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The Indigestible Years

Part I: A Time of Troubles (1919-1922)

The telegram from Arthur Griffith that Emily received at her hotel in Lillehammer was succinct:

Watched the Astor victory with delight. Damn the Norwegians and come to Dublin and aid in Our fight. Bring the Frolics.

The last sentence of the missive has been of some debate amongst Chesleyan scholars. The heft of opinion is that Griffith knew of Emily's "frolics" trunk, and was encouraging her to bring it because he understood its importance to Emily: her heart belonged wherever the frolics trunk resided. But a select few, this author among them, contend that Griffith was referring not to her trunk, but a much-maligned invention of her late uncle, Michael Flannigan. The Frolics Fermenter was a dangerous portable still that Flannigan had patented in 1872, but never put into production because of the explosive failure of the prototype in Cypress Hills, 1873. (1)

Owing Griffith for his moral and financial support during the Sedition Case, Emily returned to Ireland on the first available transport, the Norwegian tall ship, Andjob. She landed in Dublin on Christmas eve, 1919. Ireland had changed radically since she left it in 1869, but as she wrote in her journal it languished under British rule:

December 24, 1919
Dublin

The land of my birth is still under the filthy boot of the British, though now that I have had my revenge on one Lord (and "Member of Parliament") of the Empire, I feel the time is ripe to extend my full retribution on the Dung Heap.

The terrible bloat continues -- I must stop eating lutefisk.

But Arthur Griffith, Eamon deValera and other patriots, were extricating Ireland from the Empire. In January of that year, deValera had been elected the leader of a provisional Irish government, and a war with the British had begun. Under the leadership of Michael Collins, the Irish Republican Army was engaging in guerilla tactics against the British, who retaliated with ruthless reprisals, seemingly designed to push public sentiment towards the fledgling Irish government.

It was in this crucible that Emily found herself working with Vice President Arthur Griffith (2), as a propagandist.

Still filled with the cold rage that impelled her to the Gorcharp Retribution, Emily's prose was more violent and bilious than ever, as one can see by the following poster headlines: "Eviscerate John Bull's belly!" "Eat the Brits Alive!" and "Strangle the Black and Tans with their Own Intestines!" (3)

The copy that attended these shocking exhortations was even more volatile:

If you are tired of the British taking the food from our mouths, then there is but one choice: support our efforts at spattering their brains in the hedgerows, kneecapping them in the streets, and vivisecting them all through this Eire of ours. Break their backs! Suck the marrow from their bones! Destroy! Destroy!! Destroy!!!

After a few of these pamphlets hit the streets, it was apparent that Emily was not reading the mood of the populace. Griffith arranged for Emily to meet Michael Collins to see if she might be of use in the fight; not only was her violent prose hindering his efforts, but she scared the shit out of him, as he wrote to fellow newspaperman, Liam "Chivas" Reagal:

For sure, the woman's mad, and she frightens the Jaysus outa' me. She talks endlessly of her damned 'retribution' and the fire in her belly. There's something hot in there, what, with all the gas that comes outa' both ends. One in ten could drop a horse, and those are usually the silent ones at that.

Still, she'd be worth a ride.

The meeting with Collins went well, and by March 1920, she was overseeing IRA operations in the southern part of Co. Clare, where she became known as the Bunshee of the Shannon. Emily had a legendary ability to blow up Army barracks, no doubt a byproduct of her upbringing with Michael Flannigan and his many unstable inventions (4). She was also able to pass wind at will. Often she would have her men pin captured 'Auxiliaries ' (even more hated than the Black and Tans after the burning of Cork) and would force them to inhale her nether excretions. She terrified the Brits and inspired her countrymen -- cabbage and corned beef became a national dish. (5)

As the war dragged on, Emily found herself increasingly isolated. Though she was still an attractive woman, her intestinal difficulties made intimacy all but impossible. By the end of 1920, she found herself longing for an end to the war, and access to a Systematic Anti-autointoxication Device. In her journal, she writes:

