it from the whole wad of papers clipped behind it. Her heart was thumping in her mouth. Claudia’s warning text must be still circling the satellite.
Startling William O’Brien out of his cat basket, Hilary leapt out into the living room. Then the neighbour went on upstairs to his flat above. But the false alarm had brought her out of her excited hunting state. I am spying on Vianney, invading his territory.
Vianney’s mother Kate had been both emotionally distant and yet invasive. He had fled her controlling supervision in his late teens. She, Hilary, knew all this and yet here she was herself, invading, trespassing.
Hilary felt deeply ashamed. But could not bring herself to return the papers. She might have enough time tomorrow to get a quick scan done, and a bit of a read.
Chapter 8 - It was not god who starved the Irish people
I feel obliged to state one or two truths which seem to be lost sight of in this country. The Irish are now in danger of famine again…
The position taken by the Government and the landlords is that nothing can alter the landlord’s right to the whole of his customary rent… if that rent is not paid, the military will eject the people from their holdings and seize their money and stock.
Consequently those who do not pay their rent will have to die by the roadside, but those who do pay will have the privilege of dying under a roof… exactly what took place thirty-two years ago, during the most calamitous Famine ever known.
Letter of Anna Parnell to the New York Tribune, 29 November 1879
St Brigid’s Day/ Imbolg, 1 Feb 1880, Straide , Co Mayo
It is said by the country people that on her own special day, Brigid puts her finger in the icy waters and declares an end to the winter, breaking its spell with her great powers. But not until his day, six weeks later, when Patrick puts two fingers in the water, then that is the certainty of spring, and the seed potatoes can be safely planted.
On the eve of Brigid’s Day, Davitt’s mother, like her mother and grandmother before her, would put out the little piece of cloth, the brat Brigid, the cloth of Brigid, on the hawthorn hedgerows. Then they waited for the saint to spiritually traverse the entire land on her special night, imbuing women’s cloths across the country with her healing power. They would use that cloth throughout the year, for consolation and curing, for birthing women and cattle, and to ease the pains of the dying. Each small cloth representing, no, more than representing, actually being part of the miraculous cloak of great Brigid. The sacred fabric of Ireland.
Superstition, modern men said now, but Davitt knew how strong his mother was in her faith, how strong she was still, living within the old traditions, the old language, the songs and the stories. She had brought them with her to England, had carried them onto America. But she didn’t place any cloth outside overnight in Lancashire or in New York on Brigid’s Eve. Even his mother didn’t feel Brigid had come with the Irish to their new lands. Christ had, and Our Lady had, but not Brigid. She had somehow stayed behind, with the land, with the hawthorn and the wild flowers.
‘Come Bee,’ he said to his cousin, tucking her arm into his left one, ‘let’s see if the little stream I remember is still hereabouts.’
He sounded quite lighthearted, as he moved with his usual quick energetic step, but as she moved closer beside him, Bee Walshe could feel the tensions in Davitt’s thin body. Perhaps their holding the Land League meeting in Straide was not such a good idea.
They were building the speakers platform over the very ground that Davitt had identified as his family home, his place of birth, and boyhood. Before the landlord’s crowbars had wrecked and swept away his parents’ cabin. Their few precious furnishings thrown without regard onto the road, as the landlord’s agents set fire to the thatch of the roof.
Davitt knew his memory of that terrible day was aided by his parents’ frequent telling and retelling of the story, as all the Famine stories were retold in Lancashire, and London, and New York, in Melbourne and Sydney and Vancouver. But he also clearly recalled the impressions, the powerful shock of that day, especially the sounds of eviction.
The shouts of men, the cracking of whips, as horses startled at the fire and smoke. Baby Sabina in his mother’s arms crying in all the confusion, and then the women neighbours joining his mother in wailing cries of protest and despair as the roof fell in a fiery tumble. His older sisters Mary and Anne clinging to Catherine Davitt’s skirts - white faced, shocked.
But no woman’s keening or child’s cry could soften the heart of those heartless wolves, the landlords. Those vampires had sucked the lifeblood out of an innocent people. Well by God, this time the people of Mayo – all the people of the West – would trample on the ruins of Irish landlordism before allowing themselves to be broken again. This time they would be organised in their resistance.
They were walking so rapidly across the hard frosted earth, Bee was glad to be wearing her strong walking boots. It was gallant of Davitt to have offered his left arm but she could not really lean on him, could not risk dragging him off balance. If she brought him back wet or muddied, she would have to face the wrath of the men who looked out for him. Matthew Harris, Big James Daly, editor of the Connaught Telegraph, and her own brother John, they’d speak very harshly to her if she let Michael Davitt come to any harm.
Perhaps all of them, men and women, felt such fierce protectiveness around Davitt because he resolutely refused any special treatment, or help, or money. He would accept payment for his writings and his public talks, he said, but he would not accept charity.
Bee knew that James Daly would be glad of any excuse to rebuke her. Daly didn’t like women getting involved in politics. He said it was the duty of men to protect women and children from harm, and Irishmen would be the joke of the world if they were seen to be lacking the power to do so. But Davitt said that women and children suffered from injustice as much as men, and had as much right to resist the landlords and military – to resist starvation and exile and death. Besides, he said, everyone was needed in the struggle against the landlords. Everyone.
And so James Daly had had to give way, because they needed Davitt, and they trusted him. Davitt was everywhere it seemed, at once, setting up tenants groups, organising, encouraging, exhorting, instructing, teaching the farmers how to run orderly meetings, how to record motions, how to speak up and how to negotiate collectively. How to be brave.
Davitt and Bee moved on through the field, following the sound of the hidden stream until finally she saw the wintry light glimmering off it.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘over here Michael.’
Davitt came with her and stood in silence on the low bank looking down into the water. It ran clear and cold a little way beneath them. He did not speak for some time. She took the opportunity to look at him, to take in her own fill. He was still appallingly thin, the prison pallor not yet gone from him. But his face was so often lively, the brown eyes warm, the mouth laughing. ‘What are you thinking Michael,’ Bee asked him now, interrupting his meditations, daring where most of the men would not have.
‘I am thinking,’ he said, and just for one moment she allowed herself to imagine that he would say ‘of you.’
‘of how quiet this field is,’ he said, ‘how silent this whole great world.’
He looked up and around the field, as if searching for something. ‘You, dear Bee, will be too young to
