen hundred and seven;

a short life, a quick one, and no doubt a sad one. In the middle

of it he had fought a war and had seen death flower up bloodily

out of the scorched earth. He told me this afterwards and much,

much more. "So that was you scraping up above?" he asked me with

a sweet sarcasm. I nodded, but he didn't know it at the time, I

was only passing the time before the school bell called me back.

Clang! Clang! Clang! If I felt like it I ignored it. I never

understood why all the other kids rushed when they heard it as

if it was an alarm bell signalling a fire somewhere. No one ever

protested when I came into class late. I was ushered gently by

some concerned teacher to my desk, as if I was a sheep being

gently pushed into its pen. My book was opened, spread back, and

laid on the desk for me. I was not expected to read it; no, it

was simply there as a prop, a prop to my existence. School was

nothing more than theatre as far as I was concerned, a matter of

appearance only. The reality of it I don't think I ever grasped;

except once maybe, when the Inspector called; and then, all at

once, certain things became clear. The Bull of course, was at

the back of everything. For a little while, back then, I

suspected that the Bull was in charge in some way. He ruled the

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

world. He made the laws. He said what was right and what was

wrong. And dare you, just dare you, transgress! The Bull would

have none of it and no excuses. The Bull was intransigent and

implacable; and the Bull was totally, irredeemably, unforgiving.

The Bull would never, ever, ever, just let you walk away. Just

like that.

The Inspector's name was Mooney, and he had a face as big

and bright, and bald as the Moon's. His tragedy was an

overbearing officiousness he had got from God knows where. The

Bull soon set that right, in the only way the Bull knew how.

Some people just don't understand the way of the world; it takes

violence to open their eyes; and violence, the Bull had aplenty.

The Inspector acted as if he was Lord and Master of the school:

he insisted on being left alone with us and expelled our teacher

from the room; our kind, our knowing teacher. "I want to ask you

some questions," he said, facing the classroom; and then he

began, circling the room like a hawk, with a long, yellow cane

grasped tightly in his hands. I was soon singled out; the other

boys, their voices trembling, had answers to the questions put

to them, but I, I retained a resolute blankness and could only

blink my eyes haplessly at him. He pointed the cane at me. "What

is wrong with you, boy?" he snarled. I didn't know. None of his

questions meant anything to me. "I don't understand what you're

saying!" I protested. The cane came down with a vicious snapping

sound on the cover of the desk. "Sir!", he roared. "Whenever you

talk to me, address me as Sir!" One of the other boys tried to

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

warn him, tugging anxiously at the edge of his jacket. "Please,

Sir..." Mooney's face turned blood red. "Shut up! Shut up!" he

cried. Then turned to me again, his victim. "I want to benefit

from the immense knowledge this young man has gained from

attending this glorious institution funded, at no cost to

himself, by the Government of this Nation!" He smiled at his own

eloquence. None of the other teachers had ever treated me this

way; I had never, ever been asked a single question about

anything; anything! Who was this Mooney? Was he English? "Are

you English?" I asked him quietly. He stepped away from me in

astonishment; his cane raised high, vibrated in the air above my

head. "Do you think you can come in here and just take over?"

The cane dropped slowly to his side. I could see him puzzling

over that one, but I wasn't finished. "Do you think there's no

price to be paid?" I sounded just like the Bull in one of his

threatening moods, but the poor sod, Mooney, never knew. He

didn't see the warning signs. The cane was raised up again. "Out

with your hand!" he commanded. I held my hand out. Whack! The

cane came down. It stung like a nettle stings. I didn't care. I

was the Bull's son. The Bull had made me strong. Mooney could

kick the shite out of me and I still wouldn't care. "Again!"

Whack! Whack! "Again! Again!" Whack! Whack! Whack! I defied him;

I pushed him to greater extremes; I held my hands high under his

chin, inviting him to whack, whack, whack harder. He was an

absolute madman I had decided. He was a walking fucking mistake

and he was going to pay for it. I held my hands higher. Whack!

Whack! I invited him into my trap. He deserved no pity. I felt

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

no pity for him. None at all.

When he had finished, he slumped exhausted and out of

breath over my desk. His clothes were all dishevelled as if he'd

just come through a thorny bush and thick beads of sweat tumbled

down his big, white Mooney face. "All right, then! All right!"

he said breathlessly. "Sit down! You've learned your lesson!" I

sat down. All day I sat with my hands opened on the desk in

front of me. They were red and blistered. My teachers were

horrified. They wanted to bandage my hands but I wouldn't let

them. "Don't tell your father," one of them whispered. I said

nothing. In the corridor I passed Mooney in deep conversation

with the Principal. "I won't leave the school!" he was

insisting. "I'll apologise to the boy! But the Minister has

asked me to spend three days here and I won't leave for any

reason!" The Principal called me. "Mr. Mooney has something to

say to you." Mooney coughed awkwardly. "I am sorry!" he said.

"But you must realise you're here to learn! It's for your own

good! It shouldn't matter who your parants are! Do you

understand?" I nodded. "Good," he said. "Now, run along!" The

Principal caught me by the shoulder as I turned away. "You heard

Mr. Mooney say he was sorry, didn't you?" I nodded again. "Mr.

Mooney is very, very sorry!" he repeated. "And so am I!" I

nodded and turned away. Neither of them had looked at my hands.

They were swollen like footballs and were a fiery scarlet

colour. They hurt so much I couldn't hold the straps of my

schoolbag and had to carry it on my shoulder; it fell off on the

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

way home and I had to abandon it, books and all, to the rain and

mud-filled shore. I met Cissie. She cried when she saw my hands.

"Daddy will kill him!" she said over and over, and I could tell

that, not knowing Mooney, she was unreasonably sorry for him.

She bathed my hands in cold water when we got home. My mother

cried as well and then went to her bedroom; we didn't see her

after that for days. When the Bull came home I held my hands out

to show him. "Who did that?" he asked. "Mooney, the Inspector!"

I answered and he sat down to eat his tea. He never said a word

all evening, but sat by the fire looking at the flames. I think

he sat there all night. He was there first thing in the morning

for breakfast looking in the flames still, silent as a rock. I

let Cissie wrap my hands in some bandages. They felt much

better. "Is he going to school today?" she asked the Bull. He

nodded. "Take him!" he said. On the way we recovered my rainsodden

schoolbag. In school the teacher helped me lay the books

out on top of the heater to dry them, and opened his own books

in front of me on my school desk. Then we waited. Everyone was

waiting. The atmosphere was tense and frightened. No one made a

sound; everyone was listening. We heard Mooney's voice from the

classroom next door. "Why doesn't he be quiet?" one of the boys

said out loud. "Why doesn't he go away?" one of the other boys

asked. The teacher shuffled uneasily behind his desk. His eyes

watered nervously and he wiped the edges of them with a

handkerchief. "Sssh, boys!" he told us. "It's nearly time for

the Angelus!" He looked down the row of desks at me. "Would you

ring the bell for the Angelus?" he asked me. I had never been

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

asked before but I was glad to do it; bells, I've always loved

the sound of bells, big and small. I lifted the bell in both my

bandaged hands and carried it out into the school corridor. The

teacher nodded from his desk and put his watch back in his

pocket. It was twelve, exactly. I rang the bell. Clang! Clang!

