The following is clipped from a west of Ireland newspaper. It is the protest of an Irish priest against what, on the facts related, seems to be a mean, petty prying system practised upon the people of Kinvara for the purpose of extracting evidence for use against the rebels. Such irritating measures exercised for the production of incriminating information are bound to foment strife and discord, and are well described as stupid. Father J. W. O’Meehan writes;
As a priest I feel bound to warn our people against the danger of revealing anything whatsoever, either under blandishment or threat, to armed men concerning the most sacred subject of Confession. Unfortunately it has fallen to my lot to inform the people of the fact that in this catholic parish of Kinvara, questions of a most improper character were recently put to a parishioner – a decent but simple country boy – by one of two armed men concerning the boy’s Confession. Lest in present circumstances I should be regarded as a prejudiced person, I think it better to set down in writing, coolly and deliberately, the bold facts of this sad occurrence.
On Monday evening, May 29th, two armed “gentlemen” (?) approached this young man, and having put him several questions, which, as a Catholic priest, do not concern me now, one of these armed “gentlemen” then proceeded to ask him about the Confession which he made at the Convent Church on Easter Saturday evening. I shall allow yourselves, Catholics of Kinvara, to form your own judgment on the propriety of an Irish Catholic armed “gentleman” asking an Irish Catholic youth the four following questions;
First question: Who told you to go to Confessions on that particular evening?
Second question: Where did you meet Father ________ when he told you to go to Confession?
Third question: What reasons did the priest give you for asking you to make your Confession, or why did he ask you to go on that particular Saturday evening rather than any other evening?
Fourth question: How long was it since your last Confession?
I have ample evidence to show that these four questions have been asked on the evening of May 29th. The boy who was so questioned and two other persons who were present on the occasion and prepared to swear to the truth of the statement. May it be my privilege now to ask four questions?
First: Had this armed “gentleman” authority from his superiors to pry into this most intimate and sacred subject of a man’s Confession?
Second: Does the Defence of the Realm Act empower armed “gentlemen” in Ireland to invade the sealed realm of the Confession?
Third: Can this armed “gentleman” be too ignorant or too stupid not to realise that questions of this nature would outrage the most tender feelings of Irish Catholics?
Fourth: who really are the “gentlemen” who are now exasperating the people and helping in this most peaceful district to manufacture crime?
Catholics of Kinvara, even if there are vile tongues amongst you, which blab when they should not, let those of you at any rate who still remain faithful to birth and fatherland guard even with your lives, the sanctity of Confession against all the agents of stupidity in this land.
(Signed) J.W. O’Meehan
Daily Illinois 29th January 1933
DeValera has majority of 1 seat in new Dail
President Eamon De Valera will have a majority of one seat in the new Dail Eireann which meets two weeks from today. The counting of the final ballots in Tuesday’s general election, completed tonight with the last returns from Galway, assured the tall, gaunt Spanish-Irish president a total number of seats in the lower house of the legislature which will make unnecessary his reliance on labor members, usually steadfast but occasionally doubtful allies.
Sangamo Journal/Illinois State Journal 22nd April, 1853
Burren Hills Photo: EO’D
EMIGRATION FROM IRELAND
The last American mail brought the sum of £500 pounds to the little village of Ballyvaughan, which is situated in the County Clare on the opposite side of the bay of Galway. We have heard that this large sum has been sent home for the purposes of emigration, so that the neighborhood of Ballyvaughan is likely to contribute its full contingent to the host of emigrants which are daily rushing towards the English ports. A few mornings past, the terminus at Eyre square was crowded with the relatives of the emigrants, bidding them farewell on their departure for America. In the language of a person present, when describing the numbers – it was like a fair . The strength and hope of Ireland are so rapidly passing away that sufficient hands will not remain to till the soil .
Albury Banner and Wodonga Express 16th September, 1921 p.35 (abridged)
Photo: EO’D
Crown forces, finding the road to Ballyvaughan obstructed by walls built across the road, commandeered shopkeepers, artisans and labourers at Kinvara to remove the stones. At the Ballyvaughan side men were forced to remove similar obstacles at Muckinish and Bellharbour.
