had a game guessing whose feet they were.
They never tried to play this game in any other pub since anyone who drank in Foley’s or Dunne’s, or indeed in Ryan’s itself, did so openly. It was only in Conway’s that they pretended not to be there.
Beyond Conway’s was Doctor White’s and they called there for Liam and Jacinta. That was it for tonight; some of the other children they played with lived out in the countryside, and others weren’t allowed out to wander in the evenings. There were some boys who were up at the brothers’ in the football field and there were some girls who had to help in their houses, or who had been bad and therefore denied the night’s outing.
The six went to the graveyard and sat on a tombstone which they particularly liked.
It was the memorial for a William James Fern who had died in 1881 at Majuba Hill in the Transvaal, aged eighteen. It was during the Boer War they knew that, and he had been fighting for the British against the Dutch in South Africa.
‘It was a long way to go,’ Maggie Daly often said.
‘I suppose he wanted to get away.’ Tommy Leonard could understand it only too well.
Dara had never understood it.
‘What did he want to go off and fight in other people’s wars for? If he was a Mountfern man, then why wasn’t he here having a great time? And if he was eighteen he could have done what he liked. Think of it, he could have gone to the Classic every night.’ She looked at their faces. ‘Thatis if the Classic was there in the 1880s, which I don’t think it was.’
But tonight they didn’t talk long about the dead William James who fell at Majuba Hill. Tonight they talked about what was going to happen to William James’s old home. What was happening in Fernscourt.
They were not alone, this little group, in their speculations. If they could have seen into every house down Bridge Street and along River Road they would have come across conversations on the same theme.
Over in Foley’s bar at the top of the town old Matt Foley and his friends said that there was oil sighted there. Some fellow had pulled a pike from the Fern and his gills were full of oil. So the drilling would start any day now.
Next door to Foley’s, in her neat little house, Judy Byrne the physiotherapist sat with Marian Johnson whose family owned the Grange, a country house which took guests of a superior type and even arranged hunting for them. They were women of around the same age, one side or the other of forty, not married and not likely to find any husbands at this stage of their lives in this part of the country. Neither ever admitted that to the other.
They had heard that Fernscourt was going to be an agricultural college, which would be very good news indeed as it would mean lectures and all kinds of talent not seen in these parts before. While saying that the people would probably be quite unspeakable they were having a small sherry to celebrate.
Seamus Sheehan in the Garda barracks was taking a lot of abuse from his wife. Why had he heard nothing about Fernscourt? Everyone else in the place had some view on what was happening. There was no point in being marriedto the sergeant if he was the one man in the whole country who seemed to be too remote as to enquire what was going on in his own back yard.
Next to the barracks Jimbo Doyle lived with his mother. Jimbo’s mother had heard that the new place had been bought by an order of contemplative nuns. They would have a grille on the window and pull it back so that one nun, the Reverend Mother, would be able to address the outside world. When it was necessary, which would not be often.
Jimbo’s mother told him that they would need a reliable man around the place, and that he should get in quick before someone else did.
Jimbo, whose idea of opportunities in life did not include being a reliable handyman to an order of contemplative nuns, asked what his mother expected him to do. Write to the pope, or just the bishop
They never tried to play this game in any other pub since anyone who drank in Foley’s or Dunne’s, or indeed in Ryan’s itself, did so openly. It was only in Conway’s that they pretended not to be there.
Beyond Conway’s was Doctor White’s and they called there for Liam and Jacinta. That was it for tonight; some of the other children they played with lived out in the countryside, and others weren’t allowed out to wander in the evenings. There were some boys who were up at the brothers’ in the football field and there were some girls who had to help in their houses, or who had been bad and therefore denied the night’s outing.
The six went to the graveyard and sat on a tombstone which they particularly liked.
It was the memorial for a William James Fern who had died in 1881 at Majuba Hill in the Transvaal, aged eighteen. It was during the Boer War they knew that, and he had been fighting for the British against the Dutch in South Africa.
‘It was a long way to go,’ Maggie Daly often said.
‘I suppose he wanted to get away.’ Tommy Leonard could understand it only too well.
Dara had never understood it.
‘What did he want to go off and fight in other people’s wars for? If he was a Mountfern man, then why wasn’t he here having a great time? And if he was eighteen he could have done what he liked. Think of it, he could have gone to the Classic every night.’ She looked at their faces. ‘Thatis if the Classic was there in the 1880s, which I don’t think it was.’
But tonight they didn’t talk long about the dead William James who fell at Majuba Hill. Tonight they talked about what was going to happen to William James’s old home. What was happening in Fernscourt.
They were not alone, this little group, in their speculations. If they could have seen into every house down Bridge Street and along River Road they would have come across conversations on the same theme.
Over in Foley’s bar at the top of the town old Matt Foley and his friends said that there was oil sighted there. Some fellow had pulled a pike from the Fern and his gills were full of oil. So the drilling would start any day now.
Next door to Foley’s, in her neat little house, Judy Byrne the physiotherapist sat with Marian Johnson whose family owned the Grange, a country house which took guests of a superior type and even arranged hunting for them. They were women of around the same age, one side or the other of forty, not married and not likely to find any husbands at this stage of their lives in this part of the country. Neither ever admitted that to the other.
They had heard that Fernscourt was going to be an agricultural college, which would be very good news indeed as it would mean lectures and all kinds of talent not seen in these parts before. While saying that the people would probably be quite unspeakable they were having a small sherry to celebrate.
Seamus Sheehan in the Garda barracks was taking a lot of abuse from his wife. Why had he heard nothing about Fernscourt? Everyone else in the place had some view on what was happening. There was no point in being marriedto the sergeant if he was the one man in the whole country who seemed to be too remote as to enquire what was going on in his own back yard.
Next to the barracks Jimbo Doyle lived with his mother. Jimbo’s mother had heard that the new place had been bought by an order of contemplative nuns. They would have a grille on the window and pull it back so that one nun, the Reverend Mother, would be able to address the outside world. When it was necessary, which would not be often.
Jimbo’s mother told him that they would need a reliable man around the place, and that he should get in quick before someone else did.
Jimbo, whose idea of opportunities in life did not include being a reliable handyman to an order of contemplative nuns, asked what his mother expected him to do. Write to the pope, or just the bishop
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