Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— … Do you think this is the “War of the Two Foreigners”? …

— These chatterboxes always get a fit of talking just when a person is longing for peace and quiet. What a load of rubbish they speak in the world above: “She’s gone home now. She’ll have peace and quiet from now on, and she can put all memory of the world out of her head in the graveyard clay.” … Peace! Peace! Peace! …

— … If you elect me as a representative I promise you I’ll do all a man can do — I mean all a woman can do — for the cause of culture and to cultivate an enlightened public opinion here …

— Muraed! Muraed! Hey, Muraed … Did you hear what Nóra Sheáinín said? … “If you elect me” … I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …

5

— … “Tomá-ás Inside was there with an urge to ma-arry

As often ha-a-ppens when he’s ta-aken a drop …”

— … Isn’t it funny, Dotie … Tomás Inside is a nickname everybody calls him … He lives on his own in a little cabin at the top of our village. He never married. He’s an old man now. There’s nobody related to him alive — in Ireland at any rate — except Caitríona and Nell Pháidín … Damned if I know, my dear, not to give you a short answer, what relation he is to Nell or to Caitríona, although I’ve heard it often enough …

— First cousins once removed, Muraed. Caitríona’s father, little Páidín, and Tomás Inside were first cousins.

— … “I’ve a patch of la-and and a cot that’s co-osy …”

— Tomás Inside’s patch of land borders on Nell’s, and it means more to her than to Caitríona. Caitríona’s land is well away from it, and she already has a big holding anyhow …

— … “And two people I kno-ow who’ll pay-ay my rent …”

— Caitríona was forever pestering Tomás Inside, trying to coax him down to her own house, not just because she coveted his land but to prevent Nell getting it …

— Oh, indeed Muraed, didn’t I see how she had Pádraig driven crazy …

— Even if his own crops were rotting on the ridge she’d still be at him to go up and help Tomás Inside …

— Pádraig Chaitríona is a decent man …

— And the best of neighbours, to give him his due …

— He never had any designs on Tomás Inside’s land …

— Sometimes he only went up there against his will, just for the sake of a quiet life …

— … “Nell’s a great one for stone-wall bui-il-ding …”

— … I don’t think I ever saw anything so funny in all my life …

— You never saw anything so funny, indeed …

— But you didn’t see the half of it …

— I saw enough …

— If you’d lived in the same village with them …

— I was close enough to them. What I didn’t see I heard about. Wasn’t the whole country talking about them? …

— Devil a person in our two villages wasn’t in stitches with them from morning till night. You wouldn’t believe the half of it if I told you …

— I would indeed believe it. Nearly every Friday after collecting the pension didn’t Tomás Inside and myself go into Peadar the Pub’s for a few drinks and he’d tell me every single thing that had happened …

— Keep your voice down. You know that Caitríona was buried recently — in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot. She might hear you …

— Let her hear. Let all of them in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot hear me if they want to. What do I care about them! Themselves and their fine airs. You’d think we were filthy scum …

— All the same, I wouldn’t want Caitríona to hear me. I lived in the same village as her all my life, and indeed she was a good neighbour, except that she was seething with hatred for her sister, Nell. It was Tomás Inside who reaped the benefit of their spite …

— Didn’t he often tell me that, when we were having a drink …

— You’d see Caitríona setting out early in the morning to drive the cows to the top of the village. On her way back she’d take a roundabout route, just to pass Tomás Inside’s cabin:

“How are you feeling today, Tomás? … I see your pair of turf-creels are in bad shape. Now that I think of it, we have a couple of creels we have no use for any more, somewhere around the house, as Pádraig was basket-making the other day and he made a new pair …”

So Tomás would get the creels.

Caitríona would hardly be down past Meadow Hill when down comes Nell:

“How are you feeling today, Tomás? … I see the trousers you’re wearing are in poor shape. They badly need a few patches … But I don’t know if they’re not too far gone. They’re quite frayed. Faith then, there’s a pair of trousers up at the house that are as good as new from the little wearing they ever got. They were made for Jack, but the legs were too narrow and he never put them on again …”

So Tomás would get the trousers …

— Didn’t he tell me that himself? …

— Another day Caitríona would go up again:

“How are you feeling today, Tomás? … I see the walls of your field back here have been knocked to the ground … The donkeys of this village are an awful nuisance. They are indeed, because they’re not tied up in the barns where they should be. Glutton’s old donkey and Road-End’s lot are bad enough, but the worst of all are this one’s donkeys”—meaning Nell—“and she lets them wander at will … A poor old man like you, Tomás, isn’t able to go chasing after donkeys. Faith then, you have plenty of other cares from now on. I must tell Pádraig the walls are down …”

So the walls would be built up for Tomás Inside.

— Well indeed, didn’t he tell me that …

— Nell would come down to him:

“How are you feeling today, Tomás? … You’re not making much headway with this field, God bless you. Good God, you’ve only sown a corner of it. It will take you another two weeks to finish it. It’s difficult, of course, to make any progress on your own. It’s a bit late now for sowing potatoes. Isn’t it nearly May Day already! … It’s a wonder that crowd down there”—meaning Caitríona’s crowd—“wouldn’t do a day’s work for you, since they’ve finished their own sowing for the past two weeks … I must tell Peadar to come over tomorrow. The ideal place for the two of us now Tomás, for the rest of our lives, is in the two chimney-corners by the fire …”

So the rest of the potato field would be sown for Tomás Inside …

— Do you think he didn’t often tell me that? …

— All the same, nobody could really know it all but someone who was living in the same village with them … Caitríona was forever trying to get him to move into her own house, lock, stock and barrel. But not a hope of it! I’m telling you there were no flies on Tomás Inside, even if some people tried to make fun of him …

— Do you really think I don’t know that? …

— No one who wasn’t living in the same village with them could rightly know … Tomás was as attached to his little hovel of a house as a king to his throne. If he moved in with either of the sisters, the other would turn her back on him. And neither of them would have much time for him just as soon as he’d parted with his patch of land. So he didn’t. A cunning old cadger, Tomás Inside …

— Do you think I don’t know? …

— You do not indeed, nor does anyone else who didn’t live in the same village with them. But it was when he had drink taken — on a fairday or a Friday, or any other day — that there’d be great fun. He’d take a notion to marry.

— The devil spare you, do you think I didn’t often see him in Peadar the Pub’s, and him half drunk? …

— I saw him there one day and, if I did, it was a comic sight. It’s a little more than five years ago, the year before I died: