Irish Cream

by Andrew M. Greeley

  The new bishop, a contemporary of mine from school days, a class behind me in college, came the other night for Confirmation. I was not happy at the prospect. He never liked me and I never liked him. I was a Dubliner, a Castle Catholic, and he a wild man from Kerry. Not unintelligent, but far too vulgar for my tastes. I did not suspect that the Cardinal had sent him to put me in my place, but I did not doubt that such a prospect was all that far from his mind.

  “Holy St. Brigid, Dickie, ’tis good to see you again and yourself looking as fit as ever!”

  He still had flaming red hair and equally red cheeks. To my surprise he was still trim. Bishops tend to run to fat.

  He embraced me enthusiastically in front of the church.

  The parish had welcomed him with an Irish hymn and sang another as we processed into church.

  “Glory be to God, you’ve resurrected them wonderful old hymns. I thought everyone had forgotten them.”

  “The people here have never forgotten them.”

  In the parish house I introduced him to Mrs. O’Flynn.

  He rose out of his chair and shook hands with her.

  “You’re a grand woman, Mrs. O’Flynn, and yourself keeping me old friend in such good health. Brigid, Patrick, and Colmcille we’re grateful to you for that. We don’t have many like him these days, a scholar and a pastor all rolled up into one fine Irish gentleman.”

  “Your Lordship has kissed the stone,” she said, “but ’tis true enough about His Reverence. He’s a fine Irish gentleman.”

  “A good woman,” Hugh said as she left the parlor. “You’re lucky to have her. Thanks be to God.”

  At first I was profoundly skeptical about his enthusiasm. Then I realized that he meant it and I was embarrassed.

  “They’ve been telling me wonderful things about you and I said I believe them all, because you did all things well at school. Faith, to tell the truth, Dickie, I didn’t think you would be the kind of grand parish priest that you clearly are.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Hugh.”

  “They tell me that there are no more faction fights at the patterns.”

  “So far.”

  “And the wakes have calmed down.”

  “They’re still quite loud.”

  “And there’s less of the drink taken.”

  “I’m not sure about that.”

  “And that the Holy Well is not visited as often.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true. However, the belief that water is sacred and life-giving is part of the Catholic heritage too.”

  “Despite what your good friend the Cardinal thinks … And yourself with all this work still finding time to write articles for the Spanish theological journals.”

  “You read them!”

  “Never thought I’d read theology, eh, Dickie! Well, I do. Father Conor here,” he pointed at his silent but grinning young aide, “reads them all for me, then makes me read them as he thinks will do me good.”

  “I didn’t know you were such good friends,” Father Conor said, “when I gave him your first article.”

  “And the Lord named his first son after you.”

  “Richard Colm, I don’t know whether he and Her Ladyship had me in mind.”

  “Colm?”

  “I’m afraid she bathed in the Holy Well before she conceived.”

  “Holy Mother of God, and yourself there?”

  “The women of the parish chased all the men away. Besides I don’t go to the Holy Well as a matter of principle, though I’m convinced there’s no great harm in it. I hear rumors that she bathed there again before conceiving their daughter.”

  “The Cardinal sent you here because he thought it would break you. Instead you flourish. That’ll show the old main.”

  “It’s a terrible place, Hugh. It is damp and cold, the winds roar in from New York. That ugly rock at the end of the strand cuts off the sun many days of the year. The stench of the sea never goes away.”

  “Ah, well, as a man from Dingle, don’t I love that smell. Still, you have brought warmth to the place and light and I’ve never heard confirmands who know their catechism as well as yours do and can explain it intelligently.”

  “They surprised me altogether,” Father Conor agreed.

  “Lord Skeffington sends his regrets. He’s at the House of Lords these days, preparing to make a speech on the Dual Monarchy idea of home rule—two kingdoms, each with its own government, united in the same crown like Austria and Hungary.”

  “Well, I suppose that would work. It’s the way it used to be before that infernal Act of Union in 1801.”

