Brian wonders again if it was the window frames.
Uilleam insisted.
“Ach, cinnte, níl aon fhuinneoga againn le iad a chur isteach iontu [1],” Brain said.
“Ah,” his brother said. “Ach beidh againn. Fan go bhfeicfidh tú!”[2]
The doors had been fair enough. Their bothàns had doorways and it was easy enough to conceive how bigger lintels and wider openings could accommodate the Englishman’s doors. But the windows were a whole new departure and so, in retrospect, pure greed.
Uilleam would say it was justice if he was here but Uilleam is rotting in a bog in Meath with half of the Army of Leinster. So where is the justice?
“Tháinig siad anseo mar bhacaigh agus mar mhadraí – lacaí – agus féach orthu anois,”[3] Eanraig Magawley said. “Ag tiarnas orainn amhail is dá mba mhuc muid.”[4]
The Magawleys were confident enough back then. They were about the Kings business they said. They had a right and a responsibility to turf George Gibbs out of his house in Knockdominy. The plunder was a bonus – justice, they said. That word again.
But they let Gibbs scramble off to the shelter of Athlone. Mr. Gibbs isn’t hunkered down in the dubs beneath a hawthorn hedge with two greetin bairns.
Brian Ó Fuirí shivers in bare rags. Aoife and Cathal doze beneath a scrap of hempen scrim, spooning for warmth in a cradle of gnarled roots. These coastal plains of Tireragh are raw and windswept compared to the fertile Midlands of Ballyloughloe.
Mairead has been gone an age, foraging for what she can around the local hamlets. Some days she begs from pilgrims to the well at Toberawnaun but none have much to spare. Madness has reived the whole of Èirinn of meat and meal. They live in a surfeit of bones – protruding through their hides or bleaching in the shough. And somewhere, amongst the nettles back in Ballyloughloe, George Gibb’s elegant window frames – with glass in them! – rot back into the earth.
The Magawley brothers are gone – dead or flown away with the wild geese to fight the Hapsburgs’ wars in Europe. So too the Dillons, Tyrells and O’Farrells. All the fierce Captains squandered or come to terms at Limerick.
Mairead’s youngest, Fionn, died a week ago. An ague found his weakness and took the boy in a few long days. They carried him to the St Adhomhan’s well but the waters came too late. How can it be too late for a miracle? Instead, the Lord sent a tussocked Atlantic squall that ranted through his last hours as they huddled together beneath the tangle of thorns. The child is buried in the hedgerow thirty yards from here. No way to find a priest and no coin to pay him with. Just prayers and weeping and thistles scattered on the heap.
There are no haws on the branches above him. Next year there will be no birdsong for they have stripped this year’s nests of eggs and hatchlings. They have stewed nettles and comfrey. Chewed on grass. Since Fionn died, Mairead has been luckier in finding meal. She is gaunt but still bonny. She says she forages better on her own.
Aiofe was barely off the breast when the Magawleys rode up to the Ó Fuirís’ farm in Magheramore. Ballyloughloe was their country and a tenant was well-advised to do their bidding. The gentlemen were already well equipped with swords and pistols. Their servants carried pikes and daggers.
“A Thiarna, dúirt siad gur ghairm an Rí iad.”[5]
And how were Brian and William to know different and anyway, could it not be that the King had changed his mind and chosen Ormonde over the Confederates after the deed was done? It was the lesser of several evils, Brian thought, but Uilleam was keen. He retrieved his pike and falchion quick enough. It was late in October seven years ago. Seven years of hunger and suffering, death and disease.
That first day, they drove off the Englishman and his woman and three children. The Ó Fuirís’ lot was three cows and a half dozen scrawny sheep, some linen and a cast iron pan. The Captains took the candlesticks and drapery and the clothes from Mrs. Gibb’s kist. Gibb was lucky to have been first on Eanraig Magawley’s list. By December, they would have cut him down in his yard and stripped his wife and children bare. A year later they might have hanged the lot of them.
Uilleam and Brian weren’t the first to go back for a second helping and by the third time the farmhouse at Knockdominy was picked bare of moveables – not a plate or pot or scrap of fabric left nor a dribble of corn. But they shouldn’t have taken the window frames.
“You are fretting on the windowframes.”
How had Mairead come up on him unnoticed?
She stood on the banks edge, barefoot but still robed in a stolen gown. The gown was red and she looked pretty in it two years ago. That gown reminded Brian of Fionn, of easier times before they crossed the Shannon.
Gazing up, he can still imagine the embers of Mairead’s passion. Her lips red and swollen with desire. A blush on her sharp cheekbones. She clutches a bundle beneath her breast.
“Cad atá agat ansin?”
“Arán. Agus píosa cáise.”
“Cáis? Cé a thug dúinn é sin?”
“Thug siad dom é sin,” she said. “Bean chineálta in aice le An Scrin.”
Mairead steps down and stirs the children who mewl, reluctant to abandon their hoarded warmth.
“Seo. Ith.”[6]
There is half a loaf in her parcel, the edge rough and torn and the crust hollowed out a bit. Brian wonders how much of it where was when the ‘kind woman’ gave it to Mairead. Not a whole loaf surely?
She tears off hanks of bread and thrusts them towards Aoife and Cathal. Like feral dogs, the creatures stir and scrabble for the bread, cramming crumb and crust into their mouths, barely chewing before they swallow, barely swallowing before they cram in another mouthful. Cathal panics as he realises his portion is almost gone., He reaches towards his sister who shuffles sideways and away.
“Mairead?”
Mairead is gnawing on a scrap of crust. He siezes a hank of her hair.
“Mairead.”
She tears another scrap from the remaining bread and thrusts it at him. It is less than she gave the bairns. She gives him less though he is bigger. His body is bigger. His appetite. The cheese!
Still chewing on his scant ration of bread, he lunges towards her. She is pushing a lump of cheese between her lips. She begins to chew as he presses her on her back onto the bank. She clamps her jaw tight shut. The last morsel of crust is clamped in her fist. His choice.
[1] But, sure, we have no windows to put them in
[2] “But we will have. You wait and see!”
[3] They came here as beggars and dogs – lackeys – and now look at them.
[4] Lording over us like we were swine
[5] “Lord, they said the King had summoned them.”
[6] “Here. Eat.”