Return to Killybegs by Sorj Chalandon & Ursula Meany Scott

Author:Sorj Chalandon & Ursula Meany Scott [Chalandon, Sorj]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Belfast, Troubles, Northern Ireland, journalism, Good Friday Agreement, Traitor, betrayal
ISBN: 9781843514046
Publisher: The Lilliput Press
Published: 2013-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

There was a habit Sheila had had forever. Even when she was still at home with her mother, when her father was interned, she used to enter contests in newspapers and department stores. She’d fill out questionnaires to win promotional discounts, a fleece-lined dressing gown or the Christmas turkey. When I was locked up, my wife took up her pencil again. She’d tick off boxes, look up answers in the dictionary, slip her name into contest boxes. For her it was a way of waiting, of killing all that time without me. When I was in the Crum, she won a sewing kit in a wicker basket, a 24-piece set of silver-plated cutlery, a football, an alarm clock, chocolates and dozens of discounts. When I got out of the Kesh, there was a new armchair in the living room, first prize from Stewarts. One day, she won her weight in wool after answering five questions about knitting.

Sheila didn’t complain about her lot. She loved me because I was fighting and had prepared her son to fight. Women used to carry arms at our sides, transporting bombs or collecting intelligence, but Sheila had made a different choice. She was an activist, not a soldier. Along with Cathy, Liz, Roselyn, Joelle, Aude, Trish and so many others, they were the very heart of our resistance. They’d dress our wounds and sit singing in front of the wheels of armoured vehicles, they’d block the ghettos in their aprons, they’d search for their man at the back of the pub to make him get up again. When the enemy entered the area, they’d be the first to welcome them. In their dressing gowns, nightdresses, and often with bare feet, on their knees in the middle of the street, scraping their bin lids on the ground, they were our alarm. They protested tirelessly for Ireland’s freedom. In rows of three, without a shout, carrying the photo of their imprisoned loved one or the wreath of their dead. And they’d drive an army of prams before them.

To live with your husband smiling out of a commemorative frame, to tend to a son who doesn’t get home till the early hours, to hold your child’s hand as he takes his last breath and dies from fasting requires a barbed-wire heart. And Sheila was one of those women.

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