An Irish Girl

By Marilyn Hering

In 1845-49, the potato crop in Ireland failed and threw Tara O'Brien, the main character, and Ireland into terrifying fear, the crop being their main livelihood. Her mother's illness forces Tara to obtain a paying seamstress position in the north. She meets a British officer, Thomas Litchfield, who falls

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marilyn Hering
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649700179

Marilyn Hering

Marilyn Hering loves all things Irish but found historical fiction dealing with the Irish famine and its devastation, incorporating a fictional heroine largely missing. Thus, she created AN IRISH GIRL, combining it with a heart-wrenching love story. She is a retired English teacher and resides in Harrington Park, New Jersey.

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An Irish

Girl

Also by Marilyn Hering:

A Woman Possessed

A Woman Beloved

A Woman Endures

An Irish

Girl

Marilyn Hering

AN IRISH GIRL

Copyright © 2020 Marilyn Hering.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-64970-018-6 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-64970-017-9 (ebook)

In memory of the millions of

men, women and children

who died in the Irish famine

Tara O’Brien stood in the doorway of her stone cottage with its thatched roof. She studied the beauty of the disk of sun against a background of bright blue sky, a few clouds scudding across it and the sacredness of the green swath of grass across their land. It was a gift for usually the weather was overcast and gloomy. She smiled at Tessie her Pig who was drinking at his trough, at Deborah, Danny, Dooley and Donahue, her sheep, lying lazily in the grass, at Bessie and Tessie, their cows munching on the grass. She could hear the neigh of Chestnut and Spotty in the barn. She looked to the right at the meager garden of vegetables of cabbage, wheat, and barley they were growing. The soil of Ireland was terrible for producing vegetables but it was perfect for one crop. Potatoes. She walked over to the field where hundreds upon hundreds of potatoes grew, their green, shiny leaves beginning to burst above the ground, bent down and pulled one from the ground. It was the size of a fist. She shook the loamy soil from it and could see it was a lovely color of beige, strong and healthy. She smiled. Potatoes were the main crop of the Irish; they averaged eating five to eight pounds a day.

She felt the strong hand of her father on her shoulder.

Ready for another day, Tara?

I am, da.

By the time they got the tools they needed, gloves, spades, pitchforks, wheel barrows, her brother, Patrick, freckle-faced with uncombed sandy hair, still sleepy eyed, stood in the doorway. He rubbed his eyes.

You don’t look so good. Better tell your mother to make you some oatmeal.

Patrick turned and walked into the cottage. He looked back at Tara and could see she was far ahead of him, spade and pitchfork in her wheelbarrow, ready to search for her first full grown potato.

She plunged the pitchfork gently into the trench in the earth. The leaves of the potato showed through the compost and sand mixture they thrived in. She took great care with the pitchfork for bruises and cuts could develop into pitchfork rot. Exposure to light creates a bitter tasting build up of food chemicals that she knew from her father were poisonous. She immediately threw the large potato in the cart and covered it with a tarp.

After they kneeled, exhausted from hours of work, the larger potatoes they’d found had to dry out a few hours and be placed in a shaded place before storage. They put them in the shed where they stored them year after year. It was not only dark but possessed good ventilation with a temperature in the high thirties. Autumn would turn to winter as they sat in the root cellar ready to take the family through the year.

Kathleen O’Brien, her mother, auburn haired with green-gray eyes, creamy skin, and a slender figure, thought by many to be the prettiest woman in Montague, Ireland, covered with an apron and twirling the fried potatoes in her hand, flipped them one more time and let them simmer another minute from the turf they had cooked over in the kitchen.

And so who’s hungry? she shouted, then coughed.

After a chorus of I am she called them inside and distributed their breakfast.

And how does the potato crop look this year, Liam? Wonderful. Just wonderful, he smiled, entering the door of the cottage. A bunch coming up slowly but surely. Beauties that will surely see us through winter.

She made the sign of the Cross. Thanks to our blessed Father in heaven.

Someone knocked at the cottage door and Sean McConnell, a short, stout balding fellow with stained teeth and a good friend of Liam’s, entered, pushing his dark hair from his full face.

Will we be goin’ off to Mass now?

He questioned the group but had his eyes on Tara. He’d had a crush on her since childhood. Now that she would soon be eighteen, he planned to ask for her hand in marriage, pretty certain her answer would be no. But that was his secret.

