We Were Rich and We Didn't Know It

by Tom Phelan

  We gazed down into the hollow, across the sheets of golden buttercups and over the hedge that separated the Sandpit Field from the Rushes.

  Eddie said, “It was hard for everybody when Dad slowed down. He’d get terribly cross at himself. Then he’d get cross at Mam and me. I couldn’t talk to him at all. He wanted to go to Saint Vincent’s, but Mam couldn’t bear to see him leave. Then you wrote and told her to let him go. That was the best letter you ever wrote. We brought him up on a Thursday evening.”

  A spear of breeze startled a group of buttercups.

  “The next morning I went to see him, and when I was coming home I stopped in at Ned Hyland’s. Ned asked me, ‘Where are you going all dressed up?’ and I said I’d been up to Saint Vincent’s to visit Dad, and then I burst out crying. I felt like a real eejit in front of Ned.” Eddie snuffled loudly and wiped the back of his hand across his nose. A half-strangled sob escaped into the thick grass.

  Eddie spoke again. “That was his favorite place over there at the Beech Trees. It’s mine, too. It’s the nicest place on the farm. The Sunday before we brought him to Saint Vincent’s, Mam came out to me in the barn and said she couldn’t find him anywhere. We looked in all the houses, and then we went across the fields. When we got to the Rushes gate, we could see him sitting on the roots of one of the trees. The cattle were all around him, sniffing. It was like he had come over to say goodbye to them. To say goodbye to the whole thing. Mam went ahead and got him, and I waited there at the gate for them. And then I walked home behind them. It was terribly sad.”

  I started to cry. Then with great sorrow, Eddie began to sob. Together in the hedge, we wept, letting the sadness come out loudly and unashamed. Side by side in the bushes, Eddie with his head on his arms across his up-pulled knees, me looking blindly at the Beech Trees, the tears flowing itchingly into my beard.

  GLOSSARY

  Angelus: prayer commemorating the conception of Jesus.

  arse: ass; a person’s rear end.

  Artisans’ Dwellings: name of a Dublin construction company; the houses were built by artisans, but not for artisans.

  ashplant: ash stripling with a knob on the end where it was cut off from the main plant.

  ate the face off: gave a scalding dressing-down to.

  beet fork: a six-tined fork with tines about a foot long, gently curved and with small nobs on the end to avoid their sticking in the sugar beet during loading.

  beet knife: short-bladed machete.

  beet pulp: what was left after the sugar was extracted from the beet root.

  beet tops: the leaves growing out of the beet plant at soil level.

  belt of a bush, tilled with the: a throwaway phrase meaning soil was so soft it could be tilled by belting, or whacking it, with a thorny blackthron bush.

  blurt: fart.

  bogies: low-slung platforms on small wheels, with a winch attached for loading cocks of hay.

  bollicks: curmudgeon, difficult personality, pain in the arse, contrarian.

  boogie man: imaginary snatcher of children.

  box of the wheel: the fortified center of a wheel where the axle is inserted.

  Brian Boru: high king of Ireland who defeated Danish invaders in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf.

  britchens: part of the tacklings that went over the rump of a horse and was attached to the shafts of a cart.

  bull, to bull each other: to have sex.

  butter paper: paper for wrapping butter or meat; wax paper.

  camogie: women’s version of the Irish sport of hurling.

  Canal Line: the towpath for the horse that pulled a barge.

  clamp of turf: wall of sods of turf, built to keep the pile of turf tidy.

  clocking turkey: a brooding turkey.

  crane: iron device hanging above the fire; it could be lowered or raised from the heat; several pots could be suspended at the same time from its hooks.

  creels: upward extensions added to the sides and ends of a cart to allow for a bigger load.

  Croke Park: main stadium of the GAA, located in Dublin.

  d’arse: the arse.

  delft: tableware, usually white and blue, called after the city of Delft in Holland.

  dinner: main meal of the day, eaten at 1:00 p.m.

  ditch: a drain running beside a hedge, usually around the edge of a field.

  draughts: traces attached to a horse’s collar and a singletree.

  Drogheda: town in County Louth.

  Dubh Linn: Irish for Dublin; literally, black pool.

  dunghill: a heap of animal bedding (i.e., straw) and animal waste.

  eejit: idiot.

  ex cathedra: from the seat; when the pope speaks as head of the Church on matters of faith or morals, he speaks “from the seat” of Peter. In this instance, he is said to be infallible.

