Hemingway's Retreat to Ireland

By j. michael moriarty

This is the story of Hemingway faking his death and going to Ireland to live in a castle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667851945

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Hemingway’s Retreat to Ireland

© 2022 J. Michael Moriarty

All rights reserved. This book or any portion there of may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-66785-193-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66785-194-5

Dedicated to:

Frank Delaney

Rest in Peace

2/21/17

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1

Back When

Chapter 2

Prepare to Die

Chapter 3

Not the Catholic Thing, You Know

Chapter 4

The Way Out

Chapter 5

New Me

Chapter 6

My Arrival in Ireland

Chapter 7

Awake in Ireland

Chapter 8

Visiting a Neighbor

Chapter 9

To County Kerry We Will Go

Chapter 10

Racing and John B.

Chapter 11

Return to Fitzgeraldland

Chapter 12

Visit to Ryan’s Scarteen

Chapter 13

Omaha Boots, Dirty Thirty, and Omaha Beach

Chapter 14

Poetry Comes to Town on Saturday Night

Chapter 15

Visiting Dublin

Chapter 16

Leaving Dublin

Chapter 17

The Expats in Cuba

Chapter 18

Sitting in an Irish Garden

Chapter 19

Hat Trick in Fethard

Chapter 20

Patriots Patriots Patriots

Chapter 21

Meeting Mary Kate Danaher

Chapter 22

The Last Reich

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge all of those who inspired me to write about Mr. Hemingway. The list is long, but it starts at home with all my Moriarty Family: Mom, Dad, Tom, Jim, Donny. Then, of course, my family with Jan, Mac and Sheila. Plus, I note my wonderful Mactier family. I also wish to extend thanks to Dana, Pam, Richard (RC), Casey and Kayla.

I have to say I had a lot of help from a lifetime of great teachers, especially at Omaha Central High School and University of Nebraska.

My background of being a reporter has helped immensely. When I once complained that an editor was really tough on reporters, the publisher (Warren Buffett) said, He was better than we deserved. Thank you School of Hard Knocks and the First Amendment.

I especially wish to thank all my friends in Ketchum, Idaho who have helped me understand their favorite son. Special thanks to neighbor and friend of EMH, Jack Crawford, whose stories shared about Hemingway have meant a great deal to me. And I have appreciated meeting and interviewing Hemingway friends and scholars during Hemingway events in Idaho, including Bud Purdy and Valerie Hemingway.

I would be remiss to overlook friends who encouraged me to go forward. Harvey, Logan, Annie, Kevin G., Jordan, Melanie, Whitey, Nelly, Lu*, Lenora, Billy K., Joy, Sam, Lornie, Mason, Patrick, Courtney(s), Casino Staff (Dave, Coach, Gorby), ex-Casino Staff (Justin), Bird, Michel at Mr. Hemingway’s favorite restaurant The Christiania, the Voodoo children and Russell too. Thank you all.

Preface

This is Sunday night July 2, 2017, the middle of a long July 4 weekend.

I have notified my young friends that today is the fifty-sixth year since the death of Ernest Miller Hemingway. He was sixty-one and was suffering from injuries and illnesses that caused him to take his own life. But things could’ve been different.

In fact, he could’ve continued living. Of course, he wouldn’t have been the same Hemingway. After all, his writing days seemed to be over—at least his novel writing.

So, what if destiny was altered and EMH did not die on July 2, 1961? Instead, he knew it was time for a major change. He needed to let the world know that the Hemingway people knew would be gone forever.

A new Hemingway would take his place.

The change would take place abroad, in Ireland. That’s right, the death of EMH was reported to the world. But, under a new identity, EMH left his life of fame and went to live with a cousin in an old castle in County Limerick, Ireland.

Why the story about EMH not dying and going off to Ireland to live? Well, mainly, I believe many of us were not ready for him to leave on this day fifty-six years ago. We want him back, at least for a while.

This story begins with the lead up to July 2, 1961, and the events after that take place in Ireland. It is not known how long he lives after July 2, 1961, but for the time being, he is alive and, though not totally well and healed, is doing better than expected, physically and mentally. It is time out for EMH in Ireland. Time to think. Time to reflect. Time to analyze. A chance to escape the pressures of fame and all of its trappings. As jazz musician and philosopher Thelonious Monk said, gives the man time for introspection. Away from New York and Hollywood. Away from the expectation of never-ending success. A chance to breathe.

