Graveyard Clay- Cré Na Cille

by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

  “Your flowing curly hair,9

  Your dewy bright eyes,

  Your delicate round white breast

  Attracting eye’s desire.”

  … That’s fine talk for a schoolmaster! The Schoolmistress and Billyboy the Post are driving him mad. But he must have a screw loose to be singing Nóra Sheáinín’s praises: “Her mind has greatly improved,” he says, “she’s cultured now …”

  She wasn’t long reminding me of the cross over her grave. “I have a fine decent cross over me,” says she, “which is more than you have, Caitríona.” Her grave would be a long time without a cross only for that fool of a brother of hers paid for it, and I told her so. Down there in the Half-Guinea Plot among the riff-raff of Sive’s Rocks and Wood of the Lake, without headstone or slab she’d be. And that’s where she should be if justice were done. She most certainly was never praised till she died. When did anyone ever have a good word to say for any of her breed? Never. Never in living memory. It didn’t happen. Out from under the dock leaves that lot crawled …

  But a cross over your grave here is as good as having a big slated house above ground, with a name over the door—Badger’s Den View, Paradise Refuge, Banshee Residence, Lovers’ Way, Eye of the Sun, Saints’ Abode, Leprechaun Lawn—and a cement wall around it, trees and blossoms up to the edge of the flower-bed, the little iron gate with the archway of branches above it, success in life and money in the bank … Railings around a grave are equal to the big walls around the Earl’s10 house. Every time I looked in over the Earl’s walls my heart would flutter. I always expected to see some wonderful sight: the Earl and his wife with their wings on, just landed back from dining in Heaven. Or St. Peter, and the Earl and his wife alongside him, escorting him to a table in the shade of the trees; a net in his hand after being fishing on the Earl’s Lake; a golden salmon in the net; his big keys making a clatter; the Saint opening his book and consulting the Earl about which of his tenants should be allowed into Heaven. I thought then that to have a clean sheet in the Earl’s books was to have a clean sheet in the books of Heaven …

  Those people above ground are very simple-minded. “What good will it do the dead to put a cross over their grave?” they’ll say. “Devil a bit! The same crosses are nothing but snobbery and vanity and a waste of money.” If they only knew! But they don’t understand till they’re buried in the graveyard themselves, and then it’s too late. If they understood above ground that a cross on your grave here makes even the Filthy-Feet Breed respectable, they wouldn’t be so neglectful …

  I wonder when will the cross be put over me? Surely Pádraig wouldn’t let me down. He promised me faithfully:

  “It will be up within a year, or even before that,” says he. “It would be ungrateful of us not to do that much for you …”

  A cross of Island limestone, with an inscription in Irish … The Irish language is more genteel for crosses nowadays … and nice flowers …

  It’s many a warning I gave Pádraig:

  “I reared you tenderly, Pádraig,” says I. “I always kept a good house for you. Our Lady knows it wasn’t always easy. I never told you about all the hardship I endured after your father’s death. I never demanded the least thing in return. I would often get the urge to buy a bit of bacon to boil with a head of cabbage; or a handful of raisins to put in the bread; or to go into Peadar the Pub’s when I felt my windpipe parched with dust from spring-cleaning, and order a half-glass from one of those golden bottles that smiled at me from the windows every time I passed …

  But, Pádraig, my dear, I didn’t. I put by every penny … I wouldn’t like to give Nell or Big Brian’s Mag the satisfaction that I wouldn’t be buried properly. Get me a grave in the Pound Plot. Put a cross of Island limestone over me. Have it up within a year of my burial at the latest. I know all this will cost money, but God will reward you …

  Don’t heed your wife if she’s grumbling about the expense. She is your wife, but I’m the one who brought you into the world, Pádraig. This is the only trouble I’ve ever caused you. Then you’ll be finished with me. Make sure you don’t give Nell the satisfaction …”

  And after all that he didn’t bury me in the Pound Plot. The wife … or the wife and that other little pussface, Nell. But Pádraig can be headstrong too, when he wants to. He promised me that cross …

  I wonder what sort of funeral I had? I won’t know till the next corpse I’m acquainted with arrives. It’s high time now for someone to come. Bid Shorcha was ailing. But I’d say she’s in no danger of death yet. There’s also Máirtín Pockface, Beartla Blackleg and Bríd Terry, and of course the ugly streak of misery Big Brian, may God protect us from his heap of bones … Tomás Inside should have his death from the leaking roof any day now. His hovel should have fallen in on him by now, if Pádraig heeded my advice.

