Galway Bay (31 page)

“No one doubts his achievements, Owen,” Michael said.

But Mulloy was launched. “Monster meetings, millions jammed together in peace and protest, and yet these jumped-up fellows preach violence.”

“What’s he going on about?” Máire whispered to me. “Everyone loved the bold Daniel O’Connell.”

“Young Ireland are fellows who thought Daniel O’Connell should be stronger,” I said, “be willing to take up arms, organize a secret army, use physical force—friends of Patrick Kelly, Michael’s brother.”

Owen heard me. “Insurrection never got us anywhere but hanging from trees,” he said.

“Whatever about Young Ireland,” said Michael, “the Parliament letting Ireland starve was what really killed Daniel O’Connell. Young Ireland is right. Ireland must be independent.”

“What does it matter,” I said, “if the country’s free and all of us are dead?”

“If Ireland were free, we wouldn’t be dying,” Michael said. “Patrick said that at the start. Other countries lost their potatoes and closed their ports. They don’t have corpses piling up in ditches like we do.”

“But that’s my point,” Owen said. “By breaking with our Liberator, Young Ireland bollixed up the Cause! Daniel O’Connell had millions with him, and we were organized. Repeal collectors, Repeal police. It’s all gone now. The O’Connells were chieftains, and whatever about Young Ireland, they’re only gentlemen, fond of rhe-tor-ic. They call for physical force . . .
how
?” Owen Mulloy was away on a rant—his old self, stacking syllable onto syllable, aroused. And then he wept.

Daniel O’Connell was dead—our uncrowned king. As Owen Mulloy held up the
Vindicator
, it was the drawings of the passenger ships to Amerikay on the back pages that I studied through my own tears.

June, then July, with no sign of blight. Michael was sure the potatoes were sound. Owen Mulloy had agreed. “Seven generations of my family have tilled these fields,” Owen had said. “They lived through many a hard winter. And now
we
have faced the worst and survived.”

Michael had nodded.

Survived—only because of Máire’s money, I thought, but all I said was, “Too bad so few were able to plant.”

Máire had made me stop nagging Michael about Amerikay. Granny had said I couldn’t understand what it meant for Michael to leave his home place. Now he had made another. How could I ask him to leave? I tried to stop thinking of Amerikay. I remembered Granny’s saying, “Is glas iad na cnoaic bhfad uibh”—Faraway hills are greener. Maybe, but we can’t survive another winter like Black ’47. If the pratties fail . . . “They won’t,” Michael told me again and again.

Máire had moved back to Bearna, into her old cottage. Her Leahy sister-in-law and her family had left for Canada. Máire’d given Da money to redeem his nets so he and my brothers could fish again. No more soup on the Bearna pier. The sisters were told to move distribution closer to Galway City to serve the desperate people flooding in from Mayo and Connemara.

Every day that passed with no blight cheered Michael and Owen Mulloy, and now today they’d taken Champion to be covered by Sir William Gregory’s stallion. Her foal, Macha—Granny would have liked that name—was thriving on summer grass. She’d be sold in the fall at Ballinasloe for a good price, Michael assured me.

I’d come down to Bearna with the children. Mam and Máire and I collected mussels and seaweed, and Mam made a soup for us. The fishing boats hadn’t gone out today—storms threatening.

“I’ve saved some for Michael and Owen,” Mam said.

“They should be home from Gregory’s soon,” I said.

“I’ll go watch for them,” Paddy said. “Come on, Johnny Og.”

Best friends now, the two oldest. Both seven, with Johnny Og six months older, but Paddy the leader. Jamesy nearly five and Daniel almost four, followed loyally, with Thomas—Silken Thomas, little Lord Pyke, soon to turn six—still not sure where he belonged. Bridget, only two years three months old, acted the little mother to Stephen and Gracie, who was a lovely baby.

“Mam!” Paddy shouted at me from the doorway. “Da’s coming, and Mr. Mulloy, with Champion!”

I went out to meet them.

Something was wrong.

Always before when Champion had been covered by Barrier at Coole Park, she would come back prancing and dancing, with Michael and Owen preening themselves—horsemen, breeders. Now all three walked with their heads down, shoulders slumped.

“What?” I said. “She wouldn’t let him?”

“We didn’t ask,” Michael said.

“Why? What happened? Come inside.”

They left Paddy in charge of Champion, and Michael and Owen sat down to their soup, eating in silence.

