An Eccentric Man Passes Away
Hugh Curran
Hovering outside the window, it seemed not to move, looming in the overcast sky; Was it a floating currach, a pale horse with legs tucked up? My father’s eyes became paler, his skin whitening to the face of his mother, blind for thirty years.
Each breath a slow failing, a grappling hook, an anchor rattling. In the hesitation before the in-breath came images of his unsettling life: fragments of chairs, scraps of rope, bent nails and twisted wire. Large handed, he sawed and hammered and coaxed within the orbit of his task, the broken shards of his unretiring life.
I placed my hand over his rough hands, repeating a canticle to the sun and moon, a favorite prayer, asking him to let go, that he would be forever in my heart. His breathing stopped as I pleaded a reprieve, his face turned marble white, his feet cold, his eyes retreated in their socket.
The news went forth to brother, sisters, nephews, nieces, who knew him as: a fierce patriot, an Irish speaker, a musician, a story-teller, a gold-miner and carpenter in the Canadian north; he had been in the Gaelic brigade of the Irish army and fourteen years in An Garda Siochana advising farmers on gorse and noxious weeds; He climbed the Garda station roof to measure rain for Dublin HQ and broke up Shillelagh fights on market days, arresting drunk men to keep them out of harm’s way; He played the melodeon at Ceilidhs, sang ballads of Irish rebels, danced at the crossroads, drank his porter with a whiskey chaser and had the gift of tears; He was sometimes harsh, sometimes pious and often charming.
The gold mines of the north changed his trajectory, dissipating his vigor in a fruitless search for riches; Klondike stories of his five uncles drove him to northern mining towns and the Arctic Circle where a friend was lost in a blizzard, another dead from tuberculosis and he himself consigned to a sanitarium. His long enduring wife scrabbled for the dole, kept his children in school, admonishing them to ‘not be like your father with his wild ways.’
Country pride was put aside as old age approached; He drank too much, fell on his head, fell on his hip, saw his wife die after fifty years of devotion to a family of six and he, in failing health, in need of care.
In his last years he prayed the rosary, confided visions of Mary at the foot of his bed, and of a grandson becoming a bishop. Now the body bag and the Wake and the honor guard of mourning, the Donegal Society with their shoulder sashes; his grandchildren step dancing while friends played the Uilleann pipes and the old language flowed around the Oak coffin draped in an Irish flag.
At the funeral Mass I recounted my travels with him to the harbor of a Donegal town where he had served as a Garda, gathering round him village elders and from their names asked after each one’s parents, brothers and sisters. though he had not seen them in fifty years.
His life stories cascaded in a thick burr of grumbling and praise, stories stored in his capacious memory, his cantankerous ways kindly intended, his mood shifting with the kaleidoscopic nature of his narratives.
At the cemetery, Canada geese nibbled grass as my nephew played ‘Danny Boy’ on his saxophone; Relatives and friends crowded round the burial mound to toss a handful of soil atop the coffin as it was lowered next to his wife, the priest’s final incantation consigning him to eternal life.
At home in Maine I had visions of him briskly striding with his shillelagh, whistling while ruminating over Celtic names embedded in stone and slate in the old cemetery near our home. Then reclining beside the window nearest the garden he related legends from his repository of faith in old ways. After his passing, summers were no longer invigorated by his presence, so lonely was the road lacking his reminiscences of saints and heroes, clan chiefs and holy wells and fragments of songs that brightened days and evenings.
A story often told was of my five times great-grandfather standing in his petticoats while the wooden bowls on the side-board shook from the sounds of cannon as the British captured Wolfe Tone off Tory Island and sailed him to Lough Swilly. Such a hero of Irish rebellions brought a plenitude of tears as he would then recall the Wild Geese of the clan O’Donnell and O’Neill taking ship to the continent to avoid capture by the British.
