Beneath An Irish Lavender Moon

By Russell J Fish

This is a timeless tale that has a beginning in 1951. This is the time in Ireland when the British were gone but not their imprint and scars left from 800 years of rule, still fresh, though the Irish never gave up or gave in. Vestiges of the past and glimpses of the cosmopolitan future paint a m

• Language: English
• Publisher: RJ Fish Publishing
• Release date: Sep 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988998914

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"This book may redefine how novels

should be written! Excellent!"

—Michael McGreevey;

SAG-AFTRA, WGA, DGA, AMPAS

Beneath an Irish

Lavender Moon

A Novel By R.J. Fish

An unauthorized biography of the world’s most famous bear

and the people who knew him

"The best fecking book

I ever read!"

—P. Dwyer, Dublin Ireland

RJ Fish Publishing

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2023 by R.J. Fish

Cover art by R.J. Fish

ISBN: 979-8-9889989-1-4

This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters,

businesses or places, events or incidents are fictitious.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

or actual events is purely coincidental.

"In watermelon sugar the deeds

were done and done again as

my life is done in watermelon sugar"

—Richard Brautigan

1935–1984

Foreword

I am an Irish-American writer descended from Thomas F. Kerrigan, Irish piper who lived in the 19th century. He emigrated from the town of Granard in County Longford and went on to become famous throughout the world.

Although there are people in Ireland with the surname Fish my paternal side emigrated from Paris about the same time and when my great grandfather landed in New York, via Quebec, his name was changed from Poisson to Fish which is the translation. There are Irish descendants on this side of the family as well.

I was reared as an Irish kid in America and thoughts and ways from Ireland became mine. As a young man, I came to Ireland and hitchhiked from Belfast to Dublin, Galway to Waterford and was enchanted. Since then, I have been back many times.

I believe if you have a drop of Irish blood in your veins, you are Irish.

Ireland has always been a land of believers, first in a higher authority that came in many flavors from above and secondly, when St. Patrick converted the people on this Emerald Isle. Faeries, Sylphs, Leprechauns and Banshees were common knowledge and people knew not to trifle with these sorts of entities. Psychics were used when something needed to be known. They were sometimes labeled as witches for the people did not know where their powers came from. However, since the Catholic Church forbade foretelling the future, many would be labeled as a witch and killed. All in all, supernatural powers were part of the peasant’s world and had been for millennia. Some of them were renown amongst the people and while not supported by the Church, people still found them. Biddy Early, a seer and cosmic medicine woman or healer, regularly had a line outside her cottage for her services until her death in 1874.

William Butler Yeats, regarded as Ireland’s Poet, published The Stolen Child in 1889. It is about the faeries beguiling a child to come away with them. It was a very popular poem, probably his most famous, landing squarely on the greater population’s belief system.

In a novel, truth is always the first casualty. However, in our world, truth can be subjective and sometimes subordinated to fact. I found my truth in Ireland and her people.

Not many books are written without input from family, friends and professionals that have been down the road a bit. I would like to thank my late wife, best friend Patty Fish and my lovely daughters; Megan Kathleen, Caitlin Rose, and Jillian Elizabeth. Also Dr. Renee Perry for piecing my manuscript back together after a system failure; to Mary Rippetoe who pulled me out of the forest and back to civilization. A big thanks to Braeden A. Jenest for the use of his Lunar photograph, Copyright by Mr. Jenest. Finally to my forest adventuring buddies, Matt Wiener, Tom Corlett, Duncan Henderson and Dr. David Ruiz. Had some fun, eh boys?

The Stolen Child

By W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

Where dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we’ve hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand and hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand

For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he’s going,

The solemn-eyed:

He’ll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the World’s more full of weeping than he can understand

Inishturk

Inishturk is a tiny island off the West Coast of Ireland, north of Galway and peers over Connemara, the birthplace of the famous ponies that have served the Irish people before recorded history. The stout short ponies maintain a favorable disposition when serving man and can bear heavy loads. Sheep and fishing support the tiny population, although mostly subsistence. A tiny stacked-stone pub at the harbor warms and welcomes fisherman and locals with a shot of Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey.

The little island juts out of the mostly-tumultuous Atlantic Ocean and is the last land between Ireland and New York at that point. Sitting on a foundation seabed of black shale, quartz, granite and other metamorphic rock, the barren landscape has only low-lying plants; flowers, grass and fern. Few trees exist, only those planted by man. Cove water color is reminiscent of Bahamian turquoise water, simply much colder. From the sea, the tiny island looks like a green-tea ice cream sundae topped with granite, delicious and inviting.

Crisscrossed by stone walls, stones from the fields and stones from the sea, the utilitarian walls help manage the black-faced sheep who obligingly chew the sweet grass tender tops and clover that grow in every field and every place with enough soil to support it. Sheep wander all over the island avoiding the problematic fern and the rock rose, yellow flowered thorny plants invading large areas of the island rendering them unproductive.

On this tiny island where sheep outnumber humans, stonewalls are but gentle suggestions for the sheep, which can mostly jump them at will. They prefer to remain with their own, safety in numbers and the closeness of the herd as the overriding sentiment. The herding dogs hear commands in Irish (Gaelic) and do the herdsman’s bidding and the sheep do the dog’s bidding. Herding dogs use stonewalls as highways, moving through and around the flock when it is time to change pastures or take the flock to the dock. That is their exit from the island although it is a short ride to the mainland with a surprise ending. Cold stone huts were built by the hardy many millennia ago. Generations have lived in the same house, each generation making creature comfort improvements appropriate to the era such as wattle and daub covering the original stacked stone structure.

Ancient peoples trod the earth mostly everywhere and here on Inishturk, like many other places in Ireland, humans left vestiges serving as a practical reminder of what once was. Inishturk was named by indigenous people who worshiped the boar then roaming the mainland. Inish is the word meaning island; turk describes the boar. Stone walls tell you that fields had to be cleared of the stone that inhibited plant growth and seaweed brought to the stony land to enrich it enough for plant growth. The walls divided small plots for agriculture and larger plots for grazing near the village. Further out on the island, there are few walls. Sheep are well suited for the climate and terrain; heavy wool coats protect them from cold, wet Atlantic winds and when it is the worst, they shelter closely together near rock outcroppings. Stone signal towers were built during the Napoleonic epoch upon the highest peaks facing the ocean. To signal a ship sighting, sentries built a huge fire on the top, a visual alarm that could be seen for miles. The signal towers still stand and stacked stone beehive structures nearby demonstrate the ingenuity of man, architectural marvels, weatherproof buildings incorporating a roof without spanning the structure with wood. On nearby tiny Catherine Island, monastery ruins built near the holy well Tober Padraig, invite the curious to brave the swells and waves crashing upon the rocky shore.

Once the range of the notorious female pirate, Grace O’Malley, who held the channels and coves under her control for many years with but a few ships and crew. Her castle was in nearby Clew Bay on Achill Island and the view to the islands was unsurpassed. She was said to be an ambassador of sorts as when intercepting ships on the high sea, she would give them the opportunity to relinquish their goods without a fight or she would be happy to take the ship by force guaranteeing loss of life. For the most part fights would not be necessary. However, once when her ship was engaging a Spanish ship, the Spaniards boarded her ship ready for a fight. She had been below decks giving birth. Coming from below-deck, she held a bloody infant on her hip with the umbilical cord swinging freely. The crazy-looking woman had a sword in her free hand and the vision was too much for the Spaniards. They dropped their swords and ran back to their ship to be free of this apparition.

In 1951 on a cold December morning a son was born to Margaret Mary O’Neill and Thomas Tommy Kerrigan. They called the wee one Finbar.

There is no hospital, no doctor, on the isle, only a midwife. A small cousin was sent to fetch her. By the oil lamp and the light of the peat fire, a little boy arrived with a shock of dark hair and blue eyes struggling to see around him, testing his new power of sight. Coldness enveloped the room and the newborn boy was swaddled until only his eyes, nose and mouth appeared deep in the woolen blankets.

Out on the lovely island, Margaret Mary was probably more insulated and as a result innocent of the world’s ways than her contemporaries on the nearby mainland.

Og

Og came home with Tommy one day when Finbar was about a year old. Puppy and boy bonded at the animal spirit level, brothers, instantly. He was part fox and part Jack Russell terrier with springy legs. He was a natural herder. His face appeared mostly fox and he wore a 10 pound tail on a 4 pound puppy. When he got older, he could be spotted in the open field by his bouncing along, head and tail above the spring grass, over stonewalls, usually in chase of a butterfly or bee. Where that tail was found, Fin was just a few feet away. The baby animal was shy as a fox, had a fox muzzle and the voice of a fox. When the little critter was pleased he would smile showing his teeth, both sides of his muzzle. He was known as a dog-fox or Dox. As soon as he can walk, Finbar is one with the sheep and the herding dogs. He too is nothing more than a small animal learning the ways.