A teacher in St. Ita’s School, which was the female portion of Padraic Pearse’s foundation, wrote of him in the following terms in 1916;
In another country a school like Pearse’s would be endowed both by the State and by private philanthropy. In Ireland we can hardly be said to have a State, and the few people of large fortunes might endow a school for Anglicising the country, but never one with this patriotic programme. About the time Pearse took up his quarters in the Hermitage, his work was become well known everywhere. In England, General Baden-Powell, who had founded the Boy Scout Movement, was much impressed by what Pearse was accomplishing for Irish boys, and became eager to enroll in some way for his movement the help of this inspiring teacher of boys. Of course, no working scheme between Pearse and Baden-Powell was feasible, but it is worth mentioning as showing the attention St. Enda’s School was attracting.
The school lasted in all from September, 1908 until the first week of May, 1916, when its founder was placed before a firing squad of eight soldiers, four of whom aimed at his head and four at his heart; the heart that loved Ireland so much and the fine brain that had planned such great things were riddled with bullets.
He was a great man, though his greatness was rarely apparent at first acquaintance. He had a curious aloofness and reserve. He was rarely seen at social meetings; when he was, his tall, strongly-built figure with its stooping head and slightly squinting eager eyes was the figure of a man of destiny. In conversation he was gentle and shy, only in the presence of large masses of people did he really become himself. Then he became imperious and masterful, and his strength and passion were sometimes overwhelming. He was the finest orator I have ever heard.
Everything Pearse said was charged with meaning and took root in the heads and hearts of the people. He never worked up his audience into tears about the past woes of Ireland; he made them passionately eager to struggle for the future. Thus, he dominated that generation of men and women in Ireland, who have risked so much and accomplished so much. I can easily understand how, when the choice of President of the Republic had to be taken, all minds and eyes turned to him. He is still, in the minds of the people, their President, though the soldiers threw his shot-riddled body, coffinless, into a pit and covered it with corroding lime, so that we can never recover it, to pay it our homage.
From Project Gutenberg eText 13112: Speeches from the Dock, Part I, by Various Wikimedia Commons
The Empire 2nd June, 1852 p.4 (abridged)
The Sydney Morning Herald 10th December, 1862 p.4 (abridged)
Theobald Wolfe Tone (20 June 1763 – 19 November 1798), regarded as “the father of Irish Republicanism” was the son of a coachmaker in Dublin. He was educated in Trinity College, where he distinguished himself and was called to the Irish bar in Trinity term, 1789. With little relish originally for the law, he soon, to use his own expression, ceased to “wear a foolish wig and gown,” and applied himself devotedly to politics. In 1791 he founded the Society of the United Irishmen with Thomas Russell, Napper Tandy and others.
During the whole of 1798 England was alarmed with reports of an intended French invasion. It was known that emissaries from Ireland were in France, on behalf of the “United Irishmen,” soliciting armed assistance for an intended insurrection in the country. An insurrection occurred, but too prematurely to be aided by the French. The rebellion of 1798 was suppressed during the summer. On the 22nd of August, three French frigates and a brig came into Killala Bay, on the coast of the county of Mayo, and landed in a creek of the bay a military force. It has been variously stated at eleven, fourteen and eighteen hundred men. Unless a considerable part of it subsequently escaped to sea, it could not have exceeded 1,400. It was commanded by General Humbert. It had a few pieces of field artillery and a troop of mounted riflemen. He was accompanied by three Irishmen – Matthew Tone (a brother of Theobald Wolfe Tone), Bartholemew Teeling, and one Sullivan.
Having advanced upon the town of Killala, a small detachment of militia were defeated. The Bishop’s palace was occupied as French headquarters. From thence a proclamation was issued by General Humbert, headed “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! Union!” from which it appeared that other troops were expected, and that several unsuccessful attempts at invasion had been made. This proclamation also indicated the ultimate purpose of the invaders to be in London, although landing in Ireland. They advanced upon Ballina, a market town five miles inland; from thence they approached and took a position at Castlebar, after a march of fifteen hours. The space marched over was not more than twelve miles in a direct line but the absence of roads delayed their progress.
