Dainéal’s Dream

Istigh i do chroi (Live inside my heart)

Bi-se i mo shuil
A Ri mhor na nduil
Lion thusa mo bheatha
Mo cheadfai’s mo stuaim
Bi thusa i m’aigne
Gach oiche’s gach la
Im chodladh no im dhuiseacht
Lion me le do gra

The o'Murchadha home...just before the beginning of fall term...August, 1958...

“So? Da? How the fook are we gonna get this…”

“Go ahead…I’m okay…you can say it…” Seonaid nodded at her brother. Sitting in front of the men of the house for the first time dressed as herself was awkward enough. It probably didn’t help that Liam had started to cry when he saw just how much his new sister looked like their mother.

“I dinna mean it that way…how are we gonna get this worked out. It’s not like nobody in town knows her.” He pointed to Seonaid even as he wiped his face with his sleeve.

“Well, that’s the trick, in’it? I gotta go to Castlebar with her to fetch a copy of her birth certificate. What to do then? Who the hell knows? It’s not like we’ve ever done this before. Either way, she’s goin’ to live with yer Aintin Calleigh an her girls. You lads just take the boat out and do whatya ca; ye’ll manage fine without me for a couple of days. Me an the girl will go.” Eammon waved his hand at Seonaid and she rose, awkwardly smoothing her skirt in a newly challenging lady-like fashion.

“Yer quite sure about this? I mean, can’t you just wear clothes around the house?” Eammon half-smiled. He was joking, wasn’t he? Seonaid settled on the half of his expression that wasn’t smiling and began to cry, more out of disappointment and confusion than the newly introduced chemicals that affected her emotions; she had always been a crier anyway.

“Oh Jeez, girl…I dinna mean ….Come here.” Eammon opened his arms and held the girl, patting her on the back in an odd but welcoming manner.

“We’re all learnin’ together, aye? Give yer Da the benefit of the doubt. I never had a daughter, an you, no matter what you say, was never a girl, least wise in any way that showed. So let’s just try to get through this in one piece, aye?” The girl nodded and put her head on her father’s chest and sobbed. Eammon turned to Liam and Má¡irtá­n and held his arms out wide as if to say, ‘do you believe this?’

Liam shrugged his shoulders as Eammon stepped back from the embrace.

“We’ll see you this evening.” Má¡irtá­n said as the two set out for the day’s work, leaving Eammon and Seonaid for their own work ahead.

Office of Records, Castlebar, Sligo County Seat...

“Mrs. Mac an Ghabhan, can you come here for a moment,” the red haired woman at the counter raised her voice a bit. A moment later an older but still attractive woman stepped up to the counter.

“Sure, Darlin’, mind you ta please use the English in the office here?”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Mrs. McGowan, sorry.”

“Not a problem child. Now an what can I get for these fine folks?” She smiled at Eammon and Seonaid as if she already knew them, welcoming and warm.

“I was tellin’ the kind lady here that I’m looking fer a birth certificate fer me daughter, and she says we need identification.” Eammon said in frustration. How could he provide identification without the birth certificate, and how would he get the birth certficate if….

“That would be true, but first, let’s have her birthdate…Orla here can look it up while you provide me with some proof,” the woman said as she winked at Eammon, mostly out of a conspiratorial mind, but there seemed to be something else behind her expression.

“June 13, nineteen forty….” Eammon began, but Seonaid cut him off.

“Thirty-nine, Da, remember?” She turned and shook her head.

“Oh…yes...I keep forgettin’,” he said as he shook his head in confusion.

“She’s awfully young looking for nineteen, Mr. Murphy!” Mrs. McGowan smiled nonetheless. “I suppose they all look lovely in yer family, aye? Take after yer mother, do ya?” She shrugged her shoulders. Seonaid nodded slowly as she put her head down in embarrassment.

"Fianne...me wife..her mother? She passed a few months back." Eammon said quietly and the woman nodded in acknowledgment. She looked at the girl once again.

“Well, I don’t know about all this. Highly unusual…” She shook her head and looked back toward the filing cabinet where Orla stood. How they thought they could find a suitable copy of the girl’s birth certificate in another birth year and as a girl? It made no sense.