  My son’s wife will be here for certain on her next childbirth. Nell is very stricken since Peadar was injured, and the rheumatism is at her, the pussface. But even if it is, it won’t kill her. According to herself she was often at death’s door, but the seven plagues of Egypt wouldn’t kill some people. May no corpse come into the graveyard ahead of her …

  I don’t know if there was any letter from America since. I’m afraid Nell will have an easy ride with Baba’s will now. If only I’d lived another couple of years, even …

  Baba was always fonder of me than of any of the rest of us. When we were little girls together long ago, herding the cows in the Little Field of Haws … It would never occur to her to put a cross over me, like Nóra Sheáinín’s brother did for Nóra …

  —… Do you think this is the “War of the Two Foreigners”? …

  —These chatterboxes always get a fit of talking just when a person is longing for peace and quiet. What a load of rubbish they speak in the world above: “She’s gone home now. She’ll have peace and quiet from now on, and she can put all memory of the world out of her head in the graveyard clay.” … Peace! Peace! Peace! …

  —… If you elect me as a representative I promise you I’ll do all a man can do—I mean all a woman can do—for the cause of culture and to cultivate an enlightened public opinion here …

  —Muraed! Muraed! Hey, Muraed … Did you hear what Nóra Sheáinín said? … “If you elect me” … I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …

  5

  —… “Tomá-ás Inside was there with an urge to ma-arry

  As often ha-a-ppens when he’s ta-aken a drop …”

  —… Isn’t it funny, Dotie … Tomás Inside is a nickname everybody calls him … He lives on his own in a little cabin at the top of our village. He never married. He’s an old man now. There’s nobody related to him alive—in Ireland at any rate—except Caitríona and Nell Pháidín … Damned if I know, my dear, not to give you a short answer, what relation he is to Nell or to Caitríona, although I’ve heard it often enough …

  —First cousins once removed, Muraed. Caitríona’s father, little Páidín, and Tomás Inside were first cousins.

  —… “I’ve a patch of la-and and a cot that’s co-osy …”

  —Tomás Inside’s patch of land borders on Nell’s, and it means more to her than to Caitríona. Caitríona’s land is well away from it, and she already has a big holding anyhow …

  —… “And two people I kno-ow who’ll pay-ay my rent …”

  —Caitríona was forever pestering Tomás Inside, trying to coax him down to her own house, not just because she coveted his land but to prevent Nell getting it …

  —Oh, indeed Muraed, didn’t I see how she had Pádraig driven crazy …

  —Even if his own crops were rotting on the ridge she’d still be at him to go up and help Tomás Inside …

  —Pádraig Chaitríona is a decent man …

  —And the best of neighbours, to give him his due …

  —He never had any designs on Tomás Inside’s land …

  —Sometimes he only went up there against his will, just for the sake of a quiet life …


  —… “Nell’s a great one for stone-wall bui-il-ding …”

  —… I don’t think I ever saw anything so funny in all my life …

  —You never saw anything so funny, indeed …

  —But you didn’t see the half of it …

  —I saw enough …

  —If you’d lived in the same village with them …

  —I was close enough to them. What I didn’t see I heard about. Wasn’t the whole country talking about them? …

  —Devil a person in our two villages wasn’t in stitches with them from morning till night. You wouldn’t believe the half of it if I told you …

  —I would indeed believe it. Nearly every Friday after collecting the pension didn’t Tomás Inside and myself go into Peadar the Pub’s for a few drinks and he’d tell me every single thing that had happened …