Lord Cornwallis, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, collected about 25,000 men and advanced westward of the Shannon in search of the French. The French had been led by Irishmen of the insurrection to the county of Letrim, with the purpose of reaching the north of Ireland. There they expected assistance from the Presbyterian Protestants, who had originated the “United Irishmen,” and hoped to receive reinforcements from France at Lough Swilley, or probably at Belfast itself. To cross the almost trackless morasses and mountains was deemed undesirable after an attempt. They therefore turned their faces to the south and would, probably, have made a bold dash upon Dublin, had they not been unexpectedly met in the county of Longford. Forty thousand Irish were to assemble at the Crooked Wood, in the county of Westmeath, to join them; but a strong body of the King’s troops intervened. At the village of Ballynamuck the French surrendered, they were conveyed to England. At Lichfield General Humbert wrote to the “citizen directors” of France, relating his surrender to an army of thirty thousand men, and stating that he was a prisoner of war upon parole. The French officers were allowed to return to France on condition of not again serving against Britain.
On the 24th of May, 1798 Earl Camden issued an order to all the general officers commanding his Majesty’s forces “to punish all persons aiding or in any way assisting in the said rebellion according to martial law, either by death or otherwise as should seem expedient.” It was under this authority that the sentence of death was passed upon Wolfe Tone, who was conspicous in the rebellion. At that time the Supreme Court of Ireland was sitting and a barrister appeared informing the court of his belief that Wolfe Tone was held in custody and under sentence of death. The Chief Justice immediately issued a writ of habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention). This was not obeyed by the officer in command, when the judge sitting in Court dispatched his officer to arrest the General and bring him up for contempt. The remark of a spectator who records this event is that “the agitation of the chief Justice was magnificent.” Wolfe Tone, apprehensive of public execution had, in the spirit of those times, inflicted a mortal wound upon himself.
The Catholic Press 26th October, 1916, p 19 (abridged)
St Stephen’s Green Photochrom Prints Collection, Library of Congress Creative Commons
Here is Moira Regan’s story. It is more than the narrative of an eye-witness – it is the narrative of a friend of and fellow worker with Plunkett and Pearse and MacDonagh – of one who shared with them the hopes, ambitions, perils and pains of their brief but great adventure.
At 6 o’clock on the evening of Easter Monday I went down O’Connell Street to the Post Office. But that was not my real entrance into the affairs of the uprising. You see, I belonged to an organisation called Cumann na Mban – the Council of Women. We had been mobilised at noon on Monday near the Broad Stone Station, being told that we’d be needed for bandaging and other Red Cross work.
But late in the afternoon we got word from the commandant that we might disperse, since there would not be any street fighting that day, and so our services would not be needed. The place where we were mobilised is three or four blocks from the Post Office, and we could hear the shooting clearly. There were various rumours about – we were told that the Castle had been taken, and Stephen’s Green and other points of vantage. And at last, as I said, we were told that there would be no street fighting and that we were to go away from the Broad Stone Station and do what good we could.
When I got to the Post Office that evening I found that the windows were barricaded with bags of sand, and at each of them were two men with rifles. The front office had been made the headquarters of the staff, and there I saw James Connolly, who was in charge of the Dublin division; Padraic Pearse, Willie Pease, O’Rahilly, Plunkett, Shane MacDiarmid, Tom Clarke, and others sitting at tables writing out orders and receiving messages. On my way to the Post Office I met a friend of mine who was carrying a message. He asked me had I been inside, and when I told him I had not, he got James Connolly to let me in.
I didn’t stay at the Post Office then, but made arrangements to return later. From the Post Office I went to Stephen’s Green. The Republican army held the square. The men were busy making barricades and commandeering motor cars. They got a good many cars from British officers coming in from the Fairy House races. The Republican army had taken possession of a great many of the public houses. This fact was made much of by the English, who broadcast the report that the rebels had taken possession of all the drinking places in Dublin and were lying about the streets dead drunk. As a matter of fact, the rebels did no drinking at all. They took possession of the public houses because in Dublin these usually are large buildings in commanding positions at the corners of the streets. Therefore the public houses were places of strategic importance, especially desirable as forts.