Dad’s words were oars dipped into myth and legend, his phrases pronounced like a man raising a sail to catch spare breezes sliding off bald hills on bald islands, then shifting his life’s rudder with resignation, saying: ‘It can’t be helped, that’s the way of it.’
Hugh Curran (Aedh O’Currain) was born in Fintra, Killybegs, Donegal, raised in Ireland and Canada and taught ‘Peace & Conflict Studies’ at the University of Maine.
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Amharclann
le Colin Ryan
Choíche
Ní fhillfidh mé choíche ar sise
i seomra na n-aisteoirí
ag cur smideadh ar aghaidh a pearsan
ní fhillfidh ná mo chos
is a súile á scrúdú
mar a dhéanfadh súile strainséara
i scáthán rúnda an tsaoil
nó gur éirigh sí amach
ar an stáitse draíochta
is béal úrdhéanta a pearsan
ag rá: Ní fhillfidh mé choíche
Never
I’ll never return, she said
in the green-room
applying makeup to her character—
I’ll not return, not a step—
her eyes searching her
as a stranger would
in life’s secret mirror,
until she stepped out
on the enchanted stage,
her new-made mouth
saying again: ‘I shall never return’
Caesar
Dúradh leat go bhfacthas
fir a bhí trí thine
ag siúl na sráideanna
is gur labhair an t-éan oíche
díreach i lár an lae ghil
ag tuar shá na scéine
is bhuille géar an éaga
cé nach mbeadh ann ach scéal
ag aisteoirí stáitse
ag déanamh aithrise
ar chinniúint Chaesair
Caesar
You were told that men
ablaze with fire
were seen walking the streets,
and that the bird of night
spoke in midday light
foretelling the knife-thrust
and the sharp stroke of death—
even if it were only
a tale told by actors
enacting on the stage
the fate of Caesar
Léiriú
Na mascanna carntha
i gceann a chéile
clapsholas sna scátháin
is é féin ina shuí i gcúinne
ag síneadh uaidh a chos
ag léamh na páirte
a thabharfaidh é go doras
is éigean dó a oscailt
ag léiriú dó an stáitse
is an dráma fós le tosú
Production
The masks piled
one upon another
twilight in the mirrors
and he himself in a corner
stretching out his legs
and reading the part
that will lead to a door
he is compelled to open
revealing the stage
where the play has not yet started
Is file agus gearrscéalaí Astrálach é Colin Ryan. Is minic a chuid oibre le feiceáil i dTinteán.
Colin Ryan is an Australian poet and short story writer and a regular contributor to Tinteán.
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Lámha
Le Tommy Fogarty
Ní cuimhin liom mórán faoi m’athair ón m’óige. Cuimhníonn mé ar an teach beag i nGarraí Mór roimh thosnú na scoile. Bhí a chuid gruaige bán agus liath i mbuaicphointe os cionn lár a chlár éadain. Cheap mé ag an am sin gurbh fear ollmhór ab ea é, níorbh ea. Ní teaghlach ard muid ar chor ar bith. Cuimhním cinnte ar a lámha. Lámha fíora arbh iad, méara gíortacha láidir. Ingne ghlan, néata. Lámha fir. Bhí siad difriúil ó lámha mo mháthair nó mo dheartháireacha níos sine. Cuimhníonn mé féin, go raibh mé ag ceapadh, bhuel tá ar do lámha a bheith láidir, mar tá ort truicear a tharraingt, mar ba shaighdiúir é. Bhí a lámha ollmór in aice le mo lámha féin.
Ba ciotóg é. Aon am a bhí sé ag obair, i gcónaí ba as an treo mícheart é. Dhéanfainn faire air, dá mbeadh scriú a theannadh aige agus dá mbeadh sé deacair, chuirfeadh sé a chuid fiacla le chéile go daingean agus dhúnfadh sé a shúil dheas. Ansin chuaigh an scriú isteach gan fadhb. Dhéan mé nóta beag i m’intinn dom féin: Déan é sin má tá aon rud deacair a dhéanamh agam.
