own wardrobe by then, do you? More likely you’ll still be sitting in here, wearing the same prison fashions as all the other fine citizens in this place.”
“No, no, I’ll be out for good behaviour, but you needn’t shed any tears at my departure. I’ll be sure to drop in for a visit. Keep an eye out for me that day, O’Reilly. I’ll be dressed as a prison warder, and I’ll have my face painted a bright, glowing red!”
Finn turned to his nephew. “Do you know what we’re on about, Brennan?”
“Would this be the helicopter escape in 1973? It made the news in New York.”
“Sure it made news around the world. And I, the humble prisoner you see before you today, was right here on the ground when it happened.”
“Were you now.”
“Yes, I was here. For a short stint on trumped-up charges, then as now. I was in the exercise yard when I heard the rotors of a helicopter approaching. Never to my dying day will I forget the sight of it. I’m looking up. We all are. And we see it coming out of the sky towards the prison and, Jaysus, isn’t it heading right for us? It’s going to land! Right here in the prison yard. And the most comical thing about it is that the man in charge of the prison that day thought nothing of it, thought it was Paddy Donegan, the minister of defence, paying a visit by helicopter. It’s right there in the parliamentary debates. Jack Lynch got up in the Dáil the next day and said, ‘The officer can be forgiven for thinking it was the minister of defence flying in by helicopter, as the minister is wont to use helicopters as other ministers are wont to use state cars.’ So I’ll be dressed as that poor, red-faced prison official on the anniversary.”
“You’re a part of history, Finn!”
“I am indeed, but as a witness only. I was as gobsmacked as everyone else when the helicopter landed in the yard, and three IRA men got on board and were lifted into the skies above the jail. What a sight!”
“How could they orchestrate such a thing? Where did they get the helicopter?”
“Hijacked it. Told the pilot no harm would come to him if he did as he was told, fly into Dublin without alerting air traffic control, and there he was before he knew it, hovering over the Joy and coming down in the yard. Kevin Mallon directed him down using semaphore! Mallon, J.B. O’Hagan, and Seamus Twomey were airlifted out. Twomey was chief of staff of the ’RA at the time. The rest of us, when we caught on what was happening, blocked the screws from getting in the way.”
He turned to the warder. “You wouldn’t bring us a pint to celebrate that day of glory, would you, O’Reilly?”
“Sorry we can’t accommodate you in the manner you’re used to, Mr. Burke.”
“Ah! The memory of it. Guess who I got a call from that day? Long distance.”
“Would it have been my oul fellow? You should have seen the smile on his face when that item of news came on the television.”
“And you should have heard him on the phone that night, Bren. He was beside himself with excitement, wanted to hear every single detail, minute by minute, who was where and who did what. And it has to be said, he had run afoul of the ’RA himself, hence his exile in America, but his heart was in the right . . . well, he was still interested in the comings and goings, and the flyings, of his former comrades.”
“All right, all right, wrap it up, Finn,” the guard said. “No offence, Father, but Mr. Burke’s history lesson is over for now. Here’s Doyle.”
So Brennan was shown around by Doyle, who seemed friendly enough. Not every guard, or prisoner, they came across was as genial. But the other officials did nothing to stop them, and Brennan saw the cell blocks radiating out from the centre, the tiny, cramped cells, and the place where young Kevin Barry was hanged in 1920, at the age of eighteen, for his role in the War of Independence. Brennan wondered which cell his own father had been in, back in the 1940s,
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