Free The Second Mister by Paddy FitzGibbon Page A

declared the resulting wave of light to be “ a bolt of celestial grace from Heaven itself.”
    At least three times the missioner told the shocking but cautionary tale of a girl “ from a very nearby parish” and who was innocent of the grave dangers posed by “company keeping.” It seems that she met a handsome stranger at a late-night dance. She was greatly taken by him and they both left the hall and went to an isolated place. It was only then that she looked down and saw that her companion had cloven hooves instead of feet !
    The climax of the mission came on the last night when the faithful were asked the traditional question: “Do you renounce the Devil with all his works and pomps ?” This inevitably produced an enthusiastic but inebriated response from the rear of the church:
“ We do, th’oul hoor, we do.”
    Uniquely, the following day Father Collier was escorted to the Railway Station by a small crowd led by a young man playing an accordion. As he was about to board the train a leading toper knelt before the priest and then took his hand and said: “ Father Collier, the people of Listowel will be forever in your debt. ”
    Of course it did not last.
    The town soon returned to its innocent and sinful ways, but not before a curious incident occurred. It seems that a middle aged citizen had continued the bibulous aspects of the mission for some days after the priest had left. His wife grew increasingly exasperated and at about nine o’clock one morning she stormed out of her house in a great rage and ready to devour anything that moved. Unfortunately, the first person she met was a neighbouring grocer who was in his place of business quietly reading the racing page of The Irish Press . She let loose a roar at him of seismic magnitude:
“ Your oul’ sausages are no good”.
    The grocer yawned and then, perhaps thinking of the events of the previous week, replied:
“ They have one advantage mam, you can eat them of a Friday”.

T HE R AJ DEPARTED

M Y R OYAL C ONNECTIONS

T HE POET IN T OGHER CASTLE

T HE BALLAD OF THE LAST I RISH PATRIOT

R ECONSIDERING Y EATS
    “ … Na flatha fá raibh mo shean roimh éag do Chríost ” is the concluding line of Aodhagáin Ó’ Rathaille’s last great poem, said to have been written on his death bed. The poem shouts to the Universe Ó’Rathaille’s agonised admiration for the old gaelic aristocracy. The words quoted translate roughly as “ My fathers served their fathers before Christ died.” The line was greatly admired by William Butler Yeats.
    You bet it was !
    He admired it so much that he stole it and used it in his own play The Countess Cathleen, larceny being one of the cornerstones of literature.
    The Countess Cathleen is not often seen nowadays on Broadway or in the West End. Hollywood has shown no interest in it at all ! How can this be ? What can possibly explain such neglect of our National Poet and erstwhile Nobel Laureate ?
    Perhaps one can discern a hint of where the problem lies by looking at the play’s list of characters which includes inter alia:
“TWO DEMONS DISGUISED AS MERCHANTS,
PEASANTS, SERVANTS, ANGELICAL BEINGS, SPIRITS.”
    The play opens with another character, Mary, asking the unforgettable question:
“ What can have made the grey hen flutter so ?”
    Well it just goes downhill after that, in spite of mention being made of “ a man with ears spread out ” that “ moved up and down like a bat’s wing”. Then we are entertained by an image of “..a man who had no mouth, nor eyes nor ears; his face a wall of flesh ” and of course this is followed by further references to the aforesaid hen.
    The play was apparently written in 1892 when Yeats was 28 years old.
    He had published Crossways, his first collection of poems three years before. The book suffers from a kind of Pre-Raphaelite wishy- washiness but many of the poems hint of greatness to come, but not yet quite to hand.
    He wrote many fine poems in the following years,