And again. Clang! Clang! And as I rang I saw the large hall door

of the school open and an immense man, big as a mountain, step

inside: the Bull. Clang! Clang! I summoned him. Clang! Clang! I

called him forth. Inside the classroom the boys stood intoning

their prayers. I let the bell go silent. Their eyes swivelled

towards me and opened wide when they saw the Bull. They fell

silent. The teacher came to the door of the classroom. "Please!"

he pleaded with the Bull. "Is this Mooney?" my father asked me.

"No," I answered, and with a smile I could not prevent, I

pointed to the next classroom. "In there!" I said. "He has a

big, white, round face on him!" My father nodded and advanced to

the next classroom. He looked through the glass and then stepped

inside. There was no voice raised in terror or in pain. We heard

a thud and a crunch and then another crunch, and then a loud

crack and another crack. One by one the boys left the room their

faces deathly white. "Get your coats from the cloakroom and go

home!" the teacher ordered them. "Say nothing of this to your

parents!" Five minutes later the Bull emerged dragging a

senseless Mooney on the ground behind him. I had never seen

anything like it. Mooney was unrecognisable. He had been smashed

to bits. He was a bloody, featureless mess. My father hung him

on a coat hook just inside the hall door. "Leave him there!" he

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

ordered the assembled teachers. "Don't touch him! Leave him

there until I come back and take him down!" He put his arm

around my shoulder. "This is my child!" he said. "And nobody,

nobody is allowed to treat my child like an animal!" I was proud

of him then; the beauty, the power of his violence. I could see

the fear in all their eyes. I felt a strange and terrible sense

of triumph. They were all, all of them, afraid of him; and

because they were afraid of him, they were afraid of me. I was

suddenly conscious of my own power, a power that had been hidden

from me so long. Mooney, God bless him, had demonstrated to me

my own vulnerability; the Bull, may his soul rot in hell, had

shown me my own strength.

Cissie when I told her on the way home, sat down on the

footpath and cried. "Why can't he leave us alone?" she sobbed.

"He's ruining our lives!" I put my bandaged hand on her head.

"But Cissie!" I countered. "Don't you see? You'll never have to

be afraid of anyone! No one will ever dare touch you! Ever!" Her

eyes were swollen scarlet like my hands. She looked so pathetic.

"You're right," she said. "No one will ever touch me! Ever!" It

was many, many years, not until Cissie came to visit me in

prison, before I realised that she was terribly, hopelessly in

love that time; and that every smashing blow the Bull delivered

to the world was a blow also to her hopes and her dreams of

love. I like to think that what I did, I did for her sake as

much as my own. When we got home there was no Bull. "He's gone

drinking with his buddies," Cissie said. "He'll tell them all

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

about what he did! They'll have a good laugh about it!" She was

restless all evening, going into every room, pulling all the

drawers open as if she was looking for something. Then she went

outside to the shed in the backyard. She was gone for about

twenty minutes, then came back and called me out. "I know you

think your father's a great fellow at the moment," she said

quietly. "I want you to take a look at this." We went into the

darkness of the shed. There was a sack full of old rubbish just

inside the window. Cissie shoved her hand in and pulled

something out. She held it up in the light from the window.

Despite its thick coat of detritus it glimmered and glistened in

the light. "This is what he used!" Cissie said. She took a solid

piece of wood and put it in the angle of the window. "Stand

back!" she warned me and raised the hammer over her head. She

smashed the hammer down on the wood. The wood cracked in the

middle and tore apart full of jagged splinters. I don't know

why, but I began to cry. I think the noise of the wood breaking

must have frightened me. Cissie wiped the tears away with her

fingers. "Do you think Mooney deserved that?" she asked me

softly. "Do you think anyone deserves the likes of that?" She

pushed the hammer back down into the sack. "Now, go to bed!" she

said. And though it was still bright, I went to bed and curled

up under the blankets. I didn't sleep. Cissie had smashed that

hammer into my imagination and I could see now, over and over

and over, what had happened to Mooney. It was like a film shown

over and over in my head. It was inside me, the violence was

inside me, and I couldn't shut it out. No matter how hard I

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

tried. I could have torn my eyes out, and my brain, and my

heart, and it wouldn't have mattered. The violence was set on

slow motion action replay for the rest of my life and it was too

late ever, to do anything about it.

We lived in the country about five miles from the nearest

town. Where we lived was known locally as Kilderry. Our house, a

big old farmhouse with fields around it, had been inherited by

my father from his people. In my father's family there was only

himself and his brother Jack, who we never saw anymore, anymore

than we saw Pat. I never knew anyone belonging to my mother's

family. I always thought they must live far away. It was Cissie

who told me, when she came to visit me here in prison, that they

had always lived on the far side of the town, and that they

would have nothing to do with the Bull nor he with them. The

Bull, in any case, needed nobody; he resembled an island of

solid rock in a sea of chaos. Even his "friends" when they

called appeared distanced from him by what I thought was

respect, but now I know it was fear. The chaos around Bull was

the fear he inspired in every one who knew him; and you could

not know the Bull and remain unafraid of him. He demanded, by

his very presence, that you be afraid. I had been afraid of him

all my life, and so had my mother, and Cissie, and I bet Pat and

Uncle Jack were afraid of him too; I bet they were, deep down!

After about nineteen - seventy the Bulls friends came to

the house more and more frequently. They always came at night

fall, bringing the shadows with them. There was about six of

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

them, all chat and laughter, and shaking hands with "the

missus", and "how's the little girl?", and "how's the little

boy?" Fuck the lot of them from a height, that's what I say! We

were banished from the room and they stayed to have their

conversations. Sometimes I caught a word, - I was curious, you

see -, it might have been the name of a place or the name of a

man, but it usually meant nothing to me. Only later did some of

those names begin to click and appear significant. For example,

the name Herrema, when it came seeping through the floorboards,

like air escaping from a punctured tyre, definitely meant

something the first time I heard it; and meant a lot, a lot

more, before I ever heard it said again. And there were other

names which in the light of day, glimpsed in a newspaper, might

leap out at me with a gasp of recognition and sudden sorrow.