... even that lovely Michael Collins gives me a fairly wide berth when he comes to "inspect" our operations. Damn these intestinal troubles! If only I could get a SAD or even one of those damn corks of Uncle's . . . I suspect strongly that my retribution is having a side effect, thought I suppose it could be all the mutton I've been eating. Conal Macbride seems to think that I should be pleased with my difficulties, and makes frequent references to that damned song... (6)

This journal entry is the first indication that Emily realized her "cannibalistic chore", executed with such brilliance at Kneelingdowne-by-the-Sea, was having a long-lasting metabolic effect. Perhaps it was her conscious familiarity with the windigo myth that informed the subconscious side-effects of her revenge on Mimsy. She never expressly wrote that she believed her indigestion to be psychosomatic, but it was during this period that she penned the unpublished short story, "Thy Flesh in the Air" -- a wholly unsuccessful meditation on the psychological damage inflicted on her heroine, Molly Foofe, who is forced to consume the flesh of an alien, pseudomorphic race called the Gorbites.

She continued to lead the operations in southern Clare up until the truce of July 1921, when Collins asked her to return to Dublin to keep an eye on his intelligence operation while he was away in London negotiating the peace. Emily's foreign upbringing and Canadian accent did not ingratiate her to the leadership in Dublin, and she soon found herself at loose ends.

It was during this period that she penned the next part of her unpublished memoir, Speculations, which included chapters on her time with the Munitionettes, the First World War, her epic journey around the world, and of course, her busy autumn of 1919. Her "Troubles", as she began calling them, worsened in this period, no doubt in part due to the lack of fresh vegetables available in Dublin -- though her fondness for porter may have contributed as well. Regardless, she became somewhat of a social pariah, a condition for which she was singularly unprepared.

For the first time in her adult life, men did not find her attractive.

The war did not end so well for Michael Collins.

Collins and Griffith returned in December of 1921, with a treaty that gave Ireland dominion status, and partitioned the six northern counties. It was to seed Collins' own doom, and ensure long-standing factional strife in Ireland. But Collins felt it was the best deal they could obtain from the British, and his support of it won a small minority in the Dail.

DeValera and the anti-treaty nationalists began a violent campaign against the new government. Emily could sense that her time in Ireland was drawing to a close. She was definitely associated with both Collins and Griffith in the minds of the nationalists, and several attempts were made on her life, one of which was only foiled because of the Bullet Brolly she carried with her always, and a half-digested lunch of bangers and champie. (7)

She quietly left Ireland on August 15, 1922, a week before Collins was assassinated in west Cork.

Part II: Chesley at the Chelsea...>>

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Notes:

(1) This episode is thoroughly discussed in the excellent monograph: Flannigan and the Cypress Hills Massacre. [back]

(2) Griffith had not participated in the Easter Rising (1916) and had lost influence with the extreme nationalists. [back]

(3) By this time, most of the Irish constabulary had resigned, and they had been replaced with mercenaries returning from World War I, dubbed the "Black and Tans" because of their makeshift uniforms. [back]

(4) Further evidence that Griffith referred to the Frolics Fermenter is that in the aftermath of most of these bombings, there was, according to British Major Cheedle Wheeze: "an overpowering sweet smell of corn liquor . . . oh, and the stink that I'd made in my trousers." [back]

(5) It must be noted, however, that there is no evidence that Emily actually killed anyone in this phase of the war. The buildings destroyed by her attacks were always empty and the soldiers were always left hogtied and unconscious, with a note: "British get bent." [back]

(6) The song in question was the "Bunshee o' the Shannon", a rousing ballad about her exploits, both explosive and excretory -- sung to the tune of an older song, now popular as "The Good Ship Kangaroo." [back]

(7) She later wrote a poem about this, called, "The Sportin' Man's Lament". [back]