I’ll let him do the rest of the explaining. After all, this is his story. His voice. His actions. His reflections on a life that he lived as the world-renowned author and his newfound awareness of some of his principles that may have been forgotten during the life of fame.

So, it is time to take a journey with EMH, now Matt Fitzgerald, in Ireland, 1961.

JMM July 2, 2017

P.S.: Upon reflection and review at the witching hour of midnight on July 4, 2017, it strikes me that this story is like the musical journey that Bono described years ago when explaining a new album.

The journey here is the trek to Ireland. The music is the theme of EMH’s life, the written word.

Bono was echoing the words of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and others who have said there are only two stories to tell. A person goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. We are also reminded of the hero in the great novel by Cervantes, Don Quixote. Quixote was also a sick man, physically and mentally, but he set out to travel and make his life one of adventure. He even thought he was living in a castle. By the way, the travel did help him regain his sanity. Comparisons abound, but so what. This is about Hemingway, not characters of culture, history, or literature.

The Truth is what Hemingway loved to talk about. He said that to write a book or story, you start with one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know, he said. Well, that’s what I want this story to be.

I want to bring him back. For whatever time we can steal from the Man above.

He was a father figure to many people around the world. Papa. And we miss him. Yes, we are aware of his problems, his failings, and his weaknesses. But just like a member of our own family, we look for the good in people. The story begins.

July 4, 2017

Chapter 1

Back When

So, everyone believes I died long ago and far away on July 2, 1961. Back when America was station wagons, Hula-Hoops, Popsicles, and fat cops. Kennedy was the new sheriff in town. Nixon was still the same dirty son-of-a-bitch loser that I had learned to hate when he had abused so many good people with his HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) bullshit. Many of those he and McCarthy had picked on were Jewish, and many were friends of mine.

It hadn’t been about protecting America from communists but more about punishing those among us who were anti-Nazi in the ’30s and ’40s.

I was very proud when my friend Gary Cooper had stood up to those bastards to proclaim the all-American virtues of members of the Hollywood Ten (the writers and directors who had stood up to the witch-hunters of Washington). All had been blacklisted and suffered greatly. Many lives had been ruined because of the McCarthy hearings and the work of old Richard Milhous Nixon.

Anyway, that was part of the backdrop in 1961.

For me, I was sick and I needed to—well, die or get out of town. I didn’t have the nerve to die, I have to admit. So, that’s what brings me here. Maybe I won’t write the Great American Novel ever again, but I’m still a reporter ’til the end. So, here I will report, just like when I was a cub reporter covering the traps of the Kansas City crime beat. What I’m trying to say is that from here on out, I’m just a simple reporter covering the details of my new life. And even if no one cares about this review of my new life, I still need to write things down to try to figure out who I am and what I’ve become.

So, this is my journal post July 2, 1961.

Chapter 2

Prepare to Die

I had many friends who were doctors, and they were all telling me the same thing: you’re a wreck, and life is going to get more and more difficult for you. By way of background, I should tell you that I freely admit I have been hard on this body God gave me. That’s right, I said God, and I meant it. Even though I’m falling apart physically, I do realize I have enjoyed a corporeal shell that many humans could only wish to have. Hell, I was a tough son of a bitch—and a decent boxer. I’m sure I took a few too many blows to the head when I boxed. But I know I delivered a lot to my opponents too.

Of course, then there were the wars and what they did to this old skin. Shrapnel and wounds. Even while working for the Red Cross in World War I, I managed to get wounded.

But I never let up. I gave this old body more injuries than ten average men’s bodies could endure. Plus, the malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis—the list is long and boring. Like I said, thank God. Damn it. He gave me the body I needed to do the stuff I’ve done.

Most people don’t know I once shot myself in the leg, trying to wrestle a shark into a boat. That looked bad, but at least I was shark hunting. Makes it easier to admit my poor shot!

Hell, I haven’t even mentioned my plane crashes in Africa. The first one wasn’t bad, but