On Our Knees

My father hated to be late for Mass. 

Down the country (in Lusmagh parish), he always planned that the family would be in its seat about ten minutes before the priest would come out on the altar. 

At Mass, he disassociated from the Reluctant Christians who crowded around the back of the church, but also from the Altar-Rail Huggers at the top of the church. The latter category included the Priest's Lackeys and the few Politicians, as well as the Craw Thumpers. We were to be good Christians, but nobody's lackeys (particularly not, as it turned out, lackeys of P.P. Father John Fahey). We were not to be hypocrites, like the politicians who made a show of religiosity for the sake of gaining votes, or exhibitionists like the craw-thumpers, who felt holier than the rest of men.

We marched together up the centre aisle of the church and took possession of a seat, not at the top of the church, not at the bottom of the church, not half-way down, but, judiciously, one-third of the way down. Mother at the inside, five children in the middle and father at the outside, a demonstration of discipline and character, faith and independence. 

I was greatly impressed by Father Fahey. One Sunday, for some reason or other, we were not as early as usual for Mass. The back of the church was already clogged with reluctants and we had to elbow our way through the mob. As we slowly slithered through, I was fully aware of the conversation of the men around me. Were they talking about God and the mysteries of religion? No! they were talking about the price of cattle and pigs. Prices at this fair and that; and which dealers could be trusted and which ones needed to be watched, and the danger of buying horses from the tinkers. 

Well, when Father Fahey took the pulpit, his opening remark was: "Are you the kind of person who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing?" I was impressed! Of course I did not know that he was borrowing from Oscar Wilde.

Everybody dressed in their best clothes for Sunday Mass. The whole population of the parish gathered at the church, and the greetings and conversations took place before and after, with much hand-shaking and laughter. It was the community event par excellence.

Most walked to Mass, but those at a distance often came in horse and trap, as did Uncle Rodie. Sometimes, in my younger years, I had the option of walking or waiting for the trap. Between taking the trap from the cart-house, putting the bridle on the horse, taking the horse out of the stable, putting on his saddle and collar and hooking him up to the trap, you would be half way to the church before the trap would be ready. Nor would the horse be so much faster than the walkers that it could catch up; and then when arriving at the church, he had to be stabled again, before the horseman could go into the church. There was a point in bringing the trap, however, not only for showing off, but it facilitated bringing home a few things from the shop.

The shop near the church was a country shop, and not a real town shop. It was a shed attached to Hogan's farm-house and, at weekends at any  rate, carried stock like flour and sugar and cigarettes and sweets, shop bread and the main Sunday papers. We usually ate soda bread in the country, but it was nice to get some shop bread on Sunday. Sweets is what we kids went to Hogan's for.

There is a saying in Irish, "Ná santaigh an Cailín Domhnaigh," which means "Don't fancy the Sunday Girl." Better to judge the girl (or the man) in the work environment, as she milks the cow (or ploughs the field).

One person who was not at the Mass was Wilcon Bracken. Well, of course, there were other protestants in the parish who were not there, but Wilcon was the only one that I knew. Wilcon came from somewhere down near Victoria Lock, but he was often passing through Ballymacoolaghan in course of his daily work. He was, invariably, dressed in his working, farm clothes, and, while he no doubt had a valid reason to be around Ballymacoolaghan, we had the notion that he was really there in the hope of catching a glimpse of Anne Madden, Jack Searson's pretty aunt. He might have made a better impression if he had been dressed up for Sunday Mass, but, of course, he did not go to Mass, because he was a protestant.

July was the month we holidayed in the country, and this was usually a month of many showers. Well, if we boys were caught in a shower, we did not run home, but took shelter in the nearest house, where we would usually be treated to a cup of tea and some soda bread and country butter, or even, if we were lucky, to a slice of curny ("curranty") bread. 

One day we were caught  in a shower near Madden's house, known as "the School House," since it had been a school in the old days, where my father suffered the tyranny of Miss Armstrong. The school house had more rooms than the normal country house, and we boys were given custody of a room known as "the Dairy" (a cool room that contained a machine for separating the cream from the milk), and seated around a large table at which we feasted on tea and curny bread. Who should be passing the house at that time, to be similarly caught in the shower, and take refuge in the School House, but Wilcon Bracken. Avoiding the burden of having to sit chatting to Wilcon, Anne shunted him in to the boys, and he had his tea and curny bread with us.

