The Devil is an Irishman

by Eddie Lenihan

  ‘Hi! What the hell d’you mean, thrown down there slingeing an’ plenty work to be done? What d’you think I’m paying you for?’

  The big man slowly removed the cigarette and glared at him.

  ‘That’s the bother, cap’n. You’re not payin’ me. In fact, the more I think of it, maybe you should gimme my wages now.’

  His eyes never left Seán’s face all the while he was speaking.

  ‘But how in the name o’ God can I pay you now – unless you want to start eating raw fish? Have a small splink o’ sense, man. Wouldn’t it be a lot more in your line to get off o’ your backside an’ rise up the sails – or better again, start rowing, if you think you’re as good as the eight men that were here before you.’

  Seán’s courage was returning as his annoyance grew.

  ‘C’mon, shift yourself. We’re hardly moving, an’ it’ll be all hours o’ the night before we’re home at this rate o’ going.’

  The big man studied him, blew out a cloud of smoke and then flicked the cigarette over the side, half-unsmoked. He levered himself up, ran his fingers through his hair and with a cold little smile – or a grin? – turned from Seán and started to hoist the sails. Seán took the helm, quietly confident now that there would be no further delay and that he would dock in time to let Cóilín and the others savour their foolishness in not sailing today. He could picture them, their efforts to hide their disgust and disappointment at his great day’s work.

  The big man had begun to see the light, too, it seemed, for as soon as all was in proper trim he returned, saluted and smiled.

  ‘Not much of a breeze, cap’n, but I won’t be long fixing that.’

  Before Seán could even gather his thoughts to wonder what this might mean he had turned, faced the mast and begun to inhale. To Seán’s utter amazement he did not stop as a normal man would when his lungs were full, but kept gobbling in draught after draught of air, swelling up all the while like some grotesque rubber figure. He bulged across the width of the deck and, when it seemed he must surely burst, he turned a hideous and horribly misshapen face towards Seán and croaked evilly: ‘Now cap’n, I’ll have my wages, whether you like it or not.’

  He began to blow then, gust on mighty gust of foul breath, up from the depths of himself, filling the sails and spreading such a stench that Seán felt his guts churning. Nothing he had ever experienced before – dead animals, stinking fish, cesspits – could equal this for vileness. Even the fish still quivering in the nets caught it, and died at once.

  Seán could only clasp his nose, try to prevent himself from vomiting, and watch, terror-stricken. In the space of seconds a blackness fell on the boat and the wind rose into a gale, then a very hurricane. Mast and spars cracked, were bent almost to breaking-point and Seán was on the point of screaming, ‘Stop!’ when he was flung over, then back across the deck, slithering, tripping, his hands grabbing for support.

  A final mighty blast of air and the boat could take no more. It keeled to port, and Seán found himself sliding, falling, together with his precious catch, towards the water.

  ‘No!’ he bawled, desperate but by now helpless. ‘You can’t do this! These are my fish, every one of ’em,’ and he threw his arms out to stop the slide to destruction. But it was a hopeless gesture. He might as well have been trying to hold back an avalanche. The slimy mass engulfed him, swept him screaming over the side and head-first into the icy water of the bay. The last fleeting images he took with him as he went under were a bellow of evil laughter from the stern and a glimpse of a wide mouth in a wider face and two rows of yellow teeth grinding.

  He struggled desperately to free himself from the debris that bore down on him, and when at last he spluttered to the surface a scene of desolation greeted him. The boat was gone. Only dead fish, a few bobbing boxes and lengths of rope remained to tell of the dream that had been Seán Ó Duinnín’s.

  But first things first. Regrets later. He kicked off his heavy boots and began to swim, beating his way towards a cluster of small rocks that pushed their seaweedy heads out of the water fifty yards away. He pulled himself onto one, shivering, teeth chattering between curses and moans. But he had hardly seated himself on that comfortless perch when a loud splash somewhere behind him made him turn. There, to his horror, he saw the big man rising in a foam of spray from the depths, shoulders ... chest ... waist ... knees ... feet, until he was standing squarely on the water as though it were solid under him.

  Seán gaped stupidly at where his own legs hung sub-merged to the knees, then back to the horrible figure loom-ing, hands folded, smiling.

  Then it spoke, and to Seán the words spelled doom.

  ‘My payment, Ó Duinnín! I want my payment now.’

  ‘God wither you,’ stammered Seán, ‘you took my boat, didn’t you. An’ my grand catch. What more d’you want?’

  ‘Is that what you call payment, a few oul’ broken boards an’ dead fish? Is it trying to make little o’ me you are?’

  ‘Well known you hadn’t to slave hard in London for the same broken boards, as you call ’em, you bad-minded bod-ach.’

  The big man’s face clouded darkly; his grin changed to a snarl.

  ‘I have talking enough done to you, my boyo. But now your bill is due, an’ I’m taking what’s owed to me – yourself!’

