Mr. McDonnell says,
“if you don’t have eviction papers.”
We all know he does,
else why would he be here?
He shakes his head.
“I don’t,” he quavers.
A girl rushes up to him.
She reaches into his pocket,
pulling out enough paper
to evict four,
maybe five families.
She rips and shreds.
Tosses them into the air.
They scatter like the snowflakes
that have fallen all week.
I catch glimpses of our names
on the torn pieces of paper.
Still the bailiff tries to push
through the crowd.
A stone whizzes past.
It lands inches away from him.
Someone hurls another.
This time it hits his foot.
He jumps back…
and retreats with his men,
back the way they’ve come.
The church bells still peal,
as we sit in the muddy boreen.
For the first time, we’ve won.
The crowd around me yells,
wild with excitement.
“It’s only for now,”
the blacksmith says.
“He’ll be here tomorrow,
and more English with him.”
He raises his huge arms.
“But we will be here too.”
Heat rises in my chest.
I see my book carried
on the waves of the lough,
then sinking
into the moving water,
forever gone to me.
But at last,
I’ve done something.
I’ve stood up against those
who’d take everything we love,
everything that’s ours,
away from us.
Oh, Liam.
You should be here.
An evicted family outside of their home with their belongings, in Derrybeg, County Donegal.
(This image is reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland L_IMP_1506.)
The Second Day
THIS morning
the crowd is even larger.
People from Cavan,
from Leitrim,
from Roscommon,
take their places with us.
Da reaches for our spades
that are propped against the wall.
“Take one, alannah,” he says.
I wipe off a clump of soil
and hoist it over my shoulder.
I follow him to the road,
listening to the swell of voices,
the clank of hoes and spades,
heavy footsteps,
the voices of a determined people.
I stand next to Mae Donnelly
as the bailiff comes.
This time he’s sure of himself.
I see it in his swagger.
He’s surrounded by police,
to protect him, to frighten us.
Someone shouts to us.
Is it Mr. McDonnell?
“Show your power
and make them feel it!”
The soldiers try to march
through us.
They point their bayonets.
But we stand firm.
A girl from Ballinamuck
reaches for stones
caught up in her skirt.
She throws one,
and then another.
Both hit the bailiff,
his arm,
his leg.
Now stones come
from all over.
“I am here,”
I shout.
“I’m here for a mam and five girls,
for Liam and his mam,
for me,”
even though he can’t hear
with all this noise.
The priest steps in front
of us, arms out.
“Go,” he tells the soldiers.
“We don’t want bloodshed here
today.”
The soldiers and the bailiff
disappear down the boreen,
glad for the safety of their barracks.
I hold the corner of my page
tightly between my fingers.
I’ll never let myself be afraid
again.
The Third Day
I couldn’t sleep,
but I’m not tired,
not yet.
Hundreds of people will stand
in the snow with us.
Da thinks this will be the
worst day.
We’ve heard that the English
have sent dragoons
from all over the country.
Dragoons
in their green uniforms!
Da is right.
The force that comes against us
is enormous:
redcoats, dragoons,
local police.
We raise our voices,
throats sore from shouting.
We press forward, slowly,
pushing them back,
showing our power.
And we win.
Win!
They turn,
the mighty English defeated
by a crowd of poor farmers
and a wee slip of a girl
who stood with them.
A girl with only one blue skirt
and wild red hair.
A girl without shoes.
But what she does have
is a shawl given to her
by a woman she’s come to love,
and the page of a book
she’ll keep forever.
After
The Fourth Day
EVERYONE is gone.
I watched them shoulder
their spades and hoes.
How quiet it is without them.
The priest speaks:
“This is not the end of it.
Prison is ahead
for the leaders.
Rent will still be paid.
Evictions will come.
But it’s the beginning.
“What we’ve done here,
in these three days,
will happen all over
this country of ours.”
Yes, the beginning!
I think.
Change is coming.
