Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— … But I don’t understand it, Muraed. Honest Engine , 21I don’t. She gave me a bad name with the Big Master, Caitríona Pháidín did. I wouldn’t mind but I never did anything to deserve it. You well know, Muraed, I never interfere in anybody’s business, being always busy with culture. And I have a fine flashy cross over me too. Smashing , as the Big Master says. To insult me, Muraed! …

— It’s time you were well used to Caitríona’s tongue, Nóra Sheáinín …

— But honest , Muraed …

— … “Like an eel in a net Caitríona was set

To grab by the hair Nóra Sheáinín.”

— But she’s forever getting at me, time after time. I don’t understand it. Honest …

— … “Ere the morning grew old Nóra Sheáinín came over,

Into Tríona she tore in the guise of a shark …”

— “My fine gentle daughter, if she married your Pádraig,

Her dowry put order and shape on your shack …”

— “Caitríona, you’re shameless, you’re mean and outrageous,

You tried to defame me and ruin my name …”

— … Her lies, Muraed! Honest to God! I wonder what she said to Dotie … Dotie! … Dotie! … What did Caitríona Pháidín say to you about me? …

— God bless us and save us forever and ever. I don’t know who ye are at all. Isn’t it a pity they didn’t take my earthly remains back east of Brightcity and lay me down with my own people in Temple Brennan, on the fair plains of East Galway …

— Dotie! I told you before, that sort of talk is “sentimental drivel.” What did Caitríona say? …

— She said the most vindictive thing I’ve ever heard, about her own sister Nell. “May no corpse come into the graveyard ahead of her!” she said. You wouldn’t hear talk like that on the fair plains of East Galway …

— Dotie! But what did she say about me? …

— About your daughter …

— … “She had no bodice or a wedding garment

But what I bought her from out my purse …”

— She said you were of the Filthy-Feet Breed and infested with fleas …

— Dotie! De grâce …

— That sailors used to be …

— Parlez-vous français, Madame, Mademoiselle …

— Au revoir! Au revoir! …

— Mais c’est splendide. Je ne savais pas qu’il y avait une …

— Au revoir. Honest , Muraed, if Dotie didn’t know me she’d have believed those lies … Dotie! “Sentimentality” again. You are my fellow-navigator on the boundless sea of culture, Dotie. You should be able to filter every misjudgement and every prejudice out of your mind, as Clicks put it in Two Men and a Powder-puff …

— … It was the Poet composed it, I’d say …

— Oh, was it that cheeky brat? …

— Indeed then, it was not. He wouldn’t be able to. It was Big Micil Ó Conaola composed it:

“Nursing an old Yank there was Baba Pháidín

And no finer damsel could be found in Maine …”

— Honest , Muraed, I have forgotten everything concerning Caitríona’s affairs on the plain above us. Culture, Muraed. It elevates the mind to the lofty peaks and opens the fairy palaces in which is stored the protoplasm of colour and sound, as Nibs says in Sunset Tresses . One loses all interest in the paltry trivia of doleful life. A glorious disorder has filled my mind for some time now, brought on by an avalanche of culture …

— … “And no finer damsel could be found in Maine.

She came home dressed in gaudy clothing

For she coaxed the hoard from the grey-haired dame …”

— … Baba Pháidín never married, as she was looking after the old hag ever since she went to America. What do you think but didn’t the old hag leave her all her money — or almost all — when she was dying … Baba Pháidín could fill every grave in this graveyard with golden guineas, Dotie, or that’s the reputation she has …

— … Cóilí himself made up that rigmarole. Who else:

“‘Oh, Baba my dear,’ said Caitríona’s cat,

‘Don’t heed her my dear,’ said the cat of Nell.

‘If I got the gold,’ said Caitríona’s cat,

‘It’s mine now my dear,’ said the cat of Nell.”

— Caitríona would sooner do Nell out of Baba’s will than get a thousand leases on her own life …

— … “‘I’ve a lovely pocket,’ said Caitríona’s kitten,

‘I’ve a lovely pocket,’ said the kitten of Nell.”

“‘For an old hag’s money,’ said Caitríona’s kitten,

‘You’ve no promise from Baba,’ said the kitten of

Nell …”

— She had all the schoolmasters for years back worn out with writing to America for her …

— And Mannion the Counsellor …

— The Big Master told me he wrote very cultural letters for her. He picked up a lot of Americanisms from the cinema …

— The time he used to bring the Schoolmistress into Brightcity in the motor car …

— What’s galling Caitríona now is that she died before Nell. When I was alive I often heard her going along the boreen muttering to herself, “I’ll bury Nell before me in the graveyard clay” …

— … Tell the truth, Cóilí. Was it yourself made up that rigmarole?

— It was Big Micil Ó Conaola composed it. It was he composed “The Song of Caitríona” and “The Song …”

— … But Nell is still alive. She’ll get Baba’s inheritance now. There’s no other brother or sister but herself …

— Don’t be so sure of that, Muraed. Baba was very fond of Caitríona.

— Do you know what my better half used to say about the Páidín clan: “Weathercocks,” he’d say. “If one of them went to the fair to buy a cow he’d come home in half an hour with a donkey. And the first person to pass some remark about the donkey, he’d say to him: ‘I wish I’d bought a cow instead of that old lazybones of a donkey! She’d be of more use …’”

— … “Would you yourself come home with me?

There’s room beneath my shawl;

And by my book, Jack the Scológ,

We’ll have songs forevermore …”

— … Why would it be a peculiar nickname for a person, Dotie … Yes. “Jack the Scológ.” He’s up there above the townland where Caitríona and myself lived … I saw the Scológ himself, Jack’s father … The Scológ. He was one of the Ó Fíne clan by right … It’s no laughing matter, Dotie … Dotie! “Scológ” is as good as “Dotie” any day of the year. Let me tell you that even if you are from the fair plains of East Galway we weren’t hatched out under a hen either …

— De grâce Marguerita …

— … “‘I’ll marry Jack,’ said Caitríona’s dog,

‘I’ll marry Jack,’ said the dog of Nell …”

— Caitríona refused many a man. Big Brian was one of them. He had a tract of land, and a wealth of stock on it. Her father asked her to move in there, but she wouldn’t have given the potato-water for him.

— … Begin that song again and sing it properly …

— “Up got Son of Scológ …”

— … You wouldn’t think God had put a soul into Jack the Scológ until he began to sing. But if you heard his voice just once it’d haunt you for the rest of your life. I don’t know how to put it now …

— A dream of music.

— That’s it, Nóra. Like a strange dream, exactly. You’re in distress on a clifftop. The abyss yawns beneath you. You’re trembling with fear … Then you hear Jack the Scológ’s voice coming up to you out of the depths. The singing overcomes your fear. You’re letting yourself go … Feeling yourself sliding down … down … to draw closer to that voice …

— Oh my , Muraed! How thrilling! Honest …