That night there was not much sleeping done at our house or at any other house in Dublin, I suppose. All night long we could hear the rifles cracking – scattered shots for the most part, and now and then a regular fusilade.
On Tuesday I went again to the Post Office to find out where certain people, including my brother, should go in order to join up with the Republican forces. I found things quiet at headquarters, little going on except the regular executive work. Tuesday afternoon my brother took up his position in the Post Office, and my sister and I went there too, and were set at work in the kitchen. There we found about ten English soldiers at work – that is, they wore the English uniform, but they were Irishmen. They did not seem at all sorry that they had been captured, and peeled potatoes and washed dishes uncomplainingly. The officers were imprisoned in another room.
The rebels had captured many important buildings. They had possession of several big houses on O’Connell street, near the Post Office. They had taken the Imperial Hotel, which belongs to Murphy, Dublin’s great capitalised, and had turned it into a hospital. We found the kitchen well supplied with food. We made big sandwiches of beef and cheese, and portioned out milk and beef tea. There were enough provisions to last for three weeks. About fifteen girls were at work in the kitchen. Some of them were members of the Cumann na mBan, and others were relatives or friends of the Republican army which James Connolly commanded. Some of the girls were not more than 16 years old.
We worked nearly all Tuesday night, getting perhaps, an hour’s sleep on mattresses on the floor. The men were shooting from the windows of the Post Office and the soldiers were shooting at us, but not one of our men were injured. We expected that the Inniskillings would move on Dublin from the north, but no attack was made that night.
On Wednesday I was sent out on an errand to the north side of the city. O’Rahilly was in charge of the prisoners, and he was very eager that the letters of the prisoners should be taken to their families. He gave me the letter of one of the English officers to take to his wife, who lived out beyond Drumcondra. It was a good long walk and I can tell you that I blessed that English officer and his wife before I delivered that letter! As I went on my way I noticed a great crowd of English soldiers marching down on the Post Office from the north. The first of them were only two blocks away from the Post Office, and the soldiers extended as far north as we went – that is – as far as Drumcondra. But nobody interfered with us – all those days the people walked freely around the streets of Dublin without being interfered with.
As we walked back we saw that the British troops were setting up machine guns near the Post Office. We heard the cracking of rifles and other sounds, which indicated that a real seige was beginning. At Henry Street, near the Post Office, we were warned not to cross over, because a gunboat on the river was shelling Kelly’s house – a big place at the corner of the quay. So we turned back, and stayed the night with friends on the north side of the town. Our home was on the south side.
There was heavy firing all night. The firing was especially severe at the Four Courts and down near Ring’s End and Fairview. The streets were crowded with British soldiers; a whole division landed from Kingstown. That was on Wednesday night. On Thursday we thought we’d have another try at the Post Office. By devious ways we succeeded, after a long time, in reaching it and getting in. We found the men in splendid form and everything seemed to be going well. But the rebels were already hopelessly outnumbered. The Sherwood Foresters had begun to arrive Tuesday night, and on Wednesday and Thursday other regiments came to reinforce them. Now, a division in the British army consists of 25,000 men, so you can see that the British were taking the rising seriously enough.
The British soldiers brought with them all their equipment as if they were prepared for a long war. They had field guns and field kitchens, and everything else. Most of them came in by Boland’s Mills, where de Valera was in command. They suffered several reverses, and many of them were shot down. The chief aim of the British was, first of all, to cut off the Post Office. So on Thursday messengers came to Pearse and Connolly, reporting that the machine guns and other equipment were being trained on the Post Office. But the men were quite ready for this, and were exceedingly cheerful. Indeed, the Post Office was the one place in Dublin that week where no one could help feeling cheerful. I didn’t stay there long on Thursday morning, as I was sent out to take some messages to the south side. I had my own trouble getting through the ranks of soldiers surrounding the Post Office and when I eventually delivered my messages I could not get back. The Post Office was now completely cut off.
Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday I heard many wild rumours, one insistent report being that the Post Office was burned down. As a matter of fact, the Post Office was set on fire on Friday morning by means of an incendiary bomb which landed on top of the door. All the other houses held by the rebels had been burned to the ground, and the people who had been in them had gone to the Post Office, where there were now at least 400 men.
The Post Office burned all day Friday and late in the afternoon it was decided that it must be abandoned. First, Father Flanagan, who had been there all the time, and the girls and a British Officer, a surgeon lieutenant, who had been doing Red Cross work – were sent to Jervis Street Hospital through an underground passage. Then all the able-bodied men and James Connolly (who had broken his shin) tried to force their way out of the Post Office, to get to the Four Courts, where the rebels were still holding out. They made three charges. In the first charge O’Rahilly was killed. In the second, many of the men were wounded. In the third the rebels succeeded in reaching a house in Moor-lane, back of the Post Office. There they stayed all night. They had only a little food and their ammunition was almost exhausted. So on Saturday they saw that further resistance was useless, and that they ought to surrender, in order to prevent further slaughter.
There were three girls with the men. They had chosen to attend Commandant Connolly when the other girls were sent away. One was now sent out with a white flag to parley with the British officers. At first she received nothing but insults, but eventually she was taken to Tom Clarke’s shop, where the Brigadier-General was stationed. Tom Clarke was a great rebel leader, one of the headquarters staff, so it was one of the ironies of fate that the general conducted his negotiations for the surrender of the rebels in his shop.
Well the Brigadier General told this girl to bring Padraic Pearse to him. Pearse came to him in Clarke’s shop and surrendered. Pearse made the remark that he did not suppose it would be necessary for all his men to come and surrender. He called Miss Farrell, the girl who had been sent to the general, and asked her would she take his message to his men. She said she would and so she took the note that he gave her to the rebel soldiers that were left alive, and they laid down their arms. Notice was sent around that a truce had been arranged. Miss Farrell was sent around in a motor car with Pearse’s note.
The Central News, London, has received from a lady who acted as a Red Cross nurse the following graphic story of the part played by women in the recent revolt in Dublin.
The Irish rebellion is remarkable for one fact not so far recognised in England, namely the very prominent part taken in it by Irish women and girls.
On Easter Sunday, which was the day appointed for the Irish Volunteer manoeuvres, and for which all the men were mobilised, the women in the movement were also mobilised, and ordered to bring rations for a certain period. It was only at the last moment, and for sufficiently dramatic reasons, that the mobilisation of both men and women was cancelled. These Irish women, who did their work with a cool and reckless courage unsurpassed by any man, were in the firing line from the first to the last day of the rebellion. They were women of all ranks, from titled ladies to shop assistants, and they worked on terms of easy equality, caring nothing, apparently, but for the success of the movement.
Many of the women were snipers and both in the Post Office and in the Imperial Hotel the present writer, who was a Red Cross nurse, saw women on guard with rifles, relieving worn-out Volunteers. Cumann na mBan girls did practically all the dispatch carrying, some of them were killed, but none of them returned unsuccessful. That was a point of honour with them – to succeed or be killed. On one occasion in O’Connell Street, I heard a volunteer captain call for volunteers to take a dispatch to Commandant James Connolly, under heavy machine gun fire. Every man and woman present sprang forward, and he chose a young Dublin woman, a well-known writer, whose relations hold big Crown appointments, and whom I had last seen dancing with an aide-de-camp at a famous Dublin ball.
IN A RAIN OF BULLETS This girl had taken an extraordinarily daring part in the insurrection. She shook hands now with her commander, and stepped coolly out amid a perfect cross-rain of bullets from Trinity College and from the Rotunda side of O’Connell Street. She reached the Post Office in safety, and I saw Count Plunkett’s son, who was the officer on guard, and who has since been shot, come to the front door of the Post Office and wish her good luck as he shook hands with her before she made her reckless dash to take Connolly’s dispatch back to her own headquarters.