Nuair a chuaigh sé ar shlí an fírinne, cuireadh amach ina luí é ina sheaicéid glas ón UN agus a bheiré spéirghorm, leis a chuid spéaclaí ag speiceáil amach as a phóca chliabhraigh. Bhí a lámha le chéile ar a bholg. Ní raibh aon difríocht eatharthu, bhí siad díreach cosúil lena lámha fadó nuair a bhí mé cheithre bliaina d’aois, fós láidir. Chuir mé mo lámh orthu agus dúirt mé slán a Dheaid.
Ar an mbealach abhaile, Cindy ag tiomáint agus mé féin i mo shuí san síocháin paisinéir, gan meas ar bith ar chomhrá. Ba lá grianmhar a bhí ann, san earrach, lonrach. Bhí an scáthlán thíos agus an scáthán ar oscailt. D’fhéach mé suas isteach ann. Ansin ar mo ghabhail ina suí, lámha m’athair, mo lámha féin. An n-íompaíonn fir, go léir, isteach ina n-aithreacha?
Hands
by Tommy Fogarty
I don’t remember a whole lot about my father from when I was little. I remember in the little house in Garrymore, before I started school. He had salt and pepper hair that came to a point at the centre of his forehead. I thought he was huge, though he wasn’t, we are not a tall family. I do remember his hands. They were solid, short strong fingers. Clean nails, tidy. Strong man’s hands.
They were different from my mother’s hands or my big brother’s hands. I remember thinking, they have to be like that because he is a soldier, he needs to be able to pull a trigger. They were huge beside my own hands.
He was a ciotóg. When he worked on things, it always seemed to be from the wrong angle. I would watch him. If he was screwing in a screw and the task was difficult, he just had to grit his teeth and close his right eye. The screw would go in then without a problem. I made a mental note to always do that.
When he died, he was laid out in his UN jacket, his glasses peeping out of his top pocket and his sky blue beret with him. His hands were folded on his belly. I looked down at them, they were the same as when I was four, still strong. I placed my hand on his and said goodbye Dad.
We were driving home, Cindy was driving, me in the passenger seat, not in a mood for talking. It was a bright spring day, sparkly. The visor was down with the mirror on it, open. I looked in the mirror and there was my Dad’s hands sitting in my lap. Do we all become our father?
Is as Tiobraid Árainn ó dhúchas é Tommy Fogarty. Tá cónaí air ar an gCósta Óir le blianta fada. Chaith sé seal fada sa Nua Shéalainn agus i Londain. Tá sé mar Uachtarán ar Chonradh Na Gaeilge, Queensland agus bhí sé páirteach ó thús sa ngrúpa Gaeilge Brisbane agus i Gaeilge Gold Coast.
Tommy Fogarty is originally from Tipperary and now lives with his family in the Gold Coast. He has spent long periods of time in London and New Zealand. He is currently President of Conradh Na Gaeilge Queensland and has been part of the founding group of Gaeilge Brisbane and Gaeilge Gold Cost.
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Ag dul siar
Titeann fearthainn bhog
an tráthnóna,
ar chuibhreann seo an Fhómhar.
Lonraíonn tuar ceatha
ar na crainn
atá ag dul as bláth.
Dhá phréachan ag eitilt
ag a gcuid neadracha.
Rósanna deiridh na bliana
fós
i mbláth
Is deifre ormsa ag dul siar is siar
fhad is t’ann.
Going back
The soft rain of
evening falls
on this Autumn common.
A rainbow glistens
on the
shedding trees.
Two crows fly
by their nests.
The end-of-year roses
still in flower.
And I hurry going back, back
as far as I can.
Colette Ní Ghallchóir is an Irish language poet. See February’s ‘Agallaimh le scríbhneoirí na gaeilge/Interviews with Irish language writers’ for Tinteán’s interview with the poet.
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