Irish Journal Read Free

by Ireland is that of moviegoing (again—how much in common despite the differences!—just ahead of England); finally the fourth, a significant one of which I dare not say it stands in causal relationship to the first three: in Ireland there are fewer suicides than anywhere else on earth. The records for whisky-drinking and cigarette-smoking have not yet been ascertained, but in these disciplines Ireland is also well ahead, this little country the size of Bavaria but with fewer inhabitants than those between Essen and Dortmund.
    A cup of tea at midnight, while standing shivering in the west wind as the steamer pushes slowly out to the open sea—then a whisky upstairs in the bar, where the throaty Celtic was still to be heard, but from only one Irish throat now. In the room off the bar, nuns settled like great birds getting ready for the night, warm under their headdresses, their long habits, drawing in their long rosaries as ropes are drawn in when a boat leaves; a young man standing at the bar with a baby in his arms was refused a fifth glass of beer, his wife, who was standing beside him holding a little girl of two, also had her glass taken away by the bartender without a refill. The bar slowlyemptied, the throaty Celtic was silent, the nuns’ heads were gently nodding in sleep; one of them had forgotten to draw in her rosary, the plump beads rolled to and fro with the movement of the ship. Carrying their children, the couple who had been refused a drink swayed past me toward a corner where they had built themselves a little fort out of suitcases and cardboard boxes. Two more children were asleep over there, leaning on either side of their grandmother, whose black shawl seemed to offer warmth for three. The baby and its two-year-old sister were stowed away in a laundry basket and covered up; the parents crept silently in between two suitcases, their bodies pressed close together, and the man’s thin white hand spread a raincoat over them like an awning. Silence; the suitcase locks clinked gently to the rhythm of the moving ship.
    I had forgotten to get myself a place for the night. I clambered over legs, boxes, suitcases. Cigarettes glowed in the dark; I caught scraps of whispered conversation: “Connemara … no luck … waitress in London.” I crouched between some lifeboats and lifebelts, but the west wind was keen and damp. I stood up, made my way across the ship, which one would have thought full of emigrants rather than homecomers—legs, glowing cigarettes, scraps of whispered conversation—till a priest grasped the bottom of my coat and with a smile invited me to sit down next to him. I leaned back to sleep, but to the right of the priest, under a green and gray striped blanket, a light clear voice was speaking: “No, Father, no, no … it hurts too much to think of Ireland. Once a year I have to go there to visit my parents, and my grandmother is still alive. Do you know County Galway?”
    “No,” murmured the priest.
    “Connemara?”
    “No.”
    “You should go there, and don’t forget on your way back in the port of Dublin to notice what’s exported from Ireland: children and priests, nuns and biscuits, whisky and horses, beer and dogs.…”
    “My child,” said the priest gently, “you should not mention these things in the same breath.”
    A match flared under the green-gray blanket, a sharp profile was visible for a second or two.
    “I don’t believe in God,” said the light clear voice, “no, I don’t believe in God—so why shouldn’t I mention priests and whisky, nuns and biscuits, in the same breath? I don’t believe in Kathleen ni Houlihan either, that fairy-tale Ireland.… I was a waitress in London for two years: I’ve seen how many loose women.…”
    “My child,” said the priest in a low voice.
    “… how many loose women Kathleen ni Houlihan has sent to London, the isle of the saints.”
    “My child!”
    “That’s what the priest back home used to call me too: