I had gone out chiefly to see old Dinny whose wife died early this morning. Mrs Leary, the fisherwoman, brought the news. Mary Dinny was a plain woman, with squinny eyes and snaggle teeth,; coming from the county Kildare, she was looked upon as a foreigner. Dinny and Mary loved one another very much but they were lonely for the four children who went very long abo to America. At first they wrote often and from time to time sent home little presents of money. They were "getting on fine; they were going to be married; they had babies; they were lucky to be in good places.". Then times were not so good. One by one they left off writing. Then perhaps a neighbour's son or daughter "out there" might send a word of news. After that, silence. I tried one way and another to trace them, but in vain. "If we c'd know how it is wid them ... if they be living or dead, or what way it is at all!".
The door was open, letting in a long beam of the westering sun. A turf fire smouldered on the hearth under the swinging kettle, a loaf' and a twist of sugar were on the table beside a battered tea-pot. The room was empty but for a couple of hens.
From the inner room came the sound of Dinny's voice. it was dim in there, for the pane of glass fixed into the wall, which did duty for a window, let in little light. The air was stale and acrid. Dinny sat on a box wedged between bed and wall; his gret head was on the pillow. Someone had shut his wife's squinny eyes and laid pennies on the lids; her arms, her toil-worn hands were lying stiffly either side of her. Her lips were drawn up showing the wolf-like fangs.
"Me darlin', me Darlin'," the old man was murmuring, "Me lovely one ... whatever'll happen me widout ye?". he looked up and saw me, "Here's the ladyship come to see us" he said to the white thing on the bed, getting up. Poor Dinny! Poor dazed Dinny! He squeezed along the wall and stood beside me at the foot of the bed; we looked at her together. "An" she to be tuk from me that have the great need of her ... 'tis a quare thng," he said. "An' what will I do ... och! what will I do alone in the house wid meself?"
One of his neighbours has come in to make his tea; there is minced beef in a jar which James McCarthy brought from the well of his car, to be spread on his bread, or to be heated in the embers. Katie will comfort Dinny with her homely words better than I can. He comes out to the car with me, a dirty dishevelled old man, with fine manner for his race. "you'll forgive me for me being a bit moidhered , " he said as he put the rug over my knees. Then he looked up to the angry sky. "Get ye home, James McCarthy,", he said "For there is a great rain a comin' on the dark wind of night, a dark wind an' a great rain, an gloom all over the world.
The above is practically a short story and Ireland circa 1900 in microcosm. But it is just one page from the diary of an Anglo/Irish country lady, published in 1998. It was edited by her grandson, the writer Jeremy Sandford. 'Mary Carberry's West Cork Journal 1898-1901' is a well respected book in Irish studies. It describes rural life, the ease with which pietism combines with wealth as easily as it works with poverty, and describes the gilded life of the landed classes with a gentleness that half makes the reader think we could go back there, and it would not be so bad for everyone, even though that life was for the few. It has compassion as it's underlying narrative even when oprobium might seem apt in describing certain characters.
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