Read the Third Prize Winner 2025 - Malachy Doyle by Morgan Brennan

Malachy Doyle 
by 
Morgan Brennan

He stared at the coals. Their heat had dissipated around the room and now they were past their prime. Remnants winked from the hearth like warnings. Red to ash grey. Stop. Don’t go. Malachy Doyle leant back in his favourite armchair and sucked on his pipe. The aromatic mixture filled his mouth, throat and lungs and he held his breath as if he were drowning before extracting the mouthpiece to exhale a great grey plume. 

‘Fecking eejits.’   

Doyle knew he was past his prime and knew they’d be on their way. The men in the trench-coats and black berets. The Belfast Brigade. Coming for Malachy Doyle. Former foot soldier and champion of Cowan Street. The Newry firebrand whose fire had gone out. The phone call.

“Is it Malachy Doyle I’m speaking to?” 

“Tis he. Who’s calling?” 

“That doesn’t matter. You listen. You’ve been seen talking to the RUC again and then one of my men gets arrested the following morn—"

“Now hold it there. That had nothing to do with me, fella.” He said and caught his breath before continuing. 

“They came digging into the past. My past. Wanted to know where a Private Terry Jones had been buried and who’d pulled the trigger. I said I’d nothing to do with his disappearance. They kept on at me but I gave them nothing. Swear to God.” 

“Coincidence is it then?”

“I don’t know.” 

There was a pause on the line before the voice continued.

“How’s your daughters, Malachy? At Trinity, I hear. You must be proud.”

“Don’t you go there, don’t you dare—" 

“You can tell that to the Army Council in Dublin, Malachy Doyle. So don’t you be going anywhere.”

The voice hung up, but he’d recognised its tone. Arrogance and an eagerness to punish with impunity. To live for the Cause and likely die for it. Why, he’d played his part in the Seventies when his head had been turned by stirring words and strong drink. A tool maker by trade, Malachy had tested weapons and transported them across the border. He’d sheltered IRA suspects till they could make a run south. He’d stood up for the street when the Brit soldiers came a-knocking, looking for weapons, looking for anything. He’d played the man of reason when the Orangemen gathered at the top of their road. And now he thought the Troubles should be over. Christ, it was nearly the 21st century and those fools were still playing soldiers! Freedom fighters they called themselves. 

‘Fecking eejits, I say.’ 

He expelled another funnel. Malachy was tired of playing The Game, but the RUC liked to roll the dice and rattle his cage now and then to see what came out. Like a body or a name. But last week he’d given them neither. He was done, he’d told them.     

Yet folks talked, and in O’Hara’s Pub, they liked a drink, but gossiped more. Only that weekend, after the call, he’d sensed their conversations curtail as he entered. 

A curt nod of heads at the bar. “Alright there, Mal?” He acknowledged them with barely a glance. “Seamus, Pat” and then pulled out a note. “Usual, Fergus” And back to their drink and their dangerous talk. Like old women they were. Yet the storm clouds were gathering over the Mountains of Mourne and everyone knew trouble was coming to Malachy Doyle. Trouble with a capital T. And he felt their gaze on the back of his neck as he supped his stout. He knew what they’d been thinking. Whispering. 

“Yone Doyle fella’s been friendly with the Brits again, Pat? You’re not wrong, Seamus. Talks to them like they’re welcome. Then he’d a visit from them RUC scumbags last Tuesday. And the following morning young Eamon Conklin gets taken away. Sure, Doyle might have done his bit back in the day, but that’s in the past. And the past is the past. A tout is a tout. We’re in different times now, Seamus. Ah yes, there’s new men in the black berets with old scores to settle. They say they’re going to have a word with the man – a strong word. Another one, Pat?”      

Malachy poked the dying embers and looked up as Bridy entered. She was flustered and no mistake. He stood as she turned to the sound of a vehicle outside. She flicked back the curtains. A grey morning and a black taxi ticked over.

Stop. Don’t go.    

‘They’re here. By God, Mal, get the feck out the back and I’ll say you’ve gone somewhere.’    

‘No, Bridy, it’s no bother.’ He said and slipped his pipe in his pocket. 

‘Come here,’ he said.   

He pulled her to him. Large arms encircled a small frame. 

‘Don’t you worry, my love, they’ll just want reassurances. Back before supper.’

She looked into his grey eyes. The only man she’d ever loved.  

‘Promise me, Malachy Doyle, now you promise me.’

‘Hush now, love. I’ll be fine, I’m telling you.’

‘What do I say to the girls?’ 

‘Tell ’em nothing. Storm in a teacup is all.’  

He wiped away her tears and she tried a smile.

‘You’ve played your part. They must recognise that, Mal.’ 

‘Sure, of course they will.’

Cowan Street was a twin row of dismal post-war terraced houses. No tree-lined avenues, more grief lined. Billy Matthews, at number forty-one, had taken a rubber bullet to his spine and now he’d a blue badge. Maureen Brady, next door but one, drank herself to death after her man was killed in a car chase.

A lace curtain at thirty-two flickered. Even Max the Persian sensed something was up. He paused his doorstep preen to stare with liquid eyes at the vehicle idling outside the Doyles. Black cats are supposed to be lucky, right? 

