— There was a representative from Éamon de Valera at my funeral and the tricolour on my coffin …
— There was a telegram from Arthur Griffith at my funeral and shots were fired over my grave …
— You’re a liar!
— You are the liar! I was the First Lieutenant of the First Company of the First Battalion of the First Brigade …
— You’re a liar!
— God help us, forever and ever! Pity they didn’t bring my heap of clay out east of Brightcity …
— The Big Butcher from Brightcity came to my funeral. He had respect for me, and his father had respect for my father. He often told me that he himself had respect for me on account of his father having respect for my father …
— The doctor came to my funeral. That was hardly any wonder, of course. My sister Kate has two sons doctors in America …
— You’ve just said it! It was hardly any wonder. It would have been totally shameful if he didn’t come to your funeral, after all the money you left him over the years. Twisting your ankle at all times of day and night …
— The Big Master and the Schoolmistress were at my funeral …
— The Big Master and the Schoolmistress and the Red-haired Policeman were at my funeral …
— The Big Master and the Schoolmistress and the Red-haired Policeman and the priest’s sister were at my funeral …
— The priest’s sister! Was she wearing the trousers?
— It’s a wonder Mannion the Counsellor didn’t come to Caitríona Pháidín’s funeral …
— A wonder indeed, or the priest’s sister …
— Or even the Red-haired Policeman …
— Checking dog licences in Donagh’s Village he was that day …
— No dog would live on the flea-bitten hillocks of your village …
— … “Tomás Inside was there, grinning and jolly,
For it was Nell would marry him since Caty was dead …”
— I assure you, Caitríona Pháidín, if it cost me my life’s blood I’d be at your funeral. I owed it to Caitríona Pháidín to come to her funeral, even if it was on my two knees. But devil a word I heard about it till the night you were buried …
— A right blatherer you are, Sweet-talking Stiofán. Are you here long? I didn’t know you had arrived. The epidemic …
— … There was a big crowd at my funeral. The Parish Priest, the Curate, the Lake Side Curate, a Franciscan and two Religious Brothers from Brightcity, the Wood of the Lake Master and Schoolmistress, the West Side Master and Schoolmistress, the Sive’s Rocks Master, the Little Glen Master and the Sub-Mistress. The Assistant in Kill …
— There was indeed, Master dear, and Billyboy the Post. To give him his due, he was most obliging that day. He tightened the bolts on the coffin and he was under the coffin leaving the house, and he lowered it into the grave. Faith, to give him his due, he was willing and able. He stripped off his jacket there and grabbed a shovel …
— The thief! The lusty lout!
— … There were five cars at my funeral …
— The car belonging to that clown in Wood of the Lake, who got the legacy, got stuck in the middle of the road and your funeral was delayed for an hour …
— There were as many as thirty cars at Peadar the Pub’s funeral. There were two hearses under him …
— Faith then, as you say, there was a hearse under me as well. The old lady wouldn’t be happy till she got one: “His poor guts would get too much of a shaking on people’s shoulders or an old cart,” she said …
— It was easy for her, Road-End Man, with my turf …
— And with my seaweed wrack.
— … With such an abundance of drink at Caitriona Pháídín’s funeral, there weren’t enough people fit to carry her coffin to the church. And even they began shouting and fighting among themselves. The corpse had to be set down twice, with the state they were in. Indeed it had: on the bare road …
— Ababúna!
— I’m telling you the bare truth, Caitríona dear. There were only six of us from Walsh’s Pub onward. The rest went into Walsh’s or they dropped out along the way. We thought we’d have to put women under the corpse …
— Ababúna! Don’t believe him, the sourpuss …
— That’s the honest truth, Caitríona. You were very heavy. You weren’t long bedridden or suffering from bedsores.
“The two old men will have to go under her,” said Peadar Nell when we reached the Sive’s Rocks Boreen. We were glad to have the old men, Caitríona. Peadar Nell himself was on crutches and Cite’s son and Bríd Terry’s son were snapping at one another again: each of them trying to blame the other for breaking the roundtable the night before. There’s nothing better than the truth, Caitríona dear. Faith, I wouldn’t have shouldered your coffin myself, nor would I have accompanied you one foot of the way, had I known at the time that the heart was so faulty …
— Bloated on periwinkle soup you were, you snarling sourpuss …
—“She wants to act the stubborn mule even now. My soul from the devil, whether she likes it or not, she’s going to the chapel and to the grave,” said Big Brian, as himself and myself and Cite’s son went under you, to carry you up the path to the chapel …
“Devil a word of a lie you said, father-in-law,” said Peadar Nell, as he threw away the crutches and thrust himself under you …
— Ababúna forever and ever! The son of the pussface under me! Big Brian under me! The bearded streak of misery. Of course the coffin was lopsided if that flat-footed round-shouldered slouch was under me. Ababúna búna! … Big Brian! Nell’s son! Muraed! Muraed! … If I’d known, Muraed, I’d explode. I’d explode there and then …
6
— … And do you tell me you can’t insure colts?
— An insurance agent like myself wouldn’t do it, Seáinín.
— You’d think you wouldn’t be taking any risk at all on a fine young colt. It would be a great help, if anything should happen to it, to get a fistful of money …
— I nearly got a fistful myself, Seáinín, in the crossword competition in the Sunday News. Five hundred pounds …
— Five hundred pounds! …
— Yes, indeed, Seáinín. I was only one letter out …
— I see …
— What they wanted was a four-letter word beginning with “j.” The clue said the meaning of the word was “prison.”
— I see.
— I immediately thought of the word “gaol,” but that begins with “g” …
— I see.
—“That’s not it,” says I. I spent a long time deliberating and hesitating. In the end I put down “jaol” …
— I see.
— And do you know, when the solution came out in the paper, the word was “jail”! Bad luck forever to the simplified spelling,16 Seáinín! If I had a gun handy I’d have done away with myself. That had a lot to do with shortening my life.
— I see what you mean now …
— … By the oak of this coffin, Sweet-talking Stiofán, I gave Caitríona the pound …
— … She had that sweet smile on her face …
— That sweet smile proved unfortunate for the Small Master! But for the grace of God he’ll end up like the Big Master. There’s a jinx on that school of ours that the masters are unlucky with their wives …
— … The advice I sent in a letter to Concannon after he won the All-Ireland semi-final for Galway:
“Concannon, my friend,” says I, “if you can’t hit the ball in the final against Kerry, hit something else! There must be a levelling of conditions. The referee will be on the side of Kerry anyhow. You’re the man to do it. You have the strength and the skill. Every time you hit something I’ll raise three shouts of triumph for you …”