Asking For Trouble

by Patricia Craig

  Possibly one or two of us have even been lumbered for ever after with a fixation on the illicit. I’m not suggesting that our libidos wouldn’t have been activated at full force in a more wholesome social climate but that, on the contrary, without repression, the sexual instinct common to all of us might have developed and flourished more harmoniously.

  I am learning a lot of things in the Gaeltacht. I am learning about the strangeness of the West, the remotest part of Ireland; about the unreliability of friends, and communal life, and the Irish song tradition. I am learning – I hope – how to put a good face on things, how to slough off discouragement and disappointment. I am learning how easily adolescent affections may be transferred from one object to another (well, I knew that already). I’m about to learn the truth of the old nursery maxim about an excess of laughter being the prelude to lamentation.

  Some events of that interesting August stand out more clearly than others. What else do I recall, in a fair amount of detail? There’s a morning at Coláiste Bhrighde, when six or seven names are read out at the end of class – mine included. The pupils specified are instructed to stay behind, while the others stream off in pursuit of various objectives – mostly their midday meal. No, it’s not that we’ve been caught out in some piece of misbehaviour; on the contrary, we’re about to be rewarded for the way our Irish is coming along. We’re invited to a social gathering due to take place that evening at a local house, the home of a celebrated storyteller called Nelly Sally Phroinsias. It’s been judged that our proficiency in Irish is such that we might derive some benefit from the experience.

  Nelly Sally is ninety years old, and famous in the district as a seanchaí, a teller of tales. ‘Lá de na laethibh agus uair de na huairibh,’ she’ll begin. ‘Lá de na laethibh agus uair de na huairibh a raibh Fionn Mac Cumhaill agus a chuid Féinne ag seilg i nGleann an Smóil …’ More than one generation of Irish-speakers has been riveted by her stories of Fionn and the Fianna, Conchobhar of the Two Sheep, the Daughter of the King of the Hill of Gold, the King of Norway’s Children and Miogach Son of Colgain from the Norse Territories of the Sweet Music.

  It’s a marvel, even we can see that, that such an activity has persisted up until the present. Here on the western edge of Ireland, the modern world is encroaching only slowly on traditional preserves; though of course there is no doubt that it will win out in the end. Already you get the odd pebble-dashed bungalow and indoor lavatory to herald the coming adulteration of an ancient way of life, along with the juke-box in O’Driscoll’s Café where ‘The Homes of Donegal’ is a popular choice of record. The bulk of the people, one imagines, will put up little or no resistance to alien influences, when it comes to the bit. And why, indeed, should they deny themselves comfort and advancement? (I am torn between the two arguments; one minute I’m all for traditionalism, the next on the side of social mobility.)

  There won’t be any call for a successor to Nelly Sally, I know that: television will usurp her place. Her like will not be seen again. It’s impressed on us that we are very privileged, schoolchildren that we are, to be allowed to sit in on what will surely be among the very last of these age-old performances.

  As it turns out, my Irish proves inadequate to grapple with the convoluted events of Nelly Sally’s story, and my concentration soon slackens. A talking cat, a blackberry bush, a dead man bundled into a sack and suddenly restored to life … I can’t make head or tail of it. It’s enough, however, just to sit there and imbibe the Gaelic atmosphere. Knowing this way of life to be on its last legs makes the whole occasion especially poignant. There sits Nelly Sally in front of her audience, black stockings, shawl and cardigan, the glow from the turf fire casting deep shadows on her animated old face and gesticulating hands. ‘Maith thú, a Nelly’ (‘Good for you, Nelly’) comes from one corner of the room or other every five minutes or so: not an interruption, but an accepted means of rallying and applauding a performer.

  I can’t say I’m happy with the seating arrangements. I am stuck halfway along a row of kitchen chairs, between Kathleen Shannon and Susie Greenwood. The position offers no scope for flirtation. The dozen or so college boys invited to the gathering are bunched together (as we are) at the far side of the room. None of our friends among the locals is present – I’ve looked in vain for Maghnas, Donal Gallagher, Paddy Boyle and the rest of them. No doubt they prefer more up-to-date entertainment. There are plenty of local men in the audience but they’re all, without exception, exceedingly old. The row in front of us is filled with members of the college staff, priests and lay teachers and the odd schoolmistress (though not Martin Henderson, oddly enough, since it’s he who’s responsible for our presence here, in Nelly Sally’s kitchen).

