Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— Nell didn’t have a brass farthing till Big Brian’s Mag’s dowry came into her house.

— For all your criticism of her place, what stood to her in the end was its nearness to the river and the lake and the grouse. There’s no telling the amount of money fowlers and anglers from England left with that one. I saw the Earl myself pressing a pound note into her hand one day — a brand new pound note …

— … “Fens” is what you call marshes, on the fair plains of East Galway, Dotie. I also heard that your name for the cat is “rat-hunter,” and “fireside son” for the tongs … Oh indeed then, Dotie, that’s not the real Old Irish …

— God help us forever and ever …

— … “‘We’ll send pigs to the fair,’ said Caitríona’s cat,

‘It’s the bullocks are dearest,’ said the cat of Nell.”

— … I’m not exaggerating when I say Caitríona used to put an extra aspiration into her prayers to bring want and waste down on Nell. She used to be delighted if a calf of hers died or her potatoes failed …

— I wouldn’t tell a lie about anyone, Muraed. May God forbid that I should! But the time the lorry injured Peadar Nell’s leg Caitríona said to my face, “Why didn’t he stay clear of it? The road was long and wide enough for him. That’s the stuff for her, the pussface! …”

—“Nell has won that trick,” she said, the day Seán Thomáis Uí Loideáin, her husband, was buried.

—’Twas in the east cemetery he was buried. I remember it well and I have good reason to. I twisted my ankle when I slipped on a flagstone …

— When you made a glutton of yourself, as you often did …

— … To have more potatoes than Nell; to have more pigs, hens, turf, hay; to have a cleaner, neater, house; to have better clothes on her children: It was part of her revenge. It was all revenge …

— … “She came ho-ome dressed in gaudy clo-oth-ing

For she coaxed the ho-ard from the grey-haired dame.”

— Baba Pháidín got a bout of sickness in America that brought her to death’s door. It was Big Brian’s Mag who looked after her. She brought Mag home with her …

— … “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Baba took shelter …”

— She seldom went near Nell. She was too far up and the path was too rugged for her, after her illness. She felt more at home with Caitríona somehow …

— … “Nell’s little house is an ugly hovel

And she has no conscience in whispering lies.

She had the fever there but won’t admit it,

And if the plague will hit you it will end your life …”

— … There was only the one son, Pádraig, in Caitríona’s house.

— Two daughters of hers died …

— Three of them died. There was another one in America: Cáit …

— It’s well I remember her, Muraed. I twisted my ankle the day she left …

— Baba promised Pádraig Chaitríona that he wouldn’t see a day’s hardship for the rest of his life if he married Big Brian’s Mag. Caitríona had an undying hatred of Big Brian, as she had of his dog and his daughter as well. But Mag was to get a big dowry, and Caitríona thought Baba would be more inclined to leave all her money in Caitríona’s own house on account of Mag. To get the better of Nell …

— … “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Ba-a-ba took sh-e-elter

Till Pádraig re-e-jected Big Brian’s Mag.

’Tis Nó-ra Sheáinín has the neat-handed daugh-ter,

I lo-oved her always without go-old or land …”

— High for Mangy Field! …

— Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter was a fine-looking woman, by God …

— … That’s what turned Caitríona against your daughter from the beginning, Nóra Sheáinín. This talk about the dowry is only an excuse. Since the day your daughter stepped into her house married to her son, she went at her like a young dog with its paw on its food when another one challenges it. Didn’t you often have to come over from Mangy Field, Nóra …

— … “Ere the morning grew o-old Nóra Sheáinín came o-over …”

— Oh my! We’re getting to an exciting part of the story now, Muraed, aren’t we! The hero is married to his sweetheart. But the other woman is still there in the background. She’s defeated in battle now, but there are more upsets to come … anonymous letters, insinuations about the hero’s affairs, murder maybe, divorce for certain … Oh my! …

— … “I wouldn’t marry Big Brian,” said Caitríona’s kitten …”

Put in another line yourself now …

— “‘To scald him you tried,’ said the kitten of Nell …

— ‘His daughter I’d marry,’ said Caitríona’s kitten …

— ‘I won’t give you the chance,’ said the kitten of Nell.”

—’Tis well I remember, Muraed, the day Peadar Nell married Big Brian’s Mag. I twisted my ankle …

— … “’Twas in Caitríona’s house that Ba-a-ba took she-e-elter

Till Pádraig re-e-jected Big Brian’s Mag …”

— It hurt Caitríona even more that Baba moved up to Nell’s house than that Nell’s son got the money and the dowry promised to her own son Pádraig …

—’Tis well I remember, Muraed, the day Baba Pháidín went back to America. Cutting hay in the Red Meadow I was when I saw them coming down towards me from Nell’s house. I ran over to say goodbye to her. I’ll be damned but as I jumped a double ditch didn’t I twist …

— Would you say, Muraed, it’s twenty years since Baba Pháidín went back to America? …

— Sixteen years she’s gone. But Caitríona never took her eye off the will. That’s what has kept her from being in her grave long ago. The satisfaction she got from snarling at her son’s wife gave her a new lease of life …

— Yes, Muraed, and her obsession with going to funerals.

— And Tomás Inside’s land….

— … Listen now, Curraoin:

“Much altar-money was small consolation …”

— Don’t pay any heed to that brat, Curraoin. He’s not able to compose poetry …

— The story is pretty flat now, Muraed. Honest . I thought there’d be much more excitement …

— … Listen, Curraoin. Listen to the second line:

“And a good pound grave, will’s proud donation …”

— … Honest , Muraed. I thought there’d be murder, and at least one divorce. But Dotie can analyse all my misjudgements …

— … I have it, by Heavens, Curraoin. Listen now:

“A cross on my grave will make Nell’s poor heart pine,

And in graveyard’s cold clay grief’s triumph is mine …”

8

Hello Muraed … Can you hear me, Muraed? … Hasn’t Nóra Sheáinín a nerve, talking to a schoolmaster … But of course she is, Muraed. Everyone knows she’s my in-law. I wouldn’t mind but in a place like this where there’s no privacy and nobody has any discretion. Good God above! A bitch! She’s a bitch! She always was a bitch. When she was in service in Brightcity before she got married, they say — we renounce her! — that she was keeping company with a sailor …

Of course I did, Muraed … I told him. “Pádraig dear,” says I, like this. “That one from Mangy Field you’re so eager to marry, did you hear that her mother used to keep company with a sailor in Brightcity?”

“What harm?” says he.

“But Pádraig,” says I, “Sailors …”

“Huh! Sailors,” says he. “Can’t a sailor be as decent as any man? I know who this girl’s mother was going out with in Brightcity, but America’s farther off and I don’t know who Big Brian’s Mag was going out with over there. A black , maybe …”

Of course, Muraed, the only reason I asked my son to bring a daughter of Big Brian’s into my house was that I didn’t want to give Nell the satisfaction of getting the money. By God, Muraed, I had good reason for not liking Big Brian’s daughter. The night Nell got married, that’s what the pussface threw in my face. “Since I have Jack,” she says, the pussface, “we’ll leave Big Brian for you, Caitríona.”