  “With some changes. Catholics would control the Irish House of Commons anyway … But what we need is more important than shaking free of the Castle and Westminster. We need land. My people need to hold their own land and pass it on to their children with no fear of ever losing it. The village is happy today not just because the sun is out or because a friendly bishop has come to bless them. They’re happy because the crops have been good and the cattle healthy for the last several years. Yet they need to know that in bad times their land is really theirs.”

  “Does Lord Skeffington evict many?”

  “None, but it’s not the same, is it?”

  “So you’d support this Land League business?”

  “I would certainly be so inclined. It also has a chance of winning now, which I’m afraid home rule does not.”

  “You might well be right … Down where I was raised in the Kingdom of Kerry everyone is a Fenian.”

  “The next thing,” I said with a laugh, “will be home rule for Kerry.”

  “That will be the day!”

  They left in high good humor with only a splasheen of the drink taken.

  I think about it today as I write these words. I do not feel like a success. Mrs. O’Flynn is particularly attractive. I am tired. There’s too much to do. I have little intellectual stimulation. I’m not sure what I believe anymore.

  Hughie may not be a scholar, but he’s no fool and, God knows, honest. I’m sure he would write a glowing report back to Dublin, not what the Cardinal wanted to hear. Whatever else might be said of Hugh, he is an honest man. Which is to say he always reports the truth as he sees it.

  The truth here, however, is much more complicated than he realizes.

  My evenings at home have diminished. Dr. McGrath is fading. Sergeant Kyle still comes often, but he is a listener rather than a talker. Lord Skeffington is busy in London much of the time and when he’s home he spends his time with his glorious wife, which is perfectly understandable. Sean Toole rides down from the mountain, but only because Marie makes him come. And he leaves early, so eager is he to return to the marriage bed. Well, fair play to him.

  They come to Mass every Sunday and make their Easter Duty. Though they are beyond the honeymoon stage and are a bit long in the tooth for such shallow romance, they seem quite satisfied with one another and obviously happy.

  “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for making me marry her, Father,” he says to me.

  “I didn’t make you, Sean.”

  “Marriage is a good thing,” he adds as his eyes appreciatively roam over her, just as they did on the day of Tun Allen’s burial.

  “With the right woman,” I add.

  “Aye … Still it is a good thing altogether to have the right woman in bed with you.”

  “So I am told, Sean. So I am told.”

  And I wonder about myself.

  The weather is terrible today. Though it is the middle of summer, it is bitter cold, the rain and wind batter my house, and the stench of the sea mixes with the inevitable smell of manure and turf and invades my parlor like an effusion from hell. It makes me sick in my stomach. Not even an extra jar of poteen will heal me.

  Probably it will make me sicker.

  Yet Liam will come to talk with me tonight and I must be in fine fettle. It is rare enough that we have our old conversations, especially when Eileen O’Flynn is home from G
alway, as she is now.

  He has the most drastic ideas about the future of Ireland, though they have moderated through the years of our discussion. He wants not only home rule, but complete English withdrawal, confiscation of all Englishowned land, suppression of the use of the English language, and of the Protestant religion.

  “Like Isabella and Ferdinand after the fall of Granada who outlawed all Muslims and Jews.”

  “I know it isn’t practical and it will never happen. I’m just arguing that it would be the ideal.”

  “A harsh and impractical ideal.”

  He’d laugh.

  “You’re right, Father. Naturally. I suppose I’ll grow out of it.”

  We will roam all over the world of intellect. He is a Catholic and always will be, but he feels free to interpret Catholicism in his own fashion. In this respect, I think, he differs from the less educated men of the village only in that he is detailed and explicit.

  “Aren’t we as good Catholics, Father, as the bishops and them fellas in Rome? Probably better. I’m thinking that we’re the Church as much as they are. Probably more.”

