The crows of beara, p.9
The Crows of Beara, page 9
Mise Éire: Sine mé ná an Chailleach Bhéarra.
Mór mo ghlóir: Mé a rug Cú Chulainn cróga.
Mór mo náir: Mo chlann féin a dhíol a máthair.
Mór mo phian: Bithnaimhde do mo shíorchiapadh.
Mór mo bhrón: D'éag an dream inar chuireas dóchas.
Mise Éire: Uaigní mé ná an Chailleach Bhéarra.
The room hushed as Bea recited, though several voices joined her in the familiar phrases. She finished and opened her eyes to applause and “We love ya, Bea.” At a half-shouted “Erin Go Bragh,” laughter rippled around the room.
She winked a shining eye at Daniel. “Ring any bells?”
“You had me at Mise Éire.” Of course he knew the poem. It had been written by Patrick Henry Pearse, a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, the greatest battle of the Republican Irish against British Home Rule. Mise Éire translated to I am Ireland.
“Good boy. Now, are you going to make me ask why you’re wondering about Mise Éire?”
“I won’t make you ask, but I don’t have much of an answer. I’ve heard those phrases in recent days, but I couldn’t put them in context. Now at least I know where they come from, though I still don’t know how they found their way into my head.”
“Well, if you’re hearing things now, at least you’re hearing the right things, so. God bless you, lad.”
He stood and bent to kiss her powdered cheek. “Thanks for the chat, Bea.”
“That kiss’ll keep me alive at least another week.” She patted his cheek in return. “You’re a good man. Now go off and do good things.”
19
Hidden in the back of the room, Annie felt comforted by the familiar give and take of sharing, acknowledgment, readings, confessions, and reassurance. The accents were different, but the stories were the same. Even the basement, with its smells of stale coffee and nicotine, wet wool and cologne, could have been copied and pasted from one of a half dozen church and community center meeting rooms she’d sat in since January. She was safe here. If this meeting was at the end of each day, she could get through whatever the hours before it held. She might even start to invest in the task before her. Might care what would happen if she succeeded in selling the mine to Ballycaróg. Or if she didn’t.
But then the sight of a head of reddish-brown hair and solid shoulders jolted her, and she shrank back in her chair. She was certain he hadn’t seen her. Fairly certain. But beyond shocking her into embarrassment, Daniel’s presence filled Annie with sadness. She had to sit for a few minutes to pick apart why. He’d seemed so solid, connected, and certain up on the mountain, and his anger at James, at the mine (at me?) righteous. Yet here he was. As fallible and flawed as she. She’d wanted him to be as magical and mysterious as this place, and now, suddenly, in this church basement that was like any church basement, he had a past like any alcoholic’s, full of mistakes and regrets. When attention was turned to a speaker at the front of the room, she slid out of her seat, tiptoed to the door, and slipped out.
Dusk was just easing down as she sat in the car with her phone to her ear, listening to it ring in late-morning Seattle.
“Annie! How’s the Emerald Isle? The old country.” Bill affected a lousy Irish accent, and his familiar, gravelly voice suffused Annie with warm relief.
“Hey there, Bill. Is this a good time?”
“It’s always a good time, kiddo. How about you? Are you having a good time?”
“A laugh a minute.”
“Better than crying, right? But you didn’t call me just to tell me about the weather, or how green it is, did you? What’s up? Are you in a safe place?”
“In a church parking lot. I’m good. Just a little lonely.” She squeezed shut her eyes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “A lot lonely.”
“Tell me.”
And so she did. She told Bill about feeling that a shadow of herself had come to Ireland, while the rest of her sat at the bottom of a bottle somewhere. Of her uncertainty about this project, now that she was here, seeing this place and the beauty that would be so compromised if she succeeded, and still she was terrified to lose the last piece of her shredded identity—her job—if she didn’t. Yet what a relief it would be to start over. She told him how good it had felt to laugh in Daniel’s car and how feeling good left her vulnerable. She tried to tell him what she’d felt as she stood on top of that hill overlooking Ballycaróg Bay a few hours before.