They let Malachy get his coat and escorted him out. He was sat in the back of the taxi between the two trench-coated boyos. Black Beret took the driver’s seat. 

Bridy watched as the car drove slowly up the empty street—like a hearse. The sound of tyres on tarmac. A dog barked. Max twitched. At the top of the road, the vehicle turned left. Towards the border. Towards a reckoning.                 

She’d stayed strong for her man until then. Until the taxi disappeared and then she let out a shriek like a banshee and Bridy Doyle dropped to her knees onto the scrubbed stone steps. And the rain swept in from the Mountains of Mourne and wept with her. A front door opened for Max to slip inside before it slammed shut. And Bridy stood, and she cursed God and the rain and the street, and vowed she’d see her man again.      

*

You are sat between them—the two trench-coated boyos. They were teenagers once, but now they’re old before their time with their scowls and stubble. As the vehicle turns at the top of the road, you seek Bridy on your doorstep. She’s there, slight, but strong. Stay strong. No one else around. A fine send-off from the residents of Cowan Street. Not a cat’s chance they’d be thinking and after all you’d done for them. 

The windscreen wipers whoosh and Black Beret peers at his driver’s mirror. 

‘No funny stuff, eh, Malachy, and you’ll be just fine, you hear?’

You nod, and he waves a hand at his silent lieutenants.

‘These boys may be new to the Cause, but they’re truly dedicated if you get my drift.’

He presses the accelerator and the taxi speeds onto country roads. Green flora blurs past as the rain drums on the vehicle’s roof like an Orange march.     

You’ve figured your chances. Maybe twenty years ago you could’ve taken them – the car approaches a bend, a chop to a throat, an elbow on a nose, and then out the rear door like a stuntman. But not now. Not at fifty years of age with a bullet wound and arthritis on your CV. You always had strength, but your speed and agility have gone. But you still have your cunning.     

You cross the border with nary a pause. Bandit country as the Brits liked to say.  A lonely road skirted by crowded woodland. Perfect for ambush. You know you’ll have to act soon or you’ll find yourself in some God-forsaken outhouse near Dublin with Army Council hard cases slapping you around.

“What did you tell them, Doyle?”

“I gave ‘em nothing. God’s truth. Like I said to yer man on the phone.”

“And yet Coughlan’s arrested?” 

You shake your head. “I ain’t no tout and youse knows it.”

The outhouse is a wooden barn and you’re stonewalling their questions, but it’s all for show. There’d been no blindfold. Nor did they cover their faces, and that said it all. No “twelve good men and true” to sit in judgment. Only three hard red faces from the Irish Republican Army leadership. In the morning they’ll let you write a letter to Bridy. 

My Darling Bridy 

I want you to know I’ll always love you. Look after yourself and the girls. Tell them I love them and …

Afterwards, they’ll take you for a drive and a walk in the woods. The sun will peek through a green canopy. Birds will sing and a light breeze will ruffle your grey hair. Head down, your feet will shuffle along a woodland track and twigs will crack like muffled gunshots.       

“Smoke, Malachy?” they’ll ask as you halt in a clearing.

“Been trying to quit, fellas, but sure, why not.” 

They’ll light you a Carroll’s Number 1 and you’ll take a drag and exhale.

“Fecking—"

You won’t feel the bullet enter the back of your skull. You’ll just see the ground come to meet you. They’ll put the letter in the post—decent of them.

No, that cannot happen.  Will not happen. For Bridy. For the girls. You hadn’t run arms across the border without precautions. Insurance in the guise of a short Webley. The small revolver you’d taped to your ankle beneath a heavy sock. Sure, they’d patted you down and found the pipe. A distraction you’d learnt back in the day.

The rhythmic sweep of wiper blades is as much comfort as a ticking clock to a bomb disposal operative. Your resolve hardens as the rain softens. 

‘Need a piss,’ you say.

‘Should’ve gone before we left, Mal. You’ll have to wait,’ says Black Beret.

‘Look, I’ve a prostrate problem. Have to go now, man.’

‘We’ll not be long.’

‘Shame to piss on your car seat then.’ 

Black Beret curses and brings the taxi to a stop in a layby. 

‘Be quick about it. Donal and Kevin will accompany you.’

 They let you out and you walk across a grass verge in the drizzle to stand beside a hawthorn tree. The two lads follow. You unbutton your fly and turn.

‘Like to see what I’ve got, eh, lads?’ you say. ‘Didn’t know you were with the quare fellows?’

They sneer and look away for a moment, and that’s all you need, as you crouch and rip the Webley from your ankle. You shoot the nearest trench-coat in the back and put a second in his comrade’s belly as he spins around. They’re both down, groaning like punished touts when you see Black Beret scrambling from the taxi with an automatic. You’ve one shot before he’ll line you up and you nail him in the neck. His weapon splutters into the County Monaghan sky as he drops to the tarmac.  

