Ireland

by Frank Delaney

  For two days he wandered around Clonmacnoise. He slept in the monastery, not so much under the stars as within the walls. In one of the chapels, where workmen had been renovating, canvas draped their materials. Under the tarpaulin lay some dry sacks, and he lifted planks from a pile, made a rough bed with the sacks, and slept like a child. During the night, he woke to a snuffling noise; when he shifted, something ran away, perhaps the size of a dog; a fox, he presumed, and went back to sleep.

  Next morning, he found food in a local shop and went back to the abbey. From the riverbank, he examined the ruins as a raiding Viking would have seen them, and in his mind he reconstructed the plundering of Clonmacnoise and other monasteries. He then set himself to read the tomb-stones, feeling disappointment at how recent the dates seemed. Again, the sun shone, and few days in his life had felt so texturally complete. His bed felt less comfortable that night—but he had the reward of lying there, quite warm, looking up at the unfettered stars.

  Next morning, he followed the river Shannon for most of a day, until he had to decide to go west or south.

  “What county is this?” he asked a postman with a bicycle.

  “Offaly. In Ireland. And you’re in the year nineteen-sixty-one. And at twelve o’clock last night it got to be Thursday.”

  “Offaly?”

  “Did I say anywhere else?”

  Gara, in the tale of Patrick, had lived in Offaly.

  “How far away is the Devil’s Bit?”

  “Go to Banagher, and they’ll tell you.”

  Ronan was about to ask, “Why won’t you tell me?” but the man looked exceedingly sour as he stood there, leaning on his bicycle, smoking a cigarette.

  “Which direction is Banagher?” He expected to hear a road direction, but the postman pointed south across the fields.

  “Banagher’s there,” he said.

  At which Ronan, partly in defiance and partly in adventure, climbed into the fields and struck out south.

  Half an hour later he came over a steep hill and down into a lone farmyard. Dogs barked, a woman came out, and a man, big and heavy, came running from a barn. They shaded their eyes to look—and both half ran toward Ronan. A few yards from him, they stopped.

  “It’s not him,” the woman said.

  “You’re not him,” said the man. And, after a pause, “So who are you?”

  Ronan told them.

  “He never mentioned a Ronan,” said the woman. “Nor an O’Mara, that I heard.”

  “Did you see him?” The man looked desperate. “Did you?” He caught Ronan’s forearm. “Don’t say you’re bringing us bad news, oh, Jesus, don’t say it.”

  Ronan stood blinking, confused.

  “Bring him in, come in,” said the woman, “before anyone sees us. Are you on your own—is there people following you?”

  Their urgency struck Ronan as dangerous, yet sad. They propelled him into their kitchen and then to a parlor with dried flowers in green vases and red flocked wallpaper. The table had been set for three.

  “I’ve kept it that way since he went,” said the woman. “For when he walks in.”

  The man said, “And you didn’t see him?”

  Ronan said, “I don’t think I’m anywhere near understanding—I mean, I’m a history student, I’m walking the country looking for an old man who tells stories, I think he may be the last traveling storyteller.”

  “No, this is no good to us,” she said. “No good to us at all.”

  The big man looked shifty—but held out his handshake.

  “I’m Peter, this is Annette.” Ronan felt he had broken through their haze. “Annette, explain to him.”

  “We got word last night,” said Annette, “that he’d be here this morning. Our son—Peter Junior—you know there’s the IRA thing—”

  “An armed struggle, Annette—an armed struggle!”

  “Whatever—up on the border, and Peter Junior—”

  The big man burst in. “Peter O’Connell, like his father before him, is the commandant of the East Louth Division of the Irish Republican Army, dedicated to remove by force of arms the obnoxious remnants of the British Empire from the island of Ireland!”

  Annette interjected. “And he’s gone from here these months, and all we have to show for it is worry.”

  “Months? How many months?” Ronan looked at the woman sympathetically.

  “What’s your own place in the struggle?” demanded Peter O’Connell.

  “He hasn’t one,” said Annette. “He’s more sense than that.”

  “He should have. We all should.”

  “My father was against violence.” Ronan thought his own voice sounded weak.

  “Pacifism is a cover-up,” said Peter O’Connell.

  Annette flinched. “Peter, this gives this young man trouble—”

  The heavy farmer with the sad eyes looked hard at Ronan.

  “What she’s saying is—If my son comes in now, and you see him here, because you know he’s on the run, you’ve to tell the authorities.”

  “Peter, this isn’t fair to this boy—”

  “No right-minded Irishman would inform on another Irishman, would he?” said the farmer, looking into Ronan’s eyes.

  “But wouldn’t it be best avoided? If I went now—he’s still not here—I’m just a history student…”

  The big man relented. “He mightn’t show up at all. We often get word that he’s going to be here, and he never comes, his mother is destructed from it.”

  “All the same, I think I’ll go.”

  “Ah, fair enough, message understood, no hard feelings.”

  Ronan turned to Annette. “Look, if I come across him—I mean if I meet him and know who he is, I’ll tell him the two of you are well.”

  She nodded, incapable of a word.

  Peter O’Connell, the heavy farmer, whose son, a volunteer in the IRA, was on the run, drove to Banagher, where Ronan stayed in a bed-and-breakfast, needing to recover.

  He also needed rubber footings on the heels of his boots, and next morning his landlady directed him to a shop that sold shoes.

  “A young man owns it. Not a lot older than yourself. He inherited the business very recently, but they say he has no feel for it.”

  Ronan found the “young man” reading a newspaper; he seemed at least forty.

  “Can these be fixed?”

  The Young Man looked. “Dinny!” he called.

  An old man emerged from the rear of the shop and picked up Ronan’s boots. “Five minutes.” He took the boots away.

  “Big walker?” said the Young Man, now back in his newspaper.

  “Yes. I’m going on to Roscrea.”

  “I suppose somebody has to,” said the Young Man. “D’you live there?”

  “No, I’m heading to the Devil’s Bit.”

  The Young Man looked up with fresh interest. “What’n the Lord’s happening up on the Devil’s Bit?”

  “I just want to see it.”

  “There’ll be a crowd there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Well, you’re the second man in a week’s going there.”

  Ronan’s interest heightened. “Who was the first?”

  “A German tourist. He heard the story of it, and he wants to measure the gap and then measure the Rock of Cashel to see would it fit. Isn’t that very German?”

  Ronan said, “So you know the story too?”

  The Young Man said, “Do you know how I heard it? A pal of mine came in here the other day, he had an old lad with him, and he says to me, ‘Gus, I want you to give this gentleman a pair of boots free, gratis, and for nothing.’ That’s what he said—straight out.”

  “And did you?”

  “I asked him, ‘Why should I?’ and my pal said to me, ‘Because of his trade.’ So I said, ‘What’s your trade?’ and my pal answered for the old lad, ‘Oh, Gus, you’ll love his product, I assure you of that, would I steer you wrong?’ And d’you know what—didn’t he persuade me to hand over the bo
ots? I wasn’t that happy, I can tell you.”

  Ronan said, “Did you find out more?”

  “Oh, yeah, wait and I’ll tell you. ‘Now at least will you tell me what your trade is?’ I said to him when he had the boots in a bag under his arm. And my gentleman pal said to me, ‘He tells stories.’ I said, ‘What good are stories to me?’ and they could see I didn’t like it. My pal said, ‘Look at the time. You’ll be closing in fifteen minutes. Close now, and this man’ll pay you for the boots with a story.’ I closed—I’m always glad to close early. I banged the door shut and I closed the blinds—and I declare to God, wasn’t I there for another two hours, and didn’t I send him off with two free pairs of boots?”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Dinny, when did I give away them boots?”

  Dinny called from the back of the shop, “Nineteen-fifty-two.”

  The Young Man said, “That’s right, my father was dead a year.”