“It was so profound. I wanted to cry and shout with joy all at the same time. That much beauty just shatters my soul. I can’t comprehend how something so perfect could exist in a world with so much pain.” Her voice caught, and she swallowed back a sob. “I don’t want to be an alcoholic. I don’t want to be around other alcoholics. I want to know normal people. People who aren’t in pain.”
“Ain’t nobody I know who isn’t in pain. Non-addicts all around us, and they’re in a different world of hurt. Most of them don’t even know why. You and me, we know why. We think we know how to make it stop. A drink. Maybe a couple. It would feel so good, smooth everything out so you just can’t feel, right?”
Annie’s throat clenched with tears, but her silly gesture—nodding as though Bill could see her—made her smile. “Right,” she whispered.
“But you know that’s the road to hell. We’re the lucky ones, Annie. We’re the ones who know just what to do to keep the worst pain at bay. We don’t drink. Ever. You know what you felt today?”
She shook her head, her shoulders starting to hitch. “No.”
“You felt the exquisite pain of being alive. There you were, full of endorphins from physical exercise—that shit makes you feel great, I know, even though it would kill my fat ass—but you’re still jet-lagged, running on borrowed energy, maybe feeling vulnerable around the one guy you have to impress, the other you’re attracted to.”
Annie snorted and blew her nose into a tissue she’d scrounged from her purse, the phone clenched between her shoulder and her ear.
“Oh, yeah, I noticed the way you described your guide. Your neighbor.” She pictured Bill making air quotes. “I’m jealous already. Of him, let’s make that clear.”
She laughed aloud, but her stomach rippled. Attracted to Daniel? Her gaze was drawn to the church entrance. Why hadn’t she simply driven away?
“And then you see this vision that must look like heaven,” Bill was saying.
“I wanted to slip inside it,” she said, her voice raspy with tears. “I thought if I could stay on that hilltop forever, I’d be healed. I’d find out who I am and what I should be doing with my life.”
“Ain’t no leaving yourself behind, Annie. There’s only facing who you are. But where you are doesn’t sound like such a bad place to be at all. Who says you have to come home?”
“Ha. Wouldn’t that be nice? Just run away. Doesn’t seem like very sound advice coming from the guy who’s supposed to keep me grounded.”
“Me? Nope. That ain’t my job. I don’t do the groundwork. You do. You had a moment of feeling alive, a moment you probably felt just like the old Annie, the pre-drunk Annie—strong, hopeful, powerful—and it scared the shit out of you. But I will give you one piece of advice.”
“What’s that?” She pulled at a loose thread on the seam of her jeans.
“Go hike that mountain again.”
20
“Lad, start another row at that end, eight across.”
Liam grabbed more folding chairs than he could carry, and Daniel closed his eyes against the ensuing crash. Fiana spun around as several chairs slid across the cement floor and landed near her feet. “Liam!” she shouted. “Use the good sense God gave you.”
“He’s been a great help, Fi.” Daniel came to the rescue of Liam, who’d blushed to the roots of his red hair. He saw his own adolescent self reflected in the boy’s thin face and pale blue eyes. “He’s just excited. Kind of like his mom.”
Fiana unfolded one chair and bent to pick up another. “I know. I’m sorry, son. My nerves are on edge. I just want everything to be perfect. We both need to slow down.” Her phone rang, and she pressed one hand over her free ear, moving into the hallway as she spoke to the caller.
“Women,” Liam muttered, and Daniel laughed.
“It only gets worse, lad.” He ruffled the boy’s hair so that it stood on end. “You think mothers are bad,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Just wait until girlfriends.”
“Not happening,” replied Liam. “I’m through with women.” He shoved open a chair, and with the coast clear, planted it with a bang.
“Things with Aoife not working out?” Daniel followed his nephew, straightening out the rows.
“Aine. I told you, her name’s Aine. We’re not together anymore.”
“Last week you still hadn’t actually spoken with her. How can you now not be together?”
“We weren’t getting along.”
