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Listen to Kevin McCarthy's reading and talk.Welcome to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. In this episode author Kevin McCarthy reads from his crime novel 'Irregulars'. Recorded in front of a live audience in the Central Library on 31 October 2013 as part of its 'Crime in the City: Crime and History' series.Hello, how are you? Yeah, I am shocked and delighted to say I was shortlisted there (2013 Irish Book Awards: Crime Fiction Book of the Year) so I’ve just literally jumped in a cab from the Theatre to come over so I’m really delighted, and thanks very much to Mary and I’d like to thank as well Dublin Libraries for having me. My new novel is called Irregulars. It's an historical crime novel set in Dublin in 1922, during the Irish Civil War and what I’d like to do…I’ll read three passages they are about five minutes each to give you a kind of a sense of the book and some of the characters in it, without hopefully giving anything away at the same time - it is a mystery. My first novel Peeler with the same character Sean O'Keefe was set in West Cork during the War of Independence when Sean O’Keefe was an RIC man. In this novel Sean O’Keefe has been demobbed obviously and the RIC has been disbanded. So he is kind of at a loose end. So whereas my first novel Peeler was kind of a police procedural, if you will, it was set during the War of Independence; Irregulars is kind of…I was describing it recently, it just came to me and I liked it, a noir war novel if that’s possible. So it’s kind of a mystery more in the private detective genre I suppose than police procedural like the first.So I’ll take three passages. So the first passage is Sean O'Keefe himself who’d be the protagonist, the main character in the book.O’Keefe's mother had told him that his father had been employed by a woman named Dolan. That his father had taken on the work to repay a debt he would not disclose to wife or son, despite it driving him to wake in terror sweats, shouting, pleading with the darkness.‘I didn't know… she never told me, I couldn't have known…please…’‘Told you what, Da?’ O'Keefe had ventured the night before, but his father had responded to his question with the same blank look that O’Keefe had come to recognise, the vagueness in his features that spoke of shadows, voids in his father's mind. ‘You'll see to it, won’t you, son?’ his mother had asked. ‘Your father’s not able. It would shame him, it would, if the woman were to see him like he is…’‘You know her?’ O’Keefe had asked her in turn. ‘This Dolan woman?’‘Not at all. Don't be daft,’ his mother had said, turning away. Now O’Keefe dresses in his freshly laundered suit of clothes. Civilian clothes marking the civilian he has become. A grey suit, white shirt and starched collar, though O’Keefe notices now that the shirt is not his own and must be his father's.Even after five months as a civilian, he catches himself staring at this unfamiliar image in the mirror and, as he knots his tie, thinks back to the day he marched in the RIC’s last parade before disbandment, his polished black boot slapping the smooth cobbles of the Phoenix Park Depot parade-ground. The lowering of the Union Jack and the raising of the Irish tricolour. He remembers the way he folded his bottle-green uniform trousers on the hanger with the coat and the hat, and how he had left them on the bunk there in the Depot.  Like a second skin, the armour of his past life shed, exchanged for this one suit of grey wool. The suit of everyman. Making him feel somehow less a man in the world now than he was before.His childhood home behind him, O’Keefe turns onto Clanbrassil Street, slow-hoofs it to Patrick Street and past St Patrick's Cathedral, Foley’s pub across the way, the public baths on his right, the address of the Dolan woman folded in his pocket. The streets are filled with the clatter and shriek of tram wheels on rails and the clanging of tram bells; the splutter and belch of coal lorries and motor cars; the clopping of cart-horses, movement and light assaulting O’Keefe’s eyes. He starts, goose-pimples peppering his skin as barefooted boys scarper from an alleyway, fleeing some unseen misdemeanour.Knock the booze on the head, he thinks. Too much of it altogether since he left the Peelers. He thinks again that he should have joined his barrack mates who signed on with The Palestinian Police after disbandment. The Greater Manchester Police as well was looking for experienced men. Or he could always go up north, to the six counties excluded from the Free State by the Treaty, as many other Peelers had done. Take a job at the very wellspring of the civil war now raging. Like the policing he had done in the Tan War, policing in Ulster-they had changed the name to the Royal Ulster Constabulary-would be little more than presiding over pogroms and sectarian bigots with their banners and sashes and such. No thanks, pal. Still, though he is wary, he is happy for this job, happy to repay his father’s debt, whatever it may be. If only because nothing good comes of an Irishman with too much time on his hands.A newspaper boy interrupts his reverie, hawking the dailies. Read it he-ar! Free State Army crush Irregulars in Cork. Many dead, the newsboy shouts, nearly singing. Lo-ads reported dead. Read it he-ar!O’Keefe continues on up towards Christ Church Cathedral, passing young girls begging for coppers, clutching baby siblings to their scrawny chests or selling matches, some selling themselves. Common as rain in winter-women, girls hawking themselves in the laneways, doorways and cold water flats of the city. More whores than anywhere on earth, so it’s said. Dublin, city of whores and angry men. Which is he? he thinks, and shakes his head at the routes taken by his mind when he lets it run.He passes fruit and vegetable stalls. Thomas's bicycle repair shop-push bikes upturned on the footpath like obstructions in no-man's land. O'Brien and Sons Butchers next, the coppery scent of blood from the open doorway suffusing the October air, seeping into O'Keefe's consciousness and turning his mind to memories of battle, but this time he does not let his thoughts wander. Instead, he forces them down into the place on the sea-floor of his memory where he keeps them. The murder hole he has named it, and smiles sadly that he should have need of such a place, and wonders would there ever be a time when the smell of a butcher’s shop would not remind him of the war.In thinking this, O’Keefe considers how memory-experience-is locked into the meat of the body. He has no believe in a soul, or anything so elevated, but he does believe-he has read this recently during one of his long, clock-killing afternoons in the library and agrees with it - that memory becomes embedded in the physical self; that traces of all past action lay dormant in the muscle, in the sinew and tissue and blood of a man like some latent, malarial sickness and return to attack the mind and body in the form of recollection, unbidden, unexpected. No better than beasts, we are, he thinks as he continues walking, as much slave to the senses as any butcher’s dog seeking scraps at the sound of the knife strop.Irregulars (pp. 31-33)That’s the first bit there that just gives you a sense of maybe of O’Keefe and what kind of character he is and the Dublin that he inhabits in 1922 which again I’ll talk about I suppose when I’m finished reading. The second bit I’ll read is just a bit- again without giving too much away, the book involves in some ways, and again I didn’t perhaps realise this until I’d finished writing it but it involves maybe the treatment of children in war-time and in this particular passage, a messenger boy has been captured or lifted by whom we do not know yet in the book so far. So I’ll read you this bit and I don't think it gives too much away but it might give you a sense…this boy is fifteen years old and it was common enough for young boys to be fighting on both sides, Free State side and the Republican side during the  Civil War and indeed the War of Independence. Whether they were viewed as children as such again is one of the questions the book asks I hope.The messenger boys is no longer sobbing, but tears well in his eyes and run down his face when he blinks, his cheeks hot with shame because crying is not what proper soldiers of the Irish Republican Army do.Nor do they wet themselves in terror, as he has done, in the back of the motor car as they brought him here, the man seated next to him letting out a roar when he felt the piss encroaching onto his side of the bench seat and driving his elbow into the boy’s mouth, cutting the boy’s lip against his teeth.The messenger boy sniffs back blood and snot and tries to wipe the tears from his face with his shoulder. He cannot use his hands because they are cuffed so tightly behind him that he has lost all feeling in them. His legs are also bound with the belt from his own trousers, and men have left him on the muddy floor with his back against the damp wall of this derelict cottage, the interior of which holds a cold darkness all its own, colder even, the boy imagines, than outside.Shivering, unable to warm himself, he swallows back his fear and wonders how long he has been here, in the dark. And he wonders where the other boy has been taken. They had brought him in the car as well, the thief curled up on the floor of the Ford, resting their boots on him, digging their heels into his ribs, his balls, when he whimpered. The messenger wonders whether the other boy had pissed his trousers as well. Would serve him right if he had, the filthy, robbing gouger.The enemy is everywhere, he thinks, Free State traitor bastards and street robbers; dippers and tenement scum like the lad with the fish-knife. When the Republic comes – the proper, goodo, decent Republic the IRA had fought the Tans and Tommies for and not this half-arsed, cap-tipping Free State model sold to an ignorant people by Collins and Griffith and their mob of Crown stooges – they will clean up the streets right enough. No more dark lanes and mugger boys with knives. The streets are full of them, his mother has always said, and it flashes through his mind to tell his mother what happened, how the two had tried to rob him.  She was always on to him, when he was younger, about minding himself on the streets.Tears well again in his eyes, and he swallows down the hard lump of sadness and fear in his throat. Another thing no proper soldier of the Republic would do: cry for his mammy when his prick is in fire. Like his is now.He sniffs again, and resolves to buck up and act like a soldier. No more tears, for the sake of all that’s right and holy. I’m fifteen years old, he thinks. Not some youngfella in short trousers mitching from school, but a scout, a messenger, a soldier of the IRA, Dublin Brigade, and now a prisoner of war, no less. He is momentarily pleased by this. I am a prisoner of war, he tells himself, thinking of the letter he will write his mother. Dear mother, fear not for my safety. I am currently a prisoner of war…And he resolves to say nothing to the men who have brought him here, no matter what they do to him. The message to Mr Murphy in Burton’s Hotel had been delivered, as ordered, mouth to ear, and no evidence of this can be found on his person. So he will keep the head down, the mouth shut, no matter what they try on him. He is certain of this. He will make Commandant O’Hanley proud, he will, straightening his back against the wall and wishing he had a cigarette, though he has only recently begun smoking.For some time he lets his mind wander in the dark, images of himself in the uniform of a soldier – in his fantasy it is a British Army uniform, as familiarity brings it to his mind first, and the army he fights for does not yet have one – of himself on a gallows, his eyes blindfolded, a rakish cigarette dangling from his lip, a fine sweet weeping girleen dabbing at her eyes. He smiles to himself.  A prisoner of war, I am. He only wishes his friend were with him. At least then he would not be alone in the dark.  Even that thieving bastard of a robber would be company. Even him.He wonders again what has become of the other boy, and as if his thoughts have provoked it, the thief boy begins to scream. The scream comes from outside the cottage and is piercing and girlish. One word is intelligible. The word is No.The messenger boy shivers in the cold. The tears overflow his eyes and run down his cheeks, and this time he does nothing to try to staunch them. Different images now parade through his head.Irregulars (pp. 24-25)Okay and then the third and last passage… this involves another I suppose co-protagonist and her name is Nora, Nora Flynn. She works for the CID, the Criminal Investigation Department based in Oriel House. The CID, just to give you a bit of background, they were the…I’m trying to think of an equivalent, I don’t know, like the NKVD in Russia, I suppose.  They were the intelligence department and special policing, political police, basically during the time of the Civil War and for shortly after.  People in Dublin were terrified of them, people around the country were terrified of them, they kind of had carte blanche, and they were founded originally by members of Michael Collins’s squad. So you might imagine they didn’t do a whole of detecting but they did do a whole lot of shooting.  In researching the book what I found was really interesting was there were six women on the rosters. I’ll talk a bit about the CID records in a minute when I finish, but literally the only CID records you can find is pension lists, and on it are six women and they are down as typists, but in other accounts you read, in other departments they are called “cloaked as typists”. So they weren’t actually typists they had other work; they were spies and intelligence officers themselves.  In the CID they were called Detective Officers. Initially the character, I intended to make him a male character but when I came upon this list, and that’s kind of the joy of writing historical fiction is that you come upon things and you say, Oh I’ll have to use that. So Nora came to life as a female agent I suppose and really moved the book in directions that I didn't expect it to take in the first place.  So I’ll read you this:Nora had never considered herself to be a Republican. She had become one eventually – or the Free State, pro-Treaty version of a republican, if such were even possible - but reluctantly, only after she had begun passing information to Ned Broy, DMP detective and one of the IRA’s men inside the Castle, who would in turn pass her information on to Michael Collins and the volunteers who would use it against her employers in Crown intelligence. Two years ago. It seems a lifetime. A reluctant rebel now working for the most feared unit in the entire country. A ‘typist’ spy. A paper killer.Nora had always been a good girl. Decent and kind and perhaps a bit spoiled. The daughter of an accountant father and piano teacher mother, she had finished her schooling in the Loreto convent on Stephen’s Green at sixteen and entered the typist pool in the Dublin Corporation offices after attending secretarial college. Her older sisters had found fine husbands and Nora, it was assumed, would do the same after some years of light work.She could be opinionated, as the nuns had noted in their reports - Nora has come to think of them now as intelligence reports when she allows herself to think of her past -  but had been generally obedient and well-liked by the nuns and her classmates. A bright, mild-mannered girl who reflected her social class and rearing.From Dublin Corporation to Dublin Castle after reading an advertisement in The Irish Times for skilled typists and filers. The pay had been better, and there was something the slightest bit thrilling about the idea of working behind the great walls of the Castle among the men in uniform and government. Three happy years there, in the Lord Lieutenant's offices, before the Tan War ignited in 1919 and she was transferred to the offices of the Chief of Combined Intelligence Services in Ireland as an epitomiser - a glorified reference librarian for the various networks of Crown spies in Ireland. Typing, filing and compiling like any other secretary in the country, except that was intelligence reports and dossiers on IRA men she filed for the people whom many – including her own brothers – considered to be the enemy of the people of Ireland. She typed and filed and lunched in the Castle canteens or on benches on the parade ground with other girls from the typing pool. And in the evenings she went to dances with officers and intelligence men: even the odd RIC constable, up from the country on prison escorts or protection details. It had been a good life. The benighted contentment of a young modern city girl.She had enjoyed the work at first. From the cold, bureaucratic distance of the Castle ‘I Division’ offices, she did a thorough and efficient job of absorbing intelligence from disparate sources, surprising herself with her ability to remember aliases and names gleaned from various reports and documentation. She proved equally adept at scouring old photographs collected in raids of suspects’ houses and matching them to custody photographs to prove identity. The ability was noted by her superiors, and soon she was asked to work on specific cases, assigned by agents of the secret service, British Army intelligence and RISC Crimes Special Branch to consolidate, or epitomise as it was called in I-Division, information on men requiring ‘urgent attention’ from their services.Nora slumps into the single, hard-backed chair at the table, the table’s surface bare but for a half-full ashtray bristling with dog-ends. She laughs through her nose and takes out a Murad Turkish from her handbag. The Crown had been masters of euphemism. How naïve she had been. ‘Urgent Attention’ when what they meant was murder.And now, she thinks, lighting her cigarette, the Free State Army and the Dáil are becoming as bad as their past masters. The anti-Treatyites, no longer to be called Republicans in the newspapers, by order of the Free State Director of Communications, but instead ‘Irregulars’ or ‘rebels’. No longer will the Irregulars ‘attack’ or ‘commandeer’ or ‘arrest’, but now ‘fire at’ or ‘loot’ or ‘kidnap’ like common criminals. Her colleagues in the CID ‘attend’ to their targets. Nobody says ‘kill.’ ‘Shoot.’ ‘Dispatch.’ But this is what she had abetted in the Castle, and it is what she does now: picks targets and sources routes for the shooters. Puts names to faces. A pointer bitch, she thinks. A gundog in her second war now. A proper veteran spook.Irregulars (pp. 107-108)That’s it for the readings now.(applause)Thanks very much. Now a bit more about the CID maybe to start off with. In Peeler and in Irregulars what I’m trying to get at is the underbelly of the founding of the Free State. In the sense that Nation States…you know the accepted view of history that certainly that I was taught, and I think many of us were taught was one of kind of black and white, British/Irish, good/evil, there was a kind of Manichean divide and I’ve always found the story of the founding of the Irish Free State a little bit too simplistic not that I’m attempting anything greatly revisionist or anything. But I think there is a lot of stuff available there about the founding of the Free State. All nation states in their founding have a nasty underbelly, and I think…and that’s not to discount the fact that what resulted was ultimately a very good thing. You know eighty, ninety, seventy-five years of very good stable democracy in a wonderful country. But as a crime novelist particularly I thought crime fiction is the ideal way to examine that underbelly, you know the nastiness that goes on, that is later covered up. You know and the myth then presides, you know, in order to have myths of the founding of any state you have to bury some of the ugly stuff.  What I hope I’ve done is…I haven’t uncovered particularly - all the stuff is there but I hope I’ve revealed perhaps some of the ugliness that went on, know that the compromises that are made, the very anti-democratic means, that are used to uphold democracy, ironically which again, as I said happens in virtually every state.So one of the things I discovered anyway the CID were a very nasty crew, as were Free State Army intelligence as well. But I think one of the things that inspired me to write this particular story was the fact that when I looked into CID files in the archives you can’t find any. So I asked somebody, I said, ‘Why are there no CID files?’, and they said ‘Well, they were burned in the 1930s. Well I had two dates, one said 1927 and the other said 1933 - every CID case file was burned by the Minister for Home Affairs or the Office of Home Affairs which is now the Department of Justice. So I asked why. One of the archivists was very funny and she said, ‘Well, you know, there were no peace and reconciliation committees then.’ So I thought this was a really interesting aspect that in order for the Republic to move onwards and to become properly Democratic we had to start fresh. And you had people sitting next to each other in government who had done horrible things to each other and to each others’ families and things like this and that in some ways I almost vaguely understand why they did it. I am appalled by it on one hand and particularly looking back at it. Any historian is appalled by it as well. But I can almost vaguely see if we are going to go ahead with this is project that is the Irish nation state, the Republic of Ireland as we know it now. You have to let bygones be bygones in some ways, getting rid of the evidence expedited that. But as a novelist it actually presents a great opportunity. You know, there are accounts of the crimes and we know who committed some of them and we know who shot who and we know the CID men who were killed and like I said there are pension lists and stuff like that that you can find.  And indeed some, though not as many CID as you might expect went into the Guards then when the Garda Síochána was founded. But not many because the state knew that these were not men that maybe police work came naturally to, to put it lightly.  