The Darkness Echoing by Dr Gillian O'Brien

Author:Dr Gillian O'Brien [O'Brien, Dr Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781620519
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2020-09-30T23:00:00+00:00

There is nothing to indicate if Jim Boland ever got a reply from his brother. I wonder what happened to Cáit Jim’s uncle. Perhaps he had embraced his new life and discarded the old. Professor Kerby Miller has observed, ‘given endemic rural jealousy, every family’s pretence that its own children were prospering overseas encouraged the common notion that America was so rich that anyone could prosper there’. But maybe he hadn’t prospered, or if he had, maybe he didn’t want to send remittances home – those dollar bills that helped sustain many Irish families, both keeping food on the table and helping to pay for the passage, which facilitated chain migration and allowed generations of young adults to leave an Ireland that had little to offer them. Perhaps Jim’s brother just never liked him. I find such unfinished stories deeply moving.

On the afternoon of Sunday, 15 August 1999, I pushed open the door of a small, decrepit pub in the East End of London. Clare were playing Kilkenny in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final, and I was determined to watch it. These were the glory days of Clare hurling. In 1995, Clare had won the All-Ireland, finally putting to rest the curse of Biddy Early that had been placed on the team in 1932. Clare won again in 1997, and I fancied their chances in 1999. Despite never living in Clare, I was a fervent supporter of Clare hurling. I had to be. My grandmother was obsessed, and there was no way I could have lived with her without being able to recite the names of the Clare hurlers. The Lohan brothers, Anthony Daly, ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin, Nana loved them all, but her real affection was for Jamesie O’Connor, the slim, blond talisman. There was nothing he couldn’t do. I’m convinced that, given the chance, in the triptych of the Pope, de Valera and John F. Kennedy that hung in her sitting room, she’d have replaced Pope John XXIII with O’Connor.

I arrived at the pub about fifteen minutes before throw-in. It was a small L-shaped bar with a handful of men sitting at the counter and another handful at the small round tables that lined the wall on my right. A television was propped up over the door that led to the toilet. I sat on a stool, facing the television. The middle-aged woman behind the bar walked over to me and I ordered a glass of Guinness. ‘I’m afraid I can’t serve you,’ she said. ‘What?’ ‘I’m afraid I can’t serve you,’ she repeated. ‘I just want to watch the match,’ I said (perhaps she thought I was under eighteen …). The woman shook her head. ‘I can’t serve women.’ She named another pub showing the match – a bus-ride away. I said it was illegal not to serve women and she said she’d have a chat with the men at the bar. I waited, quietly seething. A few minutes later she returned. ‘You can stay if they can leave their caps on,’ she said.

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