The Wake

By Michael E Murphy



 "Mr. Murphy is a retired lawyer who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. His family has traced its Irish origins to Clashmore in western Co Waterford, where they held a clan reunion last September."

          He'd said he'd send for her and their child within

                          and the wake began -- as they always did -- with the giddy

        gossoons clowning ahead of their elders along

                        the mud-rutted boreen that wound down from Clashmore

                           to the River Blackwater. The scent of salmon and seaweed

            now on the evening air replaced the smell of dung

       and potatoes rotting in the village fields above.

              He'd said he'd send for her and their child within 

                           when his parents, Mike and Meg, his Mary and the others

                carried their fare and firewood down to the landing

                         the women with baskets of bread and turnips, the men  
          with wheelbarrows of wood and crocks of ale. 

                   Freddy Malins, screwed on his own poitin, was seen

      taking Colleen Boyle behind the boathouse.

 He'd said he'd send for her and their child within 

              when night set in and the villagers raised their jars to him 

        and sang round the fire those melancholy, coffin-ship 

               send-for-me songs, and cried from too much grief or drink.

              By dawn the villagers had gone. His parents and his Mary 

          would take him -- him with his ruck sack and tool belt --

    over the river, then down to Cobh to board his ship

   

                       

                 

                 

                                   

River Blackwater

A stone mason at work; The craft of M E Murphy's ancestors at Clashmore prior to emigrating