— I propose that the Frenchman be admitted. He’s an enthusiastic Gael. He’s flat out learning the language …
— He’s writing a thesis on the canine dental consonants in the Half-Guinea dialect. He says their gums are blunt enough by now to have a learned study carried out on their sounds …
— The Institute thinks he has learned too much Irish — of the kind that has not been dead for the prescribed period — and as there’s a suspicion that a few of his words are “Revival Irish,” he has to unlearn every syllable before he’s qualified to carry out the study properly.
— He also intends to collect and preserve all the lost folklore so that future generations of Gaelcorpses will know what sort of life there was in the republic of Gaelcorpses in the past. He says there isn’t a traditional storyteller the like of Cóilí to be found this side of Russia now, and there will not be his like again.13 He thinks it will be easy to make a Folklore Museum of the Graveyard and that there will be no difficulty in getting a grant for doing that …
— Oh! But wasn’t that fat fellow fighting against Hitler …
— Let him be admitted …
— Thank you all, mes amis! Merci beaucoup …
— Hitler is against Rotary …
— If he is, then to hell with yourselves and your Rotary! …
— … A man who drank forty-two pints! Indeed, you would not be admitted, or in Alcoholics Anonymous, or in Mount Mellary.14 Nowhere but in “Drunkards Limited” …
— Faith then, I drank two score pints and two! …
— But Nóra Sheáinín used to drink twice that much on the sly …
— Shut your mouth, you little brat!
— Of course it’s not possible that you’d accept any of the One-Ear Breed. If you do, you’ll be stabbed …
— … How could you be admitted to Rotary when you don’t know your tables? …
— But I do. Listen. Twelve ones are twelve. Twelve twos …
— … How could you be accepted: a man who killed himself going to see Concannon? That was a very uncultured death …
— The bookseller will be admitted. He handled thousands of books …
— And the Insurance Agent. He used to do Crossword Puzzles …
— And Sweet-talking Stiofán. He was a good funeral-goer …
— … Why wouldn’t you be accepted? Isn’t your son married to a black! The blacks are a cultured people.
— At least, they’re more cultured than the Eyetalians that son of yours is married into …
— Caitríona Pháidín should be admitted. She has a roundtable at home …
— As well as Nóra Sheáinín’s chest …
— She knew Mannion the Counsellor well …
— And her son’s daughter is going to be a schoolmistress …
— Big Colm’s daughter should be admitted. She was in the Legion of Mary. She gives spiritual assistance to people …
— Easily known, with all her gossip! She hasn’t stopped talking since she cast anchor here …
— You’re insulting …
— If that’s the way, the Postmistress should be admitted. She was information and exploration officer in the Legion of Mary, and she can’t but have culture after all she has read …
— And Cite. Her son was a lance-corporal in the Legion, and she had a Credit Corporation herself …
— And Road-End. His old lady put a hearse under him for fear his poor bowels would be shaken …
— Upon my soul, then, as you say …
— Everybody in Road-End’s house was in the Legion …
— And his son is going out with the priest’s sister …
— His whole household stole my turf …
— And my lump-hammer …
— You’re insulting the faith. You’re black heretics …
— … You’ll be accepted. The Big Butcher was at your funeral, wasn’t he? …
— Tomás Inside would be a good Rotary man. He’s a friend of culture.
— And Big Brian. He was in Dublin …
— And Nell Pháidín. She meets many Rotary people. Lord Cockton …
— Permission to speak. Permission …
— Seáinín Liam will give the first lecture to Rotary. “My Heart” …
— Cite then: “Money-lending” …
— Dotie: “The Fair Plains of East Galway” …
— Máirtín Pockface: “Bedsores” …
— The Big Master then: “Billyboy the Post” …
— This fellow over here: “The Direct Method for Twisting Ankles” …
— Caitríona Pháidín: “Big Brian’s Beauty” …
— Oh! Flat-footed, miserable Brian …
— Red-haired Tom then …
— I’ll say nothing. I won’t indeed. Nothing …
— … You’ll give a lecture on the prophets of Donagh’s Village …
— And you, on the flea-bitten hillocks of your own village …
— … Honest, Dotie, there was never a day that I wasn’t keen on culture. Whoever told you I took it up here is prejudiced, I assure you. When I was in Brightcity as a young girl, I was no sooner home from the convent and finished with my dinner than I was out again in search of cultural activity. That’s when I met the sailor …
— You never told me, Nóra, that you were attending the convent …
— De grâce, Dotie. I often told you, but you have forgotten. You understand I was putting the finishing touches to my education in Brightcity, and I was lodging with a relation of mine, a widow-woman called Corish …
— You’re a damned liar, Nóirín Filthy-Feet. She was no relation of yours. You were in service with her. It was a great wonder she allowed yourself and your stock of fleas into her house at all. But the very minute she found out you were hanging around with sailors she whipped you home with a nettle to your buttocks, to Mangy Field of the Ducks, of the Puddles, of the Fleas and of the Filthy Feet. I wouldn’t mind, but to say she was going to school in Brightcity …
— Don’t let on you hear her at all …
— My goodness me, Dotie, that strap isn’t entitled to talk at all. Lying there without a cross or inscription over her, like a letter posted with no address …
— Be thankful to that idiot of a brother of yours, Nóirín …
— Your son is at home and he can’t afford to pay the insurance you took out on Tomás Inside. And the very moment Tomás found out, he left your house and went to Nell …
— Oh! Oh! …
— Whether it’s O or P, that’s the truth. Your son Pádraig has let his land to Nell, and all the cattle on your holding now are Nell’s rent-cattle …
— Oh! Oh! Oh! …
— If he goes on much longer the way he is, he’ll have to sell the land. A man is hardly worthy of a wife if he can’t afford to keep her. I gave him my daughter as I didn’t want to be a hindrance to pitiable love. That was the only reason he got her. I was always romantic. But romance or whatever, if I’d realized what I was doing and knew exactly where she was going …