  Fair Day: cattle market.

  Fairy Tree: tree to be avoided because it is the dwelling place of fairies.

  feckin’, fecking: mild forms of “fucking.”

  followers: game played with marbles and using rules similar to those in bocce; the bowling lawn is an unending road.

  four-grained fork: four-tined dung fork.

  Furry Hill: furze, furse, gorse, or whin bushes grew in the field beside this hill; furzy hill became Furry Hill.

  GAA: Gaelic Athletic Association, an amateur sporting and cultural association, that promotes Irish sports including hurling, camogie, and Gaelic football.

  Gaelic League: Founded in 1893 with the aim of restoring the Irish language (Gaelic), the league conducted language classes throughout the country. Its optimistic aims were not achieved.

  grub, to: to use a drill grub, a farm implement with seven long iron teeth irregularly placed on an iron frame. It is sufficiently narrow to be dragged by a horse between drills of root crops to disturb weeds growing in the furrows.

  haggard: enclosed open-air area for storage of animal fodder and farmyard manure.

  half a crown: one-eighth of a British pound; in 1952, about forty-five cents.

  hames: two curved metal bars, joined by a short chain at one end, fitting into a groove in a horse’s collar. Hooks on a hame allow for the attachment of traces. Because the chain joining the two bars sometimes became twisted, the expression “to make a hames of it” means to make a mess of something.

  hob: a cast-iron cabinet besides a fireplace, used for warming pans and plates. The top of the hob was the seat most fought over in wintertime because of its proximity to the fire.

  hoose: bovine parasitic bronchitis causing animals to cough loudly and frequently.

  hure: whore. Not necessarily a woman; often applied to a man who is a son of a bitch, a mean and nasty person, or a bollicks. When preceded by “real,” the word assumes hurricane strength.

  hurley: wooden stick used in the Irish sport of hurling.

  hurling: fast field game in which opposing teams use hurleys and a hard leather ball to score points.

  IHS: Jesu Hominum Salvator (Jesus, Savior of Men) is one of many interpretations of this ancient symbol.

  Ireland’s Own: family magazine first issued in 1902.

  jow: dung.

  Jubilee nurse: In 1887, when Queen Victoria celebrated the golden jubilee of her ascension to the throne, the women of England presented her with a gift of seventy thousands pounds (8.5 million today). Queen Victoria used the money to train nurses who would live and work in remote areas of the British Isles.

  Laois: county in Ireland’s midlands. Pronounced “leash.”

  level crossing: railroad crossing.

  mangel: mangold; large round root vegetable grown for animal feed.

  Marbra: corruption of Maryborough, former name of Portlaoise, county seat of Laois.

  messages: groceries; “going for the messages” was going to the town to buy groceries.

  middle house: animal house between the stable and barn.

  MPSI: Member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland.

  nappies: diap
ers.

  oul: old; adds emphasis to the insult of being called an “oul girl” or an “oul farmer’s son.”

  oxter: armpit.

  paddy cap: peaked cloth cap; the English call it a “flat cap.”

  pap: cow’s teat.

  parish priest: pastor.

  paunched: disemboweled.

  pebble dashed: a wall finished in pebble dashing, an outside finish consisting of small stones embedded in mortar.

  pictures: movies.

  pinfeather: developing feather that still has blood in it.

  Pioneer: member of the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association, an Irish religious association for people who abstain from alcohol.

  pixie: girl’s knitted hat tied under the chin.

  plimsolls: a light rubber-soled canvas shoe.

  pony-and-trap, pony’s trap: cushioned, sprung, rubber-wheeled conveyance; an upscale version of a pony’s cart.

  pooka: most vicious being in the pantheon of Irish fairies; sometimes took the form of a horse that buried itself in a laneway, and when the victim walked over it, the pooka jumped up and took him on a wild ride to parts unknown.

  Rineanna: former name of Shannon Airport.

  Sacred Heart lamp: small, red-globed lamp kept alight in front of a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus; found in many Irish kitchens.

  scald: young bird.

  scour: diarrhea in an animal.

  scraping mangels: the clay adhering to this root crop is scraped off just before use because any small wound would lead to quick decay.

  seed barrow: seeding machine for turnips and other root crops.

  shied: description of (a sometimes violent) reaction of a horse when startled or spooked; a newspaper blowing in the wind might make a horse shy.

  sleeveen: nastily sly person.

