— Three at mine …
— That’s true, Caitriona, there were three of them at your wake. That’s the bare honest truth for you, Caitriona. There were three of them there — three fine big ones — and a few shots from Ned of the Hill’s magic waterworks also … And even if I was the oldfella, I still drank twelve mugs of it. To tell you God’s honest truth, Caitriona, there’s no way I would have swilled that much if I knew that my heart was a bit dicey. What I said to myself was, as my eyes were staring at the pints of porter: “Wouldn’t it be a lot better for this guy to buy a colt rather than to be getting pissed with shit artists …”
— You pompous piss artist! …
— That’s what they were. Some of them were laid out smashed drunk on the ground in the way of everyone else. It even happened that Peter Nell fell on top of the bed you were laid out on, Caitriona. His leg was gone, the one that was injured.
— The sneaky swill slurper!
— The best of it all was when Breed Terry’s youngfella and Kitty’s son started beating the crap out of one another, and then smashed the round table before they could be separated …
— Holy fuckaroni! Ababoona! …
— I split them up. If I knew then that my heart was a bit dicey …
— … It appeared to me, anyway, that you were laid out in the proper traditional way, unless my eyes were deceiving me …
— Then your eyes didn’t see the two crosses on my breast …
— I had two crosses and the scapulars …
— Whatever they had on me, or they didn’t have on me, Kitty, it wasn’t a dirty sheet like there was on Caitriona …
— Ababoona! Don’t believe a word from that mangy maggot’s mouth …
— … You had a coffin that was made by the little scutty carpenter from Gort Ribbuck. He made another one for Nora Johnny and ’twas as small as a bird’s cage …
— Your coffin was made by a carpenter as well …
— That may be so, but it wasn’t the jobber from Gort Ribbuck, but a proper carpenter who had served his time. He had qualifications from the Tec …
— My coffin cost ten pounds …
— I thought yours only cost eight pounds: just like Caitriona’s one …
— You’re a liar, you microphallic muppet! I had the best coffin from Tim’s shop …
— Little Kitty laid me out.
— Me too, and Biddy Sarah keened me …
— Then she didn’t make a very good job of it. There’s a kind of a lump in Biddy’s throat and it doesn’t melt until about the seventh glass. Then she starts up with “Let Erin Remember” …
— Anyway, I don’t think anyone keened Caitriona at all, unless her son’s wife or Nell sang a few bars …
— … Your altar was only six pounds ten …
— Mine was ten pounds.
— Hang on a minute now, ’til I see what mine was … 20 by 10 plus 19, that makes 190 … plus 20, that’s 210 shillings … that comes to 10 pounds, 10 shillings. Isn’t that right, Master? …
— Peter the Publican had a huge altar …
— And Nora Johnny …
— That’s true, Nora Johnny had a big altar. I would have had a big altar too, only nobody knew about it, I went too quickly. The heart, God help me! Just the same as if I had been laid up and had bedsores …
— I would have had fourteen pounds exactly, except that there was a bad shilling with it. It was only a halfpenny that somebody had covered with fag paper. Blotchy Brian noticed it, and he copped on to the trick. He said that it was Caitriona Paudeen put it there. She had put many bad shillings like that on the altar. She tried to be at every altar like that but she couldn’t afford it, the poor wretch …
— You lying son of a poor rat bastard! …
— Oh, I forgive you, Caitriona. I wouldn’t give a tinker’s curse or an itinerant’s malediction about, if it wasn’t for the priest. “They’ll be plonking their old rotten teeth on the plate for me soon,” he said …
— I only ever heard “Paul this,” and “Paul that” from yourself and your daughter that time when she jizzed up the Great Scholar in the parlour. But there was no mention of Paul when you had to put a shilling on my altar …
— After I had drunk forty-two pints I tied Tomaseen up, but not one of his kip and kin or anybody from his house bothered their arse to come to my funeral, even though we’re in the same town land. They hardly put as much as a shilling on my altar the lot of them together. They all had a cold, or so they said. That was all the thanks I got, even though he was stuck like shit to a blanket. Imagine, like, if he had to be tied up again? …
— I didn’t have a very big funeral. Most of Bally Donough had gone to England, and Gort Ribbuck also, and Clogher Savvy …
— … And what do you think of Caitriona Paudeen, Kitty, who didn’t as much as darken the door of our house since my father passed away, despite all the cups of tea she polished off …
— That was the time she was going to Mannix the Counsellor about Fireside Tom’s land …
— Do you hear that old strap Breed Terry, and manky Kitty of the piddly potatoes? …
— I had to clamp my hand three times over the mouth of that old windbag over there, where he was singing: “Martin John More had a beautiful daughter” at your funeral, Curran …
— The whole country was at your funeral, journalists and photographers, the lot …
— And for a good reason! You were blown up by the mine, all of you. If you had died on the old bed just like me, there wouldn’t have been a journalist or a photographer next or near the place …
— Bien de monde was at funeral à moi. Le Ministre de France from Dublin came to mine and he laid a couronne mortuaire on my grave …
— There was a representative of Eamon de Valera at my funeral, and the Tricolour was on my coffin …
A telegram from Arthur Griffith came to my funeral and shots were fired over the grave …
— That’s a lie!
— No, you’re the liar. I was First Lieutenant of the First Company of the First Battalion of the First Brigade …
— That’s a lie!
— God save us, for ever and ever! Wasn’t it a disaster that they never brought my bag of bones east of the Fancy City!
— The Big Butcher came to my funeral from the Fancy City. He respected me, and his father respected my father. He often said to me that he respected me because of the respect that his father had for my father …
— The doctor came to my funeral. That was hardly a surprise, of course. My daughter Kate has two sons doctors in the States …
— Now you tell us! That was hardly a surprise, indeed. So that he wouldn’t be entirely shamed — after all the money you had given him — he came to your funeral. And you twisting your ankle every second month …
— The Old Master and the Mistress were at my funeral …
— The Old Master and the Mistress and the Foxy Cop were at my funeral …
— The Old Master and the Mistress and the Foxy Cop and the priest’s sister were at my funeral …
— The priest’s sister! Tell me, was she wearing the pants? …
— It was a disgrace that Mannix the Counsellor didn’t come to Caitriona Paudeen’s funeral …
— It was, disgraceful. Nor the priest’s sister …
— Nor the Foxy Cop …
— He was checking out the dogs in Bally Donough that day …
— No dog would survive on the flea-ridden baldy bumps of your place …
— … “Fireside Tom’s grin was as wide as a gate,
He’d have Nell now, as buried was Cate …”
— I’m telling you, Caitriona Paudeen, if I could have helped it at all, I would have been at your funeral. It wouldn’t be right for me not to be at Caitriona Paudeen’s funeral, even if I had to crawl there on my hands and knees. But I never heard a whisper about it ’til the night of the burial …