You know better than to ask me that, Tara’s father frowned. You know I haven’t stepped foot in the church for years.

You’re a wonderful example to the children, Kathleen sighed.

Kathleen O’Brien had been a student at St. Theresa’s Academy in Killarney in her younger days. She was a beautiful girl, even then, with her auburn hair and green- gray eyes and the rest of the girls in the class thought she would ‘fit in’ with them beautifully. But that was not so, for she was painfully shy. When the other girls were playing tennis or on the softball team after school, she was in the library doing her homework or reading. She had no great dreams for her life. Her main goal was to marry a man who made a decent living and wanted children. When she graduated the Academy, she got a position as a seamstress and was content with that. Her sewing was excellent and she made dresses for many of the women of Montague and passed her knowledge onto Tara. Then she met Liam O’Brien at a dance given on St. Patrick’s Day. He was a good-looking fellow, his dark hair graying on the sides with intense blue eyes and a neatly-trimmed beard; but when he told her he had a farm and a great amount of acreage for potatoes, plus sheep, cows, and pigs, her ears perked up. This was what she felt was her goal in life. She had never known love and what it is like to care for a man passionately and so she settled for Liam. Before you knew it, they had a son, Patrick, and she was happy enough. She had no idea that the great love of her life still awaited her and; Kathleen, being a devout Irish girl, would face great conflicts over that love. Yet, it was one of the most important events in her life and would give it meaning she never imagined could exist. She looked at Liam now, with his overgrown eyebrows, scrawny hair and hairs protruding from his nose and wondered what happened to that good looking man she had met years back.

The church, Our Lady of Sorrows, was filled to capacity, as usual. Father Boyle who had been priest there many years entered adorned in gold and red vestments. He was a tall, handsome man with high cheekbones, a sensual mouth, a neat beard and clear blue eyes that crinkled when he smiled. He began the service. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. I will go to the altar of God.

The server answered, The God of my gladness and joy.

Father Boyle continued, Do me justice, O God, and fight my fight. Against the deceitful and impious man rescue me.

Alas, already Tara’s and Patrick’s eyes were beginning to close, try as they might to keep them open, especially for their mother’s sake. It wasn’t until the Consecration of the Host that Kathleen noticed and slightly elbowed them in the ribs.

Father Boyle held the Communion wafer in his hand and began, Who, the day before He suffered took bread into his holy and venerable hands, and having raised his eyes to the heavens to You, O God, His Almighty Father, giving thanks to you He blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, All of you take and eat of this for this is my body.

In like manner when the supper was done, taking also this goodly chalice into His holy and venerable hand, again giving thanks to You, He blessed it and gave it to his disciples, saying, All of you take and drink of this, FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL COVENANT, THE MYSTERY OF FAITH, WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY UNTO THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

After further prayers and Father Boyle’s taking of the Communion, a long line of parishioners kneeled at the altar to receive the wafer they believed was the Body of Christ.

Among them stood Kathleen, their mother; Tara, her daughter; and Patrick, her brother.

Mass ended rather quickly after that.

Father Boyle stood at the bottom of the church steps to greet his parishioners. He gave a special smile when he saw Kathleen and her children. His face darkened when he didn’t see Liam.

I pray for the day Liam comes to Sunday mass, Mrs. O’Brien.

‘I wouldn’t count on it, Father Boyle. But, then again, we all know the power of prayer."

Do you think he’s given up on the power of faith completely?

No. I wouldn’t say that. But he’s very involved in –political things—his love of Ireland is very deep, Father.

Tara chimed in. I believe he thinks the church should be more supportive of the fight for Ireland’s separation from the British more than it has. And I feel that same way. Her comment emerged more as a challenge than a plain statement.

We do what we can, Tara, but above all Ireland and its freedom is in the hands of the Lord.

She placed her hands on her hips. It’s not our prayers alone that will free us. We have to fight for our independence as well, even if it means violence. Her mother clenched Tara’s arm.

Enough, Tara! Father, forgive Tara’s outburst. She’s a very strong-willed girl. Another family approached Father Boyle, and excusing himself he turned his attention to them but not without a last glance at Kathleen O’Brien and her children.

Perhaps you’ll change your mind about violence, Tara, but that is a topic for another time.

She wondered how much he really knew about Ireland’s past, that in