Those shadowy men plotting in the twilight of our farmhouse

kitchen were gradually becoming clearer and clearer to me. I

began to know them. I began to understand their nature, and to

understand the importance of steering clear. Of keeping out of

their way. Of having as little as possible to do with them. I

had to plot and conspire all on my own to live independently of

them; to live independently of everyone, because at twelve or

thirteen I was beginning to be afraid and suspicious of

everyone. Everyone except Cissie, that is. Cissie was different.

Cissie was the flower who had grown up out of the dungheap. God

bless you, Cissie, wherever you are! Without knowing it you gave

me something to live for!

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

I don't know what the Bull did or what he worked at. He was

a farmer but ours was a miserable farm with just a few cows and

a donkey and nothing more. There was money, not much money, but

enough; I never knew where it came from. Every Friday I saw my

mother sneaking it out of the tea caddy on the mantlepiece as if

she was afraid someone might be looking at her. On Fridays she

went into town and bought all she wanted; her eggs, her rashers

and sausages, her pudding, her potatoes, her bacon and cabbage,

her chops, her bread and butter, her milk. Then she put the

change from the money back in the caddy on the mantlepiece. I

never heard her mention money to the Bull and I never heard him

ask if she had enough. She did with what he gave her, that was

all; no one ever asked for more of anything from the Bull. The

Bull had money of his own; I don't know how much, but he had

enough to drink with. He went to the pub almost every evening,

on his own since Pat had left, but seldom came back in the

rousing good form he did with Pat. Usually he was in a sombre

mood, and tight-knit, as if he was thinking about something

intractable, something that would not yield its secrets. He used

to sit and read his paper, "An Phoblacht", pulling it out of his

jacket pocket and rifling its soft, flaccid pages. Sometimes

he'd look at me with undisguised contempt from over the edge of

the paper. "When are you going to get sense, son?" he'd ask.

"When are you going to grow up?" He waited for an answer. "I'm

sick and tired of waiting for you to become a man!" If I was

lucky he'd hand me the paper and say, "Here, read this! You

might learn something!" If I wasn't, it was Gaelic football

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

time! How high could he kick me in the air before I burst? Once,

my head hit the ceiling, and broke the lamp. He blamed me. He

pulled me by the hair. "You little bugger!" he said. "You don't

even know how to say you're sorry!" I always left the window in

my bedroom open in case I had to run in there and throw myself

out of it. I had to do it once or twice, flinging myself

lengthwise under the raised sash, the Bull grabbing for my

ankles. In some moods I was sure he was capable of killing me.

Sometimes I thought he wanted me dead. Now, I see he never

wanted to kill me; he only wanted to torture me, that was all.

that, I was suddenly much, much stronger than I had ever been

before.

The Bull had his interests. He liked his Irish, that

gibberish he sometimes spoke when he was drunk. He liked his

football, the loud, cheering, Sunday matches. He liked his

liked that tuneless diddley - da Ceili shite too. He liked his

bloody paper. He liked his fucking drink. He liked his shadowy,

bastard friends. And he liked his rotten greyhounds. There were

two of them: Paddy and Mick. He coursed them regularly. They

lived in a huge wire enclosure at the bottom of a field close to

the house. They were lean and vicious creatures and had no

respect for any living creature, only the Bull. I hated the

sight of them. The Bull used to threaten to throw me to them.

"You'd soon see what they'd do with a little piece of shite like

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

you!" he'd say. I already knew. Every month or so the Bull came

home with a cage full of live rabbits. Every time I had to help

him cart the cage into the field where the greyhounds were. The

Bull didn't need help but he demanded it all the same. I'd had

to help him ever since Pat had left. The wire lid of the cage

was lifted off and the rabbits would try to jump out. My father

would grab one of them by the ears and swing it in over the high

fence. The savagery that followed was indescribable. There was

nowhere out of that thing. It was hell for little rabbits: it

was absolute fucking hell! "Well, what are you waiting for?" my

father wanted to know. He pointed into the cage. I had to pick

one of the rabbits out, pulling it up by the scruff of the neck,

and hold it in my hands. I could feel its heart beating through

its fur. The poor thing was terrified. But what was worse, much

worse, was that I had to do it; because, I thought, maybe the

poor thing expected mercy from my hands, and I could give it

none. I held it, and felt its heartbeat, and maybe it hoped

against hope for release which would never come. What came next

was the cruellest moment in the world for any living thing. I

threw the poor beast high in the air and watched its little legs

struggling uselessly. I never made any mistake: for it to fall

back in my hands would have been crueller still. The rabbit

tumbled over the top of the fence and down. Down, down into

hell. I watched. "One of these fucking days, I'll throw you in

over that fence just like them fucking rabbits!" the Bull said.

In front of me the poor thing was torn to pieces. I saw its

entrails ripped out, its still beating heart throbbing on the

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

ground. "You can do it now, if you like, Bull," I said under my

breath, not caring whether he did or not. Once or twice he

grabbed me and threatened to throw me in but I just didn't care.

I was beginning to understand. The Bull was finally getting

through to me. I didn't count. I had never counted. I wasn't

worth shite: not worth shite! And the Bull had me under his boot

and could do what he liked with me. "You fucking little

traitor!" he used to say. "You dirty, little, disobedient

bastard! I'll show you!" And I knew that he would, show me, for

as long as I let him, just as he had shown me the greyhounds and

the rabbits. "The greyhounds aren't bad," he said on the way

back up to the house. "It's just their natures! What can you do

with nature?" Each time the rabbits came Cissie crawled into my

bed because it was the furthest away and filled her ears with

toilet tissue and bundled handkerchiefs. And then silently, oh

so silently, she cried, and cried and cried, and cried. And her

little heart beat in her little chest like a rabbit's heart in

the hands of its executioner.

Every six weeks or so Paddy and Mick were taken to the

meet. I had to go along to help the Bull. The Bull had a little

red Renault van and the dogs were bundled into the back of it.

The dogs were muzzled but even so there was a wire fence between

them and us. They were his dogs, but even the Bull didn't trust

them. At the meet they were kept muzzled until the last moment.

