Irish Journal Read Free Page A

my child. He used to come on his bike, a long way, to read Mass to us on Sundays, but even he couldn’t stop Kathleen ni Houlihan exporting her most precious possession: her children. Go to Connemara, Father—I’m sure you’ve never seen so much lovely scenery, with so few people in it, all at once. Perhaps you can read Mass to us one Sunday, then you’ll see me kneeling devoutly in church.”
    “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
    “But d’you suppose I could afford—or be so cruel to my parents—not to go to church? ‘Our daughter is still the same devout, good girl, such a good daughter.’ And my grandmother kisses me when I go home, blesses me and says: ‘Stay as devout as you are, dear child!’ … Do you know how many grandchildren my grandmother has?”
    “My child, my child,” said the priest gently.
    The cigarette glowed sharply, revealing the severe profile for a second.
    “My grandmother has thirty-six grandchildren, thirty-six. She used to have thirty-eight, one was shot down in the Battle of Britain, another one went down with a Britishsubmarine—there are thirty-six still alive; twenty in Ireland, the others.…”
    “There are countries,” said the priest in a low voice, “that export hygiene and suicide ideas, nuclear weapons, machine guns, automobiles.…”
    “Oh I know,” said the light, clear girlish voice, “I know all about that: I’ve a brother myself who is a priest, and two cousins, they’re the only ones in the whole family who have cars.”
    “My child.…”
    “I’m going to try and get some sleep now—goodnight, Father, goodnight.”
    The glowing cigarette flew over the railing, the green-gray blanket was pulled snugly around the slim shoulders, the priest’s head shook rhythmically from side to side; but perhaps it was only the rhythm of the ship that was moving his head.
    “My child,” he said once more in a low voice, but there was no answer.
    He leaned back with a sigh, turned up his coat collar; there were four safety pins on the underside as a reserve; four, hanging from a fifth that was stuck in at right angles, swinging from side to side in time with the gentle thrusts of the steamer as it headed into the gray darkness toward the isle of saints.

2
ARRIVAL II
    A cup of tea, at dawn, while standing shivering in the west wind, the isle of saints still hiding from the sun in the morning mist; here on this island, then, live the only people in Europe that never set out to conquer, although they were conquered several times, by Danes, Normans, Englishmen—all they sent out was priests, monks, missionaries who, by way of this strange detour via Ireland, brought the spirit of Thebaic asceticism to Europe; here, more than a thousand years ago, so far from the center of things, as if it had slipped way out into the Atlantic, lay the glowing heart of Europe.…
    So many green-gray blankets drawn snugly around slim shoulders, so many sharp profiles, and on so many turned-up priests’ collars the reserve safety pin stuck in at right angles with two, three, or four more pins dangling from it … thin faces, bleary eyes, in the laundry basket the baby drinking its bottle while at the tea counter the father was vainly struggling to get some beer. Slowly the morning sun picked white houses out of the mist, a lighthouse barked red-and-white toward the ship, slowly the steamer panted into the harbor of Dun Laoghaire. Seagulls greeted it, the gray silhouette of Dublin becamevisible, vanished again; churches, monuments, docks, a gasometer: tentative wisps of smoke from a few fireplaces: breakfast time, but only for a few: Ireland was still asleep, porters down on the dock rubbed the sleep from their eyes, taxi drivers shivered in the morning wind. Irish tears greeted home and the homecomers. Names were tossed back and forth like balls.
    I staggered wearily from the ship into the train, and a few minutes later from the train into the great dark railway station of