So you can find the pension lists but as a novelist that absence is a great place to work from. Barry Unsworth, the great English historical novelist, always said that he strives for authenticity over veracity. So while I start with real cases as my thing, the absence of files allows you to generate authenticity without having to rely on the veracity of the actual cases.  So I think it kind of his aids you as a fiction writer.The other thing maybe Dublin at the time too is kind of interesting. In the novel O’Keefe has left the RIC in that passage – he hasn’t left it it’s been disbanded. And again like I said – and I find this really interesting too, and there is a great novel for someone who wants to do the research, a lot of the RIC men went and joined the Palestinian Police.  So they went from policing a very troubled and sectarian situation here to one in Palestine and Jerusalem there. In fact, in 1922, I can’t think of his name, but the Chief of the Palestinian Police was a former RIC man himself.  So he welcomed these RIC men to Palestine and Jerusalem with open arms. A lot of them also went to Manchester and joined the Manchester Police.  It was very sad to say after the boycott and after the War of Independence a lot of RIC men could not go back to their hometowns.  Others, you read did deals with the local IRA. If they were not perceived to have been very vigorous in their persecution or prosecution of the IRA during the War of Independence, some of them, after consultation were allowed to return to their hometowns. Others were not. And another thing that I discovered, which is again not really much in the historical record is a lot of RIC men were shot during the time of the treaty when there was a supposed cease-fire on. They were taken off trains and murdered and things like this on their way home, or a lot of them just disappeared. So we know that a lot emigrated to Canada. We know that a lot went up north and joined the RUC, Palestinian Police, Greater Manchester Police but a lot actually flat-out disappeared. There were scores settled and things like that in that period when it was supposed to be a cease-fire. And that’s also not to discount the fact that the RIC did some very nasty things during the War of Independence as well. But O’Keefe then anyway ends up back in Dublin. He’s a Dubliner. And discovers that his father is ill and takes on this case for a very powerful madam in Monto in Dublin. So that’s the basis for the book.So what I’d like to do now is take any questions if anybody has some it’d be great if I could.Q & AQuestion 1: Can you tell us a bit about how you did your research? Did you go to the existing archives that still exist or are there any books you can recommend?Kevin: Yeah it’s funny because a lot of the research for Peeler overlapped with this, but then I had to go and look at the Civil War specifically and actually one of things I found most difficult is the Civil War is exceedingly difficult to explain in a fictional sense. You don’t want reams and reams of pages explaining things. So to get it down to a fictionally compact unit is very hard to explain. And I had to go and really clarify things for myself. So what I started with is the big books, the Charles Townshend and the Civil War. Townsend has a new book out now actually on the whole period; he's wonderful and in terms of the macro picture. Then oh gosh books….I don’t know I read pretty much anything there was. I’m trying to think was there anything really unique, really interesting. I actually managed to get a copy of Charles Dalton's memoirs from the War of Independence. A friend of mine's father lent it to me and it was actually signed by Charles Dalton so it was kind of a precious heirloom which I read very carefully, kid gloves and all. And that was really, really interesting because it kind of disguised form, and I won't say much more about it. Dalton is kind of a character. Dalton was a member of the Dublin Brigade in the War of Independence and was kind of a notorious figure in the Civil War. Now his memoirs only go up to the…finish with the War of Independence. And he was involved with some other things afterwards, possibly, allegedly. So it’s almost a primary source; it’s not. And of course the archives were a great source, and the memoirs of Irish seamen. Some of the research I did for Peeler was actually more interesting. I went to the Imperial War Museum in London and I looked at diaries from the trenches. O’Keefe is a war veteran I should say that to you. He fought in Gallipoli on V beach. If people are familiar with it – in the doomed landings that the Irish, Dublin and Munster Fusiliers did there at V Beach. I was able to get some diaries from the trenches and from soldiers that had served in Gallipoli. I wanted to get a sense of the experiences for to write about but also I wanted to get a sense of how they talked. One of the diaries is really interesting because he put in every swear word but he just put a line where it would be.  So you just get a sense that this is exactly how people spoke. And one of the things I took from it too, you know, Downton Abbey and things aside, is just how modern…you know I think we tend to think of that period as being quite a long time ago and things were different then, but I think a lot of expressions and things that we use in speech now and think of as very modern were actually quite common then. A lot of the military terms, a lot of the swearing, a lot of the sentiments you know about war and its futility and things like that which we think of as post-war sentiments were actually very existent then. So those are kind of some of the ways I did it. One of the pleasures of being a historical novelist, one of the pleasures and the banes, I suppose because a lot of the research is really fun to do and it’s really interesting and you wouldn’t write about if you weren’t interested in it in the first place. I’m doing a new novel which is not in this series, although I am going back to this series, I’ve found myself reading the diaries of this Pioneer woman – I’m literally falling asleep reading it and I was thinking why do I have to read this? But you do because the great thing about research is it takes the story in a different direction and quite often you think you have a story set and then you come across like the fact that there were female agents and the story goes in a completely different direction. I love that about research. I tend to research widely first and then go and research for things I need in the story specifically. It’s kind of daunting sometimes. I was on the radio with an historian recently and he had a vast, comprehensive knowledge of the subject and I have kind of a fraudulent gadfly’s, you know a magpie’s knowledge of it because fiction writers research to suit the story as much as anything. I could never write a scholarly treatise on the period. But the research suddenly it will throw something up from the dullest, most banal text and you suddenly think, I have to use that. That’s fascinating. Or what often happens too is your story will be going one direction and something you read will confirm it, you know, I wonder if they would have done that? and then suddenly you’ll just fortuitously stumble upon something – they did do that. Thank God!Question 2:  How long did it take you to write it? What do you do when you get writer’s block?Kevin: My first book Peeler took a lot longer time because I had a lot more research about the whole period to do, about World War I, about the War of Independence, about the 1910s, the 1920s itself. That took me about three years to write.  Irregulars took me two years to write – about 6 months of research maybe, and a year and a half writing. I have the day job obviously. In fact there’s a great quote I read recently that’s…Jess Walter who wrote that book Beautiful Ruins it was quite big this summer, but there was a great quote by him he said when a writer tells you he spent fifteen years writing a book. What he means is he spent thirteen years full of drinking and self-loathing, and two years writing a book. And I thought that was a great quote. So when I say it took me two years - day job, self-loathing, drinking included – it probably took me about a year and a half, two years.Writers block? Touch wood I haven't gotten it. What I do find happens is if I sit down every day…I say every day, of course I don't. But I tend to get up early in the mornings before work and do it. When I’m writing a rough draft I don't care if it’s good or bad. Whatever goes out on the page, goes down on the page and once I get, you know eight hundred to a thousand words done they can be rubbish. But I have this notion that if I have a stack of pages I can always fix them. Sometime you are blocked when you sit down or you can’t figure out what’s going to happen. But then you just write rubbish and then suddenly something comes out of that.The other thing I tend to do is I tend to have a story, fermenting I suppose, over a couple of months. So you do have a sense of what you are going to write about generally. But then I don’t have any particular plan. I wing it and I just start. I have a scene, maybe or some dialogue and start. And then I get about a third of the way through and I find myself in a cul-de-sac. So then I stop and I plan the rest of it.  I wouldn't be able to the plan it from the very beginning. I know writers do it - literally A this chapter, B this is going to be it.  I would find that a bit…for me personally that it would be almost like work. Whereas I do need to figure it out at one point usually about fifty or sixty pages in, I have to go back and plan. And inevitably where I think I’ve started the book is always too early. I usually scrap maybe fifty or sixty pages. I usually write the beginnings last, that’s one thing I do too. But I always, I just have the faith. I wrote four novels before Peeler was published. None of which were published. I get the sense now that I can do it. If I sit down, something will come and even if it’s rubbish and a lot of it is you can always fix it. If you have nothing you can’t fix it but if you have a lot you can fix it. So that’s the sense I get.Question 3: Well it turned out very, very good. Coming back to your first excerpt where you were talking about the trams and the sounds of the trams and all that. Is that your imagination purely? I’d be a bit older myself and I thought it was tremendously atmospheric what you said. It would certainly come through very, very well in an audio version of the book. The question remains have you any basis for it?Kevin: Thank you. Everything – in the way that all things influence. I suppose from films I've seen, from other books I’ve read. Reading contemporary novels from the period give you a lot of stuff that the drier scholarly texts don’t. I mean Strumpet City would be an influence and there are bits of homage throughout. Also the O’Flaherty novels were big.  So reading novels from the period I think is a good way to get that sense. And if you rob little bits here and there or you certainly take images from it and then they are filtered through all the other images you have. What I love about Dublin – I live in County Dublin now, but I lived in the city for eight or nine years and one of the things, coming from abroad like I did, is that I loved the fact that so much of what's in this book and I loved when I first got, there is so much history here.  