The Bull stood at the edge of the enclosure watching the dogs

being brought in. Paddy and Mick always won. Maybe that's where

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

the Bull made his money, I don't know, but I never saw him show

any emotion as they edged ahead of the other chasing greyhound

to snap their teeth first on the hare's helpless flight. The

Bull didn't seem to enjoy the chase or the kill in the way the

other men did, or maybe he enjoyed it in another way, a less

obvious, a more subtle way. His satisfaction at the same time

was tremendous. It seemed to increase his stature and make him

look larger than he already was. He would glance around and

accept the nods and winks of congratulation with a grimace of

contentment. The Bull's dogs had done it again and what else

could be expected? The Bull went to collect his dogs. I stayed

in the crowd; it was the only place to hide. Once, someone

offered to put me on his shoulders to see better, but I could

see as well as I wanted to from where I was. All around me faces

shone with strange happiness as the flight of the hare was

rounded and driven into the earth. The greyhounds had it all

their own way. It was easy for them. There was no way out as far

as the hare was concerned. No way out of the circle of raised,

cheering voices, or the thirst for the kill. All around me, the

faces shone with strange happiness, and I could follow every

moment of the chase in the oblivious, entranced eyes of the

lookers-on. I dreamed I even saw the flesh torn in their eyes

and the blood spurt in hot jets out of the bottomless darkness

of their pupils. Then the arms raised up, the raucous cheer, the

blinding gap-toothed smile, the fixed stare of complete

fulfillment. Who were these men gathered in a dreary field to

witness this brutal sacrifice? What priesthood did they belong

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

to in which the savagery of life was ritualised by dog and hare?

How was their genuflection to the Universe, the mangled,

bloodied hare, different from that of other men? Were they proud

of their own truths? Or was it all an act? Did they go home to

cry in their beds like I did, or like Cissie did? "Your mother's

made you too bloody soft!" my father used to say, before he

drove his boot through the cleft in my backside. Was that what

they were afraid of? That accusation? That retribution? I would

have liked to believe it. To have believed it would have

redeemed them all, not that they sought or wanted redemption.

Only for me... Only for me... I wanted to believe in some

goodness, somewhere. I could not see it in the Bull. I could not

see it in these men. I could only see it in Cissie and in the

soft-hearted tears she cried. Not one tear of remorse was ever

shed at the meet, where real men would surely have laid their

faces on each others shoulders and wept until all their hearts

were emptied.

But tears would be wasted on a couple of dead hares. On the

way home in the red Renault van, with Paddy and Mick sniffing

through the wire at our exposed necks, we listened to the News

on the radio. The soldiers had killed people at a march in

Derry. The Bull had to stop the car. At the side of the road he

knelt in the mud and covered his face with his hands. He roared.

He roared so loud, as if the greatest imaginable pain had swept

into his heart, and he could not contain it. I thought he was

dying. I hoped he was dying. I turned the radio up. The dogs

began to howl. I turned the radio up louder. There was the sound

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

of gunfire like crackling static. The Bull rolled on his back as

if he had been shot. But he wasn't dead or bleeding... On the

radio a voice said: "Good Christ! We're just being shot down and

slaughtered! They're killing us for no reason! What on earth is

going to happen to us at all? Where will it end? Where will it

end?" I thought if ever I was going to run away from the Bull,

this was my moment. The open road stretched before me. I saw a

signpost with the word "Dublin" on it. I knew I could walk the

distance. I wanted to go. I really wanted to go! But then I

thought of Cissie. Cissie was all I had in the world. I couldn't

go without her. "Come on, Da, come on!" I said. "Let's get

home!" It was beginning to rain. The Bull began to stir. "Don't

turn off the radio!" he warned me. All the way home we heard the

news. A lot of people had been killed, just shot down. I thought

the Bull was going to pull the steering wheel out of its socket.

"We'll get them back for this!" he said. "They're going to pay

such a fucking price as they never imagined! Just let them wait

and see!" When he got me home he dragged me into the house and

threw me on my knees by the fireplace. My mother jumped up off

her chair. She was terrified, I could see that. None of us had

ever seen the Bull in such a fury. Cissie pulled me away from

the Bull's kicking feet. My mother stood between us. "For Jesus'

sake, Bull, what's wrong?" I thought the Bull was going to

flatten her, but he didn't. He swirled around the kitchen table

his fists up in the air, roaring like an old cow calving. Then

his fists came crashing down, right in the middle of the table.

The table crashed to the floor under the impact of the blow;

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

fragments of shattered wood flew everywhere. I began to cry. I

began to cry, I couldn't help it, for the dead hares. The Bull

knelt in the middle of the broken table; he knelt in front of my

mother with his arms outstretched towards her as if he was

pleading with her for something. "The fucking Brits!" he

answered her quietly. "The fucking Brits, that's what's wrong!"

Cissie rushed me upstairs and into bed. I couldn't stop crying.

Outside, the dogs in the van were still howling. "Now, you just

shut up!" Cissie said, holding me. "Now you just shut up, do you

hear?" I didn't blame anything or anybody for my grief. I didn't

even blame the Bull. What was he to do with the rages he felt?

What was he to do with his anguish? I almost felt sorry for him.

It didn't last long, but I almost felt the only compassion I

ever did feel for the Bull. He was just the way he was, the way

he was made, and I guess there was nothing he could do about it.

All that anger, all that blinding rage, I guess he had to take

it out on someone. And, I guess, I was the best he had. He was

my father, and in a way, some way, I guess, he needed me.

The next night the shadowy men came at twilight and stayed

till morning. This time there was no restraint in their voices;

they could be heard loud and clear ringing through the rafters,

full of savage menace, overflowing with savage hate. They made

plans. I heard every detail; I knew exactly what they were going

to do; I became, though I did not want to be, their accomplice.

There was nothing I could do. Things were stepping up. We were

all about to be swept along by a tidal wave of history, of

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

force, of hatred, of death, and there was nothing any of us

could do about it. The next morning over breakfast nothing was

said by any of us; we hardly exchanged glances. On my way to

school I said to Cissie: "They're going to kill a man!" She

slapped me hard on the face. "You keep your mouth shut!" she

warned. "Or the Bull will cut your tongue out!" I cried but I

could see she was crying to. In the end she sat down on the side

of the road and held her hands over her face. The tears streamed

out, thick like jelly, from behind her hands. "I want to get

away from here!" she cried. "I want to get away from that mad,

fucking bastard! That fucking Bull!" She stamped her feet in the

ground. "Don't!" I attempted feebly. "Please, don't!" She stood

up. "You're useless," she said to me bitterly. "Just like the

Bull says, you're not able to wipe your own fucking arse!" She

shook her fist at me. "Leave me a-fucking-lone!" She screamed.

And I ran from her as fast as I could with her screams stabbing

in my back like knives.