  Two seats away, to my left and next to Kathleen Shannon, is a portly old white-haired local celebrity named Joe Peadar Burns. This Joe Peadar (it’s been explained to us) has done great work on behalf of the Irish language and culture, collecting and recording forgotten songs of the district and further afield, and broadcasting them on his own special bi-monthly programme on Raidió na Gaeltachta. Introduced to us – or told, at least, that we’re Irish-oriented pupils from various city schools – he’s greeted us affably enough, but with a slight air of bemusement, as if he can’t quite fathom what we’re doing here, with our shell-pink lipstick, our crisp cotton dresses and Banlon cardigans.

  The applause is vociferous once the story’s completed, though just before the end a certain restlessness had crept over the audience, signalled by the creaking of chairs, the clearing of throats, and the pouring of beer into beakers clasped in local farmers’ hands. Next on the agenda comes the recitation by Joe Peadar Burns of a poem entitled ‘The First Tuesday of Autumn’ (‘An Céad Mairt de’n Fhomair’). Getting to his feet, he explains for the benefit of the visitors: ‘This is a tragedy, a lament for a young man named Padraig O’Donnell who met his death by drowning in the year 1811. The body was washed up on the beach down here; I can show you the exact spot. It was Padraig’s father Seamus who wrote the poem; and it achieved a great circulation in the Rosses. When someone congratulated Seamus on its success, he replied: “It’s success I’d as lief have done without, for it was dearly bought”.’

  The poem follows, and once it’s over an outburst of stamping, cheering and clapping of hands testifies to the popularity of Joe Peadar. Having resumed his seat, this ponderous old person smiles and nods in all directions in acknowledgement of the audience’s approval.

  The kitchen door stands hospitably open, summoning all the moths of the district, it seems to me, to meet their end against a light bulb suspended from the ceiling in a fringed crimson shade; I sit in dread lest one should fall on me. I have an aversion to creepy-crawlies. It’s pretty late by now – ten o’clock at least – and the summer light has gone. Two or three country-looking people, strangers to me, shamble in through the door and proceed towards the back of the room with its makeshift arrangement of benches and chairs, exchanging greetings with their neighbours as they go. A muddy sheepdog squirms in after them, pokes its nose into Kathleen Shannon’s lap, and is promptly shooed out again by Joe Peadar Burns before I can get a chance to stroke it. I have noticed that the locals have a rather callous attitude towards their animals. There are few pampered pets in the townlands.

  All the old farmers, as far as I can judge, have craggy Donegal faces and haven’t changed their style of dress since Patrick McGill’s day: the same serge suits, and, in winter (I imagine) tweed overcoats tied around the middle with bits of string, serve this older generation as well as any previous one. I envisage them expertly slapping cattle on the rump, or travelling the roads with cartloads of turf. ‘Clabber to the knee’ indeed. Here, in Nelly Sally Phroinsias’s stone-floored kitchen, a man in one of the ubiquitous dark crumpled suits has got to his feet – a mite unsteadily – and gone into a full-throated rendering of a song entitled ‘Paidín’s Wife’, which I’m pleased to be able to follow. It goes something like this:

  May y
ou break your legs and your bones

  May you break your bones, Paidín’s wife.

  May you break your legs and your bones,

  May you lose both your legs and your life.

  I’m sitting there enjoying the bracing ruthlessness of this quatrain (if I’ve got it right) when all of a sudden the room is plunged into blackness. Taken completely by surprise, we require a minute or two to figure out that a power failure has occurred – I find myself turning futilely towards Susie Greenwood and asking for an explanation, amid the confused babble that’s arisen in the darkness. A minute later, I’m aware of my arm on the other side being clutched and shaken, and an agitated voice – Kathleen’s – demanding that I accompany her outside. ‘Yes, all right,’ I mutter, ‘I’m coming’ – still trying to get my bearings. ‘What is it? The lavatory’s round the back of the house; you have to turn right and be careful not to trip over the turf-stack.’