So you know walking up or driving up Clanbrassil Street now, occasionally you do see a coal wagon with a horse. You don’t have trams anymore there or things like that. But I find going around Dublin it’s not that big a stretch to imagine what it would have been like. Virtually every locale in the book is still there now for me. I definitely included some of my favourite pubs in different scenes and things like that. So I would say mostly imagination, but in the filtered through those different things. There was a street scene in Peelers where I came across shawlies, the old women...and this was down in Cork City obviously. But the shawlies used to sell mass cards and religious cards and you know relic cards I suppose. But they also under their shawls would keep dirty postcards as well and sell those too and I came across that and I thought, ‘I have to use them’. That they are selling both and there is no division between them. So those kind of things you come across and you say, ‘Oh I’ll stick that in!’Comment: I’m from the Clanbrassil Street area and I think you got it right. From today you’d have trouble going back to certainly 1922Kevin: Thanks very much. His house where he lives, I can’t think of the address – it’s in there someplace. But I actually found it on Google Maps. It was the first time I’d ever used Google Street View. So I knew from the earlier book - and it was just a throw away - that he had Jewish neighbours I think that’s why so I had to have an area...but I actually found it on Google Street View.One of the reason I wrote Irregulars as a noir novel to some extent is that it was a particularly dark period of Irish history much more so than the War of Independence. There’s a lot of British intelligence reports you can read that say just how little touting there was, or little informing there was during the War of Independence. Although people were appalled by some of the atrocities in the War of Independence it was a generally popular campaign, generally, I say, again someone could debate that obviously but whereas the Civil War was far nastier, so much personal enmity. Again I read a statistic somewhere that something like seventy percent of all the killings in the War of Independence were done with a revolver, so that shows you how close you had to be and it’s a very similar statistic for the Civil War. It's slightly lower. There was actually more pitched fighting in some ways there were actually battle lines and things like that in Limerick and in a few other places in the Civil War than in the traditional guerrilla war of the War of Independence. But the thing that stands out is how well everyone knew everybody. Obviously you have a huge increase in people joining the Free State army, mainly for wages because the economy was bad and people needed a wage. Truce-aleers they were called, who had no kind of part in the War of Independence but then joined up afterwards. The greatest term of derision used by anyone with Republican leanings was, ‘oh he’s a truce-aleer’; he joined after the truce. But at the ground level, particularly in Dublin everyone knew who was shooting at you pretty much and there were cases of people torturing people they had fought alongside.One account I read and this is debateable, I’m not sure if this is true or not was that the big attack by the Irregulars, by the Republicans on Wellington Barracks, Griffith Barracks now, was because certain Free State Intelligence Officer ran a torture centre, in what is now primary school interestingly. They had tortured one commander’s brother and so they said we are going to attack the whole barracks. And they did and they killed one or two Free State guys but they lost seven or eight in the ensuing pursuit and in fact they actually captured a bunch of guys who were innocent and killed them too.  Things were so personal. You know O’Higgins and the executions as well - the best man at his wedding – whose name escapes me – [Rory] O’Connor.Image right: O'Higgin's wedding - back row l-r: Éamon de Valera, Kevin O'Higgins and O'Connor at O'Higgins' wedding, 1921. O'Higgins was later to sign O'Connor's execution orderSorry there was a question there.Question 4: Your character O’Keefe sounds very much like Harry Bosch or John Rebus. Was that your idea to create a character who is kind of suspicious of everybody and doesn’t trust anyone.Kevin: Well funnily enough I love the Michael Connolly novels. I loved them. I wasn’t aware until after Peeler, but Harry Bosch is a Vietnam vet and he’s a World War I vet, he’s a policeman and he was definitely an influence on me.  Michael Connolly is coming to Trinity College, he's launching his book. There is an Irish Crime Fiction: A Festival is on in Trinity College - I am plugging it here - the 22nd- 23rd November and there is a panel speaking on historical crime fiction which I’m part of and Eoin McNamee is chairing it. He’s one of my favourite Irish writers as well, he’s wonderful. Michael Connolly is launching his book, his newest book. It’s the first time he’s been to Ireland so I’m really looking forward to that because he’d be an influence.Question 5: Why did you decide historical crime fiction instead of just modern crime fiction?Kevin: I’ve always read crime fiction. I read everything kind of basically. But I’ve always loved crime fiction I suppose but at the same time I have a great love of history and the two kind of combined. My mother-in-law's father, so my wife's grandfather was an RIC man. It was several years into my marriage before I figured this out and my mother-in-law had a copy of Jim Herlihy's RIC: A Genealogical Guide [The Royal Irish Constabulary: A short history & genealogical guide with a select list of medals and casualties. Jim Herlihy foreword by Kevin B. Nowlan]. And I picked it up and thought this is really interesting and at the same time I think I was looking to write another book – I’d had no success with the last one.  You know you are in kind of a fallow period and everything strikes you as a good idea for a novel. You know you watch a football match and you think that’s a great idea for a novel and then you end up discarding most of them, but then some stick.  So I picked up this and read this and the very same evening, or shortly afterwards I watched a documentary during the big push in Iraq, in Fallujah. I watched a think it was BBC documentary on the Iraqi police that were working alongside the American troops and how they were being targeted and things like this and things started crossing over and I thought wow that’s a very similar experience that these Iraqi men must be having to what the common garden RIC man had during the War of Independence with the boycott and the targeting and everything else. And as I started to think who were the RIC? The RIC, if you look at any guard out on Moore Street they were exactly them. They were ninety-eight percent Irish, this is before the introduction of the Black and Tans and the auxiliaries. But they were ninety-eight per cent Irish, Catholic, most of them were in favour of some sort of Home Rule. They were big men. They had to be over a certain size and they had to have girth requirements. They had to have a certain level of literacy and numeracy, which was higher generally than average. It was a job for life. They married teachers. You know they were exactly the same yet they were shot down in every town in this country they were shot. I wanted to write it. I thought it was perfect for a crime novel you know. And then I started reading more too. A lot of them joined up and fought in World War I and then came back to their jobs and how traumatized they must have been there. There was just a lot that was ripe for a novel.  I think it was one of those rare things where it stuck and you think, I’ll try it.  Then you write ten pages, you write twenty, thirty and fifty and you realise I can’t stop now.Characters sort of develop themselves when they start talking they kind of develop personalities.  And then of course there are crime novel staples that that you use. Although in the passage he talks about drinking too much he’s not your typical alcoholic, divorced, rule-breaking detective. In fact when he’s in the RIC it’s one of the things that he thinks will maintain order is if everyone still follows the rules. He views the insurrection or the War of Independence as people stopping…they are not following the rules anymore and where there's no rules, no order, there’s chaos and there’s murders and there’s things like this. I hope he is somewhat different than the average detective, but of course he is recognizable as a fictional detective as well.Question 6: How do you write? Do you write on paper or do you use a word processor?Kevin: Mainly computer. I went to High School in America and we were forced to take typing and still one of the most useful classes I ever took was typing. I can type faster than I can hand write. Although the new novel I’m writing now just as an experiment I wanted to try and hand write it.  I’ve found two things. One that you do write slightly differently I find. Now it’s a very different subject matter. There’s a different degree of flow, there’s a physicality to it that’s slightly different. And when I'm typing it up now I'm finding the sentences…they’re longer. I've a tendency towards long sentences anyway. Half my life is spent chopping sentences into three or four sentences. But I find there’s a flow to it that's very different from typing. I’m not saying it’s better or worse. The other thing I’m finding is that it’s really hard to keep up with transcribing it onto the typewriter without changing it as you’re going along. I'm a big believer in just write the draft. Get it finished. Don’t change anything. Don't even look back at it. Because every time you look back at it and try to edit while you are working you kind of start to panic… oh this is no good. But what I’ve found it I have so many reams of notebooks that I’m having to transcribe it and then it’s very difficult not to edit, to self-edit while you are typing. So it’s a longer process too. You are writing, then you are typing, then you are editing, then you are editing kind of thing. So I think I'll continue with it. I’m about a third of the way done with the new one and I think I'll continue with it because I’ve like it so far. But it’s different. So I think I’m comfortable enough typing you know that kind of way.Question 7: Do you reject much of what you’ve typed? or do you feel I’ve done it and I can’t reject it.Kevin: No, no I throw out a lot. I came across this quote the other day, I think it’s Hemingway or someone who said, ‘write drunk. Edit sober’. Hemingway was kind of a blow hard as well and I doubt that he did much drunk-writing in fact. I don’t think he meant actually inebriated, I think he meant write with abandon and write without any kind of inhibitions or things like that. But then you cast a really cold sober eye on it and most of what you find yourself doing is going, that’s rubbish, that’s rubbish. Cut it out. Occasionally you come across some and you think, that’s good. And then you really read it again a month later you think that could need changes. Even as I’m doing my readings here I’m still putting commas into my head and changing words as I read even still. It’s never perfect.  