cottage in County Cavan, back in the old days.
Apart from that (Loyola said), her great age would have entitled her to respect, apart from her life of service, when he described that terrible evening at the dinner party of the Cultural Delegation when María insulted them all.
At a party the previous week, for the All-Ireland Director of Operations for Standard Oil (New Jersey, U.S.A.) María showed signs of restlessness by leaving the dinner table before the tortilla. Loyola excused her by saying that she had a headache, and sweet things did not agree with her, and she was gone up to her room to lie down.
Now, many of the guests had on previous occasions seen her consume square yards of tortilla, of which she was extremely fond, and the fact thatshe had not gone up to her bedroom, but down to the kitchen, was made apparent to all assembled, by the rising notes of her fiddle on which she was playing the well-known tune, Upstairs in a Tent , for a hornpipe danced by the gardener’s boy and a housemaid.
This was bad enough, though the party consisted of Dublin businessmen, who all suffered from their own wife troubles, but the next day, she announced to Loyola that she was sick and tired of his friends and acquaintances, and would he let her off those parties, and let her amuse herself with her own friends, in the kitchen.
‘With the servants?’ asked Loyola.
‘They are friends and relations, some of them of yours and mine,’ said María.
‘After all the money was spent on your rearing,’ said he, ‘your own second cousin in the Jockey Club de Buenos Aires – what are you? – beef to the heels, like a Mullingar heifer.’
He insisted, however, that she come to the next dinner party and they’d make arrangements about future dates. Most of the guests did not speak English, and she wouldn’t have to be there to make conversation with the Cultural Delegation and the Secretary of the CCJAFATC (3rd Int.).
‘All right,’ said María, with resignation, ‘if you say so, I’ll make converstion with them.’
‘You’ll do as you’re fuckingwell told,’ said he, in Castilian.
María began by refusing to make conversation with either the Delegation or the Secretary of the CCJAFATC (3rd Int.) on the grounds that none ofthem spoke intelligible Spanish.
She offered a handkerchief to the Chairman of the Cultural Delegation, because she said she did not wish him to blow his nose on his napkin.
As Loyola said, she spared neither age nor the sanctity of God’s anointed for she called Lady Jane an old Grange bitch, and alleged that the chaplain, sitting beside her, was trying to feel her leg under the table.
‘You might at least have respect for Father Cardona’s Sacred Office,’ said Loyola, with mounting fury.
‘He might keep his Sacred Paws to himself,’ said María, ‘Catholics … Catholics how are you! This crowd is no better than the Christian Front.’
This was a reference to the crowd supporting Franco, ex-members of the British police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and their sons, with some ex-Free State Army officers, and failed clerical students, though the mass of them were recruited from the Dublin underworld.
They were known to the Franco Army as ‘the tourists’ and their leader, General O’Duffy, as ‘the Flying Postman‚’ because he went around in an aeroplane collecting his men’s mail, while his men spent their time reading and writing letters and sending postcards home, drinking cheap wine and smoking cigarettes.
Six hundred of them left Ireland, and all returned safely but seven, six of whom were killed accidentally. The other one was in a bad state of health for some years before he joined the force, and only went to Spain because his parish priest thought the climate might do him good.
It was a deadly insult, to compare a bourgeois Nationalist, or any respectable person, (even a respectable supporter of Franco), whose family had not been in the Black and Tans or
Apart from that (Loyola said), her great age would have entitled her to respect, apart from her life of service, when he described that terrible evening at the dinner party of the Cultural Delegation when María insulted them all.
At a party the previous week, for the All-Ireland Director of Operations for Standard Oil (New Jersey, U.S.A.) María showed signs of restlessness by leaving the dinner table before the tortilla. Loyola excused her by saying that she had a headache, and sweet things did not agree with her, and she was gone up to her room to lie down.
Now, many of the guests had on previous occasions seen her consume square yards of tortilla, of which she was extremely fond, and the fact thatshe had not gone up to her bedroom, but down to the kitchen, was made apparent to all assembled, by the rising notes of her fiddle on which she was playing the well-known tune, Upstairs in a Tent , for a hornpipe danced by the gardener’s boy and a housemaid.
This was bad enough, though the party consisted of Dublin businessmen, who all suffered from their own wife troubles, but the next day, she announced to Loyola that she was sick and tired of his friends and acquaintances, and would he let her off those parties, and let her amuse herself with her own friends, in the kitchen.
‘With the servants?’ asked Loyola.
‘They are friends and relations, some of them of yours and mine,’ said María.
‘After all the money was spent on your rearing,’ said he, ‘your own second cousin in the Jockey Club de Buenos Aires – what are you? – beef to the heels, like a Mullingar heifer.’
He insisted, however, that she come to the next dinner party and they’d make arrangements about future dates. Most of the guests did not speak English, and she wouldn’t have to be there to make conversation with the Cultural Delegation and the Secretary of the CCJAFATC (3rd Int.).
‘All right,’ said María, with resignation, ‘if you say so, I’ll make converstion with them.’
‘You’ll do as you’re fuckingwell told,’ said he, in Castilian.
María began by refusing to make conversation with either the Delegation or the Secretary of the CCJAFATC (3rd Int.) on the grounds that none ofthem spoke intelligible Spanish.
She offered a handkerchief to the Chairman of the Cultural Delegation, because she said she did not wish him to blow his nose on his napkin.
As Loyola said, she spared neither age nor the sanctity of God’s anointed for she called Lady Jane an old Grange bitch, and alleged that the chaplain, sitting beside her, was trying to feel her leg under the table.
‘You might at least have respect for Father Cardona’s Sacred Office,’ said Loyola, with mounting fury.
‘He might keep his Sacred Paws to himself,’ said María, ‘Catholics … Catholics how are you! This crowd is no better than the Christian Front.’
This was a reference to the crowd supporting Franco, ex-members of the British police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, and their sons, with some ex-Free State Army officers, and failed clerical students, though the mass of them were recruited from the Dublin underworld.
They were known to the Franco Army as ‘the tourists’ and their leader, General O’Duffy, as ‘the Flying Postman‚’ because he went around in an aeroplane collecting his men’s mail, while his men spent their time reading and writing letters and sending postcards home, drinking cheap wine and smoking cigarettes.
Six hundred of them left Ireland, and all returned safely but seven, six of whom were killed accidentally. The other one was in a bad state of health for some years before he joined the force, and only went to Spain because his parish priest thought the climate might do him good.
It was a deadly insult, to compare a bourgeois Nationalist, or any respectable person, (even a respectable supporter of Franco), whose family had not been in the Black and Tans or
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