A well known song of the 1798 Rebellion tells us that Roddy McCorley went to die on the Bridge of Toome - informers had ‘sold the pass’ to the British authorities so McCorley would hang. In a less well known version of the song the informers are named – McErlane and Duffin (sometimes Dufferin), both members of the ‘Archer Gang’, and now wreaking their treachery on Maknazpy.
My Detective Swansea meets his destiny on the steps of a vibrant shopping mall; a modern cathedral dispensing the opium of retail therapy to the addicted masses.
A real Detective Inspector Swanzy, Royal Irish Constabulary, met his destiny on leaving morning service at Lisburn Cathedral on 22nd August 1920.
This Swanzy had been identified as the leader of the gang who had assassinated Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, in March of that year. Although the IRA despatched an Intelligence Officer from Rebel Cork to Loyal Lisburn to deliver the retribution, the local IRA were also to the fore, including Roger McCorley, a descendent of the 1798 McCorley. The story goes that Mac Curtain’s own gun was used to shoot Swanzy.
There are two notable commemorations of the event. One is the memorial plaque to Detective Swanzy in Lisburn Cathedral, which includes the words, “Be thou faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life." The other is the blackthorn stick which Swanzy carried as a mark of his rank as a Detective Inspector; this is on display a few miles away at the museum of the Roddy McCorley Society, Belfast.
In the aftermath of the Swanzy killing in this predominantly Protestant town (in the local custom of marking territorial hegemony by religious preference), a pogrom against the Catholic population left many of their homes and businesses burnt and ransacked.
My own father, who was not yet a year old at the time of the ‘burnings’, told me that his parents evaded the riotous mobs, who lay in ambush on the main road, by carrying him over the Black Mountain to reach the safety of Belfast (note: Maknazpy’s story begins on the 9th October, my father’s birthday).
My Lutteral is a CIA aparatchik but Colonel Henry Luttrell commanded a cavalry regiment for the Jacobite King James in the Williamite wars in the 1690's but decided to back the winner and changed sides. During the Siege of Limerick his treachery was exposed but he managed to survive and safely transfer his regiment to the service of King William of Orange – and was ‘granted’ the estates of Luttrellstown as a reward.
This custom of ‘granting’ lands in Ireland to soldier-adventurers was long established and, by virtue of their economic and political power, the landed gentry naturally assumed the role of moral and cultural superiors – that their status was a reward for their violent endeavours was, conveniently, forgotten over time.
In Luttrell’s case, though, somebody remembered. He was shot dead in 1717 and years later, after Luttrellstown Castle was sold in 1800, his body was exhumed and his skull smashed to pieces.
In his later days, Luttrell was engaged in an ill-fated attempt to recruit 2,000 Irishmen to fight for the Italian city of Venice in their ongoing war against the Ottoman Turks.
Inspector Mehmet Kaffa: Cathbad is a central character in the Tain, perhaps playing a similar role to Merlin in the King Arthur stories. My Turkish Inspector Kaffa is taken from the English language pronunciation of Cathbad, but Kaffa (or Caffa) was also a seaport on the Black Sea in the 14th century, under Genoese control. Now renamed Feodosiya, the city was (until recently) a popular holiday destination on the Crimean coast.
It was no holiday in 1347 when the Khan Jani Beg led the Mongol Golden Horde to besiege the city. With his army decimated by disease, Jani Beg ordered the infected corpses to be catapulted over the city walls. With the disease spreading throughout Kaffa, the Genoese were forced to surrender the city to the Muslim army and retreat to Italy – bringing the plague of the Black Death with them.
This is sometimes cited as being the first example of Biological warfare.
Rose is Róisín Dubh (the little black rose), an example of an Aisling song – ‘underground’ songs that were composed during the years of the Penal Laws in the 17th and 18th Centuries when the Gaels of Ireland found it expedient to express their politics and aspirations in language that would not bring violent or economic punishment on their heads. The traditional format for these Aisling or vision poems was that Ireland would appear to the poet in the form of a supernatural woman and lament the oppressed state of the country but inspire hope that better times would come.
There is a suggestion that the original Róisín Dubh was a daughter of Aodh Mór Uí Néill but we can’t be certain of this.
Betty, the callous senior citizen who betrays Maknazpy whilst feigning charity, is an amalgam of two English queens; Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria.
An Gorta Mór happened during Victoria’s reign: potato blight wiped out the staple and often the only foodstuff available to the rural poor. The Irish census of 1851 recorded a population of over 8 million. The census of 1851 would have been expected to record a growth in population to 9 million: the actual population had fallen to 6 million – 1 million dead and 2 million emigrated.
However, although the potato blight was an ‘act of God’, the famine itself was a manmade disaster. Beef, dairy and grain was produced in huge amounts all through the famine years, with up to 75% of Irish soil under these ‘money crops’ – and grain, beef, pork, sheep and dairy products continued to be exported to Britain as Ireland continued its function as a cheap food supplier to England.
Far from actively working to relieve the people from their famine conditions, the Crown Forces of Queen Victoria provided the military muscle at the ports to ensure these exports of cheap Irish foodstuffs to Britain were unhindered, while the people starved.
The famines of Elizabeth I’s reign were, perhaps, even more to be condemned as crimes against humanity. The standard procedure in the 16th century Elizabethan wars in Ireland, it seems, was the ‘scorched earth’ policy. From the Geraldine wars in Munster to the aftermath of the war against O’Neill and O’Donnell in Ulster, the English armies destroyed the crops and livestock of the common people as a deliberate tactic, often leaving a veritable wasteland in their wake (Cromwell was to employ the same tactics in the 17th century).
Likewise, the Betty that betrays Maknazpy has been conditioned to see the likes of him as an inferior being, and not worthy of her mercy. Some readers will recognise the similarity in this passage to a particularly callous killing that happened in Belfast during the Troubles – I won’t expand on that cruel crime here.
Florencita Conroy is Fláithrí Ó Maol Chonaire, Florence Conry, a man, the Archbishop of Tuam and the go-between for Hugh O'Neill with Philip of Spain.
He sailed with the Spanish Armada of 1588, was close to O’Neill during the nine years war, travelled with O’Donnell to petition the Spanish Court for assistance after the disaster of Kinsale in 1601 and accompanied O’Neill to Rome after the exile of 1607.
Sponsored by Philip II, Fláithrí established the Irish College at Louvain, Belgium, in 1616. The motto above the entrance to the college reads: “Dochum Glóire Dé agus Ónóra na hÉireann” (For the Glory of God and the Honour of Ireland).
Eddy is Sir Edward Carson.
Reverend George Walker was the Governor of Derry during the siege in 1689.
The Asian minister Joannes is the Irish philosopher and theologian Johannes Scotus Eriugena (815 -877).
Across Europe at this time, Irish people were still called ‘Scots’ – a hangover from the Roman nomenclature for the Irish (another long story). Eriugena means ‘born in Ireland’, so his name can be translated as ‘Eóin, the Irish-born Gael’.
The philosopher led the school of learning at the Carolingian court of Charles the Bald, and is said to have synthesized the philosophical accomplishments of fifteen centuries.
My favourite quote from Johannes is:
"Authority is the source of knowledge, but the reason of mankind is the norm by which all authority is judged” – good advice for Maknazpy, or anyone else who finds themselves ‘just following orders’.
Sarah McCooey is from a relative of mine, Sarah Cappagh, that married a McCooey in Armagh in 1801.
Gallogly is any foreign soldier/mercenary - Gall Óglach.
Detective Ed Dart is a combination of two African American characters. I read a few of Chester Himes' books, so knew about Coffin Ed Jones. I discovered that, before Himes, in the 30's, a black writer called Fisher wrote the first book about black characters by a black writer. The first black policeman in American writing was his Detective Dart, set in Harlem.
Cora is borrowed from the femme fatale in J.M. Cain’s 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' – my favourite Irish-American writer.
Lou, the retired cop/concierge is Lugh Lamhfhada – the Irish equivalent to the God Mercury, and possibly CuChulain's father, although his provenance is shrouded in mystery.
Rostam and Sohrab refers to Iran's epic Shahnameh which, curiously, shares storylines with the Táin - Rostam kills his son Sohrab, in similar circumstances to CúChullain’s fatal error.
Artie Mac Cooey is Art Mac Cumhaidh (1738 - 1773), the last of the great Armagh Irish language poets.
His most famous poem is now sung as the anthem of south Armagh -Úr Chill an Chreagaín.
Mac Cooey had the misfortune to fall out with the local priest, Fr Quinn, and went into a sort of exile. He had his revenge through his unflattering poem about Fr Quinn's sister, 'Maíre Chaoch' - one-eyed Mary. Of course, all the locals knew who was the subject of the poem, and the Quinn's were humiliated. Later on there was a reconciliation and Mac Cooey returned, but he was obliged to redress the damage his Maíre Chaoch had caused by penning the laudatory 'Cuilfhionn Ní Chuine' - Quinn's Fair Haired Daughter.
My Blind Mary's Bar in Hell's Kitchen is from 'Maíre Chaoch, and the Sarisin Kizi Bar in Istanbul is his 'Cuilfhionn Ní Chuine'. The owner of the Sarisin Kizi, Dmitri, is a nod to Eric Ambler's Mask of Demitrios, from which I stole part of the plot.
‘Kahverengi Boga Kulubu stomped at the end of the road’, that's the Brown Bull Nightclub, again from the Cattle Raid of Cooley, if my Turkish translation is accurate.