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It was the picture of Saint Patrick driving out the snakes that kept them on my mind. If they were here before what was to stop them coming back? The one I had in mind didn’t even have to cross the sea. I could see clearly the big fat body of him that I last saw rearing against the thick glass in Dublin zoo. I saw the road from Dublin disappearing under his muscular body as he went past signposts, no need for such a diabolical fellow to check where he was going cleverly traveling at night, arranging himself carefully in ditches for sleep by day every so often, he might stop to open his mouth for a sheep like the picture I’d seen in World Book encyclopedia he knew where he was coming all right – the village of Burnfort I was there in the dark, the lights from the cars travelling across the room in white bands rigid with useless prayer a knitting needle like a sliver of ice clenched in my right hand.
Never trust a Palatine or a Bastard – and Ould Fritz was both. When ‘The Boys’ went to Ould Fritz demanding their guns in the name of the Irish Republic – I’ll give you ammunition says Ould Fritz sticking his gun out of the window he shot Joe Bennett stone dead. Bang. No more than he was a dog. They wrapped his body in a sheet put it in a ditch two miles from his home place because the Tans were down to the house straight. The Bennetts killed a pig, letting on nothing – if the Tans found a corpse they’d be burnt to the ground. Mrs Bennett, standing there, stuffing sausages her seventeen year old son’s body lying in a ditch. No more than he was a dog. Those fellas going round the house sticking their bayonets into everything. Ould Fritz? Well he didn’t leave his house for fear of the Boys, two whole years getting everything delivered and everyone laughing at the big head of him inside the window. Of course they got him, didn’t he have to leave the house for his sister’s funeral? All the gentry assembled below in Askeaton Graveyard Bang. No more than he was a dog. Four black horses with feathers going one way and the hearse going the other.
Knock: a common Irish place name - it comes from Cnoc which means mountain |
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