Irish Love

by Andrew M. Greeley

  30

  “YOU HAVE to admit,” Jack Lane said as he ordered our dinner for us, “that the young woman had courage to go off to America with that very young man.”

  We were in the restaurant of the new Station House in Clifden, a town twelve miles south of Renvyle and so beautiful that one half suspected it was created for color videotapes. Jack was taking us to supper to celebrate our multiple victories, past and present. It was a lovely spring evening with the smell of flowers in the air and the sun persisting in its refusal to set as it would have in Chicago at this time of the year.

  We had turned from the MacManus story to that of Ned and Nora. The T.D. was fighting every inch of the way. However, the Public Prosecutor had him boxed in. He would probably plea bargain. No charges could be brought against Tomas O’Regan because it was impossible to prove how much he knew about MacManus’s schemes. He certainly did not know about MacManus on the mountain with the remote control or he would have found an excuse not to come to that fateful lunch.

  “Sure, I wouldn’t know about that, An t‘Athair Sean O’Laighne,” my wife said in an antagonistic mood. “Hadn’t himself picked out poor Neddie for her? And wasn’t he a grand, brave, romantic fella? Would not I meself have gone off to America with a fella like him? What did she have to lose?”

  “And, in his own way, dependable too,” I agreed. “You should excuse the expression, but he was a man of honor.”

  “Come to think of it,” Nuala added with a crafty smile, “didn’t I go off to America with the same kind of fella?”

  “After him to be more precise,” I corrected her. “But I appreciate the comparison.”

  “A matter of minor details.” She snapped her fingers. “Sure weren’t you at the airport waiting for me? And wasn’t he a big lug just like you?”

  “And wouldn’t she run the show in America, just like certain other people I know?”

  “Despite your banter,” Jack Lane insisted, “I think she was very brave.”

  “Oh, wasn’t she terrible brave altogether and herself having to choose for life when she was afraid to. Trusting poor dear Ned was no problem, at all, at all. Trusting herself and God, that was another matter.”

  “I wonder what happened to them in Chicago,” Jack Lane said as the white wine appeared. “I suppose that we’ll never know.”

  “As a matter of fact, we do know quite a bit,” I said, reaching into my jacket pocket and producing a sheaf of documents.

  It was not too often during my adventures with Nuala Anne that I had a chance to take center stage. I relished those rare opportunities.

  “Hasn’t me brilliant husband sent an e-mail to his riverence back in Chicago to find out the rest of the story?” Nuala Anne said, driving me off center stage. I had not, needless to record, told her I was putting George the Priest into play, much less showed her the results.

  “Well, then,” I said, “it won’t be necessary to go into the details.”

  I put the dossier back into me pocket. My pocket.

  “Och, sure, Dermot Michael, I have no idea at all, at all what’s in them communications, if you take me meaning.”

  She might or might not know what was in them. However, I would still be permitted to recapture center stage for the moment.

  “You two are crazy,” Jack Lane said, looking suspiciously at the fish course—poached Galway salmon, of course.

  “Anyway,” I said, “I quote from George the Priest: ‘If you had paid any attention to Chicago Catholic history, little bro, you would know that Edward H. “Ned” Fitzpatrick was one of the most famous Chicago journalists at the end of the last century and the beginning of this one. He made his name initially by incisive and brilliant reports for the old Daily News about the Land League war in Ireland. He married a fearsome Irish woman he met there and they returned to Chicago and settled in my parish on North Park, so I have the records of the baptisms of three of their four children and the Confirmations of all four. The oldest, who must have been born in Ireland, entered the Daughter of Charity and would later work at Marillac House on the west side until the time of her death in the late 1950s. The three younger ones married at our little church and migrated eventually to Austin and lived on West End Avenue, where the great old homes of that neighborhood were. A couple of their grandchildren, Ned’s great grandchildren, went to St. Luke’s with us and live in River Forest now. Ned and his wife celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary, according to our parish jubilee book, in 1932 and died respectively in 1936 and 1938. Perhaps they knew our grandparents.

  “‘They were active in Chicago civic life, both religious and secular. I attach a picture of them from the same jubilee book at a parish function with Archbishop Feehan in 1901. Quite distinguished looking couple, are they not? If I didn’t know better, I’d think herself was your virtuous wife.’”

  “Let me see!” The aforementioned virtuous wife pulled the picture from my hand. “Oh, glory be, would you look at them awful clothes!”

  Jack Lane peered over her shoulder.

  “And at the face …” Jack Lane caught his breath. “The same to-hell-with-all-of-you look!”

  “And the same pride on the face of her poor dear husband!” Nuala made the sign of the cross and wept. “Sure, when they let me into heaven won’t the both of us have to wear name tags!”

  She continued to weep, tears, I think, of joy.

  “So her gamble on life and love worked?” Jack Lane asked.

  “What about Josie?” Nuala Anne demanded.

  “George the Priest says there’s a record of a marriage between one Mary Josephine Philbin and a man named James O’Leary. It was a tragic union. They both moved to the South Side.”

