Cold Is the Dawn
Page 54
And Pat? I’d always known he would be the farmer. Michael said it was to be Luke, but Luke had the travel in him, whether he knew it or not. But Pat stayed in Mayo, surveying the County, and him not even able to talk about it. Few Famine Roads to be built now, that’s for sure. But the workhouses are full to overflowing, no money to feed anyone, and thousands starving and sickening. Wasn’t that what he saw? All the hunger and fever in the mountains and along the seacoast – men, women and children dying; and the rats and dogs tearing at them; living or dead. A county crucified.
Was it any different to what we saw here? He never said; he can never share what he saw, and he never will. His pain goes on and on. Your price again. The price of silence.
We had thought he would work with the County, but he lost his standing. Why worry? It was either that or the farm. Michael can’t stay farming on his own, he’s too old. Didn’t I know that? We can’t depend on Carrigard anyhow. County Mayo is broken. Your price? Who cares? Do You?
Sarah came with Pat, and she’ll have children. But what did she suffer to get here? The Workhouse. She never talks about it either. More silence. She suffered, but her lot was better than the thousands of others who worked and died in the workhouses and the fever sheds? Yes, she lived, and she’ll bear my grandchildren. You want my thanks for that? Never. I owe You nothing.
Still, her children will calm me. But for how long? How many of her children will stay and starve in Mayo? Will their future be one of famine and fever too? Or will they travel the world; banished from the farm and scattered across the face of the earth? Yes, they’ll work the railways and mines of England and America; they’ll break the alien rock, and eat the alien dust.
Little Brigid will be a teacher, no doubt about that. Already Sabina treats her as a daughter. But how I’ll miss her. Yes, Sabina will bring the child back every Friday, but every Sunday I’ll walk her back to Kilduff. Soon she’ll walk it on her own. She’ll do well, we’ll make sure she does.
But what of Luke. He never told us of what he had seen when he worked in the mountains with the Famine Relief. The horror had touched his mind, and terrified him until he saw the Unseeable. Was it all inside his head? Who knows? He never told us. He never wrote of the fever ships either, but all the stories coming back over the Great Ocean told us enough of that. Did the terror follow him to Quebec and America?
What matter? He’s gone, and Winnie followed him, taking Liam too. He’s a Breaker Boss now, well paid, a man to respect. But what of all the others who must go to America? Cheap labour for American mines. And Luke, overseeing the lowest paid, the ones with the shortest lives left to live? But still, he remembers us and pays for our food and Brigid’s future. A good son? Yes, a good son, but a hard taskmaster of men.
Is that the way, or is our way better? Dreaming our dreams, farming our farms and schooling our children. Yes, we can do it, the potato is back, but how much we’ll still depend on Luke. There is no other way. We’ll take his money, and his way will be our way, his strength our strength.
His guilt our guilt? His terror too?
Oh God.
Glossary of Words, Places and People
Acushla: Darling.
A ghrá: My love.
Alanna: Dear child. My love. From A leanbh (child).
Amadán: Fool.
Arra: Implies ‘No’ or ‘don’t be silly’. From Aire (care).
Biddy: Short for Brigid, but sometimes used as a slang word for a maid.
Boreen: A narrow road or track. From the Irish Bótharín, a little road.
Brassey, Thomas: The largest railway construction contractor in the Victorian era.
Bridget: Anglicised version of Brigid, also used as slang for a maid.
Bytown: Original name of Ottawa before Federation in 1867.
Camboose: Either living quarters for lumbermen, or the open fire inside it.
Carlyle, Thomas: Scottish philosopher and historian.
Cavendish, Lord Frederick: Proprietor of the Connaught Telegraph.
Clochán: A tiny settlement of primitive houses.
Connaught Telegraph: Abbreviated name for the Telegraph & Connaught Ranger newspaper.
Creel: A large wicker basket for holding fish or turf.
Crubeens: Boiled pig trotters. From the Irish Crúibín.
Currach: A boat made of wooden slats, covered in several layers of tar.
Drift: A horizontal tunnel in coal mining.
Eejit: Idiot. From the English word.
Emmet, Robert Addis: An American politician and nephew of the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet.
Gavan-Duffy, Charles: Irish Nationalist. Founded The Nation newspaper. Later premier of Victoria.
Gossoon: Boy. From the Irish Garsún, and originally, Old French Garçun (modern Garçon).
Grá: Love.
Hoor: Irish slang, mostly for a crafty fellow who is not to be trusted. Not related to ‘whore’.
Jocks: Scots (derogatory).
Lackan: A fictitious coal mining village. Like Avoca and Avondale, the original is in County Wicklow.
Lucan, Lord: George Bingham, third Lord Lucan. Mayo’s largest landlord. Known as the Exterminator.
Lumper: A large potato.
Mauch Chunk: Original name of the town of Jim Thorpe. Renamed after the 1877 Molly Maguire trials.
Molly Maguires: A nineteenth century Irish terrorist group.
Musha: Indeed. Probably from the Irish word Muise. Mainly used by older women.
Outshot: A bed built into the inside of a wall, often in the kitchen.
Piseóg: Superstition or a superstitious story.
Poitín: An illicit spirit distilled from potatoes. Moonshine.
Port Phillip: Now Melbourne. Located in Victoria, which had been part of New South Wales.
Rath: The remains of an ancient fort or settlement. There are about 30,000 in Ireland.
RIP: Requiescat in Pace. Rest in Peace. An epitaph.
Sassenach: An Englishman. From Sasanach in Irish, i.e. Saxon.
Sceilp: A primitive lean-to shelter made of branches and sods.
Shebeen: A small or unlicensed bar or pub. From Síbín. Still in use in South Africa.
Sleán: A special spade for digging turf.
Spailpín: A seasonal or migrant harvest worker.
Sláinte mhaith: Good Health, as in a drinking toast.
Taffs: Welshmen (derogatory).
Ticket-of-leave men: Ex-convicts, released on condition of good behaviour.
Tigín: A tiny house.
Townland: A rural sub-division of land.
Trawneen: Something of little value. From Tráithnín, a blade of grass.
Turf: In Ireland, peat dug from a peat bog for burning as fuel.
Union: In Ireland, the body running the Poor Law. Also, a workhouse. Not related to Trade Unions.
Union: In Britain, a workhouse or a Trade Union. The Miners’ Association was a Trade Union.
Union: In the USA, a Trade Union, such as the Bates Union.
Whisht: Hush. Silence. Be quiet. From Middle English.
Young Irelanders: Revolutionary group behind the 1848 Rebellion.
About the Author
Charles Egan was born in Nottingham, England, of Irish parents.
When he was five, the family returned to Ireland, as his father had been appointed Resident Medical Superintendent of St. Luke’s, a psychiatric hospital in Clonmel, in County Tipperary.
Every summer they visited his father’s family’s farm, outside Kiltimagh in County Mayo for a month, where his grandmother and uncles spent many evenings, talking about family and local history.
The family subsequently moved to County Wicklow, where he initially attended the De La Salle Brothers School in Wicklow town. He then went to the Jesuits’ Clongowes Wood College (James Joyce’s alma mater), and subsequently studied Commerce in University College Dublin, graduating in 1973.
After an initial career in the private sector, including Marubeni Dublin, (where
he met his future wife, Carmel), he joined the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) in Dublin. After a few years, the desire to be his own boss, led him to resign and set up his own business, which ran for 30 years.
Apart from business, his main interests are history, film and worldwide travel.
If You Enjoyed...
If you enjoyed Cold is the Dawn don’t miss
The Killing Snows and The Exile Breed.
Please feel free to leave a short review on Amazon or Goodreads.
For more information you can also visit my website.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Copyright Notice
Published in 2017 by SilverWood Books
SilverWood Books Ltd
14 Small Street, Bristol, BS1 1DE, United Kingdom
www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk
Copyright © Charles Egan 2017
The right of Charles Egan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright holder.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-78132-659-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-78132660-2 (ebook)