Daniel stilled the flicker of a smile. Nearly thirty years had passed since his own entangled adolescent love life, and the memory of those awkward days—the parade of teenage girls in their school uniforms, all two heads taller than the lads, their limbs growing into their blossoming bodies with grace, while the boys chafed at their own squeaking voices and scrawny chests—belonged to another life. Another century.
Between January of his third year of junior cycle and the end of the following summer, he turned sixteen, grew fifteen centimeters, and gained eighteen kilos. He’d put on most of that weight over the summer after joining a construction crew. The money and freedom were better than school and a rotating roster of foster families, so he didn’t go back to either.
But in his early years, he’d attended a community school like Liam and Catriona, and he figured that formative time, in the peace of Skibbereen, under the close watch of foster parents and the grip of Fiana’s love, had kept him from his troubled fate long enough to build a foundation of common sense. The waters of petty crime and addiction had eaten away that foundation, but it never collapsed completely. It became his sole means of rebuilding his life. He would finally earn his leaving certificate in prison, eighteen years later. And in the end, he’d returned to Fi and her family.
“Hey, Daniel, watch this!” Liam lifted a crumpled sheet of paper with his instep, flicked it into the air, and kicked it in a fine arc across the room, where it circled the rim of a rubbish bin and tipped in. “Goal!” he shouted, and offered a bow to his imaginary fans. Daniel prayed Liam would not lose his artless approach to love for years yet. There was time enough for a truly broken heart.
Liam retrieved the paper from the can and tossed it to Daniel, who caught it on the front of his foot. He let it sail high into the air before delivering a wallop that sent the wadded paper straight back to his nephew, just as Fiana returned with Mort MacGeoghegan. She flung her hands up in a gesture of hopelessness. Daniel stared at her hard, hoping to beam a strong signal. If a man had paid this kind of attention to him when he’d been thirteen, had listened, joked, kicked around a football made of paper … Let it go, Fi, he pleaded silently. See what’s happening here.
It worked. She rolled her eyes and set her mouth but flashed Daniel a look that said thank you. He shook his head at Liam, and the two resumed their setup of the meeting room, the football match left until the coast was clear.
“How many are we expecting?” Mort stepped in to give Daniel and Liam a hand setting the final chairs into place while Fiana did a quick count.
“We’ve got forty chairs. The room holds seventy-five people, but who knows? It’s just the first meeting. We probably won’t need so many.” Arms akimbo, she scanned the room and sighed.
“I tell myself there’s time to build support, but then I realize how quickly this could spin out of our hands. We have no money, no power, nothing to offer except our belief that sacrificing Beara is wrong. It’s just wrong.”
Liam placed an arm around his mother’s shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. Daniel realized with a shock how quickly his nephew was growing—when had he surpassed Fiana’s height? It seemed just last week he’d barely reached her shoulders.
“You worry too much, Mom. It’s going to be fine. You always get your way. You’ll see.” Fiana returned the laughter that followed Liam’s declaration with a scowl but patted her son on the cheek and gave him a kiss. “You’re a good son, Liam. You two”—she frowned at the men, but her eyes shone—“mind yourselves. You could stand to learn a thing or two still.”
The front door to the community center opened, and the first familiar faces appeared. Fiana left them to greet their neighbors from across the peninsula who may be willing to join the fight to defeat the mine.
~
An hour later, the hall was in violation of multiple fire codes. Standing room only in the back, with several of the youngest and most limber sitting on the floor. Bottoms perched on windowsills, and bodies blocked the door and spilled into the hallway. Moira Kearney’s oatmeal biscuits were mere memories, and one lone candied cherry was all that remained of Tess Flanagan’s whiskey-soaked fruitcake.
Fiana’s face was no longer flushed and sweating. She sat beaming in between Michael and Mort at the head table, wholly in her element. The first community meeting of the Beara Chough Coalition was ready to be called to order, and her fears that no one would come, no one would care, had been laid to rest.
