The O’ Boeallains once had land.  Her Uncle Mhicil points it out to her as they stand on the hillside.  He gestures towards untilled fields and woodland muttering, “Ba linne é seo.  Ba liomsa é seo.  Ba é sin linne.[1]”

We wre eranaghs, Uncle Mhicil says.  Great Princes of the mother church though she has never seen her Uncle serve Mass or dress like a priest. 

Not that she has seen a priest for their faith and the Holy Apostolic Church are banned. 

How can  a gaggle of men in London ban a belief in reality?  A body either believes or they don’t and if they don’t they’re mad, Iseabail thinks.  Unless it is to deprive them of salvation and recruit them to the forces of hellfire.

Iseabail was not born when the British burned the whole town of Shligigh.  Her Uncle says the Scotchman, Captain Hamilton, forbade his brigands from plundering. Instead, he ordered them to set fire to the houses with all the people in them.  Those who escaped the flames were driven into An Gharbhóg where they drowned, the women and children pushed back into the water with the points of lances.  The Devil’s work.

It makes no sense to Iseabail. 

Why burn a town to ashes only to have to build it up again?  New homes.  New warehouses.  New people.

The Captain’s men maurauded all the townlands of  Shligigh, murdering men as they mowed their corn, hanging women naked in their orchards. Her Uncle says The Captain had a great hatred of Catholics though his father was one.

All of this Mhichíl tells her as they huddle by the hearth in the bothan, sitting close for warmth, as a Spring gale rattles and screams in the thatch above their head.  As if any British devil would be out amdist those mná na síochána on such a night!

But it is evident that devils are persistent.

After Captain Hamilton’s hirschip, other soldiers came bringing hunger and plague with them.  These new men murdered everyone and took their cattle, burned their homes and crops.  Sent some away as work as slaves to the islands in the Caribeean.

“Cá bhfuil sin?”

“Trasna an aigéin, a stór.  Áit a gcuireann siad na dorchadas.[2]”

“Agus ar éirigh na hÉireannaigh dubh ansin freisin?”

There are clearly limits to her Uncle’s knowledge.  It was the plague and the hunger that took Iseabail’s mother and sister. The war had taken her Daide when she was just an infant.

“Cad mar a bhí sé roimhe seo?”

“Bhí sé síochánta.  Bhí ár dtalamh againn,” her Uncle says.

“Nach bhfuil sé síochánta anois?”

“Is cineál na síochána é.”[3]

Iseabail wonders, again, why she is alive. 

They made the peace by taking the O’Boellain’s land, and all the land from their neighbours, and giving it to colonels and captains, lieutenant and sergeants who had served the Lord Protector.  Presumably the Lord Protector intended by this move to Protect, but again, what he is protecting is obscure. 

Uncle Mhicil had a fine stone house with a yard when she first came to stay but British men came and made them leave the house and took all of his furniture on behalf of the titulado who, they said, now  owned the land they had held since they were Princes in the Abbey at Drumcliffe. She was seven then.

Mhicil took Iseabail and his deemie, Aine, to a bothán out where Slieve Gamph rises up out of the littoral plain.  It was Autumn when they first went there and Iseabail liked it.  She could look across the undulating parks and copses to the blue ocrean and the big sky.  She cannot make out the Caribeean islands or America across the sea.  Apparently they are too far away to see though the ocean is flat.

Then winter came and they were hungry all of the time.

She wonders sometimes why her Uncle Mhicil is alive and not her Daide.  He Uncle says her Daide took an oath – made a promise – to defend the King, the faith and the property of all Irishmen.

“An é sin an fáth a bhfuair sé bás? Nár ghlac tú an mionn?[4]”

Her Uncle shrugs.  Maybe he did but didn’t mean it. Kept his fingers crossed. But not her Daide.  Was it because of the oath that she was an orphan.  Had her parents made her older sister take the oath?[i]

Aine disappeared last Summer.  Since then, all of her duties have fallen on Iseabeal.  Aine had done a lot of things that Iseabeal hadn’t noticed.

© John Bolland 2026

[1] This was ours.  This was mine.  That was ours.

[2] Where is that?

Across the ocean, darling. Where they send the darkies.

And did the Irish folk become black there too?

[3] “What was it like before?”

“It was peaceful.  We had our land.”

“Isn’t it peaceful now?”

“It’s a sort of peace.”

[4] “Is that why he died?  Did you not take the oath?”

[i] I, A.B., do profess, swear, and protest before God and His saints and angels, the I will, during my life, bear true faith and allegiance to my Sovereign Lord, Charles, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and to his heirs and lawful successors; and that I will, to my power, during my life, defend, uphold and maintain, all his and their just prerogatives, estates, and rights, the power and privilege of the Parliament of this realm, the fundamental laws of Ireland, the free exercise of the Roman Catholic faith and religion throughout this land; and the lives, just liberties, possessions, estates, and rights of all those that have taken, or that shall take this Oath, and perform the contents thereof; and that I will obey and ratify all the orders and decrees made, and to be made, by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics of this Kingdom, concerning the said public cause; and I will not seek, directly or indirectly, any pardon or protection for any act done, or to be done, touching this general cause, without the consent of the major part of the said Council; and that I will not, directly or indirectly, do any act or acts that shall prejudice the said cause, but will, to the hazard of my life and estate, assist, prosecute and maintain the same.

will obey and ratify all the orders and decrees made, and to be made, by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics of this Kingdom, concerning the said public cause; and I will not seek, directly or indirectly, any pardon or protection for any act done, or to be done, touching this general cause, without the consent of the major part of the said Council; and that I will not, directly or indirectly, do any act or acts that shall prejudice the said cause, but will, to the hazard of my life and estate, assist, prosecute and maintain the same.

Moreover, I do further swear that I will not accept of, or submit unto any peace, made, or to be made, with the said Confederate Catholics, without the consent and approbation of the General Assembly of the said Confederate Catholics, and for the preservation and strengthening of the association and union of the kingdom. That upon any peace or accommodation to be made, or concluded with the said Confederate Catholics as aforesaid, I will, to the utmost of my power, insist upon and maintain the ensuing propositions, until a peace, as aforesaid, be made, and the matters to be agreed upon in the articles of peace be established and secured by Parliament.

So help me God and His holy gospel.

Confederate Oath of Association, 1642