— I heard the prophecy of Cathal Buí from a man from West Headland …
— A man from our village had the prophecy of Knotted Bottom. He’s in America …
— A man from our village had the prophecy of Malachi of the Songs. He married in Lakeside. He used to say that Malachi was a holy man. He lived in Joyce Country6 …
— My mother’s brother had the prophecy of O’Doogan. “O’Doogan’s Rule” he called it …
— There’s a man still living in our village who has the prophecy of Dean Swift …
— … That there would be “a road over every gully and English spoken in every shanty.” And there is! Nóra Sheáinín from Mangy Field has plenty of English, and there isn’t a gully into Nell Pháidín’s now without a bridge over it …
— … That “the Romans” would marry heretics. And didn’t the children of those people over here marry an Eyetalian, a Jew and a black! …
— Look out for yourselves now! It won’t be too long till you see an Antichrist. Marrying heretics … Do they even know there is a God? …
— My son knows as well as you do that there’s a God, even though he married an Eyetalian …
— … That the old man would be turned three times in the bed …
— It’s a pity, my dear, that I wasn’t turned now and again. If I had been, my poor buttocks wouldn’t be so blistered …
— … That Galway would win the All-Ireland in 1941 …
— In 1941? Some other year, maybe? …
— Not at all. Not at all. Why some other year? 1941. What else! Do you want to contradict the prophecy?
— This is the War of the Two Foreigners. It was in the prophecy: “On the sixteenth year Ireland will be red with gore …” And isn’t it so, this year? There was a war in Dublin and in East Galway at Easter …
— Wake up, man. That’s thirty years ago, or very near it …
— What do you mean, thirty years ago? The fighting was at Easter and I died around the Feast of Our Lady …
— Wake up, man. You’d think you came here just this year …
— He’s right about the sixteenth year …
— Arrah, listen to me, Pádraig Labhráis’s son. Have an ounce of sense. Columkille never said that …
— If he didn’t, Red Brian said it. The prophecy of Red Brian is what he has. My uncle has it too:
“On the sixteenth year after the thirty
Ireland will be red in its gore.
And on the seventeenth year the women will ask:
‘Alas, where did all the men go’”?
The women of Donagh’s Village, Mangy Field, Sive’s Rocks, Glen of the Pasture, Wood of the Lake and Old Wood are asking that already. How do you think they’ll be in another few years, when there won’t be even one man left?
I heard my uncle say it was in Red Brian’s prophecy that a woman and her daughter would be standing on the Wood of the Lake bridge and that they’d see a man approaching from the east. He would be a black but they would find no fault with that. They would both lunge at him like dogs and they would grab him. The man would be full of fear. But the two women would attack one another then, each of them saying he was hers. The man would manage to get away in the heel of the hunt. That’s the time the men’ll be scarce!
— It’s no wonder, when they’re marrying Eyetalians, Jews and blacks …
— Since the news reached home every man is off to England. I reckon that the “autumn of the faint women,” as my uncle called it, is quite close now. The women of Mangy Field won’t be able to get men to marry them, nor will the women of Donagh’s Village or Sive’s Rocks. Isn’t that the reason I wanted so much to go to England myself: the women would tear me apart between them … I’d be like Billyboy the Post …
— Listen here, son of Pádraig Labhráis, yourself and your uncle have brought the women of Ireland into disrepute …
— Doesn’t the Big Master do that every minute of the day!
— Listen here, son of Pádraig Labhráis, yourself and your uncle have insulted the faith. Black heretics …
— Everybody says those who are leaving the country are the best of men. The reason for that, I think, is that we’re approaching the Antichrist and the end of the world, and if it happens that the road down to hell is in this part of the country there will be no end to the number of blackguards visiting us from Brightcity, from Dublin, and of course from all over England. I fear for our sisters …
— Hold your tongue you, Pádraig Labhráis’s brat! …
— Hold your tongue, you brat! …
— Arrah, I think it won’t be long now till England will be shovelled away to hell altogether. Hitler …
— It’s in the prophecy of Caitríona Pháidín that her son’s wife will be here on her next childbirth …
— Ababúna!
— I’d believe in prophecies myself. I wouldn’t like any misunderstanding about this. I don’t say I believe in any particular prophecy, but I can see that people could have that gift. There are gifts that material science knows nothing about because they cannot be demonstrated by experiment. The poet is the same as the prophet in many ways. “Vates” is what the Romans called the poet: a person who would have a vision or an insight. I discussed that point in the “Guiding Star” in my poetry collection, The Golden Stars …
— May the devil pierce you! The only thing you ever did above ground was your useless verses …
— Hold your tongue, you brat. It would be hard for you to do any good above ground, when your father and mother didn’t nurture any good in you. They allowed you to stay in the house, herding the embers and daydreaming, while they killed themselves working …
— … The way it was promised in the prophecy is that the Foreigners would come ashore in the West Headland, and would drive on eastwards …
— There’ll be plenty of men then for the women of Mangy Field, Donagh’s Village and Sive’s Rocks …
— You’re insulting the faith …
— A big General in charge of them will go down to the river at Wood of the Lake bridge to water his horse. An Irishman will shoot at him and the horse will be killed …
— That big General will immediately go looking for another horse! Do you think if he should see a fine big colt he would take it away with him? …
— This is the War of the Two Foreigners. I was up in the bog-hollow footing turf7 when Peaits Sheáinín came up to me. “Did you hear the news?” says he.
“Devil the news,” says I.
“The Kaiser attacked the poor Belgies yesterday,” says he.
“They’re much to be pitied,” says I. “Do you think it’s the War of the Two Foreigners?”
— Wake up, man. That war ended a long time ago …
— … The Big Master said the other day this must be the World War, as the women are so fickle …
— Tomás Inside said it too. “By the docks, dear,” he said, “it’s the end of the world, the way people have lost their good nature. Look at my little shack full of leaks …”
— When the Insurance Man got started here there wasn’t a house he went into without saying it was the War of the Prophecy.
“Now or never,” he used to say, “you must take out a bit of insurance on yourself. There’s no fear of them killing someone who’s insured, for if they did they’d have to pay out too much money at the end of the War. All you have to do is to carry your insurance paper with you at all times, and to show it if …”