This was only one instance, but typical of a hundred that I saw of the part played by women during the fighting work. They did Red Cross work – I saw them going out under the deadliest fire to bring in wounded volunteers – they cooked, catered, and brought in supplies; they took food to men under fire at barricades; they visited every Volunteer’s home to tell his people of his progress. I never imagined that such an organisation of determined fighting women could exist in the British Isles. These women could throw hand grenades, they understood the use of bombs; in fact they seemed to understand as much of the business of warfare as their men.
Sixty girls were released from Kilmainham Prison a few days ago, but others are still imprisoned and arrests are yet taking place.
I have said at the beginning of this letter that Ireland is not much changed. I must correct that assertion. Emigration is making fearful changes in the country. One does not notice its effects in the large towns, but in country villages they are quite appreciable. I have been to villages that I remember populous, thriving and comfortable – ten years have made in them a fearful change. I passed through several in the West and East, where no sound awoke the solemn stillness of the deserted street but the footfall of my horse. It was as if some fearful pest had swept through each house, taking off all the inhabitants and left nothing but ruined homesteads to tell the tale.
They have a good deal of discussion here respecting the proper site for the O’Connell monument and a good deal of bickering goes on in the Committee. I fear it will not be what it was expected – a magnificent monument worthy of the man, but a simple statue by Mr Foley. They, I mean the nationalist party here, wished it to be in reality a grand monument, so that if placed in Sackville street it would overtop the English admiral and lover of lady Hamilton. It has dwindled to a statue now, or a group, and I believe it will be placed in Sackville Street, though there are certainly many other sites in Dublin where it would be much better and not liable to the same objections. But I understand that there are a great deal of the Cawtholic and English element, and where that is the case there is nothing good to be expected.
There is another body here of nationalists – the Brotherhood of St. Patrick – that is becoming more powerful day by day. There was a good deal of discussion respecting their society some time ago, whether it were a secret and illegal society or not, and the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Bishop of Kerry denounced the Brotherhood which defended itself very ably in the columns of the United Irishman and Galway American and Irish Liberator, published its rules and clearly showed that there was no secret in it. I know now whether for good or evil but there is growing up a spirit among the people of independence in political matters. Independence, I mean, of spiritual direction in matters political. Several have said to me “We have had enough of clerical guidance, we must try something else.” Time will prove whether they will be able to gain what moral force has certainly never gained for them yet. The Fenian Brotherhood of America are very strong and likely to aid their countrymen. A well organised association is a terrible sledge and John O’Mahoney holds this one in a vigorous group. Heaven send he may not with others precipitate the country into a war before she is ready for it, at any rate. There was some division, that curse of this country, springing up between these nationalists and Mr. Martin’s party, but it was quashed by the good sense of Mr. Martin.
by Frank Mathew (1865 – 1924)
My friend the Reverend Peter Flannery is the sternest-looking and the gentlest of men. To look at him you would fancy he had spent a fierce life; but the truth is that he has lived in a wilderness and that in his broad parish of Moher there is not a mouse afraid of him. I first met him in an hotel at Lisdoonvarna. One night there was singing, and a big, truculent old priest sang in his turn;
When we went a-gipsying
A long time ago…
He was very serious and hoarse. With his grim face and white hair he looked the last man in the world to “go a-gipsying.” Afterwards I came to know Peter, and spent many evenings with him in the little house where he lives with an old housekeeper and a turbulent small boy known as Patrick Flannery. I found him a man knowing nothing of the world and troubling himself little about anything beyond the borders of Moher. Though he is so unpretending he has deep respect for his dignity as a parish priest. On one of those evenings in his naked little parlour he told me the story of the only adventure of his life.
A small island with a ruined house on it lies near the shore of the most desolate part of the parish; at high tide it is ringed with white jumping waves, but at ebb it is set in a black rim of rocks. A miser was strangled there for his money by his daughter, seventy years ago, so the house is known for miles around as the “House of the Murder”. Then it was a headland, but afterwards the encroaching sea cut it off from the coast. The Moher folk say the island is haunted by the ghost of an old man with a choked face and with purple foam on his lips, and is given up to the Evil Spirits.