Well, Wilcon took over the entertainment of the boys. Can you do this, he asked, and wiggled his nostrils. We were impressed. Can you do this, he asked, and raised and lowered his eye-brows. Can you do this, and wiggled his ears. Can you do this, and moved the top of his head.

Then I said, "Can you do this, Wilcon?" I raised my backside off the chair and emitted a loud fart. The boys broke their sides laughing.

Now, I had no intention of insulting Wilcon. I was merely taking the stage after Wilcon had completed his act, and doing my best to amuse my audience in the circumstances that presented themselves. That I had a fart ready at the right moment in time was fortuitous.

But, it seemed to me that Wilcon was a bit of an outcast. Now, that was not due to the fact that he had a different religion from us, it was entirely due to the fact that he and his kind were excluded from the community that assembled around the parish church on Sundays. 

Every year, we went down the country as soon as the Primary Schools closed for Summer, i.e., the end of June. One year, when we arrived we found that our country friend, Jack Searson, had a mission. He had sat for the Primary Cert that year, but had been kept out of school after the exam to work for Father Fahey. Father Fahey had a farm as well as his job as Parish Priest and, being school-manager, often called on the senior pupils of the school as free labour. As a result of missing some days at school, Jack had missed the date for delivering a project he had completed, on the History of Lusmagh. He had put a lot of time and enthusiasm into the project and wanted to hand it in. Since the school was now closed, Father Fahey had invited him to deliver the project to him. So Jack wanted to go and deliver the project to the priest. He wanted to take the same opportunity to visit his mother, who lived with his sister at the other end of the parish. We consulted and it was decided that we would join him on this expedition.

On the way to the priest's house, he told us something of the contents of his report. The name "Lusmagh" had, according to tradition, been coined by an ancient people known as "Tuatha Dé Danaan," or "People of the God Dana," (originally just "People of God," until Saint Patrick arrived, when "People of God" was reserved for the Jews). The Tuatha Dé had arrived in their reed-boats off the coast of Sligo, and the fleet had been ravaged by the Atlantic storms and thrown up on the rocky shore. After several adventures and settling in Sligo/ Mayo, the Tuatha sent an expedition down the Shannon River to try and find reeds strong enough to repair their fleet. They had in mind something like the papyrus reeds of the Nile, and were disappointed by the bulrushes of the Shannon. However, when they reached Lusmagh they were surprised to find a wide plain abounding with blossoming garlic, dandelions and many varieties of herbs. They called it "Lus Magh," or "Herb Plain," and made Lusmagh the centre of production of herbs for their people. Besides having highly-organised religious practices (focused on the after-life), they had an advanced medical system based on herbs.

Now, this contradicted the version of the ancient history that I had learned at school, for the English scholars of the 19th century had made up a history that said that the Irish Language was brought into the country by the Celts, coming from Europe to Ireland in the Iron age, i.e., in no earlier the thousand years or so before Christ. The Lusmagh version has the Irish Language arriving in Ireland long before that. The Anglo version had the Fir Bolg (Bag Men) arriving in the Stone Age, the Tuatha Dé in the Bronze Age and the Celts in the Iron Age. The Lusmagh version was more in line with all these "invasions" taking place in the Neolithic (New Stone) Age, following the Parthalonians who were here from the Mesolithic Age. In fact, archaeology has found no evidence of conquest after the Neolithic Age, (until the years of the Vikings) so the reality is more in line with the Lusmagh Version, (which I, at that time, took to be a "folk" version rather than the "scientific" version of the 19th century English scholars).

We arrived in Lusmagh (as the centre of the parish was called) and Jack handed his report in to Father Fahy. I don't quite recall whether we went to the school or the parish priest's house. I think we may have called first to the school and found it locked up, as expected, and then proceeded to the parish house. We were in a large room, and there were plaques around the wall telling a story. While Jack was talking to the priest, I was looking at these plaques. I was standing in front of a plaque that showed people finding a baby among the rushes. Suddenly, Father Fahy was behind me.

"What do you think that is?"  he asked.

"Oh," I said, "It is the Finding of Moses."

"Well, no," said Father Fahy, "All these pictures are of the history of Lusmagh. This is not the finding of Moses, but the finding of Finn Mac Cool; not the historical Finn Mac Cool, father of Osheen, but the more ancient mythical Finn Mac Cool, the son of the slave girl."