Margaret’s discovery

Before Finbar’s memories were recallable, Tommy was a kind, gentle young father with a beautiful wife and young family barely scratching out a living until he took a job as a butcher in the Westport Slaughter house where he would spend most of the week working long hours. He would make it home Saturday nights to spend Sunday with his family. Things have a way of changing when a man is away from his family. Everyone gets lonely at so many levels but a man could try and fill the void with the drink or what ever stops the spirit from aching. One Saturday night he wasn’t on the boat from the mainland. One of the lads who knew Tommy since they were boys together, stepped forward once the small fishing boat that he normally took home was secured and told Margaret that her husband had been struck by a car whilst on his way back to his rented room and not found for possibly hours. He was in hospital and seemed to be okay but having been struck by a car out of the blue had the overtones of not being right with God and the harbinger of bad things to come. That was the story. Once his worried wife heard the story, she asked the lad to take her back to the mainland straight away. It was too late for that but by the early light, she was on that fishing boat headed towards the mainland. Little Fin stayed back on the island with Margaret’s mother. Once docked, Margaret started walking in the direction of Westport, fretting about her love’s condition. It wasn’t long before a local stopped and gave her a lift all the way to the hospital. Thanking the kind man who gave her the ride, she hurried towards Hospital’s entrance as if time now made a difference. Dressed in her peasant clothes she found her way to the front desk and in her unrefined way asked of the uniformed nurse there: I’ve come to see my Tommy… she blurted and started to cry. We have many ‘Tommys’ here the nurse spoke quietly and deliberately what is his last name? Margaret’s pretty face now wet and nose running said Kerrigan, Tommy Kerrigan… The nurse looked into her book and slowly ran her finger down the page, twice on each page and finally spoke: We have no one here by that name… Margaret quietly said Jayseus, Mary and Joseph, paused and said Is he dead?? loudly. No, we haven’t had anyone here with that last name that I can recall and I have been doing this job for more than seven years the Nurse said. Margaret was confused and now alarmed. Where is he then? she asked the nurse. I am sorry Miss, but I’m sure I don’t know the nurse spoke softly. Margaret left hospital and walked to the street, not knowing which way to turn with nowhere to go and with no money. It was now getting on in the day and a chill breezed in from the Atlantic. She carried a woolen shawl in her bag for it wasn’t a matter of if it was going to get cold, it was when. She felt like falling in a heap and melting. She thought of her little boy staying with her mother warm and happy. She stopped an old man on the street and asked where the Westport Meat packers was located and was pointed in the general direction. Off she went looking for her Tommy and before long came to the road where the meat plant was located but still a fair distance away. The breeze had picked up and she was getting cold. Just before she reached for her warm woolen shawl, a black car stopped and offered her a lift. Once inside, the car was remarkably warm and cozy. The gentleman that had picked her up spoke in low tones and looked ahead at the road mostly but glances to the beauty beside him were furtive. The man of some social status was looking at the peasant and his heart was racing. He pulled down an overgrown lane and pulled to a wide spot and stopped the engine. Margaret thought something was wrong with the car and had no inkling of what the man was thinking. Is this where the packing plant is? she asked innocently. She could smell whiskey and cigarettes coming from the man. I was hoping we could talk for a moment and then I will take you directly there he lowered his voice. With that, he reached over and put his hand up her dress which stunned Margaret like a little bird. She did not know what to do or say. His warm hand started at her knee and was moving as slow as a snail up her thigh. His hand was warm and soft, not a laborer’s hand. She froze and stiffened as she had never thought in her wildest dreams this would happen. Don’t worry, I’m a Priest, it’s okay. Things will be fine, nothing is wrong, it’s okay… With that his finger found the edge of her underwear and negotiated passed it. She was completely stunned and confused. Her heart started racing and she wanted to scream but the Priest said it was okay. What was okay? Noooo! She snapped to her senses and jumped out of the car, his finger still holding on to the underwear, pulling it partly down under her dress. Upon hitting the gravel, she reached under her dress, grabbed the underwear’s waist and hiked it up. She took off back towards the main road getting madder by the moment almost running.

She heard the car start and pull up next to her with window down. Unapologetically, he said get in, I’ll give you a ride to where you want to go… She looked straight ahead as if a bad dream was addressing her. Its cold out here, come on get in. The main road was just a few yards ahead and she picked up her walking pace. He threw a few Irish Pounds out the window and pulled off and down the road. She kept walking until the car made the turn and was out of sight. Once gone, she returned and picked up the coins lying on the gravel. As much as she hated what had happened, she had earned that dirty money and at least now she had a few bob to work with. She had learned a life’s lesson, as hard as it was, too. Barely eighteen years of age, she was a mother and a wife but she had only experienced things under the cloak of darkness. She wanted to tell someone to report what had happened but there was no one to call. No one would believe her over the Priest, if he was one. She would most likely be labeled a whore or something worse. She would tell Tommy, he would know what to do. Besides, she had some good news for him as well, she was pretty sure she was with child again. That would make him so happy and proud.