One stormy winter’s night, nearly twelve years ago now, Peter Flannery was riding back from visiting a dying woman near Liscannor. It was raining, the wind was dead against him; he had seldom been out on such a night though his life-work took him on many a wild lonely ride. As he reached the Liscannor cross-roads his horse stopped, and a heart-broken voice came from under the trees,
“Remember the Dark Man! For God’s sake, remember the Dark Man!” He knew that it was Andy Lonergan, the “Dark Man” – that is, the blind man – who haunted that place day and night.
“Is that yourself, Andy?” said he.
“‘Tis so, your reverence, but ’tis the black night to be abroad, the Banshee is keening on the island.”
“The Banshee, is it? I know, I know, and many’s the time I’ve heard that same, Andy. There’s never a rough night without her.”
“Is it the wind you mean, father? I know the wind’s cry if anyone, but t’wasn’t only that on the island tonight; ’twas a woman’s voice, sometimes t’was like a child’s. There’ll be sore hearts in Moher the morn.”
“Ah well, Andy! Many’s the queer thing you’ve heard in your time,” said Peter, and he rode homewards, but Andy’s words kept in his head.
Now the blind man was half crazed, yet he dared not lie about the Banshee. Perhaps there was some poor soul out on the island? At last he turned his horse. As he rode back past the cross-roads he called out, “Are you there Andy?”, but no answer came. The horse seemed to have strong objections to going seaward, and Peter himself had misgivings. He is a Clare man, the son of a Ballyvaughan fisherman, and though of course he does not believe in the Banshee, he would rather not have gone where there was any chance of meeting her. Then he thought – suppose Andy was fooling him? He could fancy the blind man sitting hidden and grinning at him as he rode back past. It would be a fine joke in Moher. He flushed at such irreverence.
Then he reached the shore and, dismounting, fastened his horse to a wall, and walked down across the slipping shingle, crunching it underfoot. He was tripped by tangles of seaweed, and stumbled over a fishing coracle. He could scarcely see a yard in front of him.
“‘Tis a blind man’s holiday,” he thought. “Dark Andy could see as much as I can, and why couldn’t McCaura leave his coracle in a sensible place?” He went to the water’s edge, the foam splashed over him. He could see nothing but the white flashes of breakers and was deafened by the noise.
A few minutes of this was enough. He turned back with a smile at the absurdity of his going out there at that time of night. “There’s no fool like an old one,” he said. Then he stopped to listen again, and in a pause (when the wind seemed to be taking breath for a howl) heard a child’s cry from the island. How could a baby be on the island in a hurricane, when there was not a soul for miles around would go there for love or money at any time? His misgivings rushed back with uncanny legends of lost souls bound on the winds or imprisoned in the waves that always keep racing towards the land yet always break before reaching it. This might be some Devil’s trap. True, he could exorcise the Devil, but would rather not.
He waited during the new howl of the wind – it seemed endless – then in the next pause heard the child’s voice again. It was an unmistakably human squall. “‘Tis a child, sure enough,” he said. “And a strong one at that.” The question for him was not how did the baby get on the island, but how was he to get it off? McCaura’s cabin was a mile away across the bog, and on such a night no one would be out except Dark Andy, who would be worse than useless. The only thing was to go out to the island himself, so he groped his way to the coracle.
Now a coracle is a sort of punt, a shallow frame covered with tarpaulin, a ticklish craft, but it can live in the wildest sea, though as Peter said – “‘Tis always on the look out for a chance to drown you.” He shouldered it as one to the manner born. Many a day and night he had spent afloat in the time when he was a fisher-boy. He thought how often since then he had longed to put out to sea, only his mighty dignity as a parish priest forbade it. His old bones were stiff, but he was as strong as ever.
