All the Spangled Host

by John A. Ryan

  I stopped to consider: should I continue right up to him, startle him into flight and hope that he would be clearly visible against the sky, or proceed even more stealthily and pause at a distance of two or three yards when I might see him where he crouched and sang? Either way I now began to realize my chance of a clear sighting of my quarry was small enough. Undecided, I lifted my right foot to take another step, when, as though on that signal, the churring stopped.

  There followed a blank, baffling silence, unbroken by a bird’s cry, by a moth’s flutter, by a beetle’s hum. The night was empty. No wing or throat to guide my further progress, and without his voice, I could no longer determine with any clarity where he had been. I had lost him – or more accurately, he had lost me. To be as close as that, and my chance was gone of meeting that elusive hunter of the night sky, that nocturnal mocker. I was standing on one leg in a boggy field, while he watched and no doubt laughed up his sleeve.

  I turned back disconsolately, for the first time aware that one foot was wringing wet from stepping in a bog-pool. Now that that insistent whirring had ceased I began to hear the other noises. We tend to think of the night as a time of quiet and stillness, a time of sleep. But the night has its own life. A faint breeze moved the grass. A beetle blundered into my face, startling me. From the hill a fox barked, and when I stopped and listened, there were rustling sounds made by small night-creatures. The air was full of voices.

  Having found my way to where I had left my bicycle, I climbed to the top of the gate and turned to look back, when right on cue, that mocking song began once more. He was laughing at me, chuckling in that strange purring voice made of moth, cobweb, twilight, under every bush, under no bush, out there somewhere in his familiar friendly darkness.

  Reinforcements

  There had been no notice of Larry Somers’s death in the daily papers, and so I missed his funeral. However, a man of his age who had enjoyed life must not be mourned. Eighty-six, he had told me, and still well able to be out and about, going regularly to do a bit of salmon-fishing on the Slaney, visiting the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, having a drink and a game of cards with the cronies. That information I had from him two months before he died, when we met in the Oak Tavern, beside the river he loved. It was on that occasion also that he told me a little story that has stuck in my memory.

  When he was a small boy, just started school, his family lived beside the main road between Rosslare and Wexford town. His father worked as a groom on the estate of a big landowner.

  Very early one morning of the school holidays, the boy ran out the front door of his home, barefoot, to meet the day’s adventures. Almost at once he was back again in high excitement, shouting, ‘Mammy, Mammy, the horses are after gettin’ out. Tell Daddy.’

  The mother said, ‘Are you sure, Larry?’ took his hand and went with him to the gate, and they looked down the road to the south. Coming towards them out of the morning mist there were indeed horses, but it was very soon clear that these were not from the estate, and that each one had a rider. The horses came on slowly, their heads down, their reins slack, the riders swaying a little from side to side, and the boy was frightened by these animals that clearly were horses but did not behave like the tall hunters he knew, and by the men who seemed to him not to be alive, so that he took his mother’s hand and pulled her back into the doorway of their house. They watched in awe as the long line passed, and saw that the men wore military uniforms and were armed with rifles. A long cavalcade, hundreds of them, and no human voice, just the clop of hooves on the dusty road, the creak of harness, the clink of a chain.

  The boy and his mother watched them pass, and now they knew why there were no voices and why the riders swayed: every soldier was asleep in the saddle. Someone who knows more about such things must tell me if it is possible to sleep while riding a horse, but that’s the story as Larry told it to me. They had had an uncomfortable crossing by the night ferry from Wales, and were catching up on their sleep. The two watchers stayed until the last soldier had passed, and waited and watched still until all had disappeared from sight.

  Where had these ghostly riders come from, and where were they going? They had, of course, come from barracks somewhere in Britain to embark at Fishguard Harbour, and having landed at Rosslare in the early hours of the morning, were headed for Wexford barracks, on the first stage of their journey to Dublin. It was Easter Week, 1916.

