Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

Here in the graveyard the spectre of Insensibility is violating coffins, grubbing up corpses and kneading the decayed flesh in his cold earth-oven. He cares nothing for cheek of sunlight, fairness of complexion or the pearly teeth that are the maiden’s pride. Nor for the stout limb, the nimble foot or the sturdy chest that are the pride of the youth. Nor the tongue that beguiled the multitudes with enchanting words and sweet cadences. Nor the brow that bore the laurel wreath of triumph. Nor the brain that was once the guiding star for every seafarer “on the wide seas of high learning” … For these are tasty morsels in the wedding cake he is baking for his family and his assistants: the fly, the maggot and the worm …

Above ground the tufts of bog-cotton are on every hummock of the marsh. The meadowsweet is a divine pharmacist in every meadow. The fledgling seagulls are fluttering gently in the wrack of the shore. The playful voice of the child in a pen can be heard in the proud growth of the ivy on the house gable, in the boastful branching of the thorn-bushes in the hedgerow and in the protective roof of the trees in the grove. And the milking-woman’s lively song at sunset from yonder seashore pasture is the cheerful music of rediscovered happiness in the Land of Gold …

But the foam-flakes on the brink of the gushing stream are being dragged into the river’s channels and turned into mud. The pale chaff of mountain-grass on the windswept moor is being carried into the hidden gullies at the will of the wind. The humming of the bee on its journey to the hive from the empty honey-store of the foxglove is a grumble of hopelessness. The swallow is preening its feathers on the copestone of the barn, and its song echoes the loneliness of the wind that screams through desolate expanses of desert. The mountain ash is cowering before the withering wind …

The feet of the sprinter turn sluggish, the whistling of the cowherd sounds hoarse, and the reaper lays down his sickle in the swathe that is still uncut …

The graveyard must have its dues from the living …

I am the Trump of the Graveyard. Let my voice be heard! It must be heard …

2

— … What’s this? Another corpse, I declare! My son’s wife for sure! ’Twas easily known … It’s a cheap coffin too. If you really are my son’s wife …

Bríd Terry! I don’t believe it. It’s a long time ago you should have been here. You had tremors and phlegm and heart trouble for as long as I can remember … You fell into the fire? … and you didn’t have the strength to get yourself out of it. You’ve had it bad enough, indeed …

Listen here to me! … You didn’t come here for news, Bríd? Well now, what do you know! … Oh! Looking for peace, are you? That’s what they all say when they arrive. You heard that the cross is to be put over me soon, Bríd? That it’s ordered. But when? Two weeks? A month? … You don’t know? To tell the truth, Bríd, you seldom knew much about anything …

I know. You already told me you fell into the fire … They didn’t leave anyone at home to mind you? Musha now, they’d have better things to do! An old hag like you. There’s no harm done, Bríd. You might as well have it over with … But you won’t fall here! Or if you do, you won’t have far to fall …

Listen here to me, Bríd … Now, Bríd, have a bit of decorum and don’t be making a Seáinín Liam of yourself, who has the graveyard demented since he arrived, about his rotten old heart … My son’s wife is sickly all the time, you say? … She had another little one! Is that true? … And it didn’t kill her! It’s a hell of a great wonder, then. But she’ll never survive this pregnancy … I’ll bet you anything you like, Bríd, she’ll be here on her next confinement … A girl-child … Ababúna, Bríd! … They called her Nóra … Named her after Nóra Filthy-Feet! She knew well I wasn’t alive! …

My son’s wife and Little Cáit had a scolding match? … Pulling each other’s hair out, you say! Had-dad, 1indeed! That’s it now, Bríd! Nobody would believe how that slut from Mangy Field treated me, since she was shoved into the house on top of me. The tea she used to give me! And the bedclothes, only for I used to wash them myself! She has to turn her snappishness on someone else, now that she doesn’t have me, Bríd. Faith then, Little Cáit is no pushover, I’m telling you …

There’ll be a court case, you say? Faith then, there’ll be contention and conflict and costs over that … Little Cáit said that? That Máirín’s college clothes were bought from Cheap Jack in Brightcity! My son’s wife didn’t give her half enough, so! How would Little Cáit know, only that her tongue was too long? And even if they were, what’s that to her? Hasn’t she little shame, to be passing remarks about the poor girl who’s going to college? It would be a long time before anyone belonging to her could become a schoolmistress. The law will settle her, you just wait and see! I hope Pádraig will have the sense to hire Mannion the Counsellor against her. That’s the fellow who’ll wring the cider out of her …

Peace is what you want, you say. Isn’t that what we all want? But you’ve come to the wrong place looking for peace, Bríd … That’s all the potatoes my Pádraig has sown this year, the Root Field? Why, there aren’t two decent patches of soil in the whole lot of it … Nell has the two Meadows under potatoes! … Well now, Bríd, those two fields are pretty big, but they’re a long way from the seven patches you say there are …

What’s that last thing you said, Bríd? … Never mind your falling in the fire, just wake up and stop slurring your words … What are you saying about Nell’s son? … Right as rain again! Ah! … Doing the odd job, is he? Ababúna! I thought, from what Seáinín Liam said, that he’d never do another day’s work! …

He was cured at St. Ina’s Well? Not likely! How well that pussface of a mother of his knew where to bring him for a cure. That pussface can see her own future! But indeed I wouldn’t believe it was at St. Ina’s Well he was cured. Nor would I believe there’s any cure at all in St. Ina’s Well. My son’s wife wore out her kneecaps on pilgrimages there. Sure, there isn’t a well from our own well at home to the Well at the End of the World 2she didn’t visit, for all she has to show for it. Always sickly. Her next child will give her enough to do, I’m telling you.

That’s only a bit of Nell’s trickery, bringing him to St. Ina’s Well and then saying he was cured there. That pussface and the priest are thick as thieves! … Arrah, God bless yourself and your St. Ina’s Well, Bríd! Not at all. It was your man, the priest. Who else? He gave her son the St. John’s Gospel. 3That’s how he was cured, Bríd. How else! The priest. Someone else will have to die in his place now, on account of him being cured by the St. John’s Gospel. Death will have its due. We’ve always heard it said …

God bless your innocence, Bríd! As if Nell herself would be the one to go! It’s no wonder you fell in the fire, Bríd, you’re such a simpleton. Devil a bit of danger of Nell going … Or Big Brian’s daughter either. Or any of her brood. Jack the Scológ is the one they’ll shift. You may be sure it was Jack she told the priest to kill in return for curing her son. God help us! Poor Jack has had a hard life with that pussface. That one didn’t give him the slightest bit of care. Mark my words, Bríd: the bad luck falls on Jack now, and you’ll see him here before long. It doesn’t bother Nell or Big Brian’s daughter. Won’t they get a heap of insurance money on him! …

Is that so? The law case is still going on, so … They’ll be going to Dublin in the autumn? Faith then, going to Dublin is expensive business, Bríd … Oh, they say it will go to a retrial even then! It’ll leave Nell stony broke in the end, and may it do so! But Bríd, if her son is cured he can’t go looking for money … Oh, he only works on the sly, is that it? … He keeps the crutches by him wherever he’s working! … He has doctors’ certificates that his hip won’t get better? He would! Not only that, he brings the crutches with him into the garden and out on the bog! More of Nell’s trickery. She was always treacherous.