Anne Doughty: Last Summer in Ireland

ANNE DOUGHTYis the author of A Few Late Roses , which was nominated for the longlist of the Irish Times Literature Prizes. Born in Armagh, she was educated at Armagh Girls’ High School and Queen’s University, Belfast. She has since lived in Belfast with her husband.

Also by Anne Doughty

The Girl from Galloway

The Belfast Girl on Galway Bay

The Teacher at Donegal Bay

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published as Summer of the Hawthorn in 1999. This edition is published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Anne Doughty 2019

Anne Doughty asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008328825

Praise for Anne Doughty

‘This book was immensely readable, I just couldn’t put it down’

‘An adventure story which lifts the spirit’

‘I have read all of Anne’s books – I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them’

‘Anne is a true wordsmith and manages to both excite the reader whilst transporting them to another time and another world entirely’

‘A true Irish classic’

‘Anne’s writing makes you care about each character, even the minor ones’

For all those who have cherished

hope for peace in Ireland

‘Do what you can, do it in love and be sure that it

will be more than you ever imagined.’

Deara, fifth century healer from Emain

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Also by Anne Doughty

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Publisher’s Note

Acknowledgement

Dear Reader

Excerpt

About the Publisher

1

ARMAGH, 1986

This morning, after the most ghastly ten minutes in Mother’s bedroom, I went to Emain. I just took off, as Sandy would say. And the moment I crossed the main road and set foot in the lane that weaves its way between the scatter of farms and strikes west to run along the foot of the great mound, I felt better, so much better I could hardly imagine the waves of nausea that almost overcame me the minute I’d pushed open her door.

I walked quickly, my eyes eagerly seeking out the familiar features, once the focus of my childhood imaginings: the oak where Robin Hood crouched ready to pounce on the Sheriff of Nottingham, the hazel bush whose fruit bestowed wisdom on those who partook of it, the twisted hawthorn beneath whose branches the little people danced on moonlit nights. Smiling to myself as the memories flooded back to me, I turned aside into McCreesh’s field and tramped through the rough grass by the hedgebank.

‘Oh wonderful,’ I said aloud, as I found the primroses, the patch I’d known for thirty of my thirty-five years. Last autumn the hedges had been brutally cut back by a machine that left the branches bruised and torn. I feared the primroses might have gone. But here they were in full flower, the pale leaves offering the faintest perfume to the morning sun as I bent to touch their soft petals.

The flutter and scuffle of birds followed me all the way down the lane. A blackbird was singing its heart out on the pointed gatepost of Toner’s farm. I glimpsed a wren, minute and secretive, hopping through the ground ivy at the foot of the hedgerow.

Had I not caught sight of a man perched on the low roof of a cottage painting the inside of the chimney stack, I would have danced for joy. I had been let out. I had escaped. From what I had escaped, or from where, I could not say, but the feeling of freedom buoyed me up like a following wind, my feet barely touched the ground as I sailed along the lane heading for the familiar green gate.

‘It’s because these are my hedgerows,’ I confided to a thrush, so absorbed in smashing a snailshell that he didn’t hear me coming. Other places were all very well. I could enjoy Hampstead Heath or St James’s Park, and Matthew’s home village in Norfolk was wonderful with those great skies arcing over the marshes and the heathlands. But this was my own place, this was part of me, and I had been lonely for it for so long.

As I closed the small, green gate carefully behind me, I wondered how I could possibly be lonely for a place I had had to visit regularly in the last eight years, even more often this last year, the year of my mother’s dying. But no answer came to me as I began the climb along the outer ramparts, across the ditch and up to the top of the great mound.

Every time I begin the climb, I feel just as excited as I did the very first time my father took me there. I’m so convinced that this time will be even more exciting than before that I forget how very steep the mound is. In my enthusiasm I move far too fast. By the time I reach the top, I’m always out of breath.

This morning, I pushed it so hard I had to flop down on the grass to recover myself. For ages, I just sat there, not quite believing it. Suddenly, summer had come and here was I, at Emain. The sun was warm on my skin, its brilliant light spilled over all the little fields and the patches of woodland spread out below me, bringing them alive, picking out every soft, new leaf, every fresh-painted farm and cottage.

The top of the mound is completely healed again after the excavations. For years, I longed for them to be over. I could not bear the nakedness of those scraped surfaces, the rubble walls dated and labelled, the post-holes numbered and colour-coded. Now I had my Emain back, soft and green, keeping its own secrets and sharing mine.

When finally I did get my breath back, I stood up and scanned the horizon. Whatever the weather, however clear or misty the day, I’m always aware how for millennia, men and women have stood on this high point. Here they have stood in pride and hope, in fear and expectation, century after century, their eyes turned north to the glitter of Lough Neagh, or west to the hills of Tyrone and Donegal, or south and east towards the lowlands of the Bann and the Lagan, where the old road goes through the mountains to Tara.

On my very first visit, my father had told me how the warrior princess Macha had traced in the dust with the pin of her brooch the outline of the citadel. For Emain was the heart of the country of the Ullaid, the old Kingdom of Ulster, the setting for the great stories about Cuchullain and the Knights of the Red Branch.