  Ronan paid for the rubber heels and said, “Nine years ago. So—you would have no idea at all where the man went?”

  “No, but I’ve a cousin he always stays with, and if you’re going to Roscrea, you might as well go the whole hog and go on to Cashel. He’s a vet—if you’ve anything wrong with you, he’ll fix it.”

  The Devil had a wide mouth. Ronan had to spend four days in the village of Moneygall, sheltering from violent rain, before he could attempt the top of the plateau. When he did, he loved it. He had no easy ascent; the ground was rough, the limestone base pocked and scarred, with little steeps and ridges. Heavy scrub tore at him, and once or twice he almost twisted an ankle. But at the top the sun came out and lit all the colors in the rocks.

  To amuse himself, he tried to pace the actual width of the Bit, but brambles and awkward terrain made it impossible. He contented himself with staying half a day there, standing on each crest looking in all directions.

  In Moneygall that night, they persuaded him that, were he to rise early, he could “walk to Cashel dawn to dusk” if he stuck to the bank of the river Suir; “Sure you can—that’s why ’tis called the Suir—the Suir for sure.”

  It proved a little less sure than that. To begin with, the river seemed too small to have national significance, and he felt uncertain of his trail. Next, not a few ditches proved impassable, and in one field a menacing bull sent him on a circuit. Two nights in separate houses, one free, one a bed-and-breakfast with a dog that barked all night, half comforted him, and by now, past the town of Thurles, the river at last had status.

  He reached Cashel three days later, at noon in sunshine. From a public telephone he dialed the number he had been given.

  “I’d like to speak to Eddie Landers.”

  “The very man. Who’s this?” Rich, friendly voice; broad, slow sounds. “Yeah, Gus is my cousin. I’m not as lazy as him. Where are you, and I’ll come and collect you.”

  Ten minutes later, Ronan closed his eyes during the fastest, most perilous drive he had ever known; the veterinary surgeon’s rusting car had once been green and now stank like a mortuary.

  “There’s two hundred thousand miles on this thing, and I’ve carried sheep and dogs and even deer in the back. We’ve to stop here.”

  They raced up a long, white-fenced avenue, and the vet swung into a stable yard.

  “Come on with me.”

  They walked from the car to a large, open stable door, and inside, three people stood or crouched around something on the ground.

  “Ah, how ya, Eddie, the man we want.”

  Greetings rang all around. They stepped back, and the vet went in among them.

  “Ohhhhh, now, what’s-this-what’s-this?”

  He dropped to his hunkers and began to stroke the flanks of a young and frightened chestnut horse.

  “What time’d it happen? Ohhhh, now, now, that’s a sore thing, we’ll fix it, we’ll fix it in a minute.” He spoke to the horse as to a child.

  “Just when we were letting her out in the paddock. Eight o’clock or so.”

  “Wire?”

  “No, thank God. She kicked at the gate, and a spar tore her.”

  “Good girl, good girl, good girl, easy now, easy, easy.”

  Ronan could have sworn the horse’s eyes lost their white frightened glare when the vet spoke. Or was it the caress, the genuine tenderness with which he stroked the animal’s coat?

  After fifteen minutes of silent work with ointments and a bandage, they freed the young horse and eased her into a standing position.

  “Walk her a bit,” said the vet. He stood back, watched, then walked with her. “H’m. She’s not what I’d call lamed. When is she going next?”

  “Gowran Park, Saturday week.”

  “H’m. She might do.”

  The horse plunged her head; the vet caught the bridle, held her down tight, stroked her nose, then released her, did this twice more, talking to her, talking—and she stood still.

  “And I’ll come out tomorrow again. If it swells any more, give me a shout.”

  They climbed into the wild car and, faster than before, the vet raced down the avenue, honked once on the main road, and exited without changing speed or looking anywhere but straight ahead.

  “Horses, they’re the ones worry me the most—I’m keener to fix a horse than anything.”

  He turned at a wild right angle down a lane, and in half a mile or so screeched the car to one side and parked it.