  Properly understood, he’s correct. But without nuance and qualification, his position, I tell him, would lead to religious anarchy. In fact, it has not led to anarchy here in our parish.

  “And what right do you celibates have to tell a man and a woman what they may do with one another in the marriage bed? What would you be after knowing about it? I don’t mean you, Father Dick. You seem to know everything about everything. Some of these men are brutes. They wear out their wives with a new pregnancy every year and a new child to watch over. And the priests tell the woman you must continue to do it.”

  “I don’t tell them that.”

  “I’m not talking about you, Father Dick.” He smiles gently. “You shouldn’t be so defensive.”

  In fact, I follow the instructions of the sainted Cure of Ars, Jean Vianney, and never trouble the consciences of the laity. I wonder if that indirect advice is responsible for the slight decline in Baptisms since I’ve been here. I can’t believe that God intends a poor, worn-out peasant woman to have nine or ten children.

  Our discussions are always polite and friendly. Liam has the mind of a radical, but the sweet disposition of a novice. I will miss him terribly when he and Eileen go off to America. Please God that will not happen for a couple of more years.

  “I’d never do that to my wife, Father Dick, if I ever have one.”

  “I imagine that eventually some woman will take on the task of taming that hot temper of yours.”

  “I don’t have a temper, Father, as you well know. Even if I did, I could never speak in anger to a woman.”

  He would, of course, but the anger too would be sweet and mild.

  We never mention Eileen O’Flynn in our conversations. I do not want to embarrass him. He blushes easily enough as it is. If only there were a way in which he and Eileen could attend university as a married couple. That would be unthinkable in the British Isles today. Or anywhere else, alas.

  June 24, Feast of St. Rumold of Malines, a missionary and a monk who was assassinated by two men he had admonished.

  Lord Skeffington has been shot. He was returning from his speech in the House of Lords, which drew considerable attention in the papers up here, so it had created a sensation in Dublin as well as in London. He was riding up from the train station in Sligo and was shot at the edge of our townland. Already the parish is swarming with redcoats. I’m riding over to see him immediately.

  THE MANOR HOUSE WAS surrounded by redcoats, almost a troop of lancers. I rode straight up and was stopped by an officious and insolent young captain.

  “You can’t go to the house,” he ordered me. “Please leave.”

  “I am a good friend of Lord Skeffington as well as a clergyman. I demand the right to see him.”

  “Church of Ireland?” he asked.

  “Catholic!”

  “Then you certainly can’t see him,” he sneered.

  “Will you please inform Lady Skeffington that Richard Lonigan is here to see His Lordship.”

  “I will not.”

  “Then I will wait here till you change your mind, such as it is. I also warn you that you will lose your commission because of your rudeness and stupidity.”

  He glared at me, wondering whether I might have the power to deliver on my threat.

  “A certain amount of arrogance can be very useful, Father,” the Cardinal had said to me once in his peculiar lisping voice. “You have more than enough of it.”

  “Rodgers,” he said to the trooper next to him, “go ask Her Ladyship if it is possible that she wants to see a Roman priest.”

  In less than a minute, Mary Margaret was at the doorway despite the rain.

  “Captain Blair, I remind you that this is my house and our friends are not to be stopped, much less insulted. Permit Father Dick to pass instantly.”

  “Yes, mum,” he said, touching his funny helmet.

  He pulled his horse away and even saluted me.

  Mary Margaret embraced me as I entered the house.

  “He’s going to be all right, Dick. It is not a fatal wound. The doctors are with him now. I know he’ll want to see you.”

  Robbie Skeffington was stretched out on a wide bed in heavy bandages. His face was strained, his eyes blurred by either pain or drugs.

  Two doctors were fussing over him—the indestructible Jarlath McGrath and a man in the blue uniform of an Army medic.

  “Dick,” he shouted at me. “Come on in! It’s good of you to come. You did say that Donegal could be more dangerous than the Khyber, didn’t you? The Pathan snipers could never get me. And some raw amateur who couldn’t shoot straight managed to put a bullet in my shoulder after five tries.”