What’s the phrase? ‘Kill your darlings’. You know some of the best things you write you have to kill. An editor for Peeler wanted two or three whole chapters removed and I was happy to remove two of them, but one of them, I insisted on leaving in and she was fine with that too. But I still think that’s the best chapter in the book that she wanted me to cut. Whereas the other chapters I thought were really well-written but she was right they didn't serve the story particularly well. So I’m not too precious about it if it bottles it up. I still see pieces here where I could have cut and then other bits where I could have added more.Comment:  Was it George Bernard Shaw who wrote to Mrs Patrick Campbell, Madam I am writing you this long letter because I do not have time to write a short letter.Kevin: It’s great. I love that. Someone else said too that ‘hard reading is easy writing; and easy reading is hard writing’. And I think there’s really some truth to that. Not to discount any of the wonderful experimental postmodern novels that we’ve all read. But if it’s hard on the reader there is an easier way to say it and I think it’s the writer’s duty to try to find that way. Hemingway himself said he would rewrite things twenty, thirty times – sentences alone and that comes across. Which is why I don’t believe he wrote drunk in the first place. Anything else? I think we’ll leave it there then if that’s okay. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. Thank-you for listening to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. To hear more, please subscribe on iTunes or SoundCloud. You can also visit our website - dublincitypubliclibraries.ie and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Listen to Joe Joyce reading from Echoland.Welcome to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. In this episode author Joe Joyce reads from his thriller 'Echoland'. Recorded in front of a live audience in the Central Library on 3 October, 2013 as part of its 'Crime in the City: Crime and History' series.In a sense I’m here under a bit of a false title in that the title is Crime and the City and the book Echoland is not exactly a crime novel in the conventional sense it's more a spy novel, a thriller or as the Americans tend to categorise them a mystery novel but it most certainly set in Dublin so at least I'm here under at least half a flag of convenience. It's also set during what's known as you all know as the Emergency, the Second World War period in Dublin. And when we think of the Emergency we tend to look back at it with a very nostalgic glow. the time of dodging the glimmerman, cutting turf in the Wicklow Mountains, everybody rowing in together to make the country self-sufficient and for those of us who were involved in newspapers it was a time when our forbearers fought nightly battles to put one over on the censor. And their victories went down in legends and are still retold in newsrooms around the city. But it was of course a time of hardship though nothing like the hardship suffered by people in the countries directly involved in the war. But there were shortages of nearly everything coal, sugar, tea, petrol, oil, candles. Movement was restricted by the petrol shortages and reduced public transport. Trains were few and far between and very slow, last buses in the city ran at 9 o'clock at night. The bread was gray; the winters were very cold and gloomy, especially the winter of 1940-41. The city was initially blacked out but there were so many accidents the black-out was partially lifted to allow lights at junctions. Florescent ads around O'Connell Bridge which had been a feature of Dublin were turned off and a concrete bomb shelter was built along the central meridian of O'Connell Street.The reminders of the dangers and of the randomness of war were never too far away. More than seven hundred people died in one night in a bombing raid in Belfast in 1941. The worst incident in the South, as we all know was the bombing of the North Strand a few weeks later. Though there were many other incidents though not as deadly as these two. For instance there was more than a dozen German bombs dropped on several parts of Ireland in the first three days of 1941. Two of them fell on Dublin, on South Circular Road and Terenure but nobody was killed. But another one killed three women who were asleep in a farmhouse in the middle of county Carlow, out in the country in the middle of nowhere literally. Bodies from the Atlantic war were washed up regularly on the coast mainly in the north and west. Mines came ashore too occasionally killing people on shore notably in Donegal where more than a dozen people were killed in one explosion.People followed the war in the newspapers and through the maps in the windows of McConbridges in Dame Street. Publically or privately they wanted one side or the other to win but nobody knew at the time how things were going to work out. As the historical novelist Robert Goddard, who probably has a shelf to himself in the library here, pointed out at the Festival of History in Dublin Castle last weekend, people in the past didn't know they were living in the past. Just like we don't realise that we are now living in somebody else's past.  And one of the main reasons I think for nostalgia is the belief that the past was always a simpler time but it rarely was. But we tend to think it was simple because we know what happened and the narrative of what happened is usually well-rounded and simplified. But the present and future are always uncertain. There are always different ways in which things can go. And the Second World War years were very uncertain even in neutral Ireland. Which is what attracted me to write about the period, trying to put yourself back into somebody else's shoes in those days when it was far from clear how the big picture was going to turn out and dealing at the same time with the small pictures of everyday life.The second thing that attracted me to the period of course was the drama, the spies, the diplomatic manoeuvres, the constant dangers of invasion, the local war going on between the IRA and the Guards, to the political balancing acts to stay on the neutrality tightrope. I have set Echoland in early June 1940 and used my main character Paul Duggan as our eyes and ears in an attempt to recreate that time and place. The time is significant because it was the period when the German Blitzkrieg was racing through France and the unthinkable was actually happening. France, one of the great world military, cultural powers and one of the strongest democracies was being overrun in a matter of weeks by one of the new dictatorships. It was a brave, even foolhardy person who would have bet money against Germany winning the war in 1940. Paul Duggan, the central character in Echoland is a young army officer in his early twenties, the son of an IRA veteran of the War of Independence. He's just been moved from western command in Galway into the army intelligence unit G2, partly because he learned German in school and partly because of the machinations of his uncle, another veteran of the War of Independence, who is a Fianna Fáil backbench TD but likes to know everything that goes on. Duggan is given the job of trying to find out more about a German business named Hans Harbusch, who is suspected of spying but doesn't actually appear to do anything. And in this first extract I'd like to read to you he is told to go and see a young special branch detective called Peter Gifford, who is manning a stakeout on Harbusch's flat in Merrion Square. Duggan is told or instructed to find out what Gifford knows about Harbusch but not to tell him anything of what G2 knows about Harbusch. So he gets on his bike at the Red House, which is the G2 Offices and the Army Headquarters at Park Gate Street and cycles down the quays, along Nassau Street to Merrion Square.Near the end of the street he swung his left leg over the saddle and coasted on one pedal into the railings of the park. He clicked the padlock shut on his chain, hearing the sound of men digging and talking inside the park. Through a gap in the bushes he caught a glimpse of a mound of earth. Another air-raid shelter, he thought. Their voices mixed with the sound of their shovels sloughing into the earth and then an angry voice shouted 'Fuck the lot of ye' and there was a chorus of raucous laughter and catcalls.Duggan walked across the road, to a building with a polished plaque on the door and pushed it open. There was a reception desk in the room on the left and a young woman behind it.'I'm looking for...' he began.'Top floor,' she smiled. 'Keep going up till you can't go any further and it's the door straight ahead of you.'The wide staircase narrowed as it went up. The last flight was steep and wide enough for only one person and led onto a corridor with a low ceiling. He went to the door facing him and knocked. A voice inside said something and he went in.Peter Gifford was sitting on a kitchen chair tipped back against the side of the window, the Evening Herald in this hands, his feet against the other side of the window. 'Ah,' he looked up. 'The cavalry's here. I'm saved.'He dropped his feet and the chair’s front legs to the floor and let the newspapers fall down as he stood up. He was about the same age at Duggan, a stockier build, and an inch or so shorter, maybe five ten. His black hair was combed straight back and set solid with Brylcream, the comb marks as clear as the ridge of a ploughed field. He held out his hand. ‘Detective Superintendent Peter Gifford.’‘In my head. I should be one in reality too, of course.’Duggan laughed and introduced himself.‘Only a lieutenant,’ Gifford shook his head. ‘But what are you in your head? Commandant? Colonel? General?’‘Probably a private.’‘A modest man. You’re a culchie.’ It wasn’t a question.Duggan nodded. ‘And you’re a Dublin jackeen?’‘One of the originals. Here since before the Vikings. Welcome to my humble abode.’ He waved his hand as if it was anything but humble. The chair in the window was the only furniture. The white paint on the walls was beginning to peel in places and there were no curtains on the window. There was a tray on the floor beside the chair with a used cup and a plate with biscuit crumbs.‘How long have you been here?’‘Since the bloody Vikings. A month or so. On and off.’‘On your own?’Gifford nodded. ‘There were two of us to begin with. But your man rarely goes out. Doesn’t seem to do anything. So they decided he could be left to the young lads. To us.’Duggan went over to the window. Over the treetops he could see the edge of the hole they were digging for the shelter in the park and the first few houses on the next side of the square. ‘Which one is it?’Gifford moved the chair out of the way and joined him at the window. ‘Fourth house down. Second floor. Windows on the left.’The sun was glancing off the windows and he could see nothing inside. ‘Can you ever see anything?’