  Some people by now have gathered their wits sufficiently to retrieve torches from their pockets and switch them on, and one man is working away at a fuse-box in the corner. The light comes back on as Kathleen and I are blundering towards the door. Kathleen continues to barge ahead with uncharacteristic determination. Is she bursting to get to the lavatory, or what is wrong with her? Once we’re outside, it’s plain to see that Kathleen is undergoing an emotional upset. She slumps against the windowsill and bursts into tears, while behind us the sound of fiddling indicates that the entertainment has resumed. All I can do is stand there helplessly looking at her. ‘What is it, are you ill or something? I’ll get one of the others. I don’t know anything about first aid.’

  At this suggestion, Kathleen’s distress visibly increases. She manages to indicate that the last thing she wants is an audience. Finally, calming down a bit, she fishes a hanky out of her pocket and gives her nose a good blow. ‘Ugh,’ she shudders.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I ask. ‘Did something happen when the light went out?’

  Kathleen confides to me, in a whisper, that her modesty has been outraged. She felt, in the dark, a hand being inserted into the front of her blouse. She and I peer in unison at the place where, sure enough, a button has come undone. Acting instinctively, Kathleen says, she grasped the hand and thrust it away from her. Then the horror of the thing overcame her. ‘Whose hand?’ I wonder, stifling an urge to giggle, trying to figure out to whom Kathleen’s ample bosom would have proved irresistible. There is definitely a tinge of absurdity about the incident.

  ‘Joe Peadar’s.’ This information is divulged in a dire tone. ‘Oh God, it was awful,’ Kathleen moans. She adds that she’ll never be able to look anyone in the face again.

  ‘Joe Peadar Burns? That old man? Kathleen, are you sure you didn’t imagine it?’

  Kathleen is quite definite on this point. Good heavens, she’s not the sort of person to make a fuss about nothing. She demands that I should give her credit for knowing an assault from an accidental caress. Besides, there’s the evidence of the opened button, which at this moment she hurriedly fastens as a latecomer turns into the pathway and strides towards us, whistling. It is Martin Henderson, our very personable teacher. ‘Well, girls,’ he starts, ‘how’s it going?’ But it only takes a closer look at the two of us standing there speechless to alert him to the fact that something is amiss. Kathleen starts to say something and then bursts out crying, perhaps fearing that Martin himself may be impelled to repeat Joe Peadar’s performance. There really isn’t any danger of it.

  ‘Whatever is the matter?’ cries Martin.

  It’s left to me to explain, as best I can, that Kathleen is the victim of an unfortunate experience. I don’t mean to be coy, but between deficiency in Irish, and embarrassment both at the incomprehensible act, and Kathleen’s excessive reaction to it, I’m reduced to a fair amount of stumbling and stuttering. Martin has to press us to go into detail. Eventually the name of Joe Peadar Burns is dragged out of us. At this point, Martin frowns and looks terribly serious. ‘Joe Peadar is an old friend of mine, a most respectable man. Joe Peadar would never do a thing like that!’

  ‘Well, he did,’ mumbles Kathleen. I can’t resist adding, probably through nervousness, ‘We’re never going to be able to look him in the face again.’

  ‘Now, look here,’ says Martin, every inch the schoolmaster, ‘come round the side of the house for a bit, both of you.’ It’s clear that cracks are going to be papered over – also, I can’t help considering it extremely ironic that it should be in these circumstances that Martin Henderson, on whom several of us have a schoolgirl crush, at last invites me round the side of a house …With an arm around the shoulder of each of us, Martin explains at some length that Joe Peadar is a poor old man, a luminary of the language movement, the victim of a repressed life, and a person against whom a solitary piece of bad conduct should not be held. ‘It must have been a sudden impulse,’ he decides. ‘Joe Peadar has never done anything like that before, that I know of.’

  He urges the two of us not to let it go any further. It is certain that Joe Peadar is deeply ashamed of himself at this moment. We don’t want to bring trouble on him, do we? A poor old man – and after all his good work on behalf of the Irish language. ‘He never married, you know. And men can’t help themselves sometimes – not nice, I know, but there it is.’

  It crosses my mind that that depends very much on the man concerned, that I could bear it without flinching if a similar impulse came over Martin, for instance, in relation to myself – though I understand that it isn’t going to happen. He must be wishing he’d kept us well away from Nelly Sally’s kitchen with its scope for outrage. All I can do is agree to screen out the incident of the groping hand, as Martin so intensely desires; and Kathleen too says she’d much rather the whole thing was forgotten. She’d hate to be associated with a scandal in the Gaeltacht. She will try to put it out of her head, and act normally towards Joe Peadar Burns if she should encounter him doddering along a boíthrín – though if she does, it’s possible that mortification may get the better of her. His action was so unexpected and revolting! A person of his age.

