The Crow of Connemara

by Stephen Leigh

  “You’ll have that, Superintendent. If I’m still around.”

  Dunn’s thick fingers patted the sheet near Colin’s hand. “Yeh should get some rest,” he said. “I suspect yeh’ll be needing it. And as to the pendant, I’ll do what I can, seeing as it means so much to yeh.”

  With that, he left the room, calling for the garda to return as he closed the door behind him.

  “Breakfast is ready, Mr. Doyle.”

  “I’ll be right down, Mrs. Egan.”

  Colin pulled a sweater over his T-shirt, being careful as he put his heavily bandaged right arm through the sleeve. He put on the necklace with the cloch over his head, tucking it carefully under the sweater, and went downstairs. The bed and breakfast was full—as were most of the rooms in Ballemór at the moment. The other residents—an older couple from Hamburg, Germany; a single woman from Galway who always seemed to be around whenever he walked into a room; a mid-thirties married couple with two young children from Kansas City—watched him as he entered the dining room and took his seat, though no one addressed him directly. He was a curiosity, a carnival freak to be stared at, but one that was perhaps too dangerous to approach closely. Mrs. Egan seemed to take pride in his presence, as if he were her prized and private possession.

  After Superintendent Dunn’s visit in the hospital, Colin had endured the inquiries of the various authorities—from the Naval Services to the NPWS to Dunn’s local gardai for a week, asking him a thousand questions—some that he couldn’t answer, some that he wouldn’t. From them, he learned the official tale was that a massive and fast-moving storm front had blown over the island just as the sun was setting, driving the patrol vessels, half-wrecked, away from Inishcorr even as a small battle was being waged in and around the harbor. If those he talked to were coy about the details of the battle and who they found themselves fighting, Colin let that be.

  The monstrous swell had been pushed along by the storm, washing over the island, rolling up the Ballemór Estuary, and swamping much of the local coast. When the wave and the storm passed, Inishcorr was gone, not a trace of it left: no flotsam, no wreckage, no hint that it or its inhabitants had ever been there. There wasn’t—according to one crewman who took pity on Colin—even a sonar rise on the ocean floor. “’Twas gone like it had never existed,” the man said, almost wonderingly.

  Somehow, none of the naval personnel or gardai had been killed in the incident and the tidal wave, though there had certainly been injuries and broken bones in plenty. Several of those who had been involved in the attack on Inishcorr and caught up in the great wave found themselves somehow washed onto or close to the Grainne Ni Mhaille, the Oileánach’s hooker, which had somehow stayed afloat despite its broken mast and torn sails. Superintendent Dunn had been among them.

  Colin hadn’t been found until the next morning.

  To his interrogators, Colin repeated the story that Superintendent Dunn had suggested: that he had once been an innocent visitor to the island, that he’d gone out in the currach to try to reach the island in order to recover his belongings from his former lover and been caught in the freakish storm. He’d had nothing to do with the troubles there—frankly, he wasn’t entirely certain what had happened that day, and didn’t know how his injury had occurred. He hadn’t been on the island when the fog cleared and the naval ships moved in; he hadn’t been involved in the fighting. Certainly no one had seen him there during the confrontation—wasn’t that proof enough he hadn’t been there?

  It was obvious that the authorities weren’t quite certain how to explain the events of that day either, and that they didn’t quite agree as to what charges they could bring against Colin or what they could actually prove in court, though they threatened him with everything from terrorism to simple trespassing. Reluctantly, with some prodding by the American embassy and with Superintendent Dunn’s influence, he’d been released and his passport and visa, as well as his belongings, including his grandfather’s pendant, were returned to him.

  Colin had stayed in Ballemór: because that was where his clothes and his room were; because it was familiar; because there he could stare out over Ceomhar Head and wonder.

  “More bacon?” Mrs. Egan interrupted Colin’s thoughts, proffering a plate with the fatty ham slices that the Irish called bacon. He shook his head, and poked his fork at the eggs on his plate so that the yolks ran like liquid sun to the edges of the toast.

  “No, thank you,” he told her. “I have plenty here. It’s a very good breakfast, Mrs. Egan.”

  Mrs. Egan smiled as if sharing a secret with him. “The poor lad’s been through so much,” she said to the table, to nods all around. “We all have. Why, that awful storm just utterly wrecked the marina on Beach Road, and some of the water even poured into the town square down the hill, and there the poor boy was, caught out in the worst of it. I tell yeh, strange t’ings happened hereabout after the Oileánach came. Why, did I ever tell you about poor Mrs. Brennan...?”

  Colin stopped listening, eating quickly and escaping the table as Mrs. Egan segued from the curse on Mrs. Brennan to the tale of Darcy’s picture. “’Tis the Lord’s truth, ’tis, and Father Quinlan would tell yeh the same. Poor Darcy’s photograph flew all the way across the room to land right there, in the middle of this very table, sitting there exactly as if I’d put it there meself . . .”

  Mrs. Egan paused in mid-tale as Colin rose. They watched, silent, as he picked up his plate and carried it to the sideboard where Darcy’s picture now resided. “I’m going out for a walk,” he told them. “Have a good day, all.”

  Colin went into the hallway, taking his jacket from its hanger and plucking a walking stick from the umbrella stand near the door. He heard Mrs. Egan talking to the residents in not-hushed-enough tones. “Poor dear. He goes out walking along the Head every day since he was rescued, no matter the weather. I don’t wonder that he’s searching for that lost island and the strange girl he loved, who was lost there. Why, ’tis almost like one of those old songs he likes so well . . .”

  The closing of the door cut off the rest.

  His pants were damp beyond the knees from walking through the dew-wet gorse and the high grass along the ridge of Ceomhar Head. Ahead, he could see his destination: the standing stone overlooking the high sea cliff as if a sentinel. The stone, as always, leaned like a stoop-backed old man, as if one day it might fall over from its own weight to tumble down to the lowland and tidal flats below. Colin placed his right hand on the stone, forcing the stiff fingers there to open and flex. The doctor who had cleaned and stitched up his wound had said that with time and therapy he’d regain use of the hand and be able to play music, but it would probably always be a little stiff, and probably become arthritic in later life. The stone was surprisingly warm under his touch in the sunlight as he steadied himself against the fierce wind that blew back his hair and found every gap in his jacket. There is a power in these stones. Yeh can still feel it, if yeh know how. Maeve’s words. He looked at his left hand, which held the cloch dangling from its chain, and imagined he could feel a faint tingling there. He thought he saw a vision of the stone, standing firm and upright, as it once had.

  Maybe. Or maybe that was merely what he wished to feel.

  The wind from offshore carried the scent of fish and brine as Colin sat in the grass next to the stone, not paying attention to the insistent damp that immediately invaded the seat of his jeans. The walking stick’s brass ferrule prodded the lumpy heather at the cliff edge as he put his chin on the stick’s oaken head and stared out over the panorama before him.

  The tide was well out, and the lowlands at the foot of the Head were exposed. Instead of a series of low, isolated islands close to the shore, one could have walked over sandy mud from one to another, each with the occasional white farmhouse. To his right, the inlet of the Ballemór Estuary yawned, brown water outflowing to mix with the blue of the ocean. A few boats were out, one of the
m a Naval Services patrol boat, perhaps even the very one that had picked him up.

  To his left, where once the hazy rise of Inishcorr would have interrupted the horizon, there were only empty waves and a single fishing trawler, nets still furled on its mast.

  Colin wondered if, on some foggy night, one of those boats might glimpse Inishcorr in the moonlit distance: a haunted ghost island. He wondered if he went out there himself, perhaps he might be the one to see the fog-clad outline of the island and the high mound on the seaward side with its hawthorn tree.

  He wondered, but he had no answer. There was no sign in the world that lay spread out at his feet, and his companion the standing stone was silent. He let his fingertips prowl the cloch, touching the stone as he stared out, but there were no voices inside it now; when he held it up to the open sky, no mage-lights swept down in answer.

  From the branches of a wind-stunted tree nearby, a crow watched the young man seated at the cliff edge. After several minutes, the bird uttered a soft caw and spread its dark wings, letting the ocean wind lift it and carry it away, banking so that it rode the wind out toward the sea.

  Below, Colin looked up and watched its flight.

  Acknowledgments & Notes

  I have several people to thank for their help in producing the book you’re holding.

  First, a special thanks to Dr. Michael Simonton of Northern Kentucky University, who gifted me with some of the handouts he uses in his Celtic Studies courses as well as pointing me toward some excellent sources for Irish Gaelic. Any mistakes in Irish Gaelic are not his, but my own.

  Thanks to Michelle and John Donat, for feedback regarding Chicago, their home city. And yes, any mistakes regarding the Windy City are mine, not theirs . . .

  And thanks to my first readers: Anne Evans, Denise Parsley Leigh, Megen Leigh, Devon Leigh, P. Andrew Miller, David Perry, Shannon Kelly, Leslie Perry, Bruce Schneier, and Don Wenzel, for looking over various versions of the draft manuscript and giving me their comments—your time and effort are much appreciated! I especially want to single out David Perry, for one of the most insightful critiques I received, one that helped me re-envision the entire flow of the book. Thanks, David! This would be a lesser book without your input.

  And, as always, I have to mention Sheila Gilbert, my now longtime editor, whose advice and editorial input I always treasure. Sheila drives me to make each book the best it can be, and I can’t possibly thank her enough for her support of my work.

  The town of Ballemór doesn’t exist (or if it does, I’m not aware of its existence and I’ve certainly misplaced it on the map) nor does the island of Inishcorr, but the gorgeous Connemara region certainly does as well as the lovely town of Clifden, on which Ballemór is (very) loosely based. Should you have the opportunity to visit Ireland, I strongly recommend a long visit to the area. You absolutely won’t be disappointed.

  When I was there, I found myself wanting to stay in Clifden for much longer than I had time. Heck, I even halfheartedly looked at the realtor listings.

  Books read in the course of writing this novel whose influence you may or may not see in the text, but which certainly gave me inspiration:

  The Táin translated by Thomas Kinsella. Oxford University Press, 1969. A very accessible translation of the Irish epic, Tain Bo Cuailnge. However, the ink drawings that accompany the text I found irritating as often as I found them interesting.

  Lost Crafts: Rediscovering Traditional Skills by Una McGovern. Chambers Harrap Publishers, Edinburgh, 2008. This is an essential research book for anyone who wants to know how things were once done.

  The Celtic Twilight by W.B. Yeats. Dover Publications, 2004. This is Yeats’ relatively short compilation of Irish folktales as related to him by people he met and interviewed. The original publications of the book were 1893 and 1902—the Dover version I read is the 1902 version.

  A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend & Folklore: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, by Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats. Avenel Books, 1988. This volume is actually a compilation of two separate and much older books: Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, a collection of stories edited by W.B. Yeats, and Cuchulain of Muirthemne, a retelling of the Cuchulain epic by Lady Augusta Gregory.

  The Course of Irish History by T.W. Moody and F.X. Martin. Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1995. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in a well-researched overview of Ireland’s history.

  Celtic Myths and Legends by Peter Berresford Ellis. Running Press Book Publishers, 2008. Just what it says it is, a noncomprehensive and nonacademic book of the myths from all around the British Isles, not just Ireland. A decent introduction (and reminder) of the variety of tales and legends that abound in the region.

  Over Nine Waves: A Book of Irish Legends by Marie Heany. Faber & Faber Unlimited, 1994. This is just what it says it is, a prose retelling of the various Irish mythologies, broken into four sections. The “Mythological Cycle” retells the story of the Tuatha De Danaan, the Children of Lir, and the Milesians; the “Ulster Cycle” gives us Cuchulainn; the “Finn Cycle” relates the story of Finn and Oisin; lastly, the “Patron Saints of Ireland” delves into Patrick, Brigid, and Columcille. A decent condensed version of the primary mythologies of Ireland.

  Ireland’s Pirate Queen: The True Story of Grace O’Malley by Anne Chambers. MJF Books, 2003. This is a reprint of a 1998 book published by Wolfhound Press in Ireland. Grace O’Malley is referenced in my novel peripherally, as the Galway Hooker used by the Inishcorr people: the Grainne Ni Mhaille, is an Irish term for her. I found the book interesting (if poorly proofed), and well researched. Not much of this appears in my book, but I might use this again somewhere along the line . . .

