Diana Hayes was born in Toronto and has lived on the east and west coasts of Canada. She received her BA (UVIC) and MFA (UBC) in Creative Writing, studying with the Irish poets John Montague and George McWhirter. She has published seven books of poetry, most recently Sapphire and the Hollow Bone (Ekstasis Editions) Gold in the Shadow (Rainbow Publishers), and Labyrinth of Green (Plumleaf Press). She is the publisher for Raven Chapbooks and has lived on Salt Spring Island, the traditional and unceded territory of the Hul’q’umi’num’ and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples, since 1981. www.dianahayes.ca

The Graves are Walking

By Diana Hayes

Siobhan arrived early, rapping on the door of Deirdre’s room at Annie May’s Inn in Bridge Street. She knocked louder a second time and heard Deirdre inside the door, struggling with the old chain lock. Was it that time already? The breakfast table wasn’t even set downstairs for the Inn’s guests.

Deirdre knew it was going to be an all-out day, likely to reveal new stories and mysteries. She had laid out her only summer dress on the chair the night before, an embroidered mid-length teal shift layered with lace collar and sleeves. She expected that Siobhan’s ancestry group had prepared a full day’s program with genealogy presentations and long sessions comparing family trees. The history of West Cork, especially in and around Skibbereen during the years of An Gorta Mór, would be shared and members of the Heritage Center had been invited to give presentations. She knew from Siobhan’s conversation the day before that documents had been discovered, and family ties and trees might at last be uncovered.

All the preparations leading up to the day brought back vivid memories for Deirdre of her trip to the Aran Islands and her visit to Ronan’s Shop, An Pủcán, on Inis Mór just outside Kilronan. She had corresponded with Ronan after seeing his name show up on her DNA ancestry report. She knew it was a long shot and likely would lead nowhere, but feeling the magnetic pull to visit the Aran Islands was part of her search. She spent days going through files of paperwork and old photographs that Ronan had collected from his grandparents. Photographs of what might well be second or third cousins, once removed. One picture of a young man, likely in his late 30s with the scribbled dated of 1870 on the back, showed him standing by an open peat fire in a thatched cottage, much like the hearth in Ronan’s Shop where she sat. A second picture showed the handsome man tending to a large kettle hanging from the pot crane, no doubt ready to make a strong black tea. The man had a look that sent shivers through her, not from fear or malice but from a deep familiarity, a chemistry that could not be explained. His features looked similar to Grandfather Liam Séamas when he was younger. She had committed to memory many of the photographs from family albums, all lost in the house fire. She had once seen a faded and torn old picture that her father kept of Great-Grandfather Conchobar, likely the only picture that existed he said, but Deirdre would never forget that face. She took a big breath in and forgot to exhale when Ronan piped up and then scoffed, grumbling.

“They all look alike don’t they. We hope to find our kin one day beyond every picture or grave, but they were all lost to the likes of Cromwell, that zealous plunderer who was the devil himself and parceled out all the lands. Cottiers at the hands of greed ejected, pushed further and further up the hillsides with nothing but sand for soil to plant their potato patches –lazy gardens they were called. All meagre abodes of mud and thatch set ablaze. Families left to starvation and disease. God rest their souls.”

Ronan’s rant now stilled by the sparks from his fire, his face flushed at the same time he was holding back tears. All this made Deirdre think of words shared by John Kelly in his book, The Graves are Walking—where he declares, “No wonder so many Irish immigrants were incapable of saying “England” without adding “Goddamn her.”

Deirdre shook herself out from the deep lingering memories of her visit to Ronan’s Shop and quickly got ready for the day. Éamon was already dressed and eager to go, anticipating another day of unsettling stories and perhaps much mournful music. He would bring his fiddle just in case.

Siobhan drove them over to Abbeystrowry Cemetery off Schull Road opposite River IIen which rises at Mullaghmesha mountain and flows nearly forty kilometers into the Celtic Sea. Deirdre imagined that the River Ilen would provide comfort for all the souls buried in those mass grave pits across the road. Their spirits would travel like the sea trout or Atlantic Salmon down the river to the afterlife, at last set free.

A little further along was the heritage house that had been hired for the day’s event. It was sparse from the outside, neatly whitewashed with well-kept gardens and a half-wall hedged perimeter and entranceway. The morning sun had finally shown up and blown off the clouds, with June’s glory and warm hints of citrus yellow along with subtle golden undertones bathing the skies.