‘No. The most exciting part of the day is when they put on a light at night and pull the curtains. That’s the only way we know there’s anyone there most of the time.’‘Maybe he’s going out the back.’‘If he’s dug a tunnel. The back garden’s a jungle. The door hasn’t been opened in years. And I can’t see Hans climbing the wall.’‘Why not?’‘He’s not exactly the athletic type.’‘Does he have any visitors?’‘No. Only people going in or out live there. All checked out at the start of the stakeout.’‘All cleared?’Gifford nodded.‘So what’s he doing?’‘I don’t know, Herr Oberst,’ Gifford clicked his heels. ‘Is this an interrogation?’‘No’, Duggan shook his head. ‘Sorry. It just doesn’t seem to make any sense.’‘That’s why you’re here. Bring the superior deviousness of G2 to it. Make sense of it.’Duggan grimaced.‘So why’d they put you in the German section?’ Gifford asked.‘Because I know some German, I think. But who knows why the army does things? I was in an infantry battalion, western command. Transferred a couple of weeks ago out of the blue.’‘They must have detected a twisted mind in you.’Duggan laughed and shook his head.‘How do you like it?’‘Not a lot, to tell you the truth. I haven’t a clue what’s going on.’‘Ah,’ Gifford said with satisfaction. ‘That’s why you’re in military intelligence.’‘I’m here right now,’ Duggan smiled back, ‘so the experts can tell me what’s going on.’‘Haven’t you read the letters?’‘What letters?’‘The only thing Hans does regularly is post letters. What do they say?’Duggan shrugged. ‘I don’t know anything about any letters.’‘Bullshit,’ Gifford nodded to himself.‘Are you interrogating me now?’ Duggan smiled. ‘Do you have electrodes and things here?’Gifford laughed in turn. ‘Okay. Ceasefire.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Nearly afternoon tea time. Did you order a cup and a biscuit with Sinéad on your way in? Mariettas, no choice.’Duggan scratched his head and picked the newspaper off the floor. ‘German Seize Channel Ports,’ a headline said. ‘British Claim Successful Evacuation from Dunkirk’, another said. He read the first few paragraphs and dropped the paper on the floor. ‘I’ve got to find out something about Harbusch. Have you talked to the neighbours? Had a look…’‘Fuck me!’ Gifford interrupted, looking out the window behind him. ‘Beginner’s luck. They’re moving.’Duggan turned to the window but Gifford was already out the door and taking the stairs three at a time. Duggan chased after him. Gifford hit the ground floor and blew a kiss to Sinéad at the reception desk. She was still smiling a wistful smile when Duggan went by a few moments later and crashed through the front door. Gifford was strolling calmly up the street when he joined him.They crossed the road and turned into the other side of the square alongside the park railings. There was no one on the footpath but Hans Harbusch and a woman. He was short and fat and was wearing a navy suit and a navy hat. The woman linking him was half a head taller, her golden hair curled up at her collar. She had on a brown two-piece suit with a short jacket that showed off her hour glass figure.‘Ah Erica,’ Gifford sighed. ‘The beacon in the darkness of my life. My only consolation. Walking behind Erica.’‘Erica who?’‘Erica Godfrey, aka Eliza Harbusch. Born London 1913. A pearl beyond compare.’‘What was Hans doing in London?’‘Shacking up with Erica.’‘Apart from that.’‘I don’t know. Your fellows know but they haven’t told me.’‘How would they know?’‘Because they’re like that’ – Gifford held up the two first fingers of his right hand together – ‘with MI5.’Duggan gave him a disbelieving laugh. ‘I doubt that.’Gifford glanced sideways at him, realised he was serious, and shook his head.A number 8 tram went wobbling by towards Dalkey as they crossed the junction into Clare Street. Duggan stopped to let two cyclists go past and then was held up by a car as Gifford slipped ahead.The Harbusches walked on at a steady pace, not talking, looking neither left nor right, he waddling slightly with the gait of an overweight man, she swaying seductively on her high heel shoes.From behind the wall of Trinity College came the smack of a hard ball on a cricket bat followed by a sprinkling of applause. A light stream of traffic went by in both directions, the growl of car engines interspersed with the clip-clop of an occasional dray. They went past a success of bookshops.‘You read it?’ Gifford pointed to a copy of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler in the window of Fred Hanna’s. ‘I don’t have time. Maybe after the war.’‘You might be reciting it by then. The new catechism.’‘You think they’re going to win?’‘Looking good for Adolf,’ Gifford shrugged. ‘France is tottering.’‘But they still have a big army, mostly intact,’ Duggan said, relaying mess chat he had heard.‘All the same to me. Whoever wins will need policemen. They’ll shoot everybody in military intelligence, of course. First thing the victor always does.’‘Thanks,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m sure they’ll shoot the secret police too.’‘Interesting. You think that’s what we are? Secret police?’ Gifford turned to him. ‘You a republican?’‘I’m a member of Óglaigh na hÉireann.’‘Not the Óglaigh na hÉireann that’s causing a lot of trouble at the moment and wants Hansi’s friends to win the war?’‘No the Óglaigh na hÉireann that’ll defend Ireland against all comers’.‘Right,’ Gifford said, as if that explained everything.(Echoland, pp. 11-18)The novel of course is fiction but fiction set against real events both in Ireland and in the European war at the time. There are numerous real people mentioned, obviously politicians like Éamon de Valera, Frank Aiken, Churchill and so on, and some real spies mentioned as well like as Hermann Görtz but all the main characters are fictional. And as well as his investigation into Hans Harbusch, Duggan also finds himself embroiled by his uncle Timmy, The Fianna Fáil backbencher, in a family matter. Having been summoned by Timmy to meet him, Duggan gets on his bike again and reluctantly heads for Timmy’s house in Rathmines fearing that he’s going to be embroiled in some kind of political manipulation.Duggan breasted the bridge over the canal at Portobello and Rathmines Road stretched before him, the wires above its tram tracks undulating like the long troughs of waves leading to the dull humps of the Dublin Mountains in the distance. The evening was cooling, the sun still above the horizon to the west. Its light lay along the canal, turning the murky water golden. A family of ducks circled by the reeds.He free-wheeled down the hill, hearing the smooth whirr of the wheels and the rub of the tyres on the tarmac as he went past the church of Mary Immaculate, its new dome top-heavy and seeming to push it into the ground. A truckload of soldiers at the back glaring at him impassively, their Lee Enfield rifles upright between their knees, as they accelerated away from him.He turned left at the Stella Cinema and threaded his way through suburban streets up to Palmerston Road. The Road was empty between its heavy trees, the large houses silent, the air still. The only sounds were of some children shrieking somewhere distant and a dog barking. He pulled into Timmy’s gate and the gravel slowed him to a halt. He walked the bike around a shiny new Ford and left it beside the granite steps.Light footsteps came along the hall in response to his knock and the door was opened by a young girl wearing a white apron.‘Hello,’ Duggan said. ‘I’m Paul.’She looked at him, unknowing.‘Mr Monaghan’s nephew,’ he added.A door banged inside and Timmy Monaghan came bustling down the hall.‘The man himself,’ he boomed as Duggan came in and Timmy pumped his hand. ‘This is Cait,’ he added. ‘She’s just come to us from Aran.’‘Ah,’ Duggan turned to her. ‘Conas atá tú?’‘Go maith,’ she said, taking his hand and giving him an uncertain curtsey.‘This is First Lieutenant Paul Duggan,’ Timmy told her. ‘A very important man these days. And one of the family.’Duggan shook his head and she looked from one to the other. She was about fifteen and uncertain in English.‘You’ll have something to ear,’ Timmy said, putting his arm around Duggan’s shoulder. ‘Cait’ll get you something, won’t you Cait?’ he said over his shoulder to her as he guided Duggan into a high-ceilinged room overlooking the back garden. The walls were a washed green and there were large leather armchairs on either side of the marble fireplace. A fire was set in the grate but unlit. A large mahogany table took up the centre of the room with an uneven scattering of dining chairs around it. It was covered with newspapers, green Dáil order papers, parliamentary bills and volumes of debates. On one side there was a blotter pad surrounded by a neat stack of headed Dáil notepaper and prepaid envelopes, a pen and ink set, and a full ashtray. A silver cigarette case lay open beside it.‘You enjoyed the intelligence course?’‘It was interesting,’ Duggan said, noncommittal, keeping any surprise out of his voice. So it’s true, he thought, as I suspected. Timmy’s the reason I’m in G2. Pulled some strings to get me in there. As he had feared.‘And weren’t you right to take my advice about the German?’Duggan said nothing, not knowing what he was talking about.‘Didn’t I tell you to learn German when you went to college? Not to bother with that French. German’s the coming language.’Duggan nodded though he had no memory of that. He’d learned long ago not to bother arguing facts with Timmy.‘And look at you now,’ Timmy gave him a knowing smile, knowing that a message had been delivered. It was what he loved about politics, the mind games, the subtle messages the manipulations, out-witting the other guys. He knew it was unlikely that he’d rise above the backbenches but he still hadn’t abandoned all ambition. Age was coming against him now, forty-five last birthday, heading for fifty, but anything was possible in politics. He had done his bit in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Nobody could challenge his national record, the foundation of his electoral success and impenetrable protection against some of his internal opponents in Fianna Fáil.‘A hard language, they say. A bit like Irish.’‘I like it. It’s a nice language.’‘Good, good,’ Timmy rubbed his hands. ‘The language of the future.’Great, Duggan thought. Gifford has me up against a wall facing a firing squad. Timmy has me marked out as some kind of gauleiter.‘The English are fucked,’ Timmy said, gesticulating towards the table. He sat down in front of the blotter. Duggan took the chair across the table.‘The lion has had its day,’ Timmy went on, pacing every word as if he was coming to the climax of a public speech. ‘Going to find out now what it’s like to be an occupied country. But’ – he raised a finger – ‘the lion can be dangerous when wounded. Lash out. You know what I mean? Last desperate twitch of the tail.’ He paused. ‘Don’t be surprised if they come over the border. Try to take back what they lost. Churchill has never forgiven us for beating them the last time. Nothing he’d like better than revenge. Play the game again. Hitler’s right about him, he’s a war monger. They made a bad choice there. And he’ll use any excuse to invade. The ports. Pretend to be protecting us from the Germans.’Timmy sat back in his chair and joined his hands over his stomach with satisfaction. Duggan didn’t know what to say. He was saved by a knock on the door and Cait entered with a tray. Duggan cleared a pile of letters from Timmy’s constituents to one side and she put down the tray and began taking the plates from the try and putting them down on the table.‘Don’t bother with that,’ Timmy interrupted. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. He can eat off the tray.’Duggan thanked her in Irish and re-arranged the plates and cup and saucer on the tray. The main plate had two cuts of cold chicken, two of ham, a few leaves of lettuce and half a tomato. A side plate had three cuts of buttered brown bread. He poured himself a cup of tea.‘Whatever happens,’ Timmy said, ‘we won’t go hungry. We can always feed ourselves, thank God. Unlike the English. They’ll find out now what a bit of starvation’s like as well.’He watched Duggan eat for a few moments. ‘Anyway, that was all bye the bye. For your own information. To be kept to yourself,’ he repeated. ‘The reason I wanted to talk to you was about a family matter.’ Duggan looked up in surprise. He assumed he had already got the messages. I got you transferred to G2. Be nice to the Germans. Beware of perfidious Albion. He went on eating, realising that he was starving. He hadn’t had anything to eat after getting back to the Red House and writing a report on the Harbusches’ visit to Grafton Street. Timmy watched him in silence for a minute then reached for a cigarette and lit it with a heavy desk lighter.‘Naula,’ he said eventually. Nuala was his eldest daughter. A year or two older than Duggan. A change in his tone caught Duggan’s attention and he stopped eating. ‘Nuala,’ Timmy said again and sighed. ‘She’s gone…We don’t know where she is.’‘She’s missing?’‘No, no, not missing.’ Timmy didn’t seem to want to use the word. ‘We don’t know where she is.’‘How long? Where did she…go?’Timmy took a deep breath. ‘Two weeks ago. Maybe a bit more. About two weeks ago we realised she wasn’t where we thought she was.’‘She didn’t come home?’Timmy looked at him in surprise and then realised that Duggan knew nothing about Nuala’s movements. ‘She’s been living in a flat in town for the last few months. Since the new year, actually. But she usually comes home for the Sunday dinner. And she didn’t turn up last Sunday fortnight. Her mother went to the flat. No sign of her, then or since. Mona’s going up the walls. You can imagine.’Duggan could imagine. His aunt Mona was known in the family for suffering from nerves, which Duggan had never found surprising. Timmy would turn anyone into a nervous wreck, as Duggan’s father pointed out from time to time when Timmy had over-tried his patience. It was one of the few bones of contention between Duggan’s parents. His father had no time for Timmy; his mother felt a need to defend her sister’s choice of husband.Duggan put a dab of strawberry jam on the last slice of bread and poured himself another cup of tea.‘Have you told the guards?’‘Ah, no, no,’ Timmy tipped the ash from his cigarette. ‘It’s not like that.’‘If she’s been missing for two weeks…’ Duggan let the thought hang in the air.‘Not…missing.’ Timmy, never short of words, seemed to be finding them elusive now.‘I don’t understand.’‘It’s her mother, you know. She’s very upset. Wants me to do something about it. But I keep telling her Naula’s just gone away for a bit. She’s all right. She’ll be back.’Timmy suddenly held out the cigarette case to him. ‘You smoke Players, don’t you?’‘Afton, usually.’‘Well, try one of these.’Duggan took the cigarette and Timmy pushed the lighter over to him.‘Aye, she’ll be back,’ Timmy said, staring at his cigarette. ‘She’s just trying to …teach me a lesson.’ He paused and then looked up at Duggan. ‘You know we don’t see eye to eye a lot of the time. Too alike, Mona says. Knock sparks off each other. But it doesn’t mean anything. Still the best of friends behind it all.’Duggan didn’t know that. He and Nuala were more or less the same age and had been thrown together as children at family events; they had ignored each other as far as possible. As they grew up, they hadn’t much more to say to each other, beyond an occasional effort at politeness. Duggan found her bossy and had no idea what she thought of him, probably found him boring. He couldn’t remember ever having had a real conversation with her.Timmy straightened himself up in the chair like a man facing up to his fate. ‘We had an argument. Over the Christmas. Terrible time to be having an argument in a family but God knows it happens. She wanted to move into a flat in town. I couldn’t see any sense to it. She’s not working, you know. No money. She gave up that job I got her in Clery’s. Wanted to do a secretarial course. Fine, I said. But what’d you be wasting money for on a flat when we have the house here? Plenty of room. But nothing would do her. Mona sided with her, of course. Said she’d pay for the flat out of the housekeeping. So she, Nuala, moved into this little place. And I ended up paying for it anyway. Couldn’t have it said that I wasn’t giving the wife enough to run the house.He stubbed out his cigarette and got up suddenly and walked to the window. ‘Jesus, Women,’ he said. ‘Anyway,’ he turned back to Duggan ‘it all blew up again the last Sunday she was here. I was under orders not to mention the fucking flat but you know how it is. One thing led to another and it got a bit hot and heavy and she stamped out.’He sat down and lit another cigarette, ‘That’s it,’ he said.‘I see,’ Duggan said. ‘Sorry to hear…’Timmy waved his sympathy away with his cigarette, leaving a faint trail of smoke in the air.‘Two weeks,’ Duggan began and paused, ‘is a long time. And she hasn’t been in touch with auntie Mona or her sisters?’‘No. That’s the thing. I could understand her cutting me off. I could handle that. I’ve had my share of knocks. I could take it. But she knows that too. So she’s staying away from everyone, knowing that’ll put the pressure on me. Dropped out of her course as well. Hasn’t been seen there for two weeks either.’ He paused. ‘Anyway. You see why I don’t want the guards? Apart from anything else, it’s not a headline you want in the papers. “TD’s Daughter Missing.”‘You could keep it out of the papers.’‘Oh, aye, Aiken. He loves being the censor in chief. Telling all those fuckers what to put in their papers now,’ he laughed. ‘Getting our own back for all the shite they wrote about us. No, the papers wouldn’t be the problem. But everyone’d know about it if the guards got involved. Still a lot of Free Staters and Blueshirts among them, keeping their heads down and talking out the sides of their mouths. Only too happy to spread any dirt about our party.‘No,’ Timmy went on. ‘What we need is some discreet inquiries to be made. Find out where Nuala is. Reassure your auntie Mona and the other girls. Put their minds at rest that she’s all right.’Oh fuck, Duggan thought. This was worse than he had feared, worse than some political manoeuvre, involving the G2 information. ‘I don’t know how I could help,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea how to find somebody.’‘You’re moving in those general areas. Investigations, and the like.’‘I’m not, you know. I’m in an office, just moving files around. Today was the first day I was out of the office. In the field, so to speak.’‘There you go,’ Timmy said, as if that proved his point. ‘Just make some discreet inquiries.’‘I…’‘I always say that there are times when you can only rely on family. When you can’t trust anybody. And Christ knows, you can never trust anybody in my business. Family’s all you’ve got.’Timmy eased a sheet of paper from under the blotter on the table and handed it to Duggan.(Echoland, pp. 20-29)Thank-you very much for coming. Thank-you for listening to the Dublin City Public Libraries and Archive Podcast. To hear more, please subscribe on iTunes or SoundCloud. You can also visit our website - dublincitypubliclibraries.ie and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

The Lockout 1913 inspired many poems, ballads, songs and rhymes. Many of which were published in The Irish Worker. These poems and ballads provide a vivid portrait of the conditions faced by Dubliners during the Lockout, the battle between the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union and the Dublin Employers’ Federation and the key personalities of the time.As part of the City Hall Springtime Lectures Francis Devine and Fergus Russell performed ballads and songs of the 1913 Lockout. Songs include 'Freedom's Pioneers' by James Connolly and 'The Red Hand Badge' by AP Wilson.Right: Image from A Capital in Conflict, Dublin City and the 1913 Lockout. Copyright: Dublin City Library & ArchiveFrancis Devine's accompanying historical commentary gives the background of the Lockout and the songs featured here. He discusses The Irish Worker newspaper, women and the Lockout, Bloody Sunday, victims of the Lockout and figures such as Jim Larkin, William Marting Murphy, Divisional Magistrate E.G. Swifte (aka "forty bob") and Rosie Hackett after whom the newest bridge over the River Liffey was recently named.Listen to songs and poems of the 1913 Lockout with historical commentary by Francis Devine.Read the transcript.Recorded by Dublin Community Television on Tuesday 2nd April 2013 as part of the Spring series of City Hall lectures. The City Hall Lectures are organised by Dublin City Archives.Further ResourcesDublin Commemorations 1913-1916 Sources available at Dublin City Archives.The Reading Room, Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street holds a wealth of material on the history of Dublin, including books, pamphlets, journals, street directories, and almanacs.Browse books on the 1913 Lockout in the Library Catalogue. Dictionary of Irish Biography: Over 9,000 signed biographical articles. Includes many figures from 1913 Lockout mentioned in this talk such as James Larkin, William Martin Murphy, James Connolly, Delia Larkin, Countess Markievicz, Helena Moloney, WP Partridge.The following online resources can be accessed free of charge at your local library (access links via our NetVibes portal). Ask library staff for information and assistance.Dictionary of Irish Biography: A comprehensive and authoritative biographical dictionary for IrelandIrish Times Digital Archive: This online archive service gives access to contemporary editions of the Irish Times from the mid-nineteenth century until the present.Irish Newspaper Archive: This online archive service gives access to contemporary editions of the Irish Independent and a range of other newspapers.The Ireland-JSTOR Collection: This online archive of academic articles can also be accessed free of charge at your local library.

Vincent Lavery is a retired secondary school teacher who taught U.S. Government and Economics in the States. He is an active member of the United States of America Democratic Party. He worked with Senator Robert F Kennedy's campaign for president in 1968.