Well, to cut a long story short, he launched that coracle and reached the island, not without risky and hard work. Dragging the coracle ashore, he made his way to the ruined house. The roof had fallen in, the windows were gone, only the walls were left. He could see nothing, but the child’s cry guided him. In a corner he found a woman lying huddled on a heap of fallen plaster and laths. Her face was to the wall. Her left arm clutched a tiny baby. He knelt down by her and touched her forehead. She was dead. By her dress he knew she came from the Arran Islands. Perhaps she had been brought to the “House of the Murder” to keep the birth secret; or perhaps the fishers bringing her to the mainland had been caught by the gale and could place her in no better shelter in the time of her trouble. Now the Arran folk were familiar to him. Many were of his kindred; he must have known this woman from her babyhood, and as a slip of a girl running barefoot on the hills. He turned her face to him, but could only see it dimly. It was much changed too, and half hidden by wet hair. Then the thought came that he had no right to pry into her secret. He laid her head back reverently.
He took the baby and chafed it, wrapping his woollen comforter round it. He thought it was dying, his knowledge of babies was small, so he decided to baptize it at once. There was no lack of water, for the rain was still falling in torrents. He filled a cup that was lying with some untasted food by the mother and baptized that wining infant as reverently and solemnly as if he had been in a great cathedral.
It must have been a strange scene in the “House of the Murder” – the gaunt old man dripping from the rain and the sea, holding the baby tenderly and awkwardly, with the body of the mother lying beside them. He gave the baby the name Patrick, the first that came to him, “Pathricius, ego te baptizo,” and so forth in his queer Latin brogue, and the small new Christian howled dismally and the gales answering howled outside. Then he unbuttoned the breast of his greatcoat and fastened the baby inside, so that only its ridiculous red face could be seen, and started for home. Crossing more easily this time, he found his old horse huddled in dumb resignation under the lee of the wall, and rode home through the storm at a good pace with a light heart. Every now and then the child cried to show that the life was in it, and then he tried to quiet it tenderly with “Be hushed now, Patrick.”
There was great work that night in the little house when the old priest and his housekeeper welcomed their guest. And when the baby was cosily asleep, Peter got into his big armchair and mixed himself a steaming tumbler of punch, for no man values punch more, though of course in strict moderation. He felt he deserved it tonight. At this point of the story his voice shook with pathos, “would you believe it, at the instant I put the glass to my lips the clock struck twelve, and so I couldn’t taste a drop, not a single drop!” If he had tasted it after midnight, he could not have said Mass. This was a lame ending to his one adventurous night. The baby was kept in the priest’s house, and when the gale went down, the mother’s body was brought from the island and buried. I think Father Peter found afterwards who she was, though her name never passed his lips.
For nearly twelve years, Patrick has ruled the priest’s house, thriving under the rough tenderness of Peter Flannery. Meanwhile Peter has led always the same life, rising in the early morning to say Mass in the cold chapel before a scanty congregation of women; many of them pray aloud with shut eyes and entire disregard of their neighbours. Patrick now serves him as clerk, looking very serious in his little white surplice.
Then Peter rides on his sick calls, miles and miles away through the bogs and over the hills, for he goes at any hour of the day or night to anyone who chooses to summon him, or he walks down to the school, where he usually finds Patrick standing in the corner with his face to the wall, in disgrace – or he goes his rounds through the village of Moher. Many a time I have seen him striding down the village, “like an executioner.” The first time babies see him they yell as if he was the Devil. Now, in the evenings he has something to dream about, and when he sits alone by the fire in his naked parlour, smoking his old pipe, with his tumbler of punch smoking too, to keep him company, he dreams of the great future of Patrick Flannery. He sees that urchin grow up a model, go to Maynooth and win prizes there, rise rapidly in the Church, and even become a Bishop. It is true Pat will have to change greatly before then, for it is a queer Bishop he would make now; but time works wonders and Pat has a good heart.
Peter hears him preaching the great sermons himself has never preached to the great congregations he has never seen. And he thinks that “His Lordship Dr. Flannery,” has a pleasing sound, that Bishop Flannery will be loved by all, that blessings will go with him. It is he that will have an eye for true worth and never let a plain man spend his life in a wilderness while smoother-tongued men have all they want. But at this point the dream breaks, for he knows in his heart that he would be sorry to leave his wilderness. So when the clock strikes nine he slowly finishes his punch, knocks out the ashes from his pipe and goes up the steep stairs to his bedroom, quavering in his hoarse voice,
The Burren and Beyond 