A sudden, shrill blast sent gasps through the din of voices and hands flying up to ears. Michael Leahy dropped the dog whistle that hung on a chain around his neck and sat back with his arms crossed over his chest, the picture of satisfaction.
“Michael Christopher Leahy, for all that is holy!” scolded his wife from the front row. Titters of laughter rippled through the room. Fiana mouthed “thank you” to Michael.
“I’m so pleased to see you all here.” She stood with her hands folded in front of her waist, about to address a group of people she’d lived near for most of her adult life. “Of course, you know that I’m Fiana O’Connell, and you all know Michael Leahy.” The farmer raised his whistle, and the crowd laughed. “Many of you know Dr. Mortimer MacGeoghegan, professor emeritus of geology at University College Cork. Dr. MacGeoghegan has lived all his life in West Cork and moved to Beara two years ago. ” Fiana turned and motioned to Mort, who half-raised from his seat and waved.
“Mort, please,” he said. “Only my students are allowed to call me Dr. MacGeoghegan.” Gentle laughter followed, and he settled back into his chair.
Fiana continued. “You all know the rumors floating around that copper has been found in the waters off Ballycaróg Cove and possibly new stores of it well inland.” The assembled group nodded their heads as one.
“While we understand the excitement about new jobs and new industries possibly coming to Beara, this all seemed hush-hush and too good to be true. Some of us started asking questions. We learned that Eire-Evergreen Metals are owned by the Australian conglomerate MacKenna Mining. And this MacKenna Mining own mines all over the world.” There was some shuffling of feet and shifting of bodies in the overheated room.
“Turns out all the land, including the coastline, that MacKenna Mining want is owned by the Irish government—none of it is in the hands of any private citizen. The government has worked closely with Eire-Evergreen Metals, and the proper exploration permits have been sought and issued by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The DCENR has also allowed exploratory drilling offshore. All of this is happening right here, right now, on Beara land, and no one has said a word to us.” She let that statement echo. A low murmuring and shaking of heads followed.
“We learned that before any work can be done on land or any actual mining can take place in the ocean, there must be a series of community meetings. Eire-Evergreen Metals are required to file an Environmental Impact Statement and obtain an Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control license. What’s most important is that the whole of the Beara Peninsula is designated as a Special Protection Area. No one can just come in here, wave around a bunch of euros, and start drilling.”
“Oh, yes, they can, Fiana. This is big business! Who are you kidding?” Nicotine and whiskey had grated Niall O’Carroll’s booming voice to a rasp. The room erupted in conversation, and more voices rang out: “I’ll take some of those euros!” “They’re welcome to drill in my backyard—nothing but rocks and sheep dung!” The good-natured shouting went on.
Fiana held up her hand. “Listen, all of you. The three of us”—she motioned to Mort and Michael—“we’ve been researching copper mining in other countries, and we’re concerned. This mine would have some very serious effects on Beara. If it stays out to sea, it might not seem so bad, but our fishing economy will suffer, and not one of us will see a job from the mine—offshore mining is all done by experts and machines on one of those giant rigs. If the mining comes onshore, sure, yes, there will be jobs, but at what cost? Do you know what seabed mining does to the environment? To commercial fishing? I’ve got a Greenpeace report right here. And another from the European Environment Agency.” She waved around a thick clutch of papers. “Are we going to destroy one industry for another?”
More muttering followed, but no one interrupted Fiana. “This peninsula will be turned into a giant pit of tailings. Our waterways and coastline and forests will be polluted. Our villages, small schools, and the isolation we love—our very way of life—will be changed forever. We’ve survived the lousy economy better than most because we never soared to crazy heights in the first place.”
Fiana squared her shoulders, her confidence growing as the crowd leaned forward, taking in her every word. “Things are turning around in Ireland. Little by little, it’s true, but it will happen on Beara if we’re just patient. Are you sure you want to sacrifice our way of life for empty promises and a destroyed environment? We—Mort, Mike, Daniel, me, and all of you who’ve signed our petition—we’ve all decided that we’re not. So we’ve formed the Beara Chough Coalition.”