Finally Mulloy said, “We’re fecked altogether. Pardon my language, but there’s no hope for us now.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s Sir William Gregory,” said Michael.

Michael and Owen Mulloy had always said Barrier’s owner was a decent enough fellow for a landlord. Young, just thirty, he would come out to pass the time of day with them and watch Barrier do the job. What had happened? It seemed the groom on Gregory’s estate told Michael and Owen that Sir William Gregory, as a member of Parliament, had proposed and helped pass the Quarter Acre, or Gregory Clause, an attachment to the new Poor Laws. From now on, no tenant who occupied more than a quarter acre of land would be eligible for relief. It didn’t matter how many acres a lease entitled a tenant to rent or what at-will arrangements had been made. All but a quarter acre must be given up in order to receive any help at all.

“A quarter acre?” said Da. “That would barely cover a cottage.”

“That’s right,” said Mulloy. “A quarter acre means no potato ridges, no meadows for grazing, no fields tilled and full of oats and barley and wheat. So, no crops to sell to pay the rent. If we do have another failure, in order to work on the roads, get soup, receive seeds or charity from any source, a tenant must surrender forever claims on all land but a quarter acre. They don’t want rent. They want us gone. Gone.”

“When?” I said.

“When what?” said Mulloy.

“When does it take effect?”

“Now. It’s been passed into law.”

“Maybe we won’t need relief,” Da said.

I looked at Michael, silent.

“This new law also says any relief must be paid from rates collected from the Irish landlords,” Owen said. “Not likely. And the worst of it is, the rate collectors have started to come to fellows like me, anyone renting more than four acres. I can’t pay their rates.”

“Fecked,” I said.

“Honora,” said Mam.

“Fecked is the least of it,” said Máire.

“We’re leaving,” said Owen Mulloy. “We’re going to Amerikay. I’m going up now to talk to Katie. We have no choice. We’ll go the cheap way—first to Liverpool and then to Canada.”

“A heart-scalding choice, Owen,” Mam said.

“Not a choice, missus,” Owen said. “Necessity.”

Michael stood up, apart from us.

Da asked Owen how he would get his fare.

“Rich John Dugan’s offered to buy my lease many times, always hungry for land. The price of our passage would be in it, and he’s always said he’d keep Michael on as a subtenant.” Owen looked at Michael, who said nothing. “Michael thinks I’m being hasty, but if there’s blight?” He shrugged. “I couldn’t face signing my land away for a sup of soup.”

I moved over to Michael, touched his arm. “Perhaps it’s time for all of us to go.” I turned to Da. “You and Mam, Máire and her children, Dennis, Josie, their girls, Joseph, and Hughie. Máire’s got enough for our passage now, but she won’t have it if we keep spending her money. We’d be together in Amerikay.”

Dennis nodded. “My thoughts have been heading west, Da,” he said.

“Mine too, Da,” Joseph said, and Hughie nodded.

“We three read Joe Danny’s letter. Plenty of work for fishermen in Amerikay, he says, and a fine way of living. No soldiers, no landlords,” Dennis said.

“The Lynches have always been good,” Mam said.

I remembered Marcus Lynch talking about seaside villas, and making Bearna like Brighton, a resort. Mad talk, but the Lynches were still off traveling the capitals of Europe, according to Molly Counihan. Who knows what they’ll do when they return.

“Nothing’s certain, Mam,” Dennis said, and then to Michael, “So many are escaping, doing desperate things to get their fares. Why not go when we have the chance?”

Michael finally spoke. “There will be no blight, Dennis. And Owen, I believe we’ve survived the worst. We won’t need government relief. Think of what would happen if we all were to leave. How could Ireland ever become a nation once again?”

Owen and my brothers exchanged looks but didn’t answer.

“Michael,” I said, “Rich John might want other tenants at Knocnacuradh. What then? Please, a stór, think—”

“Honora, whist,” Da said. “You heard your husband. He’s right. Your mam and I won’t be leaving, either. I do understand why you boys want to go, and I won’t try to stop you. Better for Máire to have her brothers to travel with.”

“I won’t be going, Da,” Máire said.

“What?” I said.

“If we were all going, that would be one thing. But I don’t want to leave you, Mam, and Da. If the worst is over, then . . .” She shrugged. “I’d still give passage money for you,” she said to Dennis, Joseph, and Hughie.

“We’d send part of our wages back to you,” Dennis said. “Good to have American letters coming.”

“And Owen,” Máire said to him, “how much would you get from Rich John?”

“Fifteen pounds.”

