Mrs Hudson Goes to Ireland by Susan Knight

Author:Susan Knight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lady detectives, women sleuths, Mrs Hudson pastiche, Ireland, Wexford, local history, St Brigid, folklore, fairies, banshee, superstition, wake, wedding, matchmaker, Fenian, poitín, faery fort, Land League, bees, conventional Christianity, forced marriage
ISBN: 9781787056282
Publisher: Andrews UK
Published: 2020-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

There is in Ireland a strange and to my mind decidedly barbaric practice surrounding the death of a person. The night before the funeral, mourners visit the house of the deceased, ostensibly to pay their respects, but in fact, as I was soon to discover, to get drunk and often quite disorderly over the body of the departed, laid out for all to see in its coffin.

I knew nothing of this custom until Peter and Annie started discussing it, after news spread among us that Francie’s body had been released by the coroner for burial. Our hosts were preparing to attend the wake, as they called it, though not, they assured us, to stay long, just to pay their respects. Clearly they did not expect me to accompany them, so when I expressed the wish to do so, they were most taken aback. It would not be appropriate, Peter said, under the circumstances, meaning, I suppose, because of the hostility of the Kinsella family towards myself. However, I argued that the death of any of God’s creatures, especially in such a terrible way, was to be respectfully commemorated, and that, while Mossie and Briege were as convinced of Lily’s guilt as I of her innocence, my sympathies towards them for their loss were sincere and heartfelt. After this most Christian speech of mine, Peter grudgingly agreed to my joining them.

My true motives, of course, were not quite so pious or transparent. I was longing to see the inside of the Kinsella dwelling again, and also closely to observe those who came to mourn.

Thus it was that, the day falling away to an angry sunset, purple clouds bulging over a sky the colour of sulphur, (and leaving Veronica in charge of the little ones), we piled into the rattle trap – which I was getting quite used to by then – to bump once again over the dusty lanes to the Kinsella farm. There we found crowds present already, milling around the ramshackle yard – the vicious black dog by the sound of its angry barks banished to the same outhouse where Lily had been confined. As each newcomer entered the house, he or she commiserated with Mossie and Briege, who were seated by the door. I noticed how everyone seemed to be muttering the same phrase – “I am sorry for your trouble.” Kitty did likewise, so I followed suit, and, though rewarded by surprised glares, it seemed to me that the bereaved were too numb with grief to be truly incensed at my presence.

Following a line of people, we shuffled into the bedroom, where an open coffin was set on two wooden chairs, candles lit at its head and foot. An old woman sat in the corner wailing loudly, and I wondered in a whisper to Kitty, if she were a member of the family, so upset she seemed.

“She may be for all I know,” Kitty said, “but more like she is being paid to keen,” explaining this as yet another funerary custom.

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