Four Plays |
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Common terms and phrases
afeard Almighty Bartley blessing blind BRIDE bundle CATHLEEN church cloak coming Connemara county Meath County Wicklow crying cure Daniel Burke dark night dead destroyed ditch door Doul's drinking drouth easy eyes face fall of night feet fool forge glen goes going gold grand day grand thing Grianan gropes hair hand hard set head hear heard tell holy father it'd kneel laughing leave let you walk listening living lonesome lonesome place lying marry Mary Byrne MARY DOUL MAT SIMON MAURYA Michael Byrne Michael Dara mind MOLLY BYRNE Nora Burke NORA looking old woman passing pitiful poor PRIEST queer thing quiet raise your voice reverence road sacking SAINT Samhain Sara Allgood Sarah Casey saying prayers seen sight sitting sleep soul speaking stick stranger surely talk There's thinking Timmy the smith TRAMP uneasily Whisht wind women wonder word
Popular passages
Page 40 - She's gone now. Throw it down quickly, for the Lord knows when she'll be out of it again. NORA Getting the bundle from the loft. The young priest said he'd be passing tomorrow, and we might go down and speak to him below if it's Michael's they are surely. CATHLEEN Taking the bundle. Did he say what way they were found? NORA Coming down.
Page 34 - Comes in and looks round the room. Speaking sadly and quietly. Where is the bit of new rope, Cathleen, was bought in Connemara? CATHLEEN Coming down. Give it to him, Nora; it's on a nail by the white boards. I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.
Page 52 - Michael has a clean burial in the far north, by the grace of the Almighty God. Bartley will have a fine coffin out of the white boards, and a deep grave surely. What more can we want than that ? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.
Page 47 - I was sitting here with Bartley, and he a baby, lying on my two knees, and I seen two women, and three women, and four women coming in, and they crossing themselves, and not saying a word. I looked out then, and there were men coming after them, and they holding a thing in the half of a red sail, and water dripping out of it — it was a dry day, Nora — and leaving a track to the door.
Page 41 - I'll get his shirt off the hook the way we can put the one flannel on the other {she looks through some clothes hanging in the corner.) It's not with them, Cathleen, and where will it be? CATHLEEN I'm thinking Bartley put it on him in the morning, for his own shirt was heavy with the salt in it (pointing to the corner).
Page 36 - I'll have half an hour to go down, and you'll see me coming again in two days, or in three days, or maybe in four days if the wind is bad.
Page 43 - Keep your back to the door the way the light'll not be on you. (NORA sits down at the chimney corner, with her back to the door. MAURYA comes in very slowly, without looking at the girls, and goes over to her stool at the other side of the fire. The cloth with the bread is still in her hand. The girls look at each other, and NORA points to the bundle of bread.) CATHLEEN (after spinning for a moment).
Page 36 - Cathleen. Let you go down each day, and see the sheep aren't jumping in on the rye, and if the jobber comes you can sell the pig with the black feet if there is a good price going. MAURYA How would the like of her get a good price for a pig?
Page 97 - I was the like of the little children do be listening to the stories of an old woman, and do be dreaming after in the dark night that it's in grand houses of gold they are, with speckled horses to ride, and do be waking again, in a short while, and they destroyed with the cold, and the thatch dripping, maybe, and the starved ass braying in the yard ? MOLLY BYRNE, working indifferently.
Page 36 - If it was a hundred horses, or a thousand horses you had itself, what is the price of a thousand horses against a son where there is one son only?