News-ODoolan--Story-Print-1897-Cymthia-Fair-and-
O'Doolan
M, #27892, d. May 1800
Pedigree Link
Vital Facts
Marriage | O'Doolan was married between 1775 and 1800. |
Death | He died in May 1800, in Bristol, Gloucestershire, EnglandG. |
Events - Chronological (including alternatives)
1775
Residence
1775 | Bristol, Gloucestershire, EnglandG
Marriage
Between 1775 and 1800
Events - Death & Burial
1800
Death
May 1800 | Bristol, Gloucestershire, EnglandG Cause: Hanging
Facts - Non-Chronological
Reference Number
In the Dowling One-Name Study O'Doolan has the reference number 27892.
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Short story from a publication called Black and White, page 202, printed in 12 February 1897. Written by G.M.W. It is unknown whether this is a pure fiction or based in any way on fact.
THE FINDING OF THE O'DOOLAN.
"WE'LL be telling him by the old blood in him," said Mullaney, in a voice of absolute conviction. Mike Shaughnessy assented.
"Sure 'tis power of years though. The ould blood won't be alterin'!"
"It's not an O'Doolan we'll be passing in the street," said Mullaney again.
"Faith! There'll be no man like the O'Doolin in this counthry - savin' only himself," agreed Mike Shaugnessy.
And Father O'Hara summed up gently from the settle in the chimney-corner.
"Well, well! In the morning we'll be seeking him."
The threemen were spending theri first night in Bristol town. They sat late together in their hired room at the inn by the river.
The year was 1800, and the night had fallen coldly, though the time was spring.
About the fire in the bedchamber the three men had gathered, and smoked, and spoke of the O'Doolan.
"We'd not be slapin' much, if we went to bed," said Mullaney, who disapproved of the traffic, such as it was, on the cobblestones below.
Father O'Hara sat gazing upon the smoke-circles of his pipe, as if they had been incorporations of the dream he dreamed.
"It's full five and twenty years," he said, "since the O'Doolan went from Ballinchater, and came to this town, and married here, and died.
"Now, rest his sowl, and God's light on it!" muttered Mike; but Mullaney sat silent, staring into the fire over his extinguished pipe. The priest crossed himself without ceasing his narrative;
"Some girl out of this black town he wedded, and she bore him a son, and died before him. All this from his dying bed the O'Doolan sent to us, ere himself passed."
"And since he's been away from us," said Mullaney slowly, "it's better days have come to the O'Doolans; for the old stepmother's dead, and the rints are coming in again; and you and I between us, Father, have put affairs in their right places for the man we've come to seek."
"Too late for his father it is," said the priest, sighing; "why wasn't he sending to us before he came to die?"
"Well, 'tis his son is the O'Doolan," said Mike, in the pause, "when we'll be getting him out of this black city."
"'Tis a great place," remarked Mullaney, in unwilling admiration.
"The O'Doolan'll be finding it quiet with us, in Ballinchater. But he'll marry. Many's the pretty woman'll smile on his handsome face; and there's no lands like your own lands, as the saying goes."
"That's thrue," said Shaughnessy, "when the tinants are paying their rints!" Mullaney laughed out into the silent room, and Mike Shaunessy laughed also, for the pleasant sound of it; but the priest, without a smile, gazed into the fire.
"Maybe he's already married an Englishwoman or fallen into ways of sin!"
"Ah, well, Father," responded Mullaney, "the O'Doolans have always sinned like gentlemen, and, when a man sins like a gentleman, 'tis easier to draw him back to a right way."
"True for ye!" remarked Shaughnessy, who to judge by the depths of his sigh, had sinned like a common person.
"As for marriage," concluded Mullaney, somewhat regretfully, "that's likely, for no O'Doolan's a blackguard in his ways with a woman. If it's married he is, there's no altering it; but we'll have him out of this black hole we've traced him to - sinner or no sinner, wife or no wife!"