  Remembering Derrynane

  To our right the mountain lifted abruptly in dripping stone and bog and heather. The Scarriff Inn clung precariously to the opposite edge of the road and, beyond it, the land fell away as steeply, then less steeply, into small fields that ended at the rocky margin of the Atlantic.

  Having left our luggage at the Inn, we wandered down a winding by-road towards the sea, the evening sun still warm. A grove of wind-shorn trees by the water’s edge sheltered a house, home of a noted sailor. Sheep grazed the little slanting fields. In the hedges and on the warm stones butterflies basked, Clouded Yellows, continental visitors that often come in autumn to this mild west coast; they were here in numbers, quite content it seemed, little disturbed, easy to catch; when I opened my cupped hands again the beautiful creature did not fly away but lazily spread its wings to the sunlight, unalarmed.

  This is a place of splendid sunsets, also of splendid storms, open to the worst the angry ocean can throw at it, and in the long ago many a Spanish wine-ship arriving here at nightfall must have been glad to follow the guiding lights that showed the way to secure anchorage, maybe in the lee of Abbey Island or some other sheltered inlet, safe from storm and exciseman. That was then, when O’Connells ruled here.

  Night closed the butterflies’ yellow wings, morning brought again the gift of sunshine. The hostelry was bright and sunfilled, but oddly, no one was about, no host or hostess, no evidence of cooking. Sunday, of course, so we concluded that the day’s routine began later than usual. The road by the door was free of traffic; we sat on a wall and watched the high cloud-dappled sky and the bay with its wide scatter of inch and headland.

  One car, going westward, and again the empty road. Where, we wondered, was everyone, where was breakfast? Not that we were worried overmuch; it was pleasant to listen to the silence, to see the sheep-dotted fields, a gull balancing on the air-currents, gannets further out above a blue sea, cloud-shadows drifting.

  The road still empty. Then a lone cyclist appeared, she also heading west.

  ‘Where are the people of the Inn?’

  ‘Oh!’ she replied obviously in some surprise at the question, ‘they’re gone to Mass.’

  ‘And left the whole house open?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ she reassured us, ‘they’ll be back to get you your breakfast,’ and she smiled and waved goodbye.

  So what was to be done? There was only one answer: we went west the road, as a Kerryman might say, along the winding mountainy way, mountain right, ocean left, a new glimpse of Kerry around every corner, overtook our cyclist friend who smiled and gave us a rather wobbly wave, stopped further on to allow two sheep to cross, and soon afterwards rounded the last sharp bend, and there in front was a new harbour, Ballinskelligs, and on a level rock-strewn place on the seaward side was a small church overflowing with people. As there was no room in the church we joined the many others and sat on rocks outside, said our prayers and admired the view of the great bay that winked at us in the sun-sparkles as much as to say, ‘So you thought Derrynane was picturesque?’

  And there we stayed until the murmur from the church ended and the crowd began to move and disperse, unhurriedly and with much greeting and gossip. Unhurriedly we also returned to breakfast in the seagull’s nest that is the Scarriff Inn, which all that time had been unharmed, as its owners knew it would be.

  Could it happen now, in twenty-first century Ireland? Perhaps not, though I want to believe that it could; that the hospitable Inn
still perches there and thrives, among the many good kind people that I met whose names I have forgotten. There are others whose names I do remember but whom I will never meet, the great O’Connell, for instance, or his poet Tomás Rua; they are a part of this sea coast, their ghosts still haunt the hills and harbours, and Dan’s great house, and the long dunes and the lonely graveyard that twice every day becomes an island, where the poet sleeps, dreaming, it may be, of his precious books. Two hundred years those books have lain on the seabed, yet they are remembered whenever Tomás’s song is sung. What learned fishes lurk out there; do they converse in Irish or in English, or do they prefer the Classics? Do the Clouded Yellows still glide in from the south to the autumn lanes? Or might we even now glimpse, through a scud of spray, a Spanish sail in quest of landfall in the twilit harbour? A last question, to which there is no answer: are our memories enriched more by the wild beauty of the place or by the simple honesty and trust that renews our faith in the goodness of the human heart?

  Siar Amach

  When the call came Davy was ready. In fact he had been ready for the previous fortnight, everything packed. But at Paddy Joe’s heart-stirring ‘Come soon as you can,’ Davy immediately unpacked, went through every item carefully again, and repacked. Twice. Just to be sure. His spare shirt and toothbrush and such were easily seen to, but the two oddly shaped awkward cases (mentally labelled ‘Fishing’ and ‘Music’), were more difficult and required deep thought. Rods, reels, flies, waders, spares for every contingency. Notebooks, pencils. Then the other case, bubble-wrap around the fiddle and bow, spare strings, bridges. It would be disastrous to be caught without essentials that couldn’t be had in the villages of the west, though it was true that many places on his itinerary would have a spare fiddle. But he couldn’t risk it.

  Happier when this was done, he went out to the garden that sloped up from the back of the house and he ambled around among his twenty beehives and his three long rows of raspberries, to see that all was in order and that his bees would be happy until his return. That was his therapy for slowing his heartbeat. Then he poured himself a glass of whiskey and carried it carefully down to the lake-edge. He sat on the log with his back to the old willow, and sipped the liquid gold and listened to the little restless waves that stirred the pebbles near his feet, and watched the grey heron that stepped through the shallows on those sensitive claws that could tell the silent movement of a fish from yards away. And whether it was the whiskey or the mild sun of May, or the lilting lullaby of the lake-water, or all three, he presently fell asleep. Indeed, it may not have been any of those; he often fell asleep in the afternoon.

  What were his dreams? Very likely much the same as his waking thoughts. The many old friends, loved and outlived. His household, Willie, Moll and the children, who honoured him with affectionate care, though of course it would never do to show them his appreciation of that. His other son, Tom, a good boy too, who would surely come back soon. Or Marge, often it was Marge, but in dreams she was always young, both of them young and full of life and never sad. The background to most of his dreaming was this place, Eadarlocha, Between the Lakes, that in fact was only one lake divided in two almost by the stony ridge called Couss. It was possible to cross there, with care, if you didn’t worry about wet feet; local lore said there was no danger as long as the Granny Corriasc, the grey heron, was on guard. This place was part of him, he was part of it, born here, all his life here, the hill rich with wool, the ripples whispering on the pebbles, the heron, grey spirit of the lake, his house and garden, his and Marge’s happiness here. Maybe the treasured places he had seen came back. Sceilg Mhichíl, Tara, Ben Bulben, or special pictures came to mind, the Flesk River in spate, ‘old pubs where fiddlers love to play’, Inch Strand with the Horses of Manannán charging white-maned in from the Atlantic. The less real but no less magical places that he wrote about.

  Indeed he had plenty to dream on. Sometimes when he woke, his mind was full of an air or a snatch of a song that continued to annoy him for hours, but on this occasion it was not music but an urgent call, ‘You forgot the rosin,’ that roused him in confusion. He looked around, found he was still alone, and downing the last of the whiskey, he went back to open the fiddle-case and find that he hadn’t forgotten.

  Just then the van arrived, with Willie and the others, with questions and banter and advice when he told them his news. ‘Don’t forget …’

  ‘Could you not have picked a more awkward day?’

  ‘Did you remember the honey for Paddy Joe?’

  ‘You’ll need me to …’

  ‘Gram, would you have time in Cork to get me some …?’

