Greenisland Press author Caoilte Breatnach has been speaking about the main character of his novel Longlines, J.J. Hynes in an interview with Judy Murphy,Galway Live/Connaught Tribune, reproduced below with permission.
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A FASCINATION with “what drives people to do what they do” was the spur that led Kinvara writer Caoilte Breathnach to write his debut novel, ‘Longlines’.
Set in the lead-up to the Northern Irish peace process, the book follows 42-year-old JJ Hynes, a veteran of the Troubles in Derry and Belfast. When a kidnapping in Dublin goes wrong, JJ is forced on the run, finding a strange refuge in Holland, before being summoned back to Ireland by his superiors. His job back home in the West of Ireland, is to persuade fellow republicans that the peace process is the way forward.
Dublin-born and living in Kinvara for decades, Caoilte is immersed in life in his adopted home and has been involved in several publications on local history there. He was key to the decision by French-American anthropologist Robert Cresswell to donate an extraordinary archive of photos taken by Cresswell in the 1950s of Kinvara and surrounding areas. This was after Caoilte contacted Cresswell, having learned of the archive while working on a book, ‘Kinvara, a Seaport Town’ on Galway Bay published by local company, Tír Eolas.
Caoilte grew up in Dublin in a republican family and his interest in history is unsurprising. His grandfather was a Parnellite and his great-grandfather was a solicitor for the Invincibles, he says, referring to the republican group who, in 1882 in Dublin, killed the Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and the Under Secretary Thomas Burke.
Sitting in the sunroom of his home, the family cat Oíche beside him, Caoilte recalls his childhood home. His father spoke Irish and his Spanish-German mother spoke Spanish, while English was heard while playing outside.
Caoilte was in Glasnevin Cemetery with his father in 1965, when the remains of republican Roger Casement were repatriated from England’s Pentonville Prison where Casement had been hanged for treason in 1916.
And he was at a rally outside the GPO in 1969, demanding action from the Irish government as nationalists in the North came under attack from British forces, donating £1 to a collection there – a large amount at the time.
The behaviour of the RUC’s B Specials that time had a huge impact on people’s lives, something Caoilte wanted to explore in ‘Longlines’.
“How we are products of our environment and how people are labelled,” he says.
That’s something many people south of the border don’t understand, he feels, excluding Donegal, “because it’s not south”.
JJ Hynes is definitely influenced by his environment, having grown up in the North during that time and sacrificing his life and family for the IRA cause.
“What I wanted to do was explore what it was like and what drove him,” Caoilte explains.
JJ is a considered man, aware that his actions have consequences, but not everyone around him is so aware. These include the highly erratic Finny, whose behaviour is a threat to friend and foe.
When JJ finds shelter in rural Holland, it’s with “a character who can’t let go of the past. “Some people can’t and that interests me”, Caoilte says.
A quote by Dutch writer Corrie ten Boom, whose family sheltered Jewish people from the Nazis, prefaces the novel: ‘Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.’ It’s “profound”, he feels. “It means we can use memories to help us move to the future, but often people are stuck and memories become a burden. They lean into the pain or tragedy and it stops them developing”.
This happens in all areas of life, adds Caoilte who knows from harsh experience the importance of not becoming bitter due to injustice.
In 1978, his brother Osgur was one of three men wrongly convicted by the Irish State of the 1976 Sallins Robbery, when the Cork-Dublin mail train had been ambushed by armed men and £200,000 stolen.
Caoilte who had also been arrested following the robbery, heard Osgur crying after his brother had been beaten by a group of Gardaí known as ‘the Heavy Gang’, who were implicated in various abuses throughout this time, including the Kerry Baby scandal.
“He said to me, ‘prepare yourself for the worst’.”
Osgur was a member of the recently formed left-wing Irish Republican Socialist Party, advocating for a 32-county socialist state and on issues, including housing. Nothing linked him to the train robbery except a forced confession. But in 1978, he was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment by the Special Criminal Course. This non-jury court “believed everything the Gardaí said”, Caoilte observes of those “terrible times”. He campaigned for Osgur’s release and later, to free Nicky Kelly.
Kelly who had been convicted alongside Osgur and Brian McNally, went on the run to the US and initially avoided imprisonment. In 1980 when the IRA claimed responsibility for the train robbery and his co-accused were acquitted, he returned home to clear his name, but was arrested. It took four hard years before his release and Caoilte became PRO of that campaign.
He speaks with respect of the journalists and solicitors who worked to right the wrong done to these men; people “who had different beliefs and were capable of integrity”.
Still, it took a toll. “Sallins took up nine years of my life and I missed my children growing up. I regret that.”
The convicted men received a State settlement but no apology or enquiry. Osgur’s application to the High Court for a Miscarriage of Justice Certificate is due to be heard in July and the DPP has agreed not to oppose it.
Caoilte and his Dutch-born wife Petra, whom he met on Inis Oírr as a teenager, have two adult children and four grandchildren. They married in Holland before Caoilte’s 21 birthday, later moving back to Dublin and then Kinvara, where they had friends, buying a site and building their home through direct labour.
“If you survive that, you’ll survive anything,” he laughs.
He credits his sister Lucilita with helping inspire ‘Longlines’. She was general secretary of Sinn Féin in the early 1990s and “she’d be telling us something big was coming”.
One of the few women involved at a high level in the peace talks “she made a great contribution”.
The book’s title refers to lines used in fishing – a local reference – and also to the lines of history.
While writing it, Caoilte took various courses, including one with Claire Keegan and recalls one piece of advice she gave; ‘just write what happens’. For his next novel, he’s going further back in time, but also examining why someone would behave in a particular way.
Longlines is published by Greenisland Press, run by Sinn Féin’s former publicity director Danny Morrison. It’s available in bookshops including Charlie Byrnes, online, or at https:longlines-novel.com