  Slieve Bloom: mountain range on the border between counties Laois and Offaly.

  snags: short sprouts on stored potatoes.

  spring-grub: farm implement fitted with four rows of “springy” steel feet that loosen the soil after it has been ploughed.

  stubbles: what’s left after the passage of a harvester in a field of corn.

  supper: evening meal, eaten at 6:00 p.m.

  tackle (a horse): outfit a horse for field work or haulage work.

  that one: disparaging reference to a woman, worse than calling her “she.”

  tinker: originally a person who worked with tin, making utensils or mending them. The term became associated with people of no fixed abode. Today, it is considered a pejorative, and the term “traveler” is used.

  townland: a small geographic division of land in Ireland. A town is comprised of numerous townlands. For the most part, their boundaries are unmarked but are known to the local people and appear on maps. There are more than sixty thousand townlands in the country.

  turf: peat cut to the size of a loaf of bread, dried by the sun and wind, and used for fuel. In the days of open fireplaces about ten thousand sods of turf would be used in a home each year.

  turning barley: before drying equipment was available, barley was stored on wooden floors to a depth of two feet. To keep it from “heating up” from its own moisture, the barley had to be regularly “turned.” To avoid damaging the grain, wooden shovels were used.

  TVO (Tractor Vaporizing Oil): basically paraffin oil with some additives.

  whipping top: child’s toy using a cone-like top and a light whip.

  whitethorn: large bush producing a display of white blossoms in May and perfuming the Irish countryside.

  wingboard: four boards easily attached to the sides, back, and front of a cart to give it more depth and hence carrying capacity.

  winkers: a horse’s leather bridle with sides (blinkers) attached to restrict peripheral vision and hence keep the horse from being startled.

  winter cattle: cattle housed and fed and bedded during the winter.

  woodquest: a woodpigeon or ring dove; agricultural pest.

  yer man, your man: used when a name cannot be remembered, or used disdainfully when the name is known. “Yer man was eatin’ the altar rails again with cow dung on his boots.”

  yoke: word applied to anything whose name is momentarily forgotten. “Hand me that yoke.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to Maura Mulligan and Kate Hourigan for Irish translations and to Seamus Deegan for checking my Latin.

  My gratitude to Peter McDermott, deputy editor of the Irish Echo, for his longtime encouragement and for publishing some of the early JohnJoe stories.

  Thank you to the staff of the Freeport Memorial Library in Freeport, New York, for their unfailing and enthusiastic assistance.

  I am grateful to the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan; OBRAS Portugal in Evoramonte; and the Ireland Fund of Monaco and Princess Grace Irish Library for residencies that were helpful in the writing of We Were Rich and We Didn’t Know It.

  My appreciation to my untiring agent, Tracy Brennan of Trace Literary Agency, and to editorial director Aimèe Bell, executive editor Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, editorial assistant Brita Lundberg, copy editor Shelly Perron, and the staff at Gallery Books for their efforts on my behalf.

  Thank you to my sons, Joseph and Michael, for their continual encouragement.

  Finally, my gratitude to Patricia Mansfield Phelan, my wife. She has been my great encourager, she has been of wonderful and patient editorial assistance, and her suggestions, despite my occasional resistance, are always on target.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  AUTHOR PHOTO BY PATRICIA PHELAN

  Tom Phelan was born and raised on a farm in County Laois, Ireland. His first novel, In the Season of the Daisies, was published to acclaim when he was fifty, prompting one reviewer to write, “The most obvious question posed by a novelistic debut with as much resounding vigour as this is: Where has Mr. Phelan been?” Since then, Phelan has written the novels Iscariot, Derrycloney, The Canal Bridge, Nailer, and Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told. He lives with his wife in New York.

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  ALSO BY TOM PHELAN

  In the Season of the Daisies

  Iscariot

  Derrycloney

  The Canal Bridge

  Nailer

  Lies the Mushroom Pickers Told

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  Interior design by Jaime Putorti

  Jacket design by John Vairo Jr.

  Photography by Krasimira Petrova Shishkova/Trevillion Images

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-1-5011-9709-3

  ISBN 978-1-5011-9711-6 (ebook)