Some of our men are hauled
to court:
Rogers and McNamee,
McDonnell.
But they return home
soon.
We will still have to pay
rent,
but not quite as high.
The English are wary.
They’ve managed to unite
a country against them.
But how I will even pay that rent?
Da is stooped now, old.
How?
The Field
AS I plant,
a crow swoops down
on a rock.
Its rasping caw is loud
in the silence.
I stand,
rubbing my back.
It will be a small crop,
but the best I can do.
Someone is coming toward
our house,
pushing a cart.
Liam?
Could it be?
/>
But I know Liam’s walk.
I frown.
Still this is someone I know.
Could it be the earl’s man?
He pauses,
turns into our boreen.
I race home ahead of him.
Inside I lean
against the closed door,
breathless.
“Alannah?” Da asks.
I raise my finger
to my lips.
I hear the voice from outside.
“Anna?
Have I come to the
right place?”
I know who it is!
I see his field,
his sheep,
chickweed for our tea.
I throw open the door.
“Martin!”
He sinks down at the hearth,
resting on the warm stone,
and smiling at me.
“Nuala,” I breathe.
And Da says her name too.
Martin nods.
“Growing tall.
Taking care of the Aunt.”
Da and I look at each other.
The best news!
“I’ve been sent by Ethna,
with what’s in the cart,”
Martin tells us.
“She said you’d know
what to do with it.”
Outside,
I climb on the back of the cart.
Lengths of wood newly cut,
smelling sweetly of the tree
it once was.
I open a bag of dowels,
and toss aside a blanket
with cones of wool.
“I will build you a loom,”
Martin says.
“I’ve studied the Aunt’s.
I can do it.”
I touch a cone.
“Nuala,” he says.
“She prepares the wool,
and weaves beautiful things.”
Tears come to my eyes.
If only Mam could know.
“The Aunt told me
it will pay the rent,”
Martin says.
I can almost hear her voice.
Later, I make colcannon:
wrinkled cabbage,
potatoes,
and a little milk Mae
has shared with me,
a meal for the three of us.
My heart is full
for that old woman
who has saved me again.
Mae
MARTIN sands and hammers,
and stands back
to see
how his work is coming.
And I read aloud
from a schoolmaster’s book.
Finished one book,
I go for another.
Mae stands outside.
She sees the book
under my arm.
“How lucky to read,”
she says.
“It makes me happy,”
I tell her.
She looks tired today,
worn out.
“If I could read,”
she says,
“it would make me happy too.”
I nod and go toward the school,
remembering Mam,
and then her bread.
Why now?
The yeast, the oats,
the wooden bowl and spoon.
I glance back at Mae
working in the field.
“Not the bread,”
I say aloud.
It’s Mam’s words
I have on my mind.
The best part, she’d said,
teaching you.
Passing it on.
I think of the letters,
the sounds they make,
the words,
the stories.
I could teach Mae
to read!
The best part.
I could pass it on.
Sudden tears:
If only Liam were here.
If he could see me reading,
teaching Mae,
and soon,
weaving.
My Loom
WHEN Martin finishes the loom,
I run my hand over it.
“Like the Aunt’s.
Oh, Martin,
I’m grateful.”
He brushes the curls of wood
off his shirt and grins.
I pack what food I have
for him to take on the trip
to Athlone.
I stand, waving,
until he’s gone.
Then I take one of the cones
and begin my work
to pay the rent.
Hill Street, Drumlish, County Longford
Years
A new law has been passed.
We can buy back our houses.
It’s a possible amount,
something to work toward.
As always, I climb my hill
in the early evening.
The earl has gone back
to England.
His house is empty
at least for now.
I stop to pick a small primrose,
growing between the rocks
and tuck it in my hair.
I remember finding my book.
I’ve read the schoolmaster’s,
helped Mae with them,
but I’ve never forgotten
the first.
I look down at our house,
at the road that winds
from the south.
At someone coming.
I feel as if my heart will stop.