  “Okey-dokey, we’ll get out here. Now you’re looking for ‘Himself,’ as we call him.”

  “I am. Is he all right?”

  “C’mon, you’re dressed for the fields. We’re going up there.” He pointed to a ruined castle ahead. “I was here with him the day before yesterday.”

  “What?!” Ronan almost fell off the gate he was climbing.

  Eddie Landers would not be interrupted.

  “And he amazed me. And since I’m a bit of a storyteller myself, I’ll pass on to you what he told me—about the time the famous Dean Swift stayed here, in this castle. You know who he was? And the fellow that wrote Gulliver’s Travels was a wild man himself by all accounts.”

  They climbed a steep field, Ronan took out his notebook, and the vet began to talk.

  JONATHAN SWIFT LIVED IN DUBLIN—HE WAS the dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, which means he belonged to the Church of Ireland, the Irish version of the Church of England. A Protestant. Unless they’re Catholics, we call everyone Protestants, unless, of course, they’re Jews. Technically speaking, “Protestant” should only refer to those people who dissented from King Henry the Eighth’s version of the Reformation, but who weren’t Catholics—nonconformists such as Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Unitarians, and the like. But no, we call ’em all Protestants, and that’s that. My own name, Landers, that’s French.

  So: in those terms, Swift was a Protestant—and a fearless man. He said he was “a clergyman of special note, for shunning those of his own coat.” And the story our old friend told me—he said ’tis also a description of life in Ireland at a particular juncture in history.

  It all happened on this hillside we’re standing on. Swift came here because he’d heard in Dublin that the man who lived in this house spent all his money entertaining people and looking after a multitude of guests.

  The whole place—that ruin up ahead—it was owned by people called Mathew, they were generally a strong family. They started well and got better. And they added on so much here that you can’t see the outline of the original house—which was built in sixteen-seventy. It was simple enough in the beginning, mostly brick, built by George Mathew—his father had married a local lady. This George Mathew was a modest sort of a man, and he had been content with a good, strong two-story house and his farm of fifteen hundred acres—God, we’d all be happy with that.

  Then his grandson came along—he was the man Swift had heard about. He was so lavish in his spending and his way of entertaining that he was called “Grand” George Mathew, and he took over the house in
seventeen-eighteen.

  Grand George added fifty bedrooms to the place and built a theater, a banqueting hall, which was nearly twenty yards long, and other things too—I’ll tell you about them in a minute or two. He hired the best gardeners he could find to make him beautiful landscapes like the king of France had in Versailles. One of the things they built was a bowling green—and that’s nearly the hardest piece of gardening in the world to do. It has to be as level as a board and as soft as a carpet, and the grass has to be nearly like velvet.

  Grand George also got them to build a very beautiful ornamental lake, and that was the scene of a great tragedy. You see that dwarf tree down there? At that exact spot, a child of the Mathew family died one day. That long, shallow hollow in the ground—that was the bed of the lake. The child, who was only two, fell in and drowned; and the nurse having care of the child was given the blame and dismissed from her job, a very serious business.

  She said she was blamed in the wrong, and she put a curse on the place and said the tree would never grow another inch and that the castle itself, by now a very grand place with towers and turrets, would one day become no more than a nesting place for crows and jackdaws. Which, as you can see, is exactly what’s happened.

  However, when Swift got here, he came through the gates—they were down there, on the main road. He stayed the night before in the village of Golden, two miles away, in some sort of inn that wasn’t up to much, but when he finished his breakfast in the morning, there was a coach drawn by six horses waiting to take him to the castle. And he was thrilled at that.

  About fifty yards from the castle’s main gate, the workmen who built the entrance had set a large flagstone in the ground. It measured twenty feet by fifteen feet, and when the hooves of a horse or the wheels of a carriage hit this flagstone, it sank an inch or two. That flagstone rested on an iron pad, which set in motion a series of levers. They operated one off the other, until the gates of the main entrance swung open slowly for the visitors to pass through without stopping.