  His huge paws arched out towards Seán, fingers like talons, and he began to stride across the water. Seán saw his end staring him most surely in the face unless some miracle ... and then he remembered it! The rosary-beads his mother had draped around his neck. It was his only chance now. Chilled fingers scrabbled to open his top button, failed, then ripped it off entirely. The rosary, praised be God, was still there, cold but comforting, though the sharp edge of a small doubt pricked itself in at that moment: how had he ignored it before now? But he dismissed the thought. It mattered not at all how. It was there, and it was his one possibility of escape ... he hoped! Rising shakily, he snatched the crucifix, jerked it up and out, breaking the chain in the process. The ogre was no more than two steps from him now, hands clutching. The crucifix, held so tightly between Seán’s frozen fingers, five beads hanging trembling to it, looked tiny and helpless as he measured the giant against its cross-beam. Arm held out rigid, he turned his head away, closed his eyes and tensed, expecting the worst.

  There was a splash, a muffled gurgle, then an animal snarl of anger, rising to pain. He peeped. To his astonishment the big man was cringeing, beginning to turn away, his palms held to his face as if for protection. His great feet began to churn the water as he tried to reverse, to escape, it seemed.

  ‘Stop! Keep that cursed thing out from me. Keep it back!’

  His voice rose higher with every word. Seán needed no more information. His mother. God bless her. She had been right.

  ‘You can take your pay now,’ he cried, almost boldly. ‘Here!’ – stabbing the cross forward – ‘There’s nothing like something holy for the likes o’ you.’

  Inches from the terrifying little object the Devil – for who else was it but he? – managed to stop, but only for an instant. As if burned, he twisted himself around and made off in a series of leaps, his yells echoing across the bay, drawing thunder from the very clouds.

  Seán gasped and stared motionless as the huge fellow beat a path westward, yelping, sending spray and foam in showers onto the Clare and Connemara coasts. The last he saw of him was when he jumped out across the Aran Islands, on his way, obviously, towards the broad Atlantic and America.

  It was a few moments before quiet rolled again over the waves. When it did it found Seán shivering on his perch, still pointing like a signpost, and colder than he could ever remember. The lapping of the waves against his legs it was that aroused him from his stupor. At once he sat down – straight to his waist in water. The tide! It had turned and was in full flow. Without a second thought he heaved himself forward and swam for land and life, dazed yet conscious that he must, above all else, make it to that green hill o
f Seaweed Point which he could just make out in the distance. It was the one landmark he recognised at that moment.

  Whether he would have reached shore without the help of the two planks that so obligingly floated across his path it is not possible to know. All that concerned his mother, him-self and his neighbours was that he did arrive, though more dead than alive. How many hours he lay among the stones and wrack neither he nor the young boys who discovered him knew; his first inkling that he was still among the living came when he found himself being carried on a door by Cóilín and three other of his crew, his mother trotting alongside clutching his hand. And there were faces on all sides. Staring. Silent.

  As the door of his own house closed on the gathering crowd, darkness lapped over him once more and he remem-bered nothing else until he awoke in his comfortable bed, friends by his side and a cup of hot tea in his mother’s hand for him.

  And when he walked abroad again a week later there were questions – but all of them frozen to the faces of those he met. No one asked him directly what had happened there beyond in the bay, not to mention the more tempting and delicious notion of ‘why?’ Yet it was the topic of all conversation, not alone in Claddagh but in the town of Galway, too – after Mass, at the market and in the dark snugs of Cross Street, High Street and Lower Dominic Street, and though there were some who voiced their sympathy that Seán had been brought low – ‘God damn it, but wasn’t the man tryin’ to do something that was never tried before’? – most felt that right had triumphed and that God had shown Himself not only all-powerful but just also. And among these was Seán’s own mother. But as Seán well knew (in spite of the matter of the rosary-beads), that was why mothers were put in this world in the first place: to stand in the way of their sons.

  Sometimes.

  Whatever about that, there was no more Friday fishing in the Claddagh afterwards. The clergy read it most thoroughly from the altar as the Devil’s own work. And for once they had the complete support of all the people.

  Not surprisingly, even to this very day that custom remains.

  Glossary

  A bhuachaill:

  Boy. Affectionate interjection

  A chroí:

  My dear. Affectionate interjection

  A mháthair:

  Mother

  Airiú:

  Ah! Interjection

  Amadán:

  A fool

  Báirneachs:

  Limpets

  Bastún:

  A person without sense

  Bodach:

  An ignorant person

  Briseann an dúchas tré

  Breeding breaks through the eyes

  shúilibh a’ chait:

  of the cat

  Cabaire:

  A person too smart for his own good

  Céilí:

  A social session with music and dancing

  Ciaróg:

  A black beetle

  Cníopaire:

  A miserable person

  Crúb:

  A foot or hand

  Currach:

  A small boat

  Dreamall:

  A very small amount of liquid

  Dúidín:

  A short-stemmed clay pipe

  Gamall:

  A senseless person

  Leaba:

  A bed

  Liúdramán

  A lazy, useless person

  Mo léir:

  Alas

  Muise:

  Well, well! Interjection

  Óinseach:

  A foolish woman

  Poitín:

  Home-distilled liquor

  Ráiméis:

  Nonsense

  Scairt

  Burst

  Slán go fóill, a dhuine:

  Goodbye for the moment, my friend

  Sliotar:

  A hurling ball

  Yerra:

  Interjection expressing indifference, disbelief, etc.

  About the Author

  Eddie Lenihan

  Eddie Lenihan lives in Crusheen, County Clare and is a celebrated storyteller and the author of many books for children and adults, including Gruesome Irish Tales for Children, In Search of Biddy Early and In the Tracks of the West Clare Railway.

  About the Publisher

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