Neither Deirdre nor Éamon knew just what the long day’s proceedings would hold. They imagined a sumptuous midday meal with all the trimmings to be served along with presentations on genealogy and local history. Traditional Irish music would be offered between talks, and small groups would then form to pore over family trees. This was much like the ancestry meetings that took place back home in Montreal but ultimately led to dead ends each time. This day would be quite different.

They were greeted at the door by several thin men, appearing like pall bearers, grim and pale, saying “sorry for your trouble” in a low voice over and over to each guest. Perhaps they were groomsmen and the day would develop into a wedding. Others began to arrive, and the front room quickly filled up. Siobhan showed Deirdre their seats in the formal dining hall where tables were arranged, laden with mountains of sandwiches, biscuits and sweets, along with copious pots of tea and jugs of milk.

They heard a bustle at the door and in walked a small group of women, maybe seven in total, all wearing period costumes including full length wool skirts, charcoal tinted and tweed-flecked, along with black shawls draped over their forehead and hair. The keening women moved quickly through the hall and into the sitting room.

Finally, Siobhan asked for quiet in the room and led everyone in a blessing for the families now gathered, each one hopeful for answers and a peaceful heart at last. It was clear to Deirdre now that the event was in fact a wake—a tórramh, perhaps a communal faire—where all attendees would mourn their lost relatives who remained nameless in Abbeystrowry but now could depart with the blessings of a wake. There was always a feast at a wake, with food prepared by neighbors and kin.

The keening women, mná chaointe, began their laments, gathered in the sitting room—a sustaining ritual to sooth fear and contain the sadness, the words of their songs improvised, often poetic with non-lexical utterances. The watchers gathered around what appeared to be a plain pine coffin, held up on a large Victorian oak pedestal table. The mná chaointe moved in closer, and they gathered near to the coffin’s side. The corpse was indistinguishable, veiled with whitesmoke netting, the body being a representation of all loved ones who had passed beyond the veil.

Deirdre checked in with Éamon frequently to make sure he was alright with the events as they were unfolding. She knew he was well beyond his years in wisdom, unflappable in most ways, and created his own sense of magic realism through his discoveries of worlds beyond the everyday. She sat beside him now in the sitting room and reached for his hand to reassure him as they waited for Siobhan to begin what she thought would be a eulogy.

The keening continued, a cathartic venting of grief meant to drain away the well of tears in the room. How long would this last, Éamon wondered? Deirdre knew that traditional wakes were a grand social and community event and journeyed through at least one solar cycle—day, night and then day. During these hours of mingling darkness, a portal would open between the living and mystical worlds, allowing the souls of the deceased to depart in peace. The dead needed the intervention of the living through prayers, abundant nourishment, blessings and lively music, to ease them into the next realm. Wake-goers would often lean in and kiss the corpse, making death a tangible fact and not something to be feared. Children would ruffle the hair of the deceased and were encouraged to reach out to them, touching their arms or hands. Laughter was the guest of honor.

“Why have we lost our way with death in the west,” Deirdre sighed to herself, where hushed silence was the expected response and the corpse whisked away, never to be seen. No one at home ever spoke of it. The fragments that Deirdre recalled of her family’s funeral service were hushed in silence and remained behind closed doors and never open coffins. No keening existed. Tears were wiped away in a hurry or choked back in shame. Death was turned into a whisper.

Just as Siobhan rose to speak at the head of the room, the lights were dimmed and candles lit by the thin men in black suits who remained at the ready, in the wings. Guinness and whiskey were reserved for the evening hours. People would come and go all day. Laughter and stories were told and the uilleann piper would start up at dusk.

It was sometime in the middle of Shiobhan’s eulogy when Deirdre saw movement at the great room door. She looked over to see an older gentleman in a smart grey suit enter with an uneven gait and sit towards the back. She caught his eye, and just like the man in Ronan’s photograph, she was certain this gentleman was related in some elemental way.

After she spoke, Shioban walked to the coffin’s side and picked up a small wooden container sitting next to it on the lace-covered side table. She walked towards Deirdre with confidence and a calm demeanor. The container looked like an oversized pencil box, deep and with hinges and a tarnished brass clasp. She offered it to Deirdre and told her it was hers to keep. The box has been found in the ruins of a Skibbereen building, abandoned for a century or more. The box was buried underground in a small hatch next to the hearth. On the lid was a plaque engraved: “The property of Conchobar Eoin Ó hAodha of Skibbereen.”