  —Keep your voice down. You know that Caitríona was buried recently—in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot. She might hear you …

  —Let her hear. Let all of them in the Fifteen-Shilling Plot hear me if they want to. What do I care about them! Themselves and their fine airs. You’d think we were filthy scum …

  —All the same, I wouldn’t want Caitríona to hear me. I lived in the same village as her all my life, and indeed she was a good neighbour, except that she was seething with hatred for her sister, Nell. It was Tomás Inside who reaped the benefit of their spite …

  —Didn’t he often tell me that, when we were having a drink …

  —You’d see Caitríona setting out early in the morning to drive the cows to the top of the village. On her way back she’d take a roundabout route, just to pass Tomás Inside’s cabin:

  “How are you feeling today, Tomás? … I see your pair of turf-creels are in bad shape. Now that I think of it, we have a couple of creels we have no use for any more, somewhere around the house, as Pádraig was basket-making the other day and he made a new pair …”

  So Tomás would get the creels.

  Caitríona would hardly be down past Meadow Hill when down comes Nell:

  “How are you feeling today, Tomás? … I see the trousers you’re wearing are in poor shape. They badly need a few patches … But I don’t know if they’re not too far gone. They’re quite frayed. Faith then, there’s a pair of trousers up at the house that are as good as new from the little wearing they ever got. They were made for Jack, but the legs were too narrow and he never put them on again …”

  So Tomás would get the trousers …

  —Didn’t he tell me that himself? …

  —Another day Caitríona would go up again:

  “How are you feeling today, Tomás? … I see the walls of your field back here have been knocked to the ground … The donkeys of this village are an awful nuisance. They are indeed, because they’re not tied up in the barns where they should be. Glutton’s old donkey and Road-End’s lot are bad enough, but the worst of all are this one’s donkeys”—meaning Nell—“and she lets them wander at will … A poor old man like you, Tomás, isn’t able to go chasing after donkeys. Faith then, you have plenty of other cares from now on. I must tell Pádraig the walls are down …”

  So the walls would be built up for Tomás Inside.

  —Well indeed, didn’t he tell me that …

  —Nell would come down to him:

  “How are you feeling today, Tomás? … You’re not making much headway with this field, God bless you. Good God, you’ve only sown a corner of it. It will take you another two weeks to finish it. It’s difficult, of course, to make any progress on your own. It’s a bit late now for sowing potatoes. Isn’t it nearly May Day already! … It’s a wonder that crowd down there”—meaning Caitríona’s crowd—“wouldn’t do a day’s work for you, since they’ve finished their own sowing for the past two weeks … I must tell Peadar to come over tomorrow. The ideal place for the two of us now Tomás, for the rest of our lives, is in the two chimney-corners by the fire …”

  So the rest of the potato field would be sown for Tomás Inside …

  —Do you think he didn’t often tell me that? …

  —All the same, nobody could really know it all but someone who was living in the same village with them … Caitríona was forever trying to get him to move into her own house, lock, stock and barrel. But not a hope of it! I’m telling you there were no flies on Tomás Inside, even if some people tried to make fun of him …

  —Do you really think I don’t know that? …

  —No one who wasn’t living in the same village with them could rightly know … Tomás was as attached to his little hovel of a house as a king to his throne. If he moved in with either of the sisters, the other would turn her back on him. And neither of them would have much time for him just as soon as he’d parted with his patch of land. So he didn’t. A cunning old cadger, Tomás Inside …

  —Do you think I don’t know? …

  —You do not indeed, nor does anyone else who didn’t live in the same village with them. But it was when he had drink taken—on a fairday or a Friday, or any other day—that there’d be great fun. He’d take a notion to marry.

