Pool_2

hell was William of Orange anyway? Just one more unopened jacket among many of unread history? Irrelevant. Just so much more dust to blow away. People were evolving. Equality and tolerance were flourishing. There was a new world order. Yet, his endearment, was an egg of romantic poetry dipped in the tint of cultural warfare. Da enjoyed Gavin's company at the hotel he managed, made him welcome - but not here, not at his home. This concern went beyond the youngster. Da was not a bigot. He was just a realist living among bigots tattooed all over with bad history. That bad history bore this kid's last name and likeness as a canker. To the locals, In and of itself proof of IRA connection, Gavin was a Catholic. But not just that. He was a McGuinness! His name was a name of carnage! A call to war! For three generations Ulster consumed itself in hell fires fanned by McGuinnesses. His was a lineage of republicans of wild audacity, a birth line of genetic savagery. Heroes in the slums where they belonged, the McGuinnesses were terrorists here. Papists! Killers! All of them! To make it worse, McGuinness men were devilishly personable, outwardly appealing and engaging. Conversationalists. Talk you right out of your better judgement. And they want rights? Killers? Papists? And he, of the lot of the worst of them? What was he doing, trying to seduce one of our very own girleens? Pity that Gavin's mother died when he was two. Her artistic nature might, arguably, have won out. She was survived also by her sister, one year her younger but so like her that the girls enjoyed all the mischief for which twins are known. But this aunt who had taken vows had little contact and thus little tempering influence on the boy. Even for such lovely sisters judgement came hard. The younger sister married God. The older married the devil. McGuinness men, devils. Gavin was a McGuinness. Just another face on Old Scratch, Satan. He'll want to vote, next! Those people! The lot of them,