“I can give you that. Sign the lease over to Michael and Honora.”

“Máire!” I said.

“You shouldn’t, Máire,” Michael said.

“Oh, you’ll pay me back. I want loads of pratties.”

“You’ll have that,” Michael said, “and a share of every harvest.”

Owen smiled at Máire. “There’s our tidy cottage on the land, too, Máire.”

“True enough, Owen,” she said. “Who knows? I might find some lad looking for a widow with a few fields.”

“You’re one woman doesn’t need a farm to make a match,” Owen said.

“The lease.” Owen Mulloy handed the sheet of parchment to Michael. A week since Owen’s decision, and now the family was ready to leave. We’d kept vigil through the night, sitting up with them in their cottage—all of us, the children, too, hearing Owen’s stories of the seven generations of Mulloys who’d farmed this land. A name for these gatherings now—the American Wake.

Michael passed the document to me. In flowing script and legal language, the first Pyke landlord promised Owen Mulloy’s great-grandfather tenure on Askeeboy through that Mulloy’s lifetime and that of all his surviving sons, their issue, and the issue of their issue, dated 1730.

“See that cod-i-cil, Honora?” Owen asked. “I name Michael Kelly my heir to this lease.” Owen’s friend at the
Vindicator
had arranged for a Catholic solicitor to amend the lease. “All done with con-fi-den-ti-al-i-ty,” Owen said.

The man would keep the Mulloy departure secret, just in case some representative of the Scoundrel Pykes would try to take Owen’s fare from him for the rent, though the solicitor told Owen rumor had it that the Dublin company now managing the Pykes’ estate wasn’t bothering with tracking down tenants. New laws allowed landlords to sell their estates without paying off debts, as had been required. “The company will put parts of the estate on the market,” the solicitor told Owen.

But what would that mean to us? In the solicitor’s opinion, we would be protected. “Contractual obligation should be assumed by the new owner,” Owen quoted to us. “That’s why my father treasured his lease. It gives us some acknowledgment of our lawful right to Askeeboy.” But the solicitor had warned Owen that the laws were changing all the time. Owen shook his head. “Not lacking in gall, our conquerors. They stole our land, then graciously allowed us to pay for the privilege of cul-ti-vat-ing it for them. Ah well, you’ll care for it, Michael.”

“I’ll hold it for you, Owen, until the day comes when the Mulloys return,” Michael said.

Owen nodded and started to speak. Then he, the greatest talker for ten townlands, went silent.

Katie Mulloy looked at me. She’d spent the week trying to change Owen’s mind. “I said to him, ‘If the pratties are sound and the harvest is good . . . ’ But he’s fixed on Amerikay and wouldn’t listen to me. Which is Owen all over.”

Katie rocked her youngest, James, almost two years old now. He’d survived because the food Máire’s money bought in April had kept Katie’s milk flowing. I held Stephen, while Paddy and Jamesy sat with the older Mulloy boys.

Joe Mulloy, fourteen, did not want to leave. John Michael, twelve, was excited about Amerikay. Annie Mulloy, nearly ten, hugged Bridget. “You and Gracie are my only sisters,” she said.

At dawn, Owen took Michael out for one more tour of the fields. After the children had fallen asleep, Katie and I talked.

“I was Katie Johnny Sheridan from Minclone when I married Owen twenty-five years ago,” she said. “I’d first seen him riding the old Major’s horse out along the high road near Ballymoneen. I would walk down to the well or across to pick bilberries—put myself in his path. You know how it is.”

“I know,” I said.

She let memory carry her back and smiled at me. How old was Katie? In her forties only, her small face puckered and pinched now, but still the same eager dark eyes. And when Katie smiled, I saw traces of the girl she’d been.

“Owen was a bit ridiculous,” she said. “Too young for the big English words he tried to wrap his tongue around. But I admired his ambition, and oh, Honora, he was always a good-looker, and so gentle with the horses. I couldn’t love a man who was cruel to animals. Wasn’t he a grand fellow for plans, Honora? He really believed that he and your Michael would raise racehorses and win great prizes. Owen said their jockeys would wear blue for the Blessed Mother and I’d be dressed in silks and satins. Instead . . .”

“Instead,” I repeated.

“Well, thanks be to God we’re alive, and many, many, many can’t say that.”

“True enough, Katie,” I said.

“And Owen says there’s plenty of land and horses in Amerikay. He wants to go to Ken-tuck-y. You mind it, Honora?”