  “And?” Jack asked.

  “And what?”

  “What was tragic?”

  “Why, moving to the South Side!”

  “That’s like a Galway woman, poor dear thing, marrying a Kerryman.”

  “God forgive them both,” Jack murmured.

  “My brother has a lot more stuff,” I said. “I’ll make copies for everyone, especially for Ethne, since someone has decided that she’s doing her dissertation at Loyola on the subject … . Two other interesting notes. They were both involved in the first World Parliament of Religion at the World’s Columbian Exposition, which must have been ten years after they came from Europe. And, minor note, herself must have been quite a singer because, according to George, for forty years she was in charge of everything musical that happened in Immaculate Conception Parish on North Park.”

  Nuala blessed herself again and wept some more.

  “And Myles Joyce’s daughter became a holy nun who took care of the poor and the orphans! I’m sure he’s pleased about that.”

  “Isn’t it strange how real they all are to us?” Jack Lane tasted the Rhone red wine that was offered for the lamb course and nodded his approval.

  “And aren’t they around us even now, laughing at our curiosity,” Nuala Anne said, yielding to more tears, doubtless satisfying.

  “You really think they’re around, Nuala Anne?” Jack Lane asked, glancing around the dining room, as if he expected to see Nora and Josie and Ned.

  “Ah, sure, An t’Athair O’Laighne, isn’t that what the Communion of Saints means? And didn’t we know that even before St. Patrick came?”

  “Do you sense their presence, or do you just believe it?” the priest asked.

  Nuala frowned as if she did not really comprehend the question, which maybe she didn’t.

  “Sure, what’s the difference, An t‘Athair O’Laighne?

  My wife’s theology is a blend of modern skepticism and ancient Celtic devotion. God, one should excuse the expression, help anyone who tried to expose any inconsistencies. Moreover if she thought those on the other side of the Communion of Saints were lurking near us in love, I would be the last one to suggest that she was wrong. She knew too much to be wrong on such a matter.

  Did she experience the lurking presence
of Nora and Ned in our modern dining room at the Station House?

  I would not have bet against it.

  “Have you found out anything about the other characters in the story, Jack Lane?” I asked as I finished off my share of the rack of lamb and looked around for more food.

  “I talked to an old fella who still has some sheep on those hills, named Sean Casey as might not surprise you. Lord Ballynahinch owns most of the land these days, but he lets the remnants of the old families run their sheep on the land, a not unprofitable business these days, courtesy of the EU. Young Brigid Joyce, Pat Joyce’s wife, went back to her parents’ home, fought with them, and then migrated to America and was forgotten. When the survivors were finally freed from prison they came back to the valley. Big John Casey continued to live like he was a big man, but he was never very happy again. Most of the people in the valley simply ignored him. He and his son fought constantly, apparently about the killings. The son eventually left home and no one knows what happened to him. Anthony Joyce, the false informer, lost all the money the English gave him, as did the men who were with him. He was badly injured in some kind of dynamite blast, the results of which he carried with him till he died at the age of eighty. Life in the valley continued as it had before. No one forgot what happened, but no one did anything more about it. The next generation forgave if it didn’t completely forget and the descendants lived in peace until they slowly abandoned the valley.”

  “That’s the way it should be in Ireland, of course,” my wife said briskly.

  “And what did he say about Myles Joyce?”

  “He wasn’t sure what happened to his wife and daughter, but there was a story, he told me, that she had married an American and they went off to America. Some said they came back later for a visit, but he wasn’t sure about that.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  The priest shook his head, “Ah, no. You don’t want to mix historical fact with legend, do you now?”

  “Did he think Myles was a hero?”

  “One of the greatest men in the history of the West of Ireland, he said. Sometimes he still runs through the streets of Galway. And you can hear his cries for justice from the quicklime under Michael Brown’s ugly gray Cathedral, which was built where the jail used to be.”

  “That’s silly superstition.” Nuala waved her hand dismissively. “He does no such thing. He knows that justice was finally done and that his wife had a happy life, even if she had to die too, like all of us.”

  That settled that.

  “Did you have any doubt, Nuala,” Jack asked as he refilled our claret glasses, “about what Nora would do?”

  Me wife hesitated.

  “Well, not to say doubts exactly, if you take me meaning. Still she was free, wasn’t she now? She could act like a terrible eejit, couldn’t she have, and chosen to refuse life? Women do that, you know. So do men. Sometimes it’s what your man said about Waterloo, a close run thing.”

  “And the turning point was Ned’s kindness to Josie?”

  “Och, I’m sure it was, poor dear man.”

  We chatted about other things, including our return to Chicago and to Grand Beach for the summer, where I would finish my new novel and Nuala would continue to work on her paintings.

  The manager of the hotel approached our table anxiously.

  “Was everything all right, Jack?” he asked the priest.

  “Grand altogether.”

  “Ms. McGrail, Mr. McGrail?”

  “Brilliant!” Nuala answered for both of us with a wicked wink.

