Máirtín Ó Cadhain - Graveyard Clay - Cré na Cille

— Oh, indeed, there are ghosts. God forbid that I’d lie about anybody, but I saw Curraoin chasing Glutton’s donkeys and Road-End’s cattle out of his oats, and him a year dead.

— The first cause of death for Billyboy the Post was when he saw the Big Master searching in the top of the press in his own kitchen, the day after he was buried …

— … Calm down, Master! Oh, calm down. Calm down! … I never shaved myself with your razor. I beg you as my friend and protector, Master, listen to me a minute! Two dogs …

— Road-End Man was seen …

— Faith then, as you say …

— Oh, he would be! Stealing my turf he was, for certain …

— Or lump-hammers …

— They say, God help us, there isn’t a night that a phantom aeroplane isn’t heard in the Middle Harbour since the Frenchman came down there …

— Arrah, that’s a real aeroplane going to America from Ulster or from Shannon …

— Do you think I wouldn’t recognize a real aeroplane! I heard it clearly, when I was gathering red seaweed there late at night …

— If the night was dark …

— Oh, don’t be talking drivel! I swear by my soul it wasn’t a real aeroplane! A real aeroplane is easily recognized …

— Mes amis …

— Permission to speak! Permission to speak, then!

— There are signs, all the same. The devil a bit of heed I ever gave to ghosts till I heard about Seán Mhaitiú who’s buried here, down in the Half-Guinea Plot. It was his own son told me. This was before I came down through the hatch myself. He was up on the loft of lies at the time too, but he didn’t tell a lie about his own father. His father’s last request, when he was in the throes of death, was to bury him here in this graveyard beside the rest of his people. “I’ll die peacefully,” he said, “if you promise me that much.” That West Headland crowd are lazy loafers. They put a bit of sod over him back there in the old cemetery near his house. But sometime during the following month the son was making cocks of dried seaweed on the shore. I heard this from his very own mouth. He saw the funeral coming out of the cemetery. He told me it was as clear — the coffin, the people and everything — as the armful of seaweed he was putting on the cock. They passed close to him. He recognized some of them, but he’d never divulge their names, he said. He was afraid at first, but when they’d passed over by the strand he plucked up a little courage. “No matter what God does to me,” he said, “I’ll follow them.” And so he did, over by the shore, step by step, till they came into this graveyard and buried the corpse in the Half-Guinea Plot down there. He recognized the coffin. He wouldn’t tell a lie about his own father …

— Where’s Seán Mhaitiú? If he’s here, nobody heard a squeak out of him …

— I don’t have it from the Pope’s own tooth, but that’s what his son told me, and devil the lie he told about it …

— The dead didn’t walk. Call the Half-Guinea crowd and they’ll tell you whether he’s there or not …

— Arrah, leave those loudmouths alone! …

— The devil a bit of me will leave them alone. Hey, you Half-Guinea lot! …

— … Bríd Mhaitiú is here …

— And Colm Mhaitiú …

— And Pádraig Mhaitiú …

— And Liam Mhaitiú …

— And Maitiú himself …

— … The West Headland cemetery is where Seán Mhaitiú is buried. He had married back there …

— He wouldn’t tell a lie about his own father! …

— Changing places like that is not as easy as changing political parties. If it were, Dotie would be back on the fair plains of East Galway long ago …

— And the Frenchman … But maybe his ghost is all that’s here of him …

— The story is no more strange than what Billyboy the Post told me: that Tomás Inside has been seen chasing cattle off his patch of land. Pádraig Chaitríona and Nell’s son made two halves of it between them, but neither of them is happy. Pádraig’s crowd and Nell’s crowd see him every other week. The week one family sees him, the other one doesn’t. Nell brought the priest to walk the land and they read a barrage of prayers and a few St. John’s Gospels, he says.

— She would, the little bitch. I hope to God she’ll never gain a mangy penny by it! My Pádraig has plenty of land without it …

— I heard, Caitríona, that you haven’t given Jack the Scológ a bit of peace since you died …

— God would punish us …

— Nell told Tomás Inside that you won him over …

— Wasn’t it Big Brian she used to be after?

— Oh! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! After Big Brian! …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , didn’t he say … “Hoh-roh, Mary, your wares and your bags and belts …”

— What did he say?

— What did he say, Son of Blackleg?

— What did he say, Beartla?

— The same Big Brian says mischievous things … “Hoh-roh, Mary …”

— What did he say, Beartla? …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , it wouldn’t do you any good, Caitríona …

— It would do me good, Beartla. Out with it …

— That’s the dote , Bartly. Tell us …

— Oh! Do you hear that little sow of Seáinín’s? Don’t open your mouth about it, Beartla …

— Be a dote , Bartholomew. Tell it …

— Don’t tell it, Beartla. Don’t let it past your lips! …

— Honest to Heavens , you are mean , Bartly, if you don’t tell it. Did he say that every time he opens his eyes her ghost is there in front of him? …

— If you tell it to Seáinín Robin’s little sow, Beartla! …

— Honest to God , Bartly, you’re awfully mean! All cultural relations with you should stop. Let me see now . Did he say that because he refused to marry her when she was alive, her ghost was now his fairy lover? …

— Ababúna! To be the fairy lover of that ugly looking blunderer! I’m warning you, Beartla! …

— On the level , Bartly. Did Caitríona’s ghost tell him to shave himself, or to wash himself, or to go to a foot or shoulder specialist? …

— Bloody tear and ’ounds , Nóra! … Bloody tear and ’ounds , Caitríona! …

— For the life of you don’t tell, Beartla! …

— Honest to God , Bartly! …

5

— … True for you, Jack the Scológ. God would punish anybody for saying I’d be a lover to that ugly streak of misery …

— … You fell off a stack of oats … Did you ever hear of the Battle of the Sheaves? … I’ll tell you. “Cormac Mac Art 5Mac Conn Mac Tréanmhór Ó Baoiscne was building a stack of oats one day in Tara of the Hosts. Tufty Mouth 6was throwing the sheaves to him. The Seven Battalions of Learning and the Seven Battalions of Common-Learning and the Battalion of Minor Freemen came …”

— … There’s great talk of transferring him. A lot of talk …

— But transferring him would be no satisfaction, unless he’s dismissed, and killed or drowned, or hanged, or given the cat’s death afterwards. This graveyard is bursting at the seams as a result of those mercenaries who are billeted on us, Billyboy. “Take two spoonfuls of this bottle,” said the murderer …

— Maybe, neighbour, he’ll be dismissed. I think he might be, too, after the trouncing he gave to a man from Donagh’s Village the other day for handing him a red ticket. But I don’t think he’ll be put to death …

— Arrah, what’s the use, so! That’s what should be done to him: to smother him under a pot. Look at me, he gave me poison! …

— By the docks, didn’t he tell me to drink whiskey? He did indeed, my friend. The blackguard! I wouldn’t mind but I never had an ache or a pain! …