Free Rugby Rebel by Gerard Siggins

ask questions. They knew what they had to do.

Chapter 22
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    E OIN knew he needed to be distracted from all the well-wishers and the junior school kids who just wanted to come up and stare at any member of the JCT. He pulled his grey hoody over his head, and slipped a notebook and biro into his pocket before exiting the dorm as quietly as possible. As soon as he left the building he broke into a canter, crossing the playing fields to his secret glade.
    The light was already starting to fade, but Kevin was where he usually was to be found, scrabbling around at the base of the Rock.
    ‘Hello, Kevin,’ Eoin began. ‘Have you found what you’re looking for yet?’
    Kevin stood up and shook the grass and earth from his ghostly clothes. His old rugby shirt looked like it had spent an hour under a ruck.
    ‘No, I haven’t,’ he sighed, ‘and I still don’t even know what I’m looking for either.’
    ‘Can I help?’ asked Eoin. ‘I have about an hour and we can chat while we’re digging. I need to ask you aboutwhat made you join the rebels.’
    ‘Righto,’ replied Kevin, glad to share the burden of the digging. ‘You take that area to the left and I’ll keep going over here. Now, let me see …’
    Once Kevin got started he talked freely about his days at school and how he had come around to the rebels’ way of thinking.
    ‘Where my mother came from in Carlow they were always talking of the 1798 rebellion that happened in the area. I used to go down there every summer and the songs and stories of the old battles would always come out whenever there was a get-together in the house. There was no television or radio then, which I believe keeps you youngsters busy for many hours a day. So we sat around and heard these heroic tales of men and women who took up arms for Ireland.
    ‘Then the 1916 Rising came and it was brought right home – almost to our door in Fleet Street. The school I was attending, St Mary’s, closed down that year and I was sent up to Belvedere College. Every day I walked past the GPO and drew inspiration from those men.
    ‘One of the seven leaders of the Rising, Joseph Plunkett, was a past pupil of the school and his was a name you heard quite a lot around the place. They started playing hurling there and I joined up – my pal EugeneDavy played the game with me. He was a great rugby player too – your friend Brian Hanrahan told me he played with him at Lansdowne and watched him play for Ireland. That would have filled me with pride.
    ‘We played on the JCT together, but I didn’t get to play in the final in 1917. They left me on the bench, sadly. I had scored a brilliant try – if I say so myself – in the semi-final at Lansdowne Road so they gave us all a winners’ medal.
    ‘I was getting very interested in politics around then, and later that year I joined the Irish Volunteers. I didn’t get up to much, just cycling around delivering messages between the different battalions. I kept up the sport, though – it was great camaraderie and kept me fit, and I played senior my last year in Belvedere.’
    Eoin continued digging away at the earth, pausing to make notes as Kevin went on with his life story.
    ‘I did well at the books, and won a scholarship to University College to study medicine. But I wasn’t much of a student to be honest. I enjoyed the dancing and the social life around the college a little bit too much – one day I fell off my bike four times cycling home after having a bit too much fun. I played a bit of rugby too, and joined up with the Old Belvedere club when that was founded for the former students.
    ‘I kept up my activities with the rebels, of course, and our company was very successful at raiding factories and depots to get weapons and ammunition. I was made section commander and one day I was given a special job to do. We needed more weapons if we were to have a chance of taking on the Empire, and we learned that there would be a band of