But it’s only for a moment.
I stumble down the hill,
stones rolling.
I scramble along the boreen.
Calling.
Crying.
Liam holds out his arms,
and I’m inside their warmth.
We rock back and forth.
“I’ve never forgotten,”
he says.
“Nor I,”
I tell him.
Liam.
Home at last.
Home to me.
Glossary
alannah: Darling child.
astore: My dear.
Athlone: A town on the River Shannon near the south shore of Lough Ree in County Westmeath.
bailiff: A court officer who carries out evictions.
beansidhe (banshee): In Irish mythology a female spirit who wails when someone is dying.
boreen: A narrow country lane.
brack: Bread with fruit, usually raisins.
Cavan: Called the Lake County because of its 365 lakes. It’s bordered by six counties, including Longford.
chickweed: A nutritious cool-weather plant with small white flowers that grows at the edge of grass or in fields. It can be eaten raw or cooked. Irish people often used it to flavor tea.
colcannon: A mixture of mashed potatoes and shredded cabbage served hot for dinner. It can be blended with milk and spiced up with a little ham, leeks, or onions.
Davitt, Michael (1846–1906): Founded the Irish National Land League. He wanted Irish land for the Irish people and urged landlords not to charge exorbitant rents.
dragoon: A member of the cavalry in the English army.
Leitrim: A county bordered by Roscommon, Cavan, and Longford counties. It once held five great forests.
lough: Lake.
Lough Ree: A larg
e lake in the River Shannon.
Longford: A county in the Midlands.
Mayo: A county in the west of Ireland where Michael Davitt was born.
Mountains of Mourne: In County Down, the highest mountains in Ireland.
The River Shannon running through Athlone, County Westmeath
(This image is reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Ireland L_ROY_11600)
Parnell, Charles (1846–1891): A member of the British House of Commons and president of the Irish National Land League.
Roscommon: A county bordering Longford, and known for its burial mounds and ancient monuments.
Shannon River: The longest river in Ireland, named for Sionna, a Celtic goddess. It rises in County Cavan, runs through several counties, including Longford, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
ramming rod: A large wooden log used to batter down houses when tenants were being evicted.
Author’s Note
I remember the first time we went to my beloved Ireland. Jim and I drove from Dublin, stopping at Mullingar for tea, then took the road passing Ballinalee, my heart beginning to race with excitement, looking up at Cairn Hill. Then, at last, Drumlish.
We stopped at a tiny grocery store and I asked about my grandmother, Jennie, wondering about the house where she was born. The grocer pointed. “It’s there,” he said. “Knock on the door. They’ll be glad to see you.”
And so we knocked, and I stood where my Irish family lived so long ago. The postmaster’s sister made sure I had Father Conefry’s book: A Short History of The Land War in Drumlish in 1881, a book that told me the house in Derawley, Drumlish, belonged to the Rogers family.
In front of that house, tears streaming, I thought about how my great-grandparents had stood there, lived there, took part in the Drumlish Land War.
Back at home, I read every page of Father Conefry’s book more than once. I wanted to write about Ireland, about the Drumlish Land War, about the Rogers house, and the people who were gone before I was born, but who belonged to me.
A Slip of a Girl is fiction, of course. Anna Mallon only loosely resembles my great-grandmother Anna Rogers Mollaghan (Monahan in America.) But the Drumlish Land War really happened, and the house still stands.
We went back many times, Jim and I, and always I put a page of my manuscript under the wishing tree festooned with bits of collars, of aprons, of faded fabric. And my wish? To write truly, to make the people who lived there, who fought for their homes, come alive to those who read my book.
Acknowledgments
I’m more than grateful to everyone at Holiday House, and especially Mary Cash, for her thoughtful editing, which makes such a difference in my writing, and for her friendship, which I treasure; and Terry Borzumato-Greenberg who has also been a dear friend as well as a publicist all these years.
A Slip of a Girl Page 8
