Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— Arrah, you’ve bored an auger-hole in the clay of my ear with your two score pints and two! If you inhaled as many barrels of ink into your lungs as the Writer did …

— Woe is me, alas and woe! My fine writer forever more laid low!

— God bless us and save us forever oh! …

— Sentimentality again! …

— I keened you, Dotie! Darling Dotie oh! Wasn’t it far away from your native clay you met your death, my woe! my woe! Alas, my great sorrow and my seven torments, they drove you west without much knowledge! You were cast away from your relations and home! You met your death by the raging foam! Your bones will be laid …

— In the barren clay of nettles and sandy seaweed …

— I keened you all, my family oh! … My darling oh! My darling oh! … Never, no more, will he write, my woe! …

— That’s no loss! A cursed heretic! …

— … I keened you, musha. I did indeed. Woe is me forever oh! A fine fertile patch at the top of the village! He’ll never set foot there for harvest or tillage.

— Did you say, Bid, there was no better land for fattening cattle?

— Faith then, you did, Bid Shorcha. I was listening to you. And then you began to sing “The Lament of the Ejected Irish Peasant” …

— … I keened you too! I keened you too! Woe is me, alas and woe! He’ll rise in the saddle no more, no more, on a white-faced colt, no! never oh! …

— Oh! Caitríona Pháidín laid her evil eye on it! …

— That’s a damned lie! It was Nell …

— … I cried my head dry over you, Big Master, oh! Woe is me forever oh! The Big Master dying in his prime, my woe! …

— Now, Bid Shorcha, you didn’t keen the Big Master at all, at all. I should know, for I was there helping Billyboy the Post to put the lid on the coffin …

— The blackguard! …

— The Schoolmistress was sobbing. You took her hand, Bid Shorcha, and began to clear your throat. “I don’t know,” says Billyboy the Post, “which of the two of you — you Bid Shorcha, or the Schoolmistress — has the least sense …”

— Oh! The thief!

—“Out you go, and down the stairs with all of you whose address is not in the Kingdom Beyond, till I put the lid on the coffin,” says Billyboy. They all went downstairs except you, Bid Shorcha. “But the poor Big Master must be keened,” you said to the Schoolmistress. “He well deserved it, the poor man,” said the Schoolmistress …

— Oh, the hussy! …

—“Keening or no keening,” says Billyboy, “unless you get downstairs out of my way, Bid Shorcha, he won’t make it in time for today’s delivery.” You came down to the bottom of the stairs then, Bid Shorcha, and you were snivelling. Billyboy was making the world of noise upstairs, driving in screws and tightening them. “He’ll never leave that coffin after Billyboy is finished with him,” said Big Brian. “If as many screws were put into Mannion the Counsellor’s tongue, Caitríona would have gone to another solicitor about Baba’s will …”

— Ababúna! The blundering streak of misery! …

— At that same moment, Billyboy came out at the top of the stairs. “In under him now, four of you,” says he.

— I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …

—“It’s not proper to let the Big Master out of the house without shedding a tear over him,” you said, Bid Shorcha, and you went back up the stairs again. Billyboy stopped you. “He’ll have to go to the graveyard,” said Billyboy. “It’s no use nursing him here any longer …”

— Oh, the arrogant little squirt! …

—“Faith then, it’s no use nursing him,” said Big Brian, “unless you’re going to put him in pickle! …”

— You keened me, Bid Shorcha, and I wasn’t grateful to you for it, nor half grateful, nor grateful at all. Oh, indeed you made enough commotion over me, but you were shooting at the hen when you should have been shooting at the fox. You didn’t say a word about the Irish Republic or about the treacherous One-Ear Breed who stabbed me because I fought for it …

— I said that the people were thankful …

— That’s a lie; you did not! …

— Bid Shorcha had nothing to do with politics, no more than myself …

— You spineless coward, under the bed you were when Éamon de Valera was risking his life …

— You were no good when you keened me, Bid Shorcha, because you didn’t say out loud in front of everybody that it was Siúán the Shop’s coffee that killed me …

— And that Peadar the Pub’s daughter robbed me …

— And me …

— You didn’t say a thing when you were keening me, about Road-End Man stealing my turf …

— Or my drift-weed …

— Or that the man down here died on account of his son marrying a black …

— I think that man was right a while ago when he said that Bid Shorcha had nothing to do with politics …

— … I’d have keened you better only for my voice was hoarse that day. I’d keened three others already that same week …

— Faith then, it wasn’t hoarseness at all, but drink … Speechless from drink you were. When you tried to begin “Let Erin Remember,” as you usually did, it was “Will Ye No’ Come Back Again?” came out …

— Indeed it was not, but “Some Day I’ll Go Back across the Sea to Ireland” …

— I’d have gone to keen you, Beartla Blackleg, but I wasn’t able to get up out of bed at the time …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Bid Shorcha, what does it matter to a person whether he’s keened or not! “Hoh-roh, Mary …”

— Why, Bid Shorcha, didn’t you come and keen Caitríona Pháidín, when you were sent for?

— Yes, why didn’t you come and keen Caitríona?

— But you went to Nell’s, although you had to get up out of your bed …

— I couldn’t bear to refuse Nell, and she sent her motor car to my door to collect me …

— Hitler will take the motor car off her …

— I would have keened you, Caitríona, without a word of a lie, but I didn’t want to be competing with the other three: Nell, Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter, and Big Brian’s daughter. They were whining …

— Nell! Nóra Sheáinín’s daughter! Big Brian’s daughter! The three who got the St. John’s Gospel from the priest in order to kill me! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …

4

— … Jack! Jack! Jack the Scológ! …

— … Gug-goog, Dotie! Gug-goog! We’ll have a cosy little chat now …

— … What would you say, Red-haired Tom, about a man whose son married a black? I think he’s a heretic himself, as well as the son …

— Indeed, that could be so, so it could …

— The sins of the children are avenged on the fathers …

— Some say they are. Some say they’re not …

— Wouldn’t you say, Red-haired Tom, that any man who drank two score pints and two is a heretic?

— Two score pints and two. Two score pints and two, then. Two score pints and two …

— Faith then, I did …

— Tomás Inside rubbed shoulders with heretics …

— Tomás Inside. Tomás Inside, then. It’s a wise man would say what Tomás Inside is …

— Faith then, I’m not so sure about the Big Master either, Red-haired Tom. I’ve been observing him for a while now. I’ll say nothing till I see …

— A person should keep his mouth shut in a place like this. Graves have huge big holes …

— I have my doubts about Caitríona Pháidín too. She swore to me she was a better Catholic than Nell, but if it turns out that she had the evil eye …

— Some say she had. Some say …

— You’re a liar, you dumb redhead …

— … By the docks, don’t you know well, Master dear, that he’ll die. Look at me who never had an ache or a pain, and isn’t it a wonder that I died all the same! I died the same as a man who had …