School was almost like home for the next two weeks. They

ran up black flags. They took us to Mass, the church was packed

with people, the whole town was there, and we had to mourn the

dead, whether we liked to or not. Then, they said, all those

weak men who were afraid of the Bull, afraid of me, they said,

there was going to be a March, a big March through the town,

like a funeral. It was like the roof of the world was caving in

and despair was falling through on top of us. This had a strange

effect: suddenly I had friends at school; the other boys talked

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

to me. They said: "Those fucking Brits!" and looked at me

meaningfully, until I signalled my approval. One or two went

further: "The I.R.A. are going to kick them out of Ireland now,

aren't they?" To which I replied, suitably ambiguously, "We'll

wait and see!" None of their friendliness tempted me to any real

revelation, though I could have told them a lot of things to

make their hair stand on end if I had wanted. After all, the

shadowy men to these innocents were a complete mystery, but I

had heard them speak, and to me they were no mystery at all. But

I held my peace; times were rough; there was danger in the air.

One morning I saw the Bull packing the back of the van with

hurling sticks. He was leaving for the day. My mother had

prepared a bag of sandwiches and a flask of tea for him. He

threw them on the seat beside him. He never said, Goodbye, but

drove away with a look of intense determination on his face, the

same sort of look he had when he came to the school to punish

Mr. Mooney. Later in the day, we saw where he had gone to. It

was on the telly: the crowds around the British Embassy, the

Building in flames, the tattered, burning Union Jack, the Guards

under seige by men with hurleys. I thought I saw the Bull,

hacking his way through the Guards. They might as well have

given him the key to the Embassy; nothing could stop the Bull

when he got going. He did good work that day. The Embassy was

gutted. The next day one of the boys in school said to me: "Hey,

did you see your old man on telly last night? Beating the shite

out of the Guards he was!" I never even thought about it. I just

hit him square between the eyes and he went flying backwards his

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

arms and legs trailing in the air. It was the first time in my

life that I ever hit anybody and I liked it. It felt good. I

stood above him, ready to hit him again when he got up, and that

felt good too. "Shut fucking up!" I roared at him. "Or I'll cut

your fucking tongue out of your head!" And that felt good too.

He climbed up off the ground with an astonished, frightened look

on his face, and that felt good too; he was afraid of me, I

could see it, he was afraid to look at me, the way I sometimes

was with the Bull: he was scared shitless! He crawled shamefaced

back to his seat and huddled there crying. He was weak and

I had exposed him. He was weak and I had put him in his place.

The Bull didn't come back for over a week. We thought maybe

he'd been arrested. I hoped maybe he'd been shot, killed even;

but there was no hope of that. Dublin wasn't Derry or Belfast:

the Bull was safe, the soldiers didn't shoot people in the

streets there! Even my mother didn't know where he was, but none

of us had much worry for him. The Bull could take care of

himself, no one better. He'd come back; we all knew that. In the

meantime, despite a mood of anxious foreboding, and the

knowledge that our peace would soon be shattered by the Bull's

return, we enjoyed a week of strange and lovely tranquillity. We

blossomed! I could see it in all our faces, but especially

Cissie's, she became almost plump and there was a new freedom

and grace in her movements. She came and went as she pleased

also, flitting in and out of the house at all times, like a bird

let out of her cage. Once I followed her and discovered another

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

source for her inner happiness. Not far down the road a car had

pulled into a gateway hidden with low branches and dense leaves.

Cissie disappeared into this car and into the embraces of

someone waiting inside. I climbed into the tree above them and

edged out till I was positioned over the windscreen. I thrilled

at what I saw; the symphony of roving, roaming hands, indiscreet

and indelicate; the wild and innocent disarray of flesh, with

all its sticky consequences; the flowering wilderness of young,

half-mad, love, bursting with sadness and desire; the blunt,

simple beauty of palped skin and tearing mouths. The Bull would

kill her if he found out; there was no doubt about it. Kill her

and kill him, whoever he was. Later when Cissie got out of the

car she could hardly walk and she staggered home along the

roadway, her bundled nylons trailing desolately from the pocket

of her coat. When I arrived home five minutes later than her she

looked at me with dreadful suspicion. "Where were you?" she

said. "Out feeding the greyhounds!" I told her. "Where were

you?" I asked her. "Out walking!" she said, and went straight to

bed, to dream.

At the end of the week our peace was shattered, as we had

all known it would be, but not by the Bull. It was first thing

in the morning; we were still sleeping in our beds when they

kicked the door in. I heard my mother screaming and crying, and

then Cissie screaming and crying, and the sound of furniture

being overturned on the floor. I thought, maybe it was the Bull,

but there were too many voices and none was his. I wrapped the

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

sheets and blankets around my head and hoped they would not come

as far as me. But they did. I heard them tramping on the stairs

and the door of my room being kicked open. I pulled the blankets

tighter around my head but they were pulled away. I was dragged

by the arms out of bed and dropped heavily on the floor. I had

two ribs broken after. I saw my bed overturned, my drawers

ransacked, my furniture dismantled. One of them knelt over me

and leering menacingly at me, questioned me: "Now, you little

cunt, you tell me where everything is!" As he spoke I heard two

gunshots. I began to cry. "Don't kill, Cissie!" I cried.

"Please, don't kill, Cissie!" But the Guard only smiled and

rubbed my head. "Don't worry," he said. "We don't kill people,

only dogs and animals!" It was the first time the Guards had

come and they left the house looking like the tailend of a

jumble sale. Cissie said that they had always been afraid of the

Bull until now; something really terrible must have happened or

they wouldn't have come. Cissie said the Guards didn't want to

come, that they had been ordered to. "You could see in their

faces they were afraid!" she said. "If the Bull was here they

were in for it!" The Guards found nothing; they left emptyhanded.

One of them left a message for the Bull with me. "Tell

your father," he said, "the next time he brings them dogs

coursing I don't think he'll find much running in them!" Inside

the wire enclosure both dogs lay dead, shot through the neck. I

was delighted. The Bull had left a couple of live rabbits in a

cage in the shed in the backyard. I took them down now to the

dogs and put them inside the enclosure. I brought Cissie down to

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

see it. The rabbits sat beside the dead bodies nibbling at the

bloodied grass. We both laughed at the good of it. Cissie said,

"C'mon, I'll show you what the Guards were looking for. They

couldn't find their own shoes if they were asked to look for

them!" We walked across some fields and clambered through thorn

bushes. In a corner of a field, right in under the ditch, Cissie

stopped and pulled away some sods of grass-covered earth.

Underneath there was a shore grating which she pulled up. There

was just enough room for us to squeeze through. I don't know how

the Bull ever got down there. Below us there was a tunnel we

went through on our hands and knees. It was dark. I was

frightened. "Cissie, where are we?" I complained. Cissie stood

up in front of me. We had arrived in a larger chamber, a cave,

completely dark. Suddenly a caged bulb hanging over my head came

alight with yellow brightness. Cissie played with a switch in

the wall. "Can you believe it?" she said. "They even have

electric light down here!" All around us there were wooden

boxes. Cissie lifted the lid off one. "Look!" she said. I saw

bits and pieces of blackened metal. "What is it?" I asked.

"Rifles!" Cissie said. She opened another box. "For explosives!"

she said, showing me a small instrument like a clock. She

pointed at another box. "I won't open that box!" she said.

"There's gelignite in it! It can get on your hands! The Bull

would find us out and we'd have to be killed then!" She seemed

suddenly afraid. "Let's get out of here!" she said, and switched

the light off. We got down on our hands and knees again and

crawled along the tunnel. Cissie lifted me up to grasp the shore

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

grating and pull myself out, then scrambled out herself. "Quick!

Let's get back to the house!" she said. We ran across the

fields. My mother had tidied up the house; she had righted all

the furniture and swept up the broken delft. She was sitting at

the table listening to the radio when we got back. She had a

strange look on her face as she listened. She looked as if she

wanted to cry but as if she wasn't able to cry and I realised

that I had never, ever seen her cry. I wanted her to cry. Cissie

sat at the table and then I sat beside her. We all listened to

the radio. Someone had been killed and dumped on the side of the

road. It was some Politician; even now, his name won't come back

to me... I suppose his wife and children still remember him.

He'd been tortured and shot through the back of the head. They'd

carved a message in his arm: "Brits Out!" But he wasn't a Brit;

he was Irish. "They've gone too far!" Cissie said, shaking her

head. "They've gone too far, now!" On the radio they said he had

a wife and three children, just like the Bull. They said, he'd

been killed because he'd been too outspoken and had always stood

up to the men of violence. The men of violence do not like

people to stand up to them, I knew that; it's a question of

pride, they lose face if they don't do something. That poor man!

They'd taken him to the Border and shot him for having had too

much to say. Then they dumped his body on a roadside in the

North, on British soil. Everything they did, those shadowy men,

was full of symbolism. Somehow, they always managed to carve a

mystical poetry out of their own violence and murder. It was as

if they were sacrificing to unknown Gods who ruled them and

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

every body was a gutted, bloodied beast, and every roadside an

altar. Death, death, death, that was all they were able to churn

up out of their souls, death and more death, and they scrawled

their slogans across history like schoolboys writing obscene

graffiti on toilet walls. And this had gone on for how long,

without respite, without redemption? Hundreds and hundreds of

years! No wonder my mother was out of tears: can anyone cry more

than a lifetime's? I doubt it; I doubt it very much! I was

wasting my time waiting for my mother's tears to fall. She was

sitting like she was in a trance. There wasn't a stir out of

her. Cissie and myself left her to her own inner thoughts and

dreams, unknown to us. We went back to bed. It was only about

ten in the morning but we were both exhausted after all that had

happened. We slept all day. We missed school. How could anyone

expect us to go to school on a day like that?

In the evening I had to be taken to the Doctor with my

ribs. Cissie took me. We were lucky. While we were away the Bull

came back and found the door kicked down and his greyhounds

dead. When we came home the dogs' enclosure had been flattened

and the dogs buried. Bull was nowhere to be seen. My mother told

us to go to bed straight away. We went there and clung

desperately to the silence till morning. It was years later

before Cissie told me all that happened. The Bull had gone to

town with his van and his sledgehammer on the passenger seat

beside him. The Guards when they saw him coming had bolted and

barricaded the door of the barracks but the Bull smashed his way

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

through it. The dozen or so Guards who were inside jumped from

the windows to escape him. The Bull ran amok inside and broke

everything. In the end he set fire to the barracks and waited

for the flames to catch and build before he left it. He stood

outside and watched it burn. The Guards kept their distance.

"The Bull was afraid of no one!" Cissie told me. "But everyone

was afraid of the Bull! Even the Guards were afraid of him!" The

Bull turned to the watching crowd behind him and addressed the

Guards. "If I ever find who the bastard was who killed my dogs

I'll string him up by the intestines to the nearest lamppost!"

And the Bull meant it; I don't think the Bull ever said a word

he did not mean. He came back that night in a savage temper. He

pulled me out of bed and began to shake and hit me. "You let the

Guards in!" he said. "You let them kill my dogs!" Cissie saved

me. She threw herself between us. "No! No, he didn't!" she

screeched. "He fought them! He fought them all he could!" She

pulled up my pyjamas to show him. "Look at the bandages! They

broke his ribs! They beat him! He fought but there was too many

of them for him! He was on his own!" She screamed the last

sentence as if it was an insult she was hurling in the Bull's

face. Maybe that's why he hit her; I think he took it, what she

had said, for an insult. I think he thought she was accusing him

of leaving me alone to fight his battles. And that sort of thing

just wasn't acceptable to the Bull. So, he hit her. He hit her

hard in the face. She went flying. She was a light thing,

Cissie, and there was very little of her to anchor her to the

ground. She tumbled across the room like a thrown doll and fell

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

looking dazed and disjointed on the wooden floor. I had never

seen the Bull hit either Cissie or my mother before. I think, it

was part of his code of conduct never to hit a women; he could

make their lives a misery all right; he could tyrannise and

brutalise them, but he prided himself on never hitting them.

Until this time. I saw a look of pain on his face as if he

realised his pride was shattered now forever. He looked away

from me as if to hide his expression; he looked away from

Cissie. Cissie was struggling to sit up on the floor. Her face

looked funny, looked strangely twisted and distorted. She

touched her jaw and cheek and it obviously hurt because she

began to cry and whimper. I just thought it was funny; I began

to laugh. Her face looked as if it had had an extra dimension

smashed into it; looked like some warped piece of painting in

which the bones are broken and reassembled all wrong. I laughed

and laughed and laughed. The Bull rounded on me like one of his

dogs turning round a small, pathetic hare. But for the first

time in my life I was not afraid of him and for the first time

in my life I had the better of him, without having to fight him.

"Hey, Bull," I said, pointing at Cissie sprawled on the floor.

