Eddie Keenan: 20th century witness
BY LAURA FRIEL
Eddie Keenan has a hawthorn walking stick. It belonged to his
grandfather. ``My father was born in 1881, so this hawthorn must date
back to the middle of the last century,'' says Eddie. The stick only
came into Eddie's possession recently. ``Billy McKee ran in and out of
my uncle and aunt's house in Belfast years ago,'' says Eddie, ``and they
gave him the hawthorn.''
Eddie's life is full of connections, small threads which not only span
78 years of his own life but over a century of republican struggle.
Like a spider's web, pull one strand and another trembles. The living
room in Eddie's Twinbrook bungalow is littered with photographs and
books, but this is not a shrine to the past nor a collection of
memorabilia. For Eddie it's a living day-to-day reality.
The book ``IRA, the Twilight Years'' lies open beside Eddie's chair.
Documentaries about the struggle are piled amongst Hollywood musical
videos like ``Oklahoma'' and ``Carousel''. There's a photograph of Eddie
with his mother taken on the day he was released from the Curragh in
1945. ``She bought me a new pair of shoes that day,'' says Eddie. And a
photograph of Eddie with Mary Robinson, receiving an award from the
then Irish President on behalf of Irish language group Glór na nGael.
In the hallway hangs a photograph of a member of the International
Brigade, Johnny Power, who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Eddie met
him two years later when they were both interned. ``Johnny was from
Waterford,'' says Eddie, ``and a committed communist.'' A pen portrait of
Mairéad Farrell adorns the mantelpiece beneath a plaque commemorating
the 1981 hunger strikers. Here contemplation of the past, present and
future are one continuum in life's long passing.
On 7 March 1923, a small boy was delivering milk in a rural district
of County Kerry. It was dawn. A few hours earlier, nine republican
prisoners had been woken by their Free State army guards. They were
driven to the remote townland of Ballyseedy. In a brutal act of
reprisal, the prisoners were strapped to a mine and the device
exploded. Only one of the nine survived, Stephen Fuller.
A quarter of a century later as a republican prisoner interned in the
Curragh, he described to Eddie how as a young lad on a milk round he
had stumbled across the Ballyseedy atrocity. ``It haunted him all his
life,'' says Eddie. ``He described seeing birds eating the dead men's
flesh off the trees.''
d then there was Kerry's John Joe Sheehy. ``After Stephen Fuller
escaped to an IRA hideout at Cnocan, it was John Joe Sheehy who
released his account to the newspapers. John Joe had a lovely voice,''
says Eddie, ``I remember him singing ``My Dark Rosaleen'' while washing
his clothes in the Curragh.''
During his time in the Curragh, Eddie also met Machine Gun Johnny
O'Connor, who was in Chicago during the Valentine's Day Massacre. ``He
actually lived on the same street,'' says Eddie. And Bob Clemens, the
grandson of Lord Leitrim, the aristo who was shot dead after
attempting forced evictions in 1882.
At the age of 19, Eddie was interned in Crumlin Road jail. It was
November 1940. ``I was interned at the same time as Gerry `The Bird'
Doherty,'' says Eddie. ``As soon as Gerry arrived at the jail he began
to plan his escape. He watched everyone and everything and within a
few months he'd found a way out.'' One afternoon in May they put
Gerry's plan into action.
``There were five of us, Liam Burke, Phil McTaggart, Billy Watson,
Gerry and myself,'' says Eddie, ``Gerry had noticed that the yard was
empty for a quarter of an hour every lunchtime. We had 15 minutes to
get into the yard and climb over the wall.'' And that's exactly what
they did, with the help of a wooden hook and a rope of sheets.
A year later in Dublin and George Plant from Tipperary was facing
execution. ``I went to a protest meeting against the execution,'' says
Eddie, ``and Brendan Behan addressed the crowd.'' As Eddie left the
meeting he was arrested. Behan was arrested the following night. ``We
were brought up to Mountjoy together,'' says Eddie. ``Brendan was
detained for three weeks. I was interned in the Curragh.''
In Mountjoy, Eddie met Jackie Griffith. Jackie was in the Free State
army but he was supplying guns to the IRA. ``When Jackie was arrested,
a gun he was carrying dropped out of his pocket and went off,'' says
Eddie. ``He got ten years for attempted murder.'' Nine months later,
Jackie escaped from Mountjoy. ``He was riding a bike when the Dublin
police machine gunned him down,'' says Eddie.
Amongst the first wave of internees on 9 August 1971, Eddie Keenan was
dragged by British soldiers from his Belfast home and taken to
Girdwood barracks. He describes it as a traumatic ordeal. ``You felt
under threat the whole time. Some of the internees were beaten and
tortured. You didn't know if it was your turn next.'' Eddie was
interned in Long Kesh for nine months.
Eddie describes 9 July 1976 as the worst day of his life. Beyond the
barest of facts, it is still too painful to speak about. Eddie's
24-year-old daughter Rosaleen and her husband were shot dead by a
loyalist death squad at their home on the outskirts of North Belfast.
The couple's young children were in the house at the time of the
attack.
At 78, Eddie still keeps pretty busy. ``I teach three Irish classes a
week,'' says Eddie. He remembers his father singing songs in Gaelic but
he didn't learn the language himself until he was interned in the
`40s. ``I was in the Gaelic hut,'' says Eddie. ``I could speak hardly a
word but other fellas from Belfast were there so I decided to join
them.'' In the early 1980s, Eddie began teaching Irish in Belfast.
``There was a great revival of interest in the language. It began in
the H Blocks and just took off outside.''
As for the future, Eddie is optimistic. ``I think we're witnessing an
exciting time for republicans. The peace process has been a very
successful strategy and I think republicans have every reason to be
optimistic as we approach the year 2000. The greatest challenge we
face will be dismantling sectarianism in the Six Counties. Unity of a
land is nothing without unity of a people. That's the real challenge.
We've all come a long way and it isn't over yet.''
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