She caught the bus and shortly arrived at the meat plant and walked in. The cold dock was full of blood and bits of animal meat and fat. It smelled an odor of which she was not familiar. The workers were buzzing around, slicing, chopping and sorting the various cuts into bins. Although she was noticed, no one stopped to find out what this woman was doing on the floor. After what seemed like a long time, an older man walked close enough to her pushing a cart full of bits, that she could ask him: Where is Tommy Kerrigan? He removed the cigarette from his lips and said Day off, back tomorrow and started to move away. She was not going to stand there again and wait to find out what the answer was to her next question and moved in front of the cart. Where does he live? Well who are you? the man demanded. I, I am his wife she shouted above the noise. A shock seemed to briefly register in his eyes as he said wife?? Yes, wife she said proudly. He lives about 5 minutes away he said. The man gave her directions to where her Tommy was and bid her best of luck.

As she headed in the direction of Tommy’s place anticipating seeing her man, feeling the warmth and firmness of his hug. She dreamed about kissing him softly on his lips and spending the night next to him. She walked up to the cottage’s door, her anticipation growing exponentially. The old knocker on the door was stuck from rarely being used so she rapped her knuckles as hard as she dared on the door. As she waited expectantly see the look on his face as soon as he saw her and then the warmness that would come over him he would express in his eyes. She couldn’t wait to see his surprised look and the probable tear when she shared what she thought about their growing family. Things were going to be all right. With a sweep of the door, a scene unfolded that didn’t explain Tommy’s accident.

An unshaven, unkempt man stood before her with a baby not more than 6 months on his side. The child had a familiar look about him. A cloud of cabbage and potato steam wafted past her as she struggled to make sense of what she was viewing. A woman in her mid-twenties sat on a worn couch breastfeeding another child that appeared less than two years old. She still did not comprehend the situation. She stared into the room motionless. Tommy spoke first, What are you doing here? Why are you here? Is Fin okay? The woman spoke from the couch Who is that there Tommy? Oh no one, just an old friend… he trailed off. An old friend?? Margaret yelled at him. What the fook is going on? I’m his wife and he has a small son! Who the fook are you? she let it fly. Maggie, Maggie wait!! he lowered his voice as if the woman on the couch wouldn’t hear him. It was too late, that horse was out of the barn. Margaret now knew. He held his head down, she found out in an instant one of the most grievous and big lies a man could tell or not tell his wife. Things had changed forever.

Now that you know he said quietly I’ll ne’re be coming back to Inishturk. She turned to the night and started down the lane. She could hear the old door close and voices turned up as Tommy dealt with the other side of the problem. In the twilight, she wanted to be home in her little cottage with her growing boy. She spent that night crying in a fisherman’s shack by the harbor surrounded by gear. Wrapped in her woolen shawl, she tried to keep warm, thinking about a fine bowl of porridge with a couple of shots of Tullamore Dew poured on top, a strict fortification for the hardy fisherman and people in Ireland. She eventually fell asleep, a pile of moist nets her bed for the night. In the morning she made her mind up what she was going to do. In the morning fog, a mainland fisherman gave her a lift back to the small island not saying a word. She was the last to know. She decided to move to Granard in the midlands of Ireland with her sister who seemed happy there.

Early Granard

The move to Granard was not an easy move for the young mother. She changed her name so as to never be found by the man that could not keep his vows made before God. She never wanted her young son to have any of the dirt that covered his father’s image to rub off on him but the Kerrigan name was the one he was born with. She was able to join her sister’s family and got a small job at the local hardware store to help her raise the young man. Single women were not assimilated into society very well and the pressure was always on to marry and become respectable. To her, that was never going to happen at least whilst the boy lived at home. A few years later, an old cottage on the hardware store’s owner property became available. His old mother had passed away in the very home she was born in. The old thatched roof had been replaced with a proper roof and the dirt floors had given way to wooden planks that helped it to be warmer. It was perfect for a single mother and her little boy. It had no paved road before it but in the rear, paths traveled in any direction. The paths led over hills filled with tiny buttercups and fat cows, across bubbling brooks where naked children splashed in the summertime. Old stonewalls define pastures and the little brooks had stepping stones to navigate the water maintaining dry feet. Daffodils ruled some areas while long grasses helped visualize the soft breezes moving along