bloodshot eyes
of a wild animal
streamlets of ancient lava
súile sreangacha
ainmhí allta
srutháin laibhe ársa
His own generation still refers to him by his ancestral Gaelic warrior-name, Faolchú na Carraige Báine (Wolf of White Rock). Grandchildren refer to him simply as ‘Wolf’, but only among themselves. They think it’s quite cool, Native American, almost! (To use ‘Wolf’ in his presence would be unthinkable, of course).
His great-grandchildren were coached to pronounce his name correctly in the ancestral tongue. Wolf himself insists that Faolchú na Carraige Báine must be intoned properly or not at all. He once snarled at a five-year old great-grandson who uttered his name in an American accent. The child fled the scene, crying hysterically.
‘The ancient title,’ he once explained, ‘is like a mantra or prayer, a special combination of vowels and consonants which when intoned with the proper rhythm and exact emphasis, can empower a receptive person who may wish to become a warrior.’
He said no more on the subject. Maybe there was no more to be said. Or did he realise that none of us really knew what it all meant? Did he know himself what it signified?
We watch him, cautiously, as he grows increasingly more frail. We find it difficult to believe that lung cancer is capable of doing what his enemies failed to do over the years. His eyes still burn, his glance darting this way and that, as they always did when planning the bones of his next stratagem.
Are there any stratagems left? Any more battles to be fought? When had the last skirmish taken place? The world was changing. His eyes burn, not with the fire of a new, searching dawn but with that of a winter sundown.
He longs with an insatiable, wolfish hunger for the heady days of Empire when his ancestors, masters of the terrain, were the only clan in the whole of Munster who could outwit the Redcoats at each turn. It's said that his followers were not adverse to cannibalism, in am an ghátair (in time of need).
Who is left now? Not a sinner. In the name of Crom Dubh, how was he expected to test his mettle? Nobody left around here but the pale, misguided McCarthys, who have all but given up the ghost.
Something still courses in his greenish, protruding veins. What is it? A sense that the fight is, somehow, not yet over. What fight? He doesn’t know. A long fight it was, or will be. Has it even begun? He grabs his bata draighin, his old blackthorn walking stick, ready to strike. At what? Ah, would you look at the patina on that sturdy stick!
There is none to wear the grey mantle of the clan, none of us worthy enough, strong enough, keen enough – none of us knowledgeable enough to identify the enemy, to take on the ancient title with all its hidden powers – Faolchú na Carraige Báine! Well he knows that. The party is over.
We pretend not to notice but we can hear a hoarseness now in his voice and almost a tremor, a voice that once was capable of giving the McCarthy clan surreal horrible dreams, dreams that forced some of them away to Canada, others into the priesthood, or the civil service – away, far away from the badlands of East Kerry and the creeping shadow of the Wolf of White Rock:
pockmarked face
mirror of a territory
as yet untamed
aghaidh bholgaí
scáthán limistéir
nár ainmníodh fós
Pages
▼