The priest's dejection lifted not with this defiance of fate.
"This place hangs heavy on me," he observed, "and maybe 'twill be no such easy thing in all its streets to be finding the O'Doolan."
His face in the candlelight looked wan and despondent, but Mullaney laughed again.
"Sure we'll be seeking till we find!"
"'Tis the Holy Mother herself will be leading us to him," cried Shaughnessy, with pious optimism. "I'd not be wonderin' if his face will be the first we'll light on in the mornin'!"
"We're not reckoning with the hand of God," sighed Father O'Hara, "it's many years, I'm thinking; maybe 'tis a dying man we'll find!"
"True enough," said Mullaney, "but you've a gloomy mind to-night, Father. Wouldn't the breath of his own lands bring the dead to life?"
We must all be dying; but it's in his own bed the O'Doolan'll die, please God - a wedded man, with his son to come after him; and yourself, Father, to rest his pillow with the last sacraments. By the grace of God we'll see his face in the morning, as Mike says."
"Now, God grant it indeed!" said Father O'Hara.
Soon Mullaney and his foster-brother slept. The priest, lying longer awake, saw many things with eyes of the brain - the faces of the dead O'Doolans painted in the portrait gallery at Ballinchater - pass before him, steadfast Irish eyes and passionate Irish mouths. He recalled such of them as he had known, and prayed for their souls. And of the living O'Doolan; "Grant that our search prosper, and restore him to his own." Lastly, from the depths of his compassionate heart he bethought him of the great prison by the river he had passed that day. And he prayed for the souls of the malefactors till sleep overtook him.
Early next morning the host brought them coffee with his own hands. He found Father O'Hara, with a white set face, gazing down upon the street below. A fine thick rain fell, but a crowd lined each side of the way. The travellvers had grasped the cause even before the landlord arrived. By this road would pass a condemned murderer on his way to die.
"Sure! I'ts a bad omen," muttered Shaughnessy, with sinking heart.
The landlord, leaning by the table, volunteered information.
"It's ridding the world of a desperate ruffian, gentlemen; and, thank God, he leaves neither wife nor lawful child. No kin he had either, unless you count his light of love for whom he swings."
"She wronged him?" questioned Mullaney, his compassion rising at the sound of wheels.
"Yes; and they say he loved her, and the devil possessed him when he knew that she'd played him false. However, it matters little; she's dead, and he's to die."
The Irishmen were silent, but Shaugnessy's lips moved, with the prayer for a soul departing - a heretic soul, no doubt, but a prayer would do him no harm. Mullaney's thoughts were divided between impatience over hindrance to his search, and pity for the sorrowful thing which hindered it. He did not want to look; he wondered at the horribly fascinated gaze of Father O'Hara.
"His name?" he asked, idly, and turned from the window.
But the priest, with a face of ashes, had grasped his arm, and was pointing down to the death-cart. Silence hardened round the three men, silence, broken but by Shaughnessy's shaken breaths, as slowly the cart moved on between the human lines. In it sat the criminal with hands bound behind his back - no priest with him, no friend. His eyes, with the awful cold of death in them, turned towards the window, where the three men stood. Then an oath leapt from Mullaney, but Shaughnessy had fallen to his knees. The priest stood as smitten as stone, with nerveless hand clutching the curtain, with eyes set in a stare after the retreating horror. And none of them heard the word on the landlord's lips, as it split the silence, though their hearts cried it aloud. For out of the death-cart had looked the face, with steadfast Irish eyes and passionate Irish mouth, pictured again and yet again in the portrait gallery at Ballinchater. And no word went between them, and no man met his fellow's eyes, but gazed and still gazed towards that place where the cart rolled. For there they knew was raised the gibbet, where O'Doolan was to die. G.M.W.
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Relationship to the site collator Brian Thomas Dowling: | No direct relationship yet found to Brian Thomas Dowling |