Free The Dirty Dust by Máirtín Ó Cadhain

now, before he goes for the axe. Can’t you see he’s eyeing it …”
    â€”I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
    â€”We won the match.
    â€”Not a bit of it. If the mine hadn’t destroyed the house …
    â€”… “I washed my face in the dew of the morning,
    And combed my hair with the wind of my hand …”
    It’s not right yet, Curran. There’s a stray bit still there. Hang on a minute now:
    â€œI washed my face in the dew of the morning …” That bit is just dandy, Curran. I already used it in
The Golden Stars.
Hang on a minute now … Listen to this, Curran:
    â€œI washed my face in the dew of the morning,
    And combed my hair with the wind of my hand …”
    That’s just perfect. Curran, I knew I’d get it in the end … Are you listening now?
    â€œI washed my face in the dew of the morning,
    And combed my hair with the wind of my hand …
    My shoelaces were as the sparkle of the rainbow …”
    Hang on now, Curran … Wait a second …
Eureka
… “And the Pleiades were holding up my pants …” I knew I’d get it, Curran. Listen to the whole verse now …
    â€”Will you go and get lost, and don’t be driving everyone around the twist. My mind is numb for the last two years listening to your nonsense verse. I have worse things on my mind, God forgive me: my eldest boy knocking around with the floozie from Up the Way, and the boss of the house all ready to hand the place over to him. And on top of that, I have no idea is it old Gut Bucket’s donkeys, or Tim Top of the Road’s beasts who are guzzling my corn …
    â€”You’re dead right about that, Curran. They should have stuffed the piece of shit in the eastern graveyard. Mike O’Donnell is there, the guy who wrote “The Song of the Turnip,” and “The War of the Hen with the Grain of Corn” …
    â€”And Big Mike Connolly who made up the “Ballad of Caitríona” and “Fireside Tom’s Song” …
    â€”And “The Psalm of the Cat.” That’s a fantastic piece of work, “The Psalm of the Cat.” I’d never be able to do that, never …
    â€”… Eight sixes forty-eight; eight sevens fifty-four … You’re not listening at all, Master. You’re not with it at all, these days, … I’m not making one bit of progress … Is that what you said, Master? Hardlysurprising, Master, and the way you have been neglecting me … Answer me this … How many tables are there anyway, Master? … Is that all? Well, fuck me pink if that’s it! I thought that there were at least a hundred … or up to a thousand … up to a million … up to a quadrillion … we have so much time to be lying in the grave, that’s what they say. He who made time, made tons of it …
    â€”God help us! Isn’t it a tragedy that they didn’t transport my mortal bones beyond the Fancy City and to lay me down in Brandon’s Temple on the white bleached plains of the Smooth Meadow amongst my own people! There, the clay is gentle and welcoming; there, the clay is soft and silken; there, the clay is quiet and loving; there, the clay is protective and snug. Decay there is not the decay of the graveyard; corruption there is not the corruption of the flesh. But clay will cling to clay; clay will hug and kiss clay; clay will inter-breed with clay …
    â€”She’s gone all sloppy again …
    â€”You’d never see anyone as crazy mad as her, only when this stupidity gets her …
    â€”It’s the way she is, God help us! Caitriona’s far worse when she starts going on about Nell and Nora Johnny …
    â€”Caitriona’s gone over the top altogether. Blotchy Brian was right when he called her a jennet …
    â€”Blotchy Brian wasn’t right. Honestly, he wasn’t …
    â€”What’s up with