After the Lockout by Darran McCann Page A

O’Donnell and Charlie McHugh, Bishops of Raphoe and Derry respectively, coming up the stairs behind them.
    â€˜Lads, you can’t block the landing like this. Let’s get a move on here. You’re the last to arrive and the Cardinal will be here in a minute,’ said O’Donnell. O’Donnell was Logue’s favourite, it was no secret he was being groomed for the big job. Everyone ascended in silence like scolded schoolboys. At the top of the stairs Stanislaus noticed Johnny Mangan was looking unwell. He put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder. ‘Are you feeling all right there, Johnny?’
    â€˜A hundred per cent, boy,’ he said, but his creaking and wheezing gave the lie to the brave face.
    â€˜Hurry up there, we can’t keep the Cardinal waiting,’ said O’Donnell.
    â€˜You know, there was a time in this country when priests were expected to show a bit of courtesy and compassion,’ Stanislaus snapped. O’Donnell’s first reaction seemed to be irritation, but he buttoned his lip and relented. Stanislaus and Johnny went inside when they were good and ready.
    The wide spaces, stained-glass windows and high, baroque ceiling of the great Synod Hall reverberated with the sound of important men used to hearing their own voices and unused to being challenged for attention. Perhaps a hundred old acquaintances, friends and colleagues greeted one another with excitement and curiosity. Chairs were set out in neat rows but no-one was sitting down yet. Deans, canons and monsignors were present, but only bishops wore purple sashes around their waists and Stanislaus had worn his for the occasion. Ireland had forty-nine bishops, from archbishops to ordinaries, auxiliaries, co-adjutors, titulars and bishops emeritus, and it seemed a great many of them were present. Stanislaus was disturbed to see several men in purple that he didn’t know.Once, it had been his business to know men such as these inside-out.
    Everyone sat as the Cardinal entered. He wore full scarlet regalia, even his galero, and nodded here and there to familiar faces as he made his way forward. He did not see Stanislaus as he passed. The Cathedra had been removed from the sanctuary to the Synod Hall, and he sat in it now, facing towards the assembly. The ranks of black and purple sat in hushed deference for the only man in Ireland entitled to wear red.
    â€˜I thank God to see so many old friends and brothers in Christ. I thank you all for gathering here today,’ he began. ‘Recently I joined with the other cardinals and the Holy Father in Rome to discuss the crisis in Russia, of which you will all be aware. Bolshevist victory there now seems certain, and therefore Russian withdrawal from the war is inevitable. But worse: the Bolshevists propose to make Russia atheist. They aim to wreak holocaust on the Faith, and they would seek to spread this evil message worldwide. It is the view of the Holy Father that this represents a threat to mankind’s very spiritual essence. This evil ideology is the most grave threat the Faith has faced since Luther. Furthermore, it is the opinion of the Holy Father and the College of Cardinals that this country, Ireland, is the most likely to be next.’
    Around the room a hubbub grew up and took a moment or two to die down. Mick could play an audience like a fiddle, and he knew it. Even in the Conclave Mick Logue probably regarded himself as the smartest man in the room. He might even have been right. He continued in a sonorous register spiced with the right amount of piquancy.
    â€˜The Holy Father wants to know what is going on in Ireland. The country is overrun with subversive groups. Some are openlyrevolutionist, others like the so-called trade unions or the Gaelic Athletic Association operate under more benign guises. Men like Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev are merely the Russian answer to James Larkin and James Connolly – of whom people speak blasphemously