  “We wouldn’t want to impose on you,” he continued, rubbing his hands nervously, “but we’re so glad you have honored us with this visit, and we wondered if you’d ever consider singing a song for us? Just one?”

  My wife usually refused such requests with a blunt statement that she had retired from singing. This time, however, she looked at me timidly.

  “Do you think it would be all right Dermot if I did?”

  My stomach tightened. It was the high tide and the turn.

  “’Tis your call, Nuala Anne.”

  “It always is, isn’t it now … . Well, Mr. Farley I might just sing one.”

  I almost warned her not to strain her voice.

  The manager produced a guitar. A reverent silence descended upon the dining room.

  It was all a carefully staged event. Nuala had persuaded Jack to help her stage it. I felt an enormous weight lift off my shoulders.

  “My favorite song, these days,” she said, taking on her entertainer persona as easily as she would slip into her bra, “is a Yank song that has to be Irish in spirit because it comes from a part of America where many Irish settled and sang Irish music. It is a blend of Irish sadness and hope. The singer laments the loss of the river of her childhood but will never lose her love for it, even though she has found a new and mighty river where she is now.”

  Amazingly this old American folk song had become Nuala’s most successful recording, her first platinum single. Its very popularity was somehow involved in her decision to stop singing. “I never want to hear that ugly melody again,” she had cried. “Damn Anonymous for writing it.”

  As a critic had written, “In this song, Ms. McGrail has achieved a mature blend of her two heritages, the melancholy of Ireland and the expansive hope of America. No one has ever sung ‘Shenandoah’ with deeper feeling. Perhaps no one ever will.”

  As soon as she began singing it that night in Clifden, I knew that she had been practicing secretly, probably while out running with Fiona. Her voice had never been in better form or under better control. Tears sprung to my eyes. My Nuala Anne had come home again.

  Away, you rolling river,

  Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,

  Away, I’m bound away,

  ‘Cross the wide Missouri,

  Shenandoah, I love your daughter,

  Away, you rolling river,

  I’ll take her ’cross the rolling water,

  Away, I’m bound away,

  ‘Cross the wide Missouri.

  Shenandoah, I long to hear you,

  Away, you rolling river,

  Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,

  Away, I’m bound away,

  ’Cross the wide Missouri.

  As she sang she watched me anxiously, wondering about my reaction. She saw the tears in my eyes, smiled, and sang the song again.

  Then we ducked our heads under the low bridges as we went from Albany to Buffalo, fifteen miles a day on the Erie Canal, and beat the drums slowly and played the fife lowly as we walked the Streets of Laredo and celebrated simple gifts and danced with the boatmen on the Oh-Hi-Oh.

  Everyone in the room was weeping as my wife brought the sad beauty of American folk music home to Ireland where it had started.

  “Sure, won’t I be keeping you here all night now? Well, I must sing one more song, which is for me anyway a kind of theme song, though it’s not about a Galway woman at all, at all, but about a tragic young woman in Dublin’s fair city who will be remembered whenever any Irish person sings about her.”

  So naturally she sang about Molly Malone who still pushes her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow.

  Weren’t the tears flowing like the River Liffey when she finished?

  “Sure,” she went on, “isn’t that special to me because I sang it on the night I fell in love with a man? And isn’t the ending a sad one too. For him. Didn’t he marry me!

  So she sang it again with all her heart. For me, just the way she had done that first foggy night in O’Neill’s pub down the street from Trinity College.

  That night in bed I accused her of practicing on her morning runs with the wolfhound.

  “Sure, didn’t I have to cheer the thing up and herself pregnant.”

  I didn’t comment.

  “And I wanted to be sure, Dermot, before I tried it again. Before I chose for life, if you take my meaning.”

  I wrapped my arms around her.

&n
bsp; “I knew you would eventually.”

  “Haven’t I been a terrible eejit altogether? Singing is in my blood. I love it. I have to learn not to obsess about it. Maybe I’ll have to take time off every couple of years, but I’ll always come back to it.”

  “I knew you would,” I said, though I had never been sure.

  “Besides if I had been blown up in that house and had to face Himself, wouldn’t He have said to me, ‘Nuala Anne, aren’t you a friggin’ eejit and meself creating you to sing.’”

  “I don’t think God would have used that kind of language.”

  “God,” she said in that tone of voice that means that the further discussion of the issue is closed, “can use any language he wants.”

  “More than likely, He would have said, ‘Nuala Anne, would I be after minding you taking some time off and meself loving you with all me heart?’”

  She pondered that.

  “You have the right of it, Dermot Michael, just like you always do.”

  “You owe me one, Nuala Anne McGrail.”

  “Don’t I owe you a whole life, just like Nora owed poor Ned?”

  Then, like Ned with Nora, I sensed that I was somehow captured by an all-embracing love that was more powerful and more determined even than the love between me and me wife. My wife.

  And, like Ned, I felt that, unseasoned male that I was, I had grown up a little.

  The story of the Maamtrasna murders is a fictionalized account of actual events. All the persons and events in the contemporary Connemara story are creations of my imagination.

  BY ANDREW M. GREELEY FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

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