The 13th Apostle: A Novel of a Dublin Family, Michael Collins, and the Irish Uprising by Dermot McEvoy Page B

day if I spy him.” Róisín finally laughed. “He’s too old to be an active soldier by now. I’m eighteen, and he was twenty-five when I was born. So he’s in his forties. Too old for the trench.”
    “But not too old to torment the Irish,” said Eoin cryptically.
    Róisín looked at Eoin and realized that he was beginning to think like Collins. “You sound like a pint-sized Mick Collins.” Eoin smiled and nodded, proud of the compliment.
    “Would you like a sherry?” Eoin said, coughing a bit from the smoke of Róisín’s cigarette. Eoin knew that respectable women always drank sherry.
    “How about a pony of whiskey and a pint of porter?” Róisín replied, and Eoin Kavanagh knew he was falling in love.

21

    E OIN’S D IARY
    M ick is fond of the Jew-man .
    Before going to work for Mick, the only Jew I had ever met was poor Abraham Weeks in the GPO. But Mick has two of them working for him, a merchant named Robert Briscoe and a lawyer called Michael Noyek. I asked Mick how the Jews came to Ireland. “They first came to Ireland in 1062—did you know that? Same way the Normans, the Vikings, the Celts got here—they were waylaid!” Some priests call Jews “Christ killers,” but Mick doesn’t care what a man is, just as long as he believes in one thing—removing the British from Ireland. I think Mick gets fed up with the “usual,” the monotony of the everyday. All the Irish look alike, down to the freckles. Some of the Jews, the very religious ones, are very different, with their black hats and their side-locks and their beards. I think that’s why he likes having Jews in the movement. Unlike a lot of the Irish, he is not afraid of the different or exotic.
    Briscoe has just returned from New York, where he was living when the Uprising took place. He’s devoted to Eamon de Valera. In fact, he worships him. He’s always saying, “Dev believes this,” or “Dev believes that.”
    “Puppy love,” Collins said with a laugh, and I’m not sure exactly what he meant.
    Briscoe has a tailor shop over on Aston Quay, but it’s really a front for Sinn Féin business. He also has a safehouse over on Coppinger’s Row, just off Grafton Street. He was sent to Mick by de Valera, who just got out of prison this summer. “Do you belong to the IRB?” asked Collins at the first meeting. I was sitting at my desk and observed everything.
    “Oh,” says Briscoe, “Mr. de Valera doesn’t believe in secret organizations.” I thought Mick would fall out of his chair, because he now runs the IRB. But he didn’t give anything away and simply sat mute.
    Briscoe has shown some talent for securing guns and munitions from various sources, including the police and the British Army regulars who are stationed here. Mick will pay up to five quid for a handgun. “I am building this army one gun at a time,” he said to me as soon as Briscoe left the office. I don’t know if Mick likes Briscoe or not. I think there’s something about him he doesn’t trust.
    On the other hand, you can tell Collins likes Noyek, whom he calls “Mike.” Noyek is kept busy representing our lads when they get pinched by the Crown. He’s very businesslike but friendly. He always has time to say hello to me and ask me how my family is coming along. He lives down on Clanbrassil Street, near the South Circular Road in Little Jerusalem, like a lot of the Jews.
    Mike also does a lot of Mick’s real estate transactions. When he arrived at the office this morning, Collins called us into conference. “We’ll be expanding our operations soon, and we’ll need more properties to do it right.” Collins turned to me and said, “Mike has a few properties under consideration, and I want you to go with him and see if they will work for me. I’ll need an office with a view”—that meant he didn’t want to get trapped or caught by surprise—”and a storefront. Go with Mike, and report back to me.”
    We came out of the office, walked to the corner