Last Posting

In this centenary year of the start of World War One (as the sound of Last Post echoes through our consciousness), when at 11 p.m. today exactly one hundred years ago, the British Empire was at war with the Empire of Germany, the south of Ireland erected the first 'cross of sacrifice' (a veterans' symbol that was designed for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) as a republic on 31st July.  History has awkward connotations in Ireland and that Irishmen fought and died for a cause directed from London is something Dublin has struggled to reconcile with its identity.
This is how James Plunkett's masterpiece Strumpet City ends with one of the main protagonists, Fitz, sailing off to war.  His fate is unknown but it is an ominous destiny.  I am optimist and I believe he survived the blood and carnage of the trenches by being a dispatch rider, like my great-grandfather, thus being able to return to his beloved Mary, more brutalised than before but still able to make his way and living in the world, especially that of the soon to be independent Dominion of Ireland.  In the sweep of the book, Plunkett is not so merciful to other characters.
If the Great American Novel has always tripped up those across the Pond trying to come up with the next one, then Plunkett is surefooted in producing the Great Irish Novel, as fresh as when he wrote it in 1969.  It is clear that Graham Linehan had imbibed it when creating the comedy Father Ted, with the earnest, well-meaning Ted, Father O'Connor, the crotchedly Father Jack representing the frequently drunk Father Giffley and Father Dougal a direct descendant (could Irish Catholic priests have offspring) of the 'common-or-garden mind'-possessed Father O'Sullivan (interestingly Linehan used Christian names instead of surnames).
Stretching from 1907 to 1914, keenly realised pen portraits of a cross-section of society draw us in to the workings of turn-of-the-century Dublin, always with the knowledge of the troubled times that lie ahead, especially the pro-Unionist fanatical Orange Order in Belfast that gets mentioned by-the-by and the shadowy Sinn Fein that are setting in motion what will culminate in the Easter Rising of 1916.  In addition to those already mentioned, there is the near-vagrant Rashers Tierney and his dog both of whom are daily miracles as to how they survive; the incredibly strong Mulhall and his family - Mulhall gets the most brutal of come-uppances for the horrendous attack he mounts on Timothy Keever, for being an indirect strike breaker; the itinerant Hennessy with his precarious health and ferocious wife; the chancer Pat and his lover, the prostitute Lily; Joe, the strike committee man; the servant Miss Gilchrist, who reserved all her romance for nationalism; the upper-middle-class slightly staid Bradshaws who are cruelly denied children; and Mr Yearling, the rich industrialist who has a rebellious streak and sympathetic approach to the less well-off inside of him.  Behind them all is the towering real-life figure of Jim Larkin, the most influential strike organiser of his day in all Ireland.  If not quite on the scale of War and Peace, then Strumpet City is not far off.
Numerous institutional conflicts - Roman Catholic Church versus the socialist demands of the worker committees, the police versus the mob, the companies versus their own employees - are all played out in the passions and prejudices of individuals caught up in them.  The pious, self-righteous Father O'Connor, who transferred from the well-to-do suburbs to the slums finds horror in the environs of his new parish and antagonism in the priests' home - he is out of his depth until the very end of his participation in the book when he finally identifies with his parishioners.  Fitz chooses the honourable path and Mary supports him aand loves him for this but is frightened at the destitution it could bring to her and the children.  After a personal tragedy partly of his own making, a mortified Mr Bradshaw cannot abide to be in Dublin anymore and embarks on near continuous travel with his wife.  Yearling, a Protestant sceptic, after finding himself on the opposing side of a dispute (children of striking workers being transferred to England and sponsor families to prevent their starvation, not unlike British children moved out of the cities in WWII to avoid the bombs) to his friend, Father O'Connor, moves back to London to end his days (in debauchery?) as another Irish émigré who grew disillusioned with the homeland - after independence in 1921, the Roman Catholic Church held the whiphand in Irish society for more than seventy years.  While there is plenty of sadness, there are many rays of light as the poorer people make the most of what they have, the priests try their utmost to do the right thing as they see it by their parishioners and Mrs Bradshaw, Yearling and, in his own curmudgeonly manner, Mr Bradshaw try to help out the less fortunate.  Strumpet City  is a book that explores the depths but also soars to the zenith of the human condition.  It is a book that should be read by everyone.