My Ireland

Maura and I drove out to Meath on Monday, to a little church at Donaghmore, not fifteen miles from the General Post Office in O'Connell Street, where an old lady, 96, was to be buried. She had died Friday morning, and had asked that her remains be brought to the church Saturday, and that she lie there until the funeral mass, so, after a wedding mass on Saturday, it was arranged as she had asked. This way all her friends could drop in when they had a chance, and say goodbye, and Monday, after the funeral mass, there was to be another wedding.

I could tell there would be problems, when we were still a half-a-mile away on the little short-cut we had taken, because suddenly cars were jammed up against the hedges, where their owners had left them. When we got to the church Maura managed to get a seat, where a lady signalled her she could squeeze up. The little church, six to a pew, and perhaps, twenty pews on each side of the single aisle, was jambed. There must have been twenty-five priests crowded on the sanctuary, from the same order as her son, and I'd be very surprised if there was anybody there who could not claim that his blood was one hundred per cent Irish. These are farming people, either farmers or farm labourers, or horsey people: owners, trainers, jockeys, and everybody who works around farms or horses. Unless you were born amongst them, you are a 'blow-in', and you will always be a 'blow-in', as will your descendants.

Kitty was there, who phones Maura when her black currants are ripe, and then gets her pleasure from exchanging gossip with here when she picks them up: Stan was there too, whose uncle Eddie, rode Caughoo to win the Grand National, in 1947, and Wardie, who helped Meath win the Gaelic football trophy, the Sam Maguire cup, when he was young. Maura used, when she holidayed at the Rath Farm, be driven to this little church by her Aunt Katie, in her little trap pulled by a pony

Everybody knew Chrissie, and looked out for her, when she walked around the roads near her little cottage, or made sure that she wanted for nothing.