"Hey Bull, you hit a woman!" His hands fell emptily by his

sides. He looked as if he was going to cry. Then, without saying

a word, he turned and left the room. I helped Cissie up. "You

little fucker!" she said. "What are you laughing at?" But the

words came out all funny and I only laughed more. "You know," I

said to her, "the Bull isn't all he thinks he's cracked up to

be!" I'll never forget what I said then. "Someday I'm going to

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

make him pay for everything! Someday, he'll be sorry!" Cissie

was crying with the pain in her jaw, I don't think she heard

what I had said, but I had heard it! Heard it as if it was

coming from outside of me, heard it like it was a third person

in the room speaking those words. I could hardly believe it, my

own hubris, as if for the moment I was immune from the Bull. I

shouted downstairs. "You better get her a doctor! She needs a

doctor!" And the Bull did it. He went back out into his little

red van and came back a half-hour later with the only doctor he

could find. I recognised him immediately and saw his hands

tremble as they reached out to touch Cissie's face. I saw her

tears too tremble onto his fingers and roll down their slopes

into the palms of his hands. And I saw the way his hands closed

on her tears and squeezed them tight as if they were something

precious and he would never let them go. I was rapidly beginning

to discover more about what was hidden in our small house than

anyone else living there could have imagined; and I was

determined to keep it secret. Cissie's heart, I decided, would

not be safe in any hands, if not in mine.

The morning of the March in town the Bull produced a bundle

of black rags from the back of the van and flung them at me.

"Get into these!" he ordered. I pulled the black clothes on;

they were a couple of sizes too big for me, but with the trouser

belt drawn tight they didn't look too bad. The black beret the

Bull shot towards me like a floppy, cloth frisbee, was the

problem; it fell persistently over my eyes, and looked like a

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

burnt and blackened pancake on my head. I looked ridiculous.

Cissie laughed when she saw me but not when the Bull produced

some clothes for her too. "What do you expect me to do with

these?" she protested. Then she dressed herself slowly,

deliberately, trying to make the most of her impromptu uniform.

She looked o.k., but maybe the skirt was a little short; you

could see her knobbly knees. She pulled her thickest pair of

black tights on and it made her legs look better; then in front

of the Bull she began to march to and fro in the room swinging

her arms. The Bull was amazed. "What the fuck are you at?" he

roared. Cissie smiled at him indulgently. "This is what you

expect from me, isn't it?" she asked him sweetly. And continued

her march with more energy and vigour. "Istigh! Isteach!" she

barked, like some lunatic soldier in some lunatic army. The Bull

was red in the face, but I could see, he didn't know what to do;

everyday now we seemed to regain some of the territory he had

established over us. We were pushing the frontier back; and it

had all started that time the Bull had shown weakness in front

of us, that time he had hit Cissie. For the moment he could not

think what to do to quell our defiance; the Bull was at a loss;

he was terribly embarrassed. But still we knew our limits, and

in most things, we did what he wanted; the violence of the Bull

could never be discounted or taken lightly; it was as inevitable

as it was unpredictable. We sat in the red van beside him;

Cissie sat on my lap. She felt warm and under her black skirt

and blouse there was a smell of sweet perfume as if her skin was

wrapped in wildflowers. The Bull sniffed unpleasantly but I'm

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

sure he never noticed anything like that; anything like the

scent a woman might wear. As we approached the town we entered a

stream of traffic and there were more and more people walking

until we were part of an enormous crowd heading for the centre

of town. Once in the town the Bull shunted the van through the

crowd and down a narrow roadway and into the wide yard of what

looked like a disused garage. There was about two dozen other

black-shirted creatures waiting there, friends of my father's,

the shadowy men and their shadowy children, like sitting crows

waiting for a dustbin to be put out. The Bull formed us into a

tight group then marched up and down in front of us, reminding

me of Cissie earlier, to demonstrate the type of stance and

attitude he wanted from us. "Remember you're soldiers!" he

reminded us. "Be proud! Ireland's cause is our duty!" I wanted

to laugh but they all looked so stern and serious around me; I

couldn't believe they were taking it so seriously; the kids were

all behaving like well-regulated, good little soldiers. And off

we went! We marched back down the narrow roadway, twisted round

in the Main Street, and strode determinedly down into the town

Centre. The crowd fell asunder on either side of us. I could see

the mixture of awe and respect on their faces. I could see that

they did not admire us, but that they were afraid of us all the

same. They stood back; they moved to one side; they looked at us

and then they looked away. Nobody laughed, as I had feared, at

my ridiculous pancake beret. I began to think that if it wasn't

ridiculous then I couldn't be. I began to take myself seriously.

I began to be in awe of myself. I strode ahead forcefully. We

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

marched down the town. Our shoes made a loud stamping noise on

the road. Our unison, unpractised and unrehearsed, was

remarkable. I couldn't understand it, how before we even reached

the end of the narrow road leading from the garage, our arms and

legs were swinging perfectly together. We marched as one, we

felt as one. The pride of the others invaded me. It was a heady

feeling. I felt as if I was one of an elite, as if I was one of

a handful. I tightened my face to stop from smiling. I felt

strangely giddy. I felt as if I was floating on air; as if I had

become part of some tremendous, charismatic centipede whose

movements controlled mine. I was not myself; I was more than

myself; I was better than myself. I had become a soldier. And I

was gliding through history on hobnailed black leather shoes.

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! We swung through town, stamp! stamp! stamp!

and joined the mainstream of the march. The immense crowd opened

out to let us into its heart. We propelled it along. Soon the

whole crowd was marching with military intensity and fervour.

The air and buildings around us vibrated to the noise we made.

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp! Ahead of us the Brass and Reed band began

to play. I recognised the music: "A Nation once Again!" One of

the Bull's favourites. That music infected us. We began to

stamp! stamp! stamp! with even greater energy and to swing our

arms and legs wider and further. I felt completely dislocated as

if my arms and legs were suddenly unattached from my body and

flying all over the place in impossible formations. I began to

sing... I began to sing! "And Ireland free, will one day be, a

Nation once Again!" The Bull looked back suspiciously at me from

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

the head of the group, but then I saw his mouth opening and

shutting on the same words as my own. And then the others began

to sing! It was a wonderful feeling of togetherness. We were

like some fateful Greek Chorus intoning the future: the entry

into the labyrinth; the unravelling of the clue; the battle with

the monster; the victory. We marched straight into the town

square and positioned ourselves in the middle of it, in front of

the memorial for the 1916 fallen. My father stepped forward and

pulled a long sheet of paper from his pocket. He began to

proclaim. My eyes were fixed on the sky above the square; a grey

sky full of floating cloud. I watched the seagulls whirling.

There was storms at sea when you saw the seagulls inland, I had

been told. There was storms at sea then as my fathers voice

raged inland. I heard his words only intermittently, I

recognised the slogans: "British Colonial Imperialism!",

"Occupied Territory!", "Surrender and Withdrawal!", "Peace with

Justice!", " Thirty-two county Republic!", "New Ireland!", "New

Future Together!" His voice rang loud and clear, and full of a

strange and bitter melancholy, like the voice of some aged poet

intoning the sad and ageless poetry of his people. When he

finished the silence around him, and around us, was palpable. On

a raised platform at the back of the square I saw the

politicians and priests of the area waiting for the Bull to

finish. The crowd too were waiting expectantly to see what we

would do next. The Bull delivered the coup-de-grace. "About

Turn!" he ordered with quiet authority and we wheeled round in

perfect harmony and strode away from the awestruck, timid

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

thousands who were gathered round us. Behind us the place where

we had stood remained empty as if the crowd was afraid to

infringe on territory we had marked out as our own. There was no

doubt about it; we were men and women apart; we were different;

we were alien and strange to them and they were alien and

strange to us; our lives were divided. We marched away from them

and they watched us go. We marched up through the deserted

streets of the town. It began to rain as it always does. Let

them stay and listen to their Priests and Politicians, I

thought, let them get wet! We would soon be safe and dry. We

turned down the narrow roadway again and marched into the

disused garage. We dispersed without a word. We shook hands

only, my father doing the rounds of the shadowy men. My hand was

warmly shook by all of the other youngsters; they sought me out.

My father looked with quiet pride on me. Cissie sneered

contemptuously. I began to feel contempt for myself. My earlier

euphoria was rapidly dissipated. My clothes looked depressingly

black. My beret looked like a pancake again. I felt ridiculous.

Cissie caught me by the hand and pulled me towards her. We sat

back in the red van, with Cissie on my lap again. My father was

silent. The roads all around were silent and deserted. Cissie

leaned with her arm around my shoulder and her hair against the

side of my face. I felt her lips against my ear. "My fucking

feet are all fucking blistered!" she whispered bitterly. "I'll

never be able to walk, ever again!" And inside my own shoes,

tight and hot, I felt my own blisters rise, and prepare to

burst.

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

That was the last time I ever felt pride; nothing that

happened afterwards brought me anything but pain and

humiliation. We were on, and had always been on, the slippery

slope to some imminent conclusion. It all must end somewhere, I

told myself. Things can't go on forever. But the Bull used to

say, "Things will get worse before they get better!" And if that

was true things would never get better; how could they? Things

would always get worse. Until the End. And no matter what the

Bull or anyone else could say I knew the End would eventually

come. It had to. It couldn't be avoided. It would take the form

of death, if nothing else, but it would come. And so I could

afford to be patient and I waited, certain that the Bull's

ranting and raving would one day stop, some way, some how... God

only knew! For the moment the Bull was intolerable. He was worse

than ever. We avoided him like the plague. We hated the sight of

him. There would never be enough distance between us; I'd have

run a mile to get away from him; I only wanted to hear that he

was "gone" and never that he was "here". We all felt the same

way. We hated the Bull. We'd have liked to have seen him dead.

Cissie particularly. She had no freedom. Once a month she

concocted some reason to go to the doctor, and I wondered what

other manoeuvres she employed to mislead the Bull and conduct

her secret love affair. Once, I found the doctor's car parked

down a side road but there was no sign of him or of Cissie. I

climbed up in the nearest tree to watch and wait but it got so

late I had to go home without discovering them. I couldn't

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

imagine where they were going on their lovers' trysts, and

couldn't imagine where in the area they could feel safe from the

Bull. How could they or anybody make love in such a state of

terror? How could they make love anymore than they could feel

free with someone, or something, like the Bull breathing down

the back of your neck? But Cissie was trying. She'd found some

corner of the Bull's maze where she felt safe, where she felt

free... When I found out where it was I couldn't believe it. I

couldn't believe that she had taken such a risk; but Cissie was

a desperate girl, and the doctor was a fool; and fools in love,

they hadn't a hope!

But Cissie was clever too, in her own way. Every time the

shadowy men called she was out of the house and they called more

and more frequently now. The Bull was away more and more often

too; sometimes for days on end. Cissie took every chance she

had. Once when the Bull went missing she called to the doctor

every day; I knew, because she always went on her way home from

school and I had to wait for her. "Play with the rainwater or

something!" she'd say. "I won't be long!" And she never was. Ten

minutes, fifteen minutes, never longer. I can imagine now the

hurried passion of those moments; at the time I wanted to

believe her when she said she was just, "leaving a note!" The

strangest thing is that it went on for so long undisturbed, that

hidden love, as if the Gods were conspiring with them, and would

protect them. Or maybe they liked the danger. I could believe it

of Cissie. I never got to know Doctor Curran, but there was some

spark in Cissie's eyes that showed she liked playing with fire.

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

I sometimes think it was just a game she was playing with the

Bull all that time. That that's all it was, a game, in which the

Bull was being made to look a fool. And then I think that maybe

as far as Cissie was concerned it was more than a game: it was

war. Cissie could have chosen to run away at any time but had

chosen to stay, to stay and fight. "I won't let the Bull get the

better of me!" I remember her saying, and that was her spirit.

No matter how strong or terrible that bastard was she would not

let him get the better of her. Everything the Bull did to hurt

her only made her more determined. She used to face him with a

glint of defiance in her eye which said, "You'll never win,

Bull! You'll never win, no matter how big or bad you are!" And I

loved her for it, because she stood up for me too. "Listen," she

said to me once, "we're in this together!" She fed me her spirit

of rebellion. "It doesn't matter how small you are, if you're

strong enough inside!" And I, the runt of the litter, loved to

repeat that over and over to myself. You can do anything as long

as you're strong enough inside! I was ready to do anything for

Cissie against the Common Enemy. Together we plotted his

downfall; together we prayed for his destruction. We rejoiced in

every misfortune that befell the Bull. When the news came that

Pat, our brother, had been arrested and interned we danced

together on the road to school. The Bull was apoplectic. His

veins stood out on his neck and forehead as if they were going

to burst. I could barely contain a cheer. Pat's picture was in

the paper. He'd been caught up North transporting a lorry load

of explosives. He'd been shot in the arm trying to escape. The

Ulster Says No © Tom Quinn 2001, 2002

arm had been almost severed by a hail of army bullets. He was

lucky to be alive. We were sorry he was. The paper said he'd get

at least twenty years in jail. It wasn't long enough. It wasn't

long enough, unless the Bull was in there with him. And even

then it wasn't long enough.

The Bull took Pat's arrest badly. He never stopped,

morning, noon, or night, lamenting him. "My poor Pat!" he'd cry

out in anguish. "My poor son rotting in an English jail!" He'd

rattle the table with his fist and glaring into empty space

pronounce his own far-seeing judgement on things. "The English

have always stood with their muddy boots on the throat of the

Iri