  Martin makes soothing noises, and praises the pair of us for being able to see the thing in such a sensible light. Of course he knows we are reasonable girls and incapable of harbouring ill feeling towards anyone over the head of an isolated lapse from propriety. A good night’s sleep is what Kathleen, in particular, needs as an aid to dismissing the whole unpleasant business from her mind. We’ve a lot to look forward to over the next few days – a ceilidhe, and a treasure hunt, and a picnic at the Point, all arranged for our delectation. He, Martin, is relying on our discretion; he knows he can trust us. And look at the time it is – there is no point in rejoining the revellers indoors. Everyone will be leaving shortly. He accompanies us down to the roadway, helping us to negotiate the rough track in the dark, and sends us on our way back to Teach Eddy Doyle. If anyone should ask where we got to, we’re to say that Kathleen suddenly developed a headache and had to leave early. And we mustn’t forget our promise of secrecy. We assure him that our lips are sealed.

  Oddly enough – in view of my relish for gossip – I don’t have any difficulty in sticking to this promise. There are several reasons for it. First, I’ve given my word to Martin; and it’s nice to be involved in a small conspiracy with him. Then, the aberrant act, when I think about it, fills me with queasiness rather than glee. It would have been a different matter, indeed, if a contemporary’s hand had strayed towards Kathleen; sexual behaviour of any kind seems the prerogative of our age-group (well, give or take a few years up or down). On reflection, I still consider her reaction overdone; but I can see why anyone would feel violated, in the circumstances. Grandfatherly concupiscence is outside the ken of all of us.

  And Martin is right, of course: with an abundance of goings-on to divert us and occupy our thoughts, the impression of an upset at the storytelling soon fades. And, if only we’d known it, a far more annihilating occurrence has already been set in m
otion; at this very moment, forces are massing which will overturn the brighter prospects of one or two of us. Joe Peadar’s reputation is safe; we are not vindictive girls, and the incident has no sequel beyond an outbreak or two of hysterical laughter, on the part of Kathleen, whenever she chances to catch my eye across the dinner table.

  ‘Livin’ in Drumlister,’ as W.F. Marshall has it, ‘in clabber to the knee.’ Irish repression is responsible for the hordes of seedy old celibates dotted about the countryside, most of whom do not have the Gaelic language and its upkeep as a resource. (‘The Irish towns and Irish countryside have an astonishing number of bachelors and old maids,’ wrote an American observer, Paul Blanchard, in 1953.) Great Hunger territory: Kavanagh’s Patrick Maguire and his ilk leading lives as meagre as a Presbyterian’s Sunday revelry – and as remote from our experience as an upbringing in an igloo. We belong to a world of streets, parks, cinemas, back alleys, double-decker buses, milk bars and Saturday afternoon browsing among the treasure trove of Smithfield Market. We relish the atmosphere of libraries and student dance halls. Rannafast, as far as we’re concerned, is only an idea, a version of romantic Ireland. It isn’t our natural habitat. None of us is keen on solitude. The stony fields and boíthríns of the Gaeltacht wouldn’t be half as agreeable to us if the place wasn’t crammed to bursting with a whole range of new friends and contemporaries.

  At home in Belfast I have a boyfriend in whom I’m losing interest: in my eyes he stands convicted of a timid and conventional nature, very much at odds with his appearance. I suppose I’d really like to tangle with something more intense and dangerous (well, sixteen is probably the age when the Heathcliff figure looms largest in romantic girls’ imaginations). Looking back, trying to impose a pattern of sorts on these distant events, I’d have to place Maghnas Bell in a line of wayward, debonair, disruptive men, men with no respect for suburban proprieties, who hold a certain fascination for me – and for whom sex is clearly the driving force in life. Not that this is the only type I’m drawn to: by my mid-teens I’ve indulged in temporary, absurd and more-or-less fruitless passions for everyone from a blond-haired, unemployed teenage wastrel from the Whiterock Road, to a visiting art master at St Dominic’s School. But it is a distinct type, I think, and it’s cropped up in my life from time to time.