You climb into the vehicle and take a U-turn back to the border. Your heart’s pumping like a teenager as your mind tries to process what happened in those mad moments. You’ve no regrets. The two trench-coats should likely live, but Black Beret has taken his last fare. You figure you’ve an hour until the hue and cry and feel like a firebrand again as you drive back to Cowan Street.

The residents had written you off and you want to shout when you arrive, but it’d make no difference. The street’s empty as a pub without ale. You pull up outside your house. A curtain flickers opposite. Max stares from his living room window. If he could talk, he’d say “Sure, aren’t you the lucky one.”

You step from the taxi and bang on your front door. Bridy takes an age to open it and then looks at you like you’re a ghost. You kiss her. The only woman you’d ever loved. She looks into your eyes.

‘Oh my God, is it really you, Mal?’  

‘Yes, it’s really me.’

Her arms squeeze the breath out of you as her moist eyes search the empty vehicle. ‘But the others?’

‘We have to go now, love.’

‘Jesus, where will we go?’

‘Far from here, England.’

‘And the girls?’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve contacts. They’ll fly them out and we’ll meet in England.’ 

Bridy nods her head then dashes inside to fill a suitcase while you make calls, grab passports and your rainy-day fund.

Back outside you can’t resist.  

‘You know, you can go all go to hell, the lot of youse.’ 

Your voice echoes, even in the Mourne mizzle. But it’s a street where no one stirs. As if they’re hiding behind their sofas or searching for their barstool bravado. Bridy locks the front door and joins you in the vehicle.  

You drive the taxi along Cowan Street a final time. Bridy looks at the dismal houses slide by and blesses God and the rain and Malachy Doyle. 

*

I’ve a different name now; one I cannot tell youse. But I can tell you we made it across the Irish Sea, Bridy the girls and me. An exit planned for when things got too hot. The British gave us new identities—the whole shebang, including a back story we had to learn by heart. No, more than that. We had to believe it like it was … The Gospel Truth. They said to believe it with our souls. No slips of the tongue or careless talk would cost lives—our lives. They even had people in Cork City who’d swear they’d known us since we were kneecap high, and gave us a linguist to melt our Northern Ireland brogue into County Cork butter. 

I’d made the age-old deal. I’d sold the rest of my soul for anonymity and security. As a result, the RUC secured closure of four missing Brit soldiers, including Private Terry Jones. Back then, I’d never murdered anyone, but I’d been a cloaked cog in a killing machine, and now I was helping families find where The Disappeared had been buried.  

In the eyes of the IRA, and on the tongues of Cowan Street, I was a red toothed tout - and in O’Hara’s Pub they’d be crowing.

“I see the Doyles have disappeared, eh, Seamus? So I heard, Pat. Course we was right all along, yer man was a fecking tout. Not only that, they said he killed one of the Cause’s main men and put two of his fellas in hospital when they tried to have a word. They’ll find Malachy Doyle. Don’t you worry about that, Seamus, and it won’t be pretty. You’re not wrong there, Pat. Sure, you’ll have one for the road?”    

Our road is a tree-lined avenue; no more grief-lined. Next door the man works in IT and over the road they’re teachers. They’ve a cat called Tilly who’ll come across and purr like a Bentley if you stroke her. A million miles from Cowan Street. Bridy has a care home job and the girls are finishing at a Uni I can’t mention.

So I’m the quiet man from Cork. A retired insurance clerk. Keep myself to myself. I’ll give a nod to the neighbours and pass the time of day. I don’t have any views on the Troubles if the subject comes up. But I’ve a terrible thirst and there’s a pub down the road I’ve resisted till now. 

They installed a panic alarm, but I don’t have the gun anymore and that makes me nervous. Sure it’s the best I could hope for. I have to accept I’ll be looking over my shoulder to the end of my days despite the Peace Process gathering momentum. Sometimes, I think of the residents of Cowan Street and how they were silenced by the violence, and here’s me in a country that doesn’t want me. Black Beret’s army of acolytes will continue to hunt me. But I’ve still no regrets. 

Yes, I played The Game in the Eighties. Pit one against another, they said. Let the paramilitaries kill themselves, they said. The Brits courted me. They knew I’d my fill of the Troubles, so I gave them gold and fed lies and half-truths to the IRA. I became their inside man until the Belfast Brigade took the rumours seriously. Then I’d no choice. Leave Northern Ireland or wait for a bullet from the Brigade.

Now winter’s in wait and nothing feels the same anymore and it’s as if I’ve lost a part of my soul. And at the back of my mind, and in the pit of my gut, I know that one day, my sins will surface and Satan will come calling.

“Is it the door?” I’ll ask.

“Don’t be answering at this time of night, Mal.”

“It’s no bother. Stay here.”

I’ll go down and open the front door and he’ll be standing there in his motorcycle helmet and expensive leathers.

Not a Deliveroo. More of a fuck you.

“Is it Malachy Doyle?”

I’ll give him a tired nod. “You know it is. And only me.”

He’ll return my nod and raise his silenced pistol… 

Until that day, until my past comes to this treelined retreat, I’ll love my wife and I’ll hug my girls and I’ll try to forget the “eejits” fight. And left alone, you’ll find me staring into the red eyes of an open fire, sucking my pipe.