  Willie drove him to town and helped to stow everything in the train. At Glanmire Station, Paddy Joe was waiting and they set out on the great tour of Cork and Kerry, a fortnight, maybe more, a leisurely journey with many a stop. Their plan was to have no plan, beyond doing their best to leave the city by a different road every time, though always westward, and there was an agreement that if either saw anything of interest, they would stop to investigate. A lane, a hill, a building, some activity whether hurling or a bowl of odds or a row, a sign in Irish which must be scrutinized for errors of spelling or grammar, a friend, a suitable picnic spot, to have an argument, or to study a likely-looking stream. Paddy Joe drove, Davy as navigator guided them (guided is hardly the word, misguided is certainly wrong, if a little nearer the mark), at any rate found for them all sorts of often unexpected and unintended but splendid spots, a ripple over gravel or a shadowed pool, or a little lost public house, a little dark pub with no name at a crossroads with no sign-post, no one there but the man of the house, or, if he happened to be out on the bog or up the hill after the calves, then the woman of the house, and there they would spend hours over a pint or two, or three, in the friendly gloom, and one or other would be reminded of a song, and to have it recalled required that it be sung, or Davy would bring in the fiddle or they would coax a song from the publican or his wife, or they would argue over whether they were going east or west (not that they cared, not that it mattered) or what county they were in, or indeed what world.

  They stopped a while in many a town, those wonderful Irish country towns where to an outsider nothing seems to happen from year’s end to year’s end but where in fact everything happens, Macroom, Bandon, Bantry, Dingle, Listowel. There are equally good towns elsewhere, but Paddy Joe and Davy stayed with the south-west. They understood the importance of keeping in touch with the west, but fishing was the main attraction. Whenever the opportunity arose they dropped a fly on river or stream or lake, asking no one’s permission because as far as their thinking went, the waters of Ireland belonged to the people of Ireland, and if sometimes it was illegal (and sometimes it was) it hardly mattered since they seldom caught anything and when they did they threw it back, not for any ethical reason but simply because they had no way of cooking it and besides Paddy Joe didn’t care for fish. Up to now they had never made the acquaintance of a water-bailiff.

  Old friends were remembered. Larry, born in Durrus, had sat in the same school-desk with Eugene and had poached salmon with him, so now Eugene must be visited, to talk about those ancient times when days were endless and the rivers overflowed with fish. If such visits were reminders of earlier times, of the laughter, the closeness and comradeship, they must also have reminded them of their own mortality, so then to lift their hearts they would sing a verse or two of An Ciarraíoch Mallaithe, The Wicked Kerryman, ‘And we will have dancing, music and cheer, Silver and gold, whiskey and beer, Óró for as long as we’re here.’ Paddy Joe loved that song, written by another O’Sullivan, the great Eoghan Rua.

  It would be unthinkable to miss Béal Átha an Ghaorthaidh, where they had met as schoolboys at the Coláiste many years before. There they had learned their Irish and since then had never spoken to each other in English. They knew the place-names there, richer because it was an Irish-speaking area: Drom an Ailthigh, Céim
Cora Bhuaile, Tuairín na Lobhar, and then Gúgán, the loveliest place in Ireland, and Coum Rua where the Lee rises. But Céim an Fhia, mar a dtéann an fia san oíche, where the deer goes at night – what a perfect name for a mountain pass: The Deer’s Step. A great song had to be sung there, a song about a battle long ago, ‘The mountain shook with the sound of arms.’

  From here they looked down on the western mountains. Loch na mBreac Dearg, hidden away in the hills, was discussed, as always. It was unlikely, they agreed, that it held any trout; that had been accepted more than once before. And yet – there was the nagging thought: why the name Lake of the Red Trout? ‘Maybe we should investigate?’ Every year, summer after summer the same tentative suggestion, never acted on. It may be that in their wisdom they knew it was as well not to know for sure one way or the other. Better by far the magic of the name and the disturbing delight of possibility.

  Their expeditions were not entirely aimless, but had a serious side. Not too serious. They collected music and they collected places, places and their names. In their radio series a few years earlier, they emphasized the poetic richness of Irish place-names, the most striking of them being in rural places, often mountainous and thinly populated, where the names were less anglicized and corrupted. Their choice of examples was wide: Glendalough, Cushendall, Gweedore, Dromahair, some for their music, some for their associations, their legends, their mystery. Sliabh Bloom, Dún na Séad, Cooley, Cashel of the Kings, Classiebawn, Clonmacnoise. They gave translations where possible, and suggested that dwelling-houses should be given names based on place-names.