When he said this, it became clear to me that a previous panel I had viewed was not a view of Noah's Ark, but a view of the Tuatha Dé arriving in Ireland, and the men pulling the cows and sheep from the water by ropes.

My eyes were caught by another panel, a naked woman displaying her genitals.

"Don't look at that," said Father Fahy, "Or it will kill you."

Then he relented and said, "Of course it will only kill you if you believe it will."

Then he explained that it was a Sheila-Na-Gigg, or vaginal witch, and that the Tuatha Dé, who were up to all kinds of magic tricks, used such ladies, as one of their panoply of weapons, to vanquish the Fomorians, small dark people, who attacked them when they landed in Ireland.

Finn Mac Cool was the son of a Tuatha prince, by a slave girl. Under their law, such a child had to be thrown to the wolves (lest, when he grew up, he should challenge the rightful princes); but the Fomorians, later to be called Fianna (meaning wild people), since they were hunter-gatherers rather than farmers, found the baby and raised him as their own. They were small people, average height probably 5 foot 4, and black-haired and dark-skinned, but Finn grew to be over 6 foot and blond, so he was considered a giant.

In light of the genital curse evoked by the Sheila-Na-Gigg, Father Fahy went on to elaborate on the effect of curses in general. He told me that a parishioner once came to him in fear and trepidation because a tinker-woman had put a curse on him and told him he would die on Saint Patrick's Day. The priest assured the man that a tinker's curse had no power, except in so far as you believed in it. 

"So," said the priest to the parishioner, "Be assured by me that that tinker's curse has no power whatsoever. Go and drown the shamrock on Saint Patrick's Day as you always have done."

So, the man drowned the shamrock as usual on Saint Patrick's Day, as usual, but, before he had drunk the whiskey, he dropped dead, as the tinker woman had predicted.

"Unfortunately," said Father Fahey, "We don't really know what we actually believe. We may profess a belief in something, but inside in our heart, we believe something quite different. That poor man professed his belief that the tinker woman's curse had no power, but, unfortunately, in his heart he believed in the curse."

By this stage, my companions were champing at the bit and wanted to get away. I said to the priest that I had to go, and he invited me to come back and see the rest of the exhibition another time. I said I would, but there was no way the other boys were going to agree to come back again.

I argued with Roger over this. He said "I hate that man. Don't you remember him calling us off the altar?" I had no memory of such a happening.

Some years previously, when I was little more than a toddler, the three boys, playing in the field behind Uncle Rody's house, had come across a rowing boat hidden in the rushes by the side of the canal. We had pushed it out into the water, taken up the oars and tried to maneuver the boat out into the stream. We never managed to get going and, with a lot of effort, just about managed to return the boat to the rushes. All's well that ends well, except for one thing. Unknown to us, Father Fahy was riding his horse along the callows and saw the whole adventure. Next Sunday, he denounced, off the altar, the parishioner who had allowed his family of ignorant Dublin Jackeens to take a boat out on the Shannon, unaccompanied.

Well, Roger being the true culprit, got at least a tongue lashing from my father as a result. I had no memory of the priest's denouncement or  of Roger's punishment, but both were burnt into Roger's soul.

I never got to go back and finish viewing the exhibition. However, as I lay in bed, I reconstructed the exhibition in my mind and imagined myself wandering round viewing all the panels in turn. What I reconstructed may have little resemblance to the original exhibition. I imagined all the pictures as old carved oak panels, often with dust on the frames, that told the whole story of Lusmagh from the Tuatha Dé down to modern times.

Father Fahy had been in the seminary when the Irish War of Independence took place. The seminarians sympathised with the revolutionaries and had to be kept under control by their superiors. Fahy did not agree with the Treaty and thought that the Irish revolution should continue in the pursuit of social justice, which would involve re-distributing the wealth of the nation among the poor. When appointed parish priest, he was told that this was on condition that he discontinued all connections with politics. When that bishop died, around 1955, (a few years after the adventures described here), he felt he was free from his promise, and organised a movement called Lia Fáil to wrest the ranches from the big land owners and re-distribute this land among the small farmers. Cattle drives took place, the priest's house was raided by police and army in a night raid, men were arrested and jailed, Lusmagh discussed in parliament, and costs added to the rates of the Lusmagh population. Fahy was demoted and sent as curate to a remote parish in  Galway. 

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