“ ’Tis a grand sight, ’tis it not, General,” said Color-sergeant William H. Tyrell who stood beside him at the rail of the mail boat.

“That it is indeed. And it’s Mr. O’Grady to the likes of you — unless you want to see me transported again.” He dare not use his own name here unless, even after all this time, it might stir unwanted memories in the authorities’ minds. Instead he had letters and papers on his person addressed to W.L.D. O’Grady, who happened to be a fellow officer in the Irish Brigade. O’Grady had also been an officer in the Royal Marines and had coached him well on its history and battles.

The ship’s whistle sounded as they passed the Martello tower at the forty-foot and entered Kingstown Harbor. It had been a most roundabout trip for them. First they had gone from New York to Le Havre in France, where an American agent had met them. He had tickets for them, tickets that would take them all the way from France to Ireland.

“We don’t want anyone to hear your accents,” he had said. “Just present the tickets, grunt a bit, keep your mouths shut and overtip everyone. You will get a good bit of British humble servitude that way — and no questions asked.”

Their nameless guide had been right. The ferry had taken them across the Channel to Southampton, on the south coast of England, where they had boarded the train at the station there. Many a forelock was pulled as the silver shillings changed hands. The same thing was true when they boarded the mail boat in Holyhead. This roundabout route was necessary since anyone sailing directly from the United States to Ireland would be suspect, questioned, possibly searched. This way was longer but safer.

“Tell me again where and when you and I will meet,” Meagher said.

“Thursday week, right over there in the First Class waiting room at the train station. The Kingstown station. Before that — why I’ll be home with the family! I can taste it now, boiled bacon and cabbage. Fresh-baked soda bread. Me auntie was always a dab hand at baking.”

Tyrell had been chosen to accompany the general on this first trip because he was a Dubliner, a real jackeen who, to hear him speak, had so many relatives in Ringsend that they populated the entire neighborhood.

“Eat all you want,” Meagher said. “But stay off the drink, at least in public. Watch out whom you talk to. The Fenians have been betrayed once too often.”

“It won’t happen to me, that I swear, sir. My uncles, cousins and brothers, they’ll be the only ones I’ll speak my mind to.”

They moved apart when the ferry tied up, separating before they joined the other passengers going down the gangway. Meagher ignored the two soldiers by the exit doorway from the wharf; he had no reason to believe, after all these years, that he was still being actively looked for by the authorities. He walked out and crossed the road to the train station. There was the sound of a distant whistle and shortly afterwards the little train puffed into the station. He purchased a ticket — his accent was certainly no handicap here! — and climbed aboard. It was a short trip, the train stopping only at Sandycove and Glenageary, before pulling into the Dalkey station. He took up his carpetbag and joined the two other disembarking passengers on the platform. He studied the train timetables that were posted outside the station, until the other passengers were out of sight. Then he turned to look and yes, there it was, just a few paces down the hill was the pub he had been told about. He took up his bag and strolled down to it and pushed open the door. The publican, in a striped blue apron, was serving groceries to a customer in the little shop at the far end of the bar.

“Just sit yourself down,” he called out. “I’ll be with youse as soon as I’ve finished serving Mrs. Riley.”

Meagher looked around at the dark interior, the coal-oil lamps and the beer engines, scattered sawdust on the floor. He smiled; it had been a very, very long time.

“Been away have you?” the publican said as he brought over the pint of stout. “Never saw a suit of that cut in Dublin.”

“Sheep farming — in New Zealand.”

“Would you ever! That’s a grand distance to go.”

“Two months by ship if the wind is right.”

“You’re not from Dalkey.” A statement, not a question. Ireland was, as ever, one big small town and everyone knew everyone else’s business.

“No, I’m not. But my cousin is.”

“Get away with you!”

“It’s true. Name of Francis Kearnan.”

“Him that’s married to Bridget?”

“The very one. Does he come in here?”

“Usually. But you’ll find him at home now. Down the hill, first turning on the right. The cottage there, the one that needs rethatching.”

“Good man.”

After more crack about the weather, the last potato crop and the sad political state of affairs, the publican went to serve another customer in the grocery. Meagher drained his glass and went looking for his cousin.

Who really was his cousin on his mother’s side. When the Fenian Circle had decided to rebuild the revolutionary movement in Ireland it was decided that, for now, only relatives would be contacted. There would be no betrayal this way. Politics was one thing; family ties completely another.

He found the cottage, knocked on the door and stepped back. There was a shuffle of footsteps inside and the door opened.

“Is that you, Francis?” Meagher asked.

The middle-aged man blinked near-sightedly, nodded. Behind the wrinkles and gray hair, Meagher could see the lines of the boy he had known so well. “Still swimming at the forty-foot, are ya’?”

“What? Who are you?”

The street was empty, nevertheless he leaned forward and whispered. “Name of Meagher…”

“Mother of God! Is that you, Tommy?”

“It is. Now — how long are you going to keep me standing out here?”

It was a warm reunion. Bridget was out, so Kearnan made the tea himself. Rooted about in the cabinet and found some poteen to sweeten it. They talked of family and the years that had passed, and Francis was refilling their cups before Meagher got around to the purpose of his visit.

“The papers in the United States had news that the Fenians had been penetrated, the leaders arrested—”

“Betrayed the lot of them! Can you imagine a man, an Irishman, betraying his own neighbors? Anyone who would do that is a gobshite of a lower order than the Englishman that buys him.”

“I am in agreement there. But the people of Ireland will not be stopped. The freedom movement will arise from the ashes like a phoenix. I am here to see that happen — and if you are the man I think you are — then you are going to help.” He dug the wad of ten-shilling and pound notes from his pocket, dropped them on the table between them. He smiled at Francis’s wide-eyed stare. “And I’ll tell you just what you can do with it.”

“Jayzus, it’s not for me, is it?”

“No — but you can use what you need for the work I want you to do.”

“Will it be dangerous?”

“Not if you keep your Irish cakehole shut and not go wording about how you came into the money. This l.s.d. is for men you trust — men in our family or Bridget’s. Here, let me tell you exactly what must be done.”

It was Gus Fox who had explained how the new Fenians should be organized. Officers of the Fenian Circle would visit Ireland separately. They would speak only to members of their immediate family, recruit them to the movement. No strangers would be contacted; no old friends either, no matter how close they had been. It was the mass recruiting in the past, when anyone could join, that had destroyed the Fenians. This new way of recruiting was called the cell organization, Fox had explained. Members of a single cell would know only one another — as well as the officer who had recruited them. No members of one cell would know of any members of a different cell, even in the same city. Meagher himself was the only person who would know all the cell leaders. He would supply the money and they would supply the information. Skilled laborers would be encouraged — and paid — to cross the Irish Sea and obtain work in Britain. In shipyards, on the railroads, in the steelworks. And they would report back anything they could learn. Troop movements, ship movements, any bit of information that would be important to Fox. When he had assembled all the small pieces he would be able to see the big picture that they could not. With this he could write the intelligence reports that would be so vital for the military to have, military intelligence that was vital in modern warfare.