  He sighed and his voice trailed off.

  “The doctors tell me I’m going to make it. So does Mary Margaret. So it must be true.”

  “He was shot in the back, Father,” Dr. McGrath told me. The bullet entered beneath the shoulder and emerged cleanly in front. By the grace of God or good luck …”

  “What is that you say, Dick? It’s better to have both.”

  “I think I said I wasn’t sure of the difference.”

  “ … The bullet shattered no bones and pierced no vital organs. Lord Skeffington has lost a fair amount of blood. Dr. Ross and I have cleansed the wounds and are both confident of his full recovery.”

  “Aye,” said Dr. Ross with a deep Scottish burr. “His Lordship had a close one out there in the bog. Someone was looking after him.”

  “It was surely my wife’s prayers. She storms heaven every time I go out the door.”

  “And will continue to do so … Father Dick, will you lead us all in the Lord’s Prayer which we all share. Then I’ll take you to see the children.”

  The Scotsman winked at me, as if to say, “I’m one of you …”

  “I apologize for all the redcoats, Father. The brigadier is a fool. Always has been. Always will be. He thinks the Fenians are about to rise again. I’ll get rid of them shortly.”

  Dick and little Mary Rose were under the care of their nanny, a local young woman who curtsied as I entered the room. The two children had been weeping.

  “Your da is fine. He’s going to be all right. There’s two of them in there, one Irish like your da and one Scottish like your ma. So he’ll certainly be all right in a couple of days.”

  “We’re Irish, and English, and Scottish, Uncle Dick,” my namesake said. “The whole United Kingdom!”

  “You left out Wales,” said the nanny.

  “Mum’s part Welsh.”

  As I was leaving, Mary Margaret gave me an envelope and a note on her personal stationery.

  “Notice to all army and police: Father Richard Lonigan is a personal friend of my husband and myself. No one is to interfere with his safe passage either to our home or to anywhere else. Mary Margaret, Lady Skeffington.”

  “Very strong,” I said, smiling
.

  “I’m acting the role of the colonel’s lady. Brigadier Pryce-Smyth is such a troublesome man. I think he expects Robby to salute and call him ‘sir.’ Instead, he calls him Enoch. Isn’t that a terrible name?”

  “And himself not holding the V.C.”

  “That piece of metal has been very useful. Do come back as often as you can, Father.”

  “I will.”

  The troopers saluted as I rode away.

  “PRYCE-SMYTH” The brigadier snapped at me. “Two ys.”

  I nodded politely.

  “I’m responsible for the protection of Lord Skeffington and the resolution of this problem of rebellion here in Donegal.”

  I looked out the window.

  “I’m hard put to see any trace of rebellion, Mr. Pryce-Smyth.”

  I was not prepared to be impressed by his fancy red coat and his elaborate epaulets.

  “His Lordship was shot by a sniper.”

  “One sniper does not a rebellion make, especially one who, thanks be to God, is a poor marksman.”

  “Nonetheless, we must take every precaution … You are, I believe not unacquainted with His Lordship.”

  “I consider him a close friend.”

  “Very well. You will then be willing to tell me who shot him.”

  “How would I know?”

  We were both standing. I was not inclined to ask such an arrogant officer to sit down. Besides, I wanted to make sure the gosson lurking under my open window once again could hear every word.

  “You Roman parsons know everything that happens in your congregation.”

  “We know only what they are ready to tell us, which often isn’t very much.”

  He sniffed.

  “Do you own a weapon, sir?”

  I laughed.

  “No.”

  “Not even a hunting gun?”

  “I don’t hunt or fish.”

  “We will search house to house for the weapon if we have to.”

  “That might be very unwise, Mr. Pryce-Smyth. It will offend the local people and make it even more unlikely that they will cooperate with your investigation. Moreover, whoever fired that rifle has doubtless hidden it.”