Twelve Thousand Days by Eilis Ni Dhuibhne

Author:Eilis Ni Dhuibhne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd

TUESDAY

DAY 11,996

‘The Children of Lir’

When I got home from the hospital, Gari, my neighbour on the other side, had left a message on the phone. She asked me to ring. ‘It doesn’t matter how late it is, just call. And if there is anything I can do, I will.’

Everyone else was more alarmed than I was. It was as if they had a premonition. But Bo would be home tomorrow. That’s what the doctor had said.

I didn’t call. It was almost one in the morning.

I got up at about seven and telephoned the hospital.

A nurse told me Bo had been a bit uneasy during the night but was sleeping. She told me I should see the doctor when I visited the hospital, and said visiting hours were between two and five. She said he would probably stay in hospital for the day. I told her I had something to do during the morning and would be in at two. I phoned Bo, who sounded okay. The rash had gone, he said. Great, I said, I’ll see you later, around lunchtime.

Then.

I drove to Lake Derravaragh, near Multyfarnham, in County Westmeath.

The producer – her name was what? Emma? – wanted to record the interview about ‘The Children of Lir’ in one of the places associated with them. The Children of Lir, Fionnuala and her three brothers, were transformed into swans by their stepmother, who had baulked at murdering them. Enchanted until a king’s son from the north of Ireland married a king’s daughter from the south of Ireland, they were banished to lonely places. They spent three hundred years at Lough Derravaragh, three hundred years in the Moyle, the stretch of water between Antrim and Scotland, and three hundred years at Lough Derg. Then they returned to Mayo, to Inis Guaire, where the spell was broken. Now nine hundred years old, they were baptised by St Maolaoise, and then died.

I had wondered about the point of going to Lough Derravaragh. Would it really make much difference where a radio interview was recorded? Perhaps the idea was that the place would enhance mood, inspire me in some intangible way? However, I felt reasonably happy, driving to Multyfarnham. I have visited Lough Derravaragh, always for very brief visits (by which I mean, about twenty minutes or half an hour) on several occasions since I first saw it fifteen years before. In 1998, Ragnar, our son, was attending a summer school in German, which was held in the boarding school in Multyfarnham. One Sunday, Bo and Olaf and I came to visit him – I was charmed by the old quaint village, and the smooth, flat lake. We had ice cream and coffee in the wooden cafe there – there was a caravan park on the edge of the lake, and I thought how nice it would be to have a caravan in this mythical and lovely place. Since then, on the way to or from Mayo, I have often made the detour and looked at the lake, usually with Bo.

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