  —The devil spare you, do you think I didn’t often see him in Peadar the Pub’s, and him half drunk? …

  —I saw him there one day and, if I did, it was a comic sight. It’s a little more than five years ago, the year before I died:

  “I’ll marry,” says he. “I’ve a nice patch of land, a half-guinea a week pension, and I’m still in the full of my health. By the docks, I’ll marry. I’ll marry, I will indeed, my friend … Give me a bottle of whiskey there, Peadar,”—Peadar the Pub was alive then—“the very best of whiskey, now. By the docks, I’ll go looking for a wife.”

  —It’s well I remember that same day. I twisted my ankle …

  —In walks Caitríona and whispers in his ear:

  “Come on home with me, Tomás, and our Pádraig will go and ask on your behalf, when the two of you have put your heads together …”

  In walks Nell and whispers in his other ear:

  “Come on home with me, Tomás dear. I’ve a bit of meat and a drop of whiskey. Our Peadar will go asking for a wife for you as soon as the two of you have a bite to eat …”

  Tomás went roaring off over to Nóra Sheáinín’s house in Mangy Field. “A widow she may be,” says he to Nell and Caitríona, “but by the docks she’ll do me fine. She’s still a young woman. Her daughter that’s married to your Pádraig, Caitríona, is not much more than thirty-two or three. By the docks, my dear, that workhorse of a mother of hers is young enough for me.” That’s what he said, faith. Did you know that? …

  —Why the hell do you think I didn’t know it? …

  —Oh, how would you know it, and you not living in the same village with them … They were lucky Tomás had only a little cabin or they’d be robbed thatching it, because no other house under the sun was thatched as often. Pádraig Chaitríona did the north side from gable to gable one year. Pádraig is the best of thatchers. Sedge is what he put on it. And it wasn’t the worst sedge either. That side wouldn’t need another bit of thatch for fourteen or fifteen years. The next year Peadar Nell came with his ladder and mallet. Up with him on the north side. And do you know what he did with the thatch Pádraig had set the year before? Pulled it all out and threw it about on the ground. May I drop dead right here if I tell a word of a lie. There wasn’t a pick of Pádraig’s sedge between the two gables that he didn’t drag off.

  “You’d soon have the rain dripping down on you, Tomás,” says he. I swear by the book I heard him say it! “Last year’s thatch was no good,” he said. “I’m surprised it kept out a drop at all. The half of it is only short heather. You can see it there for yourself. Devil a bit of trouble he gave himself cutting it either, staying on firm ground. If you want good sedge you have to go into the deep hollows and get your feet wet. Have a look at the sedge I have there now; that came out of the middle of the Red Sedge Hollow …”

  He thatched both sides of the house and, if he
did, a slipshod job he made of it. The worst you ever saw. It didn’t last three years even. It was a complete waste …

  —Damn it, anyone listening to you would think I didn’t know that …

  —No one would know it, all the same, except one who was in the same village with them …

  Another time I saw the two of them on the roof of the house: Pádraig Chaitríona and Peadar Nell. Pádraig was on the north side with his ladder and mallet and his heap of sedge. Peadar was on the south side with his own ladder and mallet and a heap of sedge. And you could call it work, the way those two were hard at it. Tomás Inside was perched on the big rock at the eastern gable, puffing his pipe to his heart’s content and keeping up the chat with both of them at once. I came by, and sat myself down on the big rock beside Tomás. You wouldn’t hear a finger in your ear with the noise of the two mallets.

  “You’d think,” says I, “one of you would stop thatching and go and pass the sedge up to the other, seeing that Tomás here is not assisting either of you; either that or take it in turns to thatch and to assist …”

  “Hold your tongue,” says Tomás. “By the docks, they’re working neck and neck now, God save their health! They’re great thatchers. I wouldn’t say there’s a nail or an inch between the two of them …”

  —To listen to you, anyone would think I didn’t know that …

  —Well indeed, you don’t know it, nor a bit of it …

  —… “Nell’s a great one for stone-wall building

  And Caty’s an expert on roofs to mend …”

  —… “Tomás Inside was laughing always

  At Caty Pháidín who had paid his rent …”

  —He was not! He was not! He was not! Hey, Muraed! Muraed! I’ll explode! I’ll explode! …