West, in the Foggy Valley

by Tadhg O'Rabhartaigh

  WE JOURNEY TO THE FUNERAL

  Even the oldest people in Gleann Ceo could not recall the likes of the gathering in the old monastery by the banks of Loch Eala. Everyone wept and hearts sighed when the bones of the great man were laid in the grave. A light shower of rain fell which wet the coffin; many of the people in that congregation thought that it was no accident that the summer sky wept over the hero. A rainbow appeared during that shower, which made the tears look like silver threads, it reflected on the slabs of the mountain like little mirrors. The gentle lapping of the tiny waves by the shore were like a halogen; and some people were convinced that the birds in the branches lowered their voices.

  Triona was standing at the head of the grave with her hands around the two children who were crying bitterly, and their tears were falling down into the grave.

  The company of volunteers, who were under Marcus, were standing around the grave sad and subdued. It was tragic how he was lost, they thought, the day before an end was put to this fight which had lasted for years between Gaeil and Gaill/ Irish and British. It was sad to see him laid in the grave this summer evening, and Irish everywhere celebrating the cease fire, which had just been announced. They were ashamed as well that they had to be scattered away from him on the day that he fought to the death. But against all that, they were proud of the way that he went calmly to his death before he would give the satisfaction of capturing him to the enemy.

  When the grave was filled and the green sods arranged on the top of the clay, Father O Ruairc lifted his eyes from the ground, he looked around on the front of the congregation who were around him:

  “People of Gleann Ceo,” he said, “It is hard and very hard for us to turn the backs of our heads on this grave. It is difficult for us to admit that we must say goodbye forever in this life to Marcus Mac Alastair. Our hearts are breaking after him. But we will not allow that grief to overcome the pride that we can rightly feel for the noble deed, with which he ended his life. He went calmly to his death on our behalf, and on behalf of every Irish person. And it has been said by Christ Himself that no love is greater than the love in the heart of one who goes to his death for his friends. The end that came to his life that day in the cave, was in keeping with his whole life. He abandoned this life rather than allow the enemy to win victory of his country. And if we study his life, we will see without much trouble, that he abandoned an awful lot since he came here. He abandoned his ancestors. He abandoned their religion and their ways. He abandoned the wealth and the power and the landlordism that was left to him legally as an inheritance. He abandoned the fine house where he was born, and where he spent his youth. He abandoned it all for the sake of the people of Gleann Ceo. And he crowned all his abandoning the last day when he abandoned life itself for the sake of the freedom of the people of Ireland.

  Our hearts are sick looking at the young widow and two orphaned children, who are sobbing over this grave. She is not the first widow and they are not the first orphans whom the British have left shedding their tears, over graves in this country. But in this case, we will do what is proper for Christians to do. We will do what Marcus Mac Alastair would have done himself. We will forgive the group who have left this woman without a husband, and the children without a father, and we will ask God to give her and her family, strength and courage to endure the anguish. Kneel down in the name of God and we will say a few prayers for the soul, which is in eternity.”

  It was a sad little group, which delayed together at the bridge on their way from the funeral. The Greasai Rua never had more to say.

  “My poor fellow,” he said, “he will never call me the nickname leprechaun ever again.”

  “Wasn’t it misfortunate how his end came,” Big Conor said, “and the declaration of cease fire the next day.”

  “It seems that is what was in store for the bold man,” the Greasai said. “This Gleann will never be the same again. Let no one tell me that it will.”

  “Eoin did not go without company,” Pol an Greasai said. “I often heard that when death comes to a place that it doesn’t leave without taking three with it; but it didn’t take long to bring the three this time. I heard that Wallace Woods was buried in the Protestant grave yard in Droim Dhilliuir, yesterday.”

  “My poor fellow,” Big Conor said. “It is far from home that he was laid. If he never made acquaintance with our Una, maybe he would be alive today.”

  “Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t,” the Greasai Rua said. “I believe that it was laid out for him, whatever he did. It seems that his final resting place was here.”

  “And poor Seimin Ban,” Conn Mac Carty said. “It is sad how everything went for him.”

  “They say that the poor man was in a bad way before he was taken from Droim Dhilliuir,” Conor Mor said. “God protect us all, I heard that he had to be tied.”

  “He was always easy to scare,” the Greasai said. “But just the same, who would think that what happened to him could happen? Sile said that he went demented altogether when they put him up on the lorry among the bodies. It was a dreadful thing for them to do, any way, to make him sit on that lorry and the torn bodies scattered beside him all the way to Droim Dhilliuir. He was the colour of death, Sile told me when he saw the awful condition that Marcus and Woods were in – God between us and harm. And of course, there was no sense taking him to Droim Dhilliuir at all. I don’t know before God, what possessed them to do such a thing.”

  “I’d say it was because they caught him escaping out the back way from the mine,” Conn Mac Carty said. “They hadn’t him long in Droim Dhilliuir until he went completely crazy.”

  “Devil the nervous breakdown he would have had only for all this misfortune.” Big Conor said. I will go home in the name of God. The children and Una are going to Dun le Grein with Triona, and my old lady is alone.”