  Irish Journal, by Heinrich Böll, translated by Leila Vannewitz. Melville House Publishing, Brooklyn, NY, 2011. Originally written in German, this is the account of Heinrich Böll’s travel in Ireland in the early 1950s. Böll was the first German to win the Nobel Prize for literature since Thomas Mann in 1929; the Irish Journal is a fascinating memoir of Ireland just after WWII—which is close to the period in which I have Colin’s grandfather, Rory O’Callaghan, appear. I used the journal not so much for the description as for the tone and sound of the “voice” of Rory’s journal.

  Old Irish Folk Music and Songs: A collection of 842 Irish airs and songs, hitherto unpublished, by the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland and P.W. Joyce. The book I have is a copy (and not a great one) from the University of Toronto Library of images from the original manuscript of 1909. Still, a fascinating collection of old Irish music, culled from several different collections of old music which became available to the Royal Society and Joyce.

  And, of course, there’s O’Neill’s Music of Ireland, which, unlike Colin, I don’t have in the original publication, but in Mel Bay Publications’ reproduction edition. O’Neill, who emigrated from Ireland to the States himself and became a Chicago policeman, collected from any Irish emigrant or traveler all the old Irish tunes they could remember and transcribed them here in one place: 1,850 airs, jigs, reels, and songs (though, sadly, only the melodies, not lyrics).

  Several (but not all) of the chapter titles in this book are titles of tunes in either the O’Neill or the Joyce collections.

  Versions of the song “The Ghost Lover” (aka “The Gray Cock” or “The Lover’s Ghost”) in Chapter 13 can be found in several places with a great variety of verses, going back to Child’s Collected Ballads by Francis James Child during the latter part of the 1800s, Sam Henry’s (b.1870–d.1952) Songs of the People, and also in the Roud Broadside Index.

  In Chapter 19, we have the traditional song “Mháire Bhruinneall,” which has been covered by dozens of artists over the years, the best known of which are probably Susan Mckeown’s version or Clannad’s. You should give a listen!

  In Chapter 24, Colin sings “Cliffs of Dooneen,” another of those Irish songs which
doesn’t have a clear author, point of origin, or age. One suggestion is that the lyrics were written by the late Jack McAuliffe in the 1930s and set to music sometime later by an unknown musician. The cliffs are probably those at Dooneen Point in County Kerry. The song has been performed by several musicians and bands. Look up Planxty, Christy Moore, or Paddy Reilly for nice renditions of the tune, though other versions abound.

  The poem that Colin sings to awaken Lugh in Chapter 30 is taken from “Mór ar bhfearg riot, ri Saxan,” by Gofraidh Fionn Ó Dálaigh, an Irish poet who died in 1387. This poem is written in Middle Irish, and is part of the story of the Tuatha Dé Danann’s struggles with the Fomor. The excerpt of the poem from which the quoted verses were borrowed (along with a translation) can be found at: http://www.karott.com/gaelic%5Creference% 5CIrish_Poetry%5CLugh_Comes_to_Tara.htm.

  In Chapter 31, we have the lyrics to a song entitled “Slip Away,” which despite Colin claiming as his, is an original composition of my own.

  And finally, in Chapter 33, Colin sings the poem Ráisit d’inis nárbo dermar (The island protected by a bridge of glass). One source for this poem is the “Yellow Book of Lecan” (c. 1391–1401 C.E); Gerard Murphy has it under “Otherworld poems” in Early Irish Lyrics: 8th to 12th Century (Ed. Gerard Murphy, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1956). Murphy attributes it to an ed Finn and dates it to around 920 since the text is primarily in Old Irish with a few smatterings of Middle Irish. The verse comes from the “Voyage of Maél Dúin’s Currach” and tells the story of two sailors who rowed out to a mysterious island where they met an equally mysterious woman who enchants them. After a few days on the island, they wake up to find themselves back in their boat, and the island has vanished—that should be enough to tell you why I chose to have Colin sing these verses. The poem may be found on the Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT) site at http://celt.ucc.ie/published/G400040/index.html. The CELT site is hosted by University College Cork in Ireland, and the brief excerpt from the poem is reproduced here with the kind permission of CELT and UCC.