AtLast_[07]

For four years Gavin and his fiancee were kept in separate unlit stone walled dungeon cells with wooden doors bearing slit windows and food slots. Some questioning! Rare visitors could only talk through the doors. The two youngsters communicated in whispers under these doors across the hallway at night - in Gaelige. Gavin, in the oral tradition of the Irish story teller, recited his poetry through an outside wall breach to any who would press their ears to the wall to listen. In this manner, his unwritten poems found their way to the underground press. It wasn't the IRA but rather an independent group called 'Brithem' who busted Gavin and his fiancee out of this dungeon called a 'holding house'. All the jailers present were slain. "Hacked to pieces" is how all the accounts describe it. The building and its documents were burned. Nobody was left alive who was unfriendly and who knew what McGuiness looked like. A false photo, supposedly of Gavin McGuiness, was later circulated by Brithem on posters seeking the outlaw. That image was really a long dead IRA man, a fact discovered only two years ago. Even now, McGuiness's best protection is his ghost like quality. He is not known on sight to any but a few. Gavin McGuiness is still wanted for 'questioning' as no records survived to show that he had ever been arrested. One such document put forward was quickly shown to be forged, to the embarrassment of the English officials. None of the acts of terrorism, attributed to McGuiness, have ever been proven to be by his hand. However, the sixty, or so, persons who were connected with that facility over the four years of 'the kidnapping' have been individually felled by violent 'acts of God' and justice. Brithem is Gaelige for justice, specifically the Bretanic codes. McGuiness is quoted, as the story goes, as saying to one of the perpetrators, just before the axe fell, "Have them submit their questions in writing next time." McGuiness's fiancee acquired tuberculosis while in jail and denied even supportive care died, severely wasted, in his arms shortly after the break out. The stories recount that it was she trying to comfort him as she was languishing in his arms. His last words to her were, "Katherine, my Caitlin, don't go." Ms. McLonighan points out that Gavin's sweetheart was named Katherine ("kay - TAH - drdeen"). McGuiness, interestingly, evokes her memory by the ancient Galige root name, his name of fondness for her, Caitlin. This is significant. Caitlin is a name of great Irish literary symbolism. Poetic readings tend to swap these two names interchangeably regardless of how written. Gavin's young 'Caitlin' cannot be distinguished from 'Caitlin ni Houlihan', a linguistic embodyment of Ireland as a female figure, additionally made famous by Yeats. When Gavin refers to Caitlin he means this girl of his tormented dreams and he means Ireland. There isn't a strong distinction . Therein is part of the magic. His love, his country, interchangeably murdered. A second biographical source, Brian Kelly, curator of the Irish Literary Historical League, has also allowed a brief synopsis of part of his own research, which is interestingly taken almost totally from English security sources. Kelly, employed by English intelligence before his current calling, has an account which isn't far off that of Ms. McLonighan. He brings out some interesting correlations and speculations.

4