  BEHIND CONNOR MOR’S HOUSE

  It was a sunny evening towards the end of autumn, and the cold of winter was just noticeable in the little breezes, which were blowing through the heather on the slopes of the mountain. There were stacks of wheat and hay protected under straw mats, in gardens, and cattle were grazing peacefully in the fields. Conor Mor Guildea was enjoying the support of his stick out behind his own house, and Triona was standing beside him with her hands on her face. The two were gazing down the Gleann.

  “Three months, yesterday he was murdered,” she said.

  “Exactly,” the old man said. “My poor fellow, maise, I hope that his lodgings are bright tonight.”

  A small tear was running down the cheek of the young widow.

  “Daughter,” he said, “we must be satisfied with God’s way/will.”

  “I am satisfied with God’s will grandfather,” she said; “and I am proud of what poor Marcus did. But God it is difficult to overcome the grief.”

  She put her arm around the old man and she laid her head on his shoulder, sobbing. He put his hand on her side and he gave her all the strength he could. The tears gathered in his eyes, when he remembered how she used to come to him with her troubles when she was a child. “Poor Triona!” he thought to himself, “It was early in her life that she was left with a broken heart.”

  “Grandfather,” she said, “I’m ashamed to say it but I haven’t the strength for this.”

  “That gave relief to your heart, love,” he said. “Dry your eyed now, pet, and sit down here beside me.”

  The old man let himself down sluggishly on a bench the back of which was towards the gable of the house, and she sat beside him.

  “The old woman was telling me,” he said, “that he had his Will made, the poor fellow. You didn’t say anything about that to me, love.”

  “He left a Will behind him, right enough.” she said. “There never was a day that my poor fellow was not prepared. He left so much money to me and the poor children, that we will never want for anything, if we are careful with it. He advised me to give the two children, University Education, and to make a mining engineer out of
Marcaisin, if he has the inclination for it. He advised me to sell the three hundred sheep that are on the mountain, if I think that I cannot care for them as well as I should. He advised me to sell Inis Coleman, and the farm by the loch, because Martan is too old to steward it; and anyhow it is too far away from me to do much on it. He left money to Father O Ruairc, to say Masses for him; and he left him a good sum to improve the Church. He left him another lump sum to have the hall rebuilt when all these troubles are over. He left three hundred pound to Nansai Seimin Ban, for the day she marries Feargal; and there is another three hundred available to Una if she marries Pol an Greasai. That now is the Will that my poor fellow left with the solicitor a few months before he was killed.”

  “That his soul may be in the family of God,” the old man said. “His Will is in keeping with his life, from beginning to end. Do you think that we will ever see Una married to Pol?”

  “Have they not told you, grandfather,” she said. “Pol is the only man for her now. She was telling me herself the other day, that they have arranged to be married on the same day that Feargal marries Nansai Seimin Ban.

  “I fully understand,” Conor Mor said. “Maise, I wouldn’t say that day is too far off, according to what I hear. If it wasn’t for the advice that his mother gave him, he had no intention of bringing a woman into the house while she was alive. When is the wedding to take place?”

  “They are talking about having it this coming Shrovetide,” Triona said. “I am thinking that they wouldn’t have delayed it this long only for the death of poor Seimin Ban. Nansai did not like to have the wedding until he was six months dead at least.”

  “Maise, since you mentioned Seimin Ban,” the old man said, “the poor fellow didn’t last long in the Big House.”

  “He was only in there for three weeks,” she said, “until the poor fellow was coming back in the wooden box. Poor Nansai praised God when she heard it. God protect us, they say that he never stopped screaming and shouting day and night.”

  “My poor fellow,” the old man said. “Little he thought that our Feargal would be working in his place so soon.”

  “Little, indeed,” Triona said. “It is good for Feargal that he got the foremanship just the same, while there were miners who were older than him in it.”

  “They say that there is no better than him at working underground,” Conor Mor said. “But of course he was honest and upright always.”

  She had to laugh at that idea.

  “Triona,” he said, ”Isn’t it a pity that the people have to get old? I haven’t the strength of a cat myself now; I believe that it won’t be long until I am summoned to go over yonder.”

  “Nonsense, grandfather!” she said. “There are twenty years left in you yet.”

  “Maise, indeed there isn’t, love,” he said. “I am drawing near to the five years and four score/85, you know; and I find myself failing every single day. It is difficult to leave, love; but we must be satisfied with God’s will. I worked hard and honourably since a yard of cloth would make a coat for me, and I never did any big harm to any body. I hope that God will reward me for it whenever He decides to summon me.”

  “My regret is that we are not as free from sin as you are,” she said. “The poor kindly old people, it is a pity that they are going; because there will never be their likes again.”

  “In a few more years,” the old man said, “our poor bones will be stretched down yonder in the sand. We will all be gone, Triona. Myself and your poor grandmother, will be there, and old Nabla, and the Greasai Rua, and his old woman, and Sile an Cairn, and others that I am not mentioning. The lot of us will be shooting up the grass yonder, in the company of the great man, whom none of us ever thought would be in his grave so soon – the man the likes of whom was never in Gleann Ceo before.”

  He was gazing down at the walls of the old monastery, and he didn’t notice the fresh new tears being shed by the young woman at his side.

  “The man, the likes of whom never was before, exactly,” she said, “and never will again.”