On the 24th October 1913, Rathmines Library opened its doors to the public for the first time in its current location, 157 Lower Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.Right: Rathmines Library is all its splendour. (click to view larger image)To mark the 100th anniversary of this landmark library, Dublin City Public Libraries (DCPL) have great pleasure in presenting a programme of lectures, exhibitions and children’s events during the month of October.HistoryThe first library in Rathmines was opened in 1887, in rented premises at 53 Rathmines Road. In 1902 Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District Council applied for a grant to Andrew Carnegie (links to Britannica Library Ed., DCPL borrower number required to view from home), who was at that time dispensing large sums of money for the building of libraries the world over. The application was successful and in 1903 a sum of £7,500, later increased to £8,500 was granted. It took the Council some time to find a suitable site for the library, but they did eventually and in 1912 building work began. The Library and Technical Institute were opened on October 24th, 1913. The general design of the library presented a fine example of neo Georgian style architecture, while the interior of the building had been purpose built and included on the ground floor, a Newspaper Reading Room, an open access Lending Library, a strong room and a room for the librarian. A fine double staircase in teak (see left, click to view larger image) led up to the landing, where a handsome stained glass window depicting "Literature" was placed overlooking the stairwell. On the first floor there was a well equipped Reference Room, with an inner room for periodicals and a Lecture Hall (now Exhibition Room).In its early days Rathmines had been a pioneering library, introducing Open Access Lending and a self-contained Children’s Library with its own dedicated librarian. By means of the Popular Free Lectures on topics ranging from "Prehistoric Man" by F.E. Stephens to "My Own Poetry" by Senator W.B. Yeats, the library presented not only the written word, but also the writers and thinkers of the day to the general public. It was a true literary workshop catering for the student and general reader in an atmosphere of peace and learning. The library had a central role, then as now, in making information,education and the enjoyment of reading available and accessible to all.Rathmines Library with its classical façade, complete with William Morris stained glass window (see right, click to view larger image) has, since its opening in 1913, been as recognisable a feature of the local streetscape as the Town Hall opposite. RefurbishmentIn October 2011, we celebrated the re-opening of the library after extensive refurbishment works which removed barriers to the library service for people with disabilities and created an open, accessible and welcoming environment for staff and clients alike. Key improvements delivered include a passenger lift, automatic doors, accessible signage, universally accessible toilets and improved furniture and shelving. Significant conservation works were also undertaken to restore the building to its former glory.Some of the features restored would have been familiar to customers, such as reading desks and the original floors throughout the building: the oak parquet on the ground floor, the solid pine on the first floor and the teak staircase. We have also taken the opportunity to strengthen the literary associations of Rathmines and environs, referencing local writers of the past and the present, re-enforcing Dublin’s designation as a UNESCO City of literature....and todayToday the refurbished library (see left, click to view larger image) offers access to a collection of 35,000 items in a diverse range of formats. These include books, audio books, large print, DVDs and reference material. There is a vibrant children’s library, reflecting the fact that almost 35% of active borrowers are children. Library users can avail of free WIFI broadband, use of computers to access the Internet, a space for study and research, together with advice and guidance from trained and professional staff. View more photos of Rathmines Library on our flickr page.

Parnell Square is the oldest of the Georgian Squares of Dublin, and the only one on the north side of the city to escape the tenementisation of the later 19th and early 20th century. Built as the homes of the great and the good of the late eighteenth century, including the Gardiner and Charlemont families, during the 19th century its buildings became more commercial in nature, with large numbers of solicitors, doctors and auctioneers locating their offices there.

Monday, 26th August, marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the strike in Dublin of 700 tramway-men belonging to James Larkin’s Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (IT&GWU), a strike that developed into a general lockout of union members.

Where has the romance gone? There was a time when it was a great adventure to fly, it was very glamorous, you dressed the part, and your luggage did not cause major grief. The role of air hostess was a top job for attractive young women. The Flying Boat Museum at Foynes, Co. Limerick, the excitement of the early days of passenger flight. Right: Dublin Airport (view larger image)Aer Lingus, the Irish national airline, started life in a very small way back in 1936, with one small biplane, flying out of the military air base at Baldonnel, Co. Dublin (see images below). The following year construction work began on a new purpose built airport at Collinstown, north of the city. The new Dublin airport opened in January 1940, with a modern terminal building and runways. This postcard gives a sense of the exclusiveness of the flying experience.During World War II Aer Lingus operated just one route, Dublin to Liverpool. In November 1945 the direct service to London was reopened. Aer Lingus recruited the first three air hostesses in December 1945. By August 1951 the airline had carried its one millionth passenger.The Dublin and Irish Collections at Dublin City Library & Archives holds a collection of ephemera, which can be viewed in the Reading Room. This Aer Lingus timetable for the summer of 1951 is very evocative. We can see that a new night service, called ‘Starflights’, was inaugurated between Dublin and London. The fares were expensive, costing £5 one way, or £10 return: a large investment in 1951.Read all about the history of aviation in Ireland and about Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports.Below: Report in the Irish Independent, 28th May 1936. (click to view larger image)Below: Five seater de Havilland Dragon DH84 about to depart Baldonnel Airport. (click to view larger image)The above screenshots are of the Irish Independent newspaper, 28 May 1936. You can access the Irish Independent and many more newspapers online and free of charge at Dublin City branch libraries courtesy of our subscription to the Irish Newspaper Archives. This subscription allows you to search, retrieve and view newspapers from 1700s to the present. More about our online subscriptions.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way …Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two CitiesThis Gallery contains a selection of images of Dublin from the period around the Lock-Out of 1913.

View the Art of Architecture GalleryBefore photography was widely available or popular, printmaking preserved the landmarks of the Irish landscape. The usual method of printing for many of the images in this gallery is through engraving, a process by which marks are made into a plate, and the recessed areas are filled with ink to produce the print. An artist would be hired to make a drawing, and then an engraver would engrave the drawing onto a plate. The prints could be sold cheaply and were, essentially, the precursors to postcards. Artists chose locations much the same way photographers today choose locations for postcards, choosing a locally famous landmark or something that was meant to represent Ireland and Irishness. Medieval castles were an extremely popular choice among print artists because they satisfied both criteria.Ireland is heavily associated with the many castles that dot its landscape. Irish castles date from anywhere from medieval Anglo-Norman castles constructed in the 12th century to grand estates of largely Protestant gentry in the 19th century, and even the oldest castles have been reconstructed or additions have been made throughout the centuries. These castles represent some fantasy to the families that purchased them or modelled their homes on them, but to the Irish, they represent English power and are symbols of oppression and tyranny. Hence, castles were featured in many prints of 18th and 19th centuries including the ones featured in this image gallery, but during the Irish War for Independence (1919-1921), a significant number were burned or knocked down and are no longer standing or lie in ruins. A few castles have been converted into hotels or are maintained as national monuments because, since there are so many in Ireland, they continue to capture the imagination and have been incorporated into the image Ireland projects to the world.The castles in this image gallery are all medieval castles or began as such, but three in castles in particular are perhaps more widely known than the others, Blarney Castle in County Cork, Kilkenny Castle in County Kilkenny, and Malahide Castle in County Dublin.Blarney Castle is arguably the most famous castle in Ireland, thanks largely to the legend of the Blarney Stone, which attracts numerous visitors every year. Blarney Castle was constructed in stone on the site of earlier wooden fortifications in the 13th century, but its current keep was built in the mid-15th century by an Irish chieftain named Cormac MacCarthy.  The castle briefly was captured by Parliamentary forces during the Wars of Three Kingdoms, but was restored to the MacCarthy family after the Restoration of the English monarchy. After the Williamite Wars in the late 17th century, the castle was confiscated from Donough McCarthy, 4th Earl of Clancarty, who had supported King James II of England and lost, and eventually sold to Sir James St. John Jefferyes. The Jefferyes, married into the Colthurst family in the 19th century, built a mansion in 1874 on the grounds, replacing an earlier one destroyed by fire, which they still own and continue to live in.Kilkenny Castle was built by William Marshal, 4th Earl of Pembroke around the turn of the 13th century.  Marshal was distantly connected to Richard de Clare, otherwise known as Strongbow, who had led the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in 1170. James Butler, 3rd Earl of Ormond, purchased the estate near the close of the 14th century and the Butler family continued to own the castle for nearly 600 years until James Arthur Norman Butler, 6th Marquess of Ormonde, gave the castle to the people of Kilkenny for a payment of £50 in 1967. The grounds are now maintained by the Office of Public Works and the castle is open to the public.Malahide Castle was originally constructed in the 12th century by Richard Talbot, a knight serving Henry I in Ireland. The Talbot family proceeded to own and reside in the castle until 1976, when, after the death of Milo John Reginald Talbot, 4th Baron Talbot de Malahide, his sister Rose sold the castle and grounds to Dublin County Council, with a short exception in the 17th century during the Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The estate survived through the bloody Battle of the Boyne in the late 17th century and the Penal Laws directed against Catholics, which the Talbot family remained until the late 18th century. The castle is maintained and operated cooperatively between Fingal County Council and Dublin Tourism. Since 2007, Malahide also has concert venue, which has hosted the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, Pink, Radiohead, and Prince.This gallery has been created by Francesca La Brecque, Undergraduate at University of California - Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA; Class of 2015, majoring in History and German. Francesca came to Ireland under the European Study Abroad (EUSA) Program.These and many other Topographical Engravings can be seen at the Reading Room in DCLA.See MoreLibraries and Archives Digital Repository: Digital records relating to Dublin, including photographs, postcards, letters, maps and ephemeral material. Highlights of the collection include the Fáilte Ireland Photographic Collection, Wide Street Commission Map Collection (1757-1851), the Irish Theatre Archive and the Birth of the Republic Collection, which comprises material from the period of the foundation of the Irish state.