“I looked forward in each year from 1937 all the way to 1945, and I found only three O’ Murchadha births. Liam in 1937, Má¡irtá­n in 1940 and Seonaid in 1943, but her certificate has no date even though it was filed in '43. June 13, but no year.” Orla handed the certificate to her supervisor who pushed her glasses back and peered at the paper.

“Highly irregular, but it’s in order other than that. Mother — Fianne, Father — Eammon, baby girl Seonaid Maired O’ Murchadha, June 13 and the year seems to have been erased. I can’t issue a copy of this. I’m sorry.” Several things happened at once. Eammon’s eyes widened at the words, baby girl. He had never seen the birth certificate, but was fairly confident that they had left the hospital with a baby boy, Dainéal. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow.

Seonaid stiffled a gasp and then a sob as she realized what had happened; at least from her perspective, since the missing year was a mystery. Somehow her mother had managed to have her way after all, and had given the clerk the name she had always known would be her child’s; how baby ‘girl’ got on the document still remained a mystery as well. The sound of the phone interrupted. Orla answered and turned to Mrs. McGowan.

"It's for you," she said, holding out the phone to her. "Your brother says he's returning your call."

A moment later, the woman returned to the counter with an odd smile on her face. Orla turned and spoke.

“Mrs. McGowan? It seems to me that Mr. Murphy here can vouch for the girl, aye? Aren’t you the one always tellin’ me to give folks the benefit of the doubt? Leastways that’s what you told me yer Seamus would have said?” Orla appealed to the woman’s memory of her late husband, a tactic that might have seemed almost opportunistic, but really was an appeal to what and whom was important to the woman. Visions of her years with Seamus seemed to pass before her eyes, including one of him smiling and nodding in approval.

“Oh, yes, child…he was a real gem, that one. An yer right; benefit of the doubt, to be sure. Let’s see, young lady. You’ll be happy for your youthful looks when yer my age, but you don’t look a day over fifteen. Well, good for you. Let me see….alright. Orla, darlin’? Have ye a pen?” Orla handed the woman the fountain pen in her sweater pocket, and the woman completed the document, speaking aloud as she wrote.

“June 13….NINETEEN THIRTY NINE,” she almost sang the words as the ink touched the paper. She pushed the document back a bit to gain better focus, and it appeared as if the year’s ink seemed to age before her eyes, changing appearance as if it had looked that old all along.

“Get me the seal and a duplicate form, Orla, dear, won’t you, please?” She smiled at the girl, but grinned almost sheepishly at Eammon as she waited for Orla to return.

“Sure and it’s a lovely daughter you have there, Mr. Murphy.” Her grin assumed its conspiritorial appearance once again. She waited until the girl had turned to face Orla and leaned over the counter, motioning for Eammon to come closer. He stepped closer to the counter and she smiled and said in a whisper,

“My brother Joe is a doctor in Dublin….McCabe, if you need to know.” She laughed softly. What you do with your family is your business, Eammon O’ Murchadha, but what you do in this office is mine. Lucky you’ve got a friend here and there, if you catch my meanin’. I wish you and your daughter well. An I’ll light a candle fer yer Fianne this week. Di duit, darlin’,” she smiled once again before leaning back.

A few moments later, the woman had completed the duplicate and handed it to Eammon.

“You remember yer Irish, lass?” She asked Seonaid, who nodded politely.

“Go maire sibh bhur saol nua.” Seonaid tilted her head sideways just a bit, pursing her lips.

“Enjoy your new life, child!” Mrs. McGowan smiled and nodded.

“Go raibh maith agat,” Seonaid said in thanks as tears began to flow.

“Your mother must have been quite lovely….good bye child!” She smiled once again as they left the office, but not before saying out loud, shaking her head with a gleeful smile,

"Funny, I don't remember calling my brother..." the woman said as she closed the door to her office. Orla breathed a sigh of relief as her ‘supervisor,’ Calleigh appeared at the counter next to her.

“I knew you could do it! Like I said, resourceful!” she laughed softly as the two faded away gently.

Eammon sat behind the wheel of the old Anglia once again and looked at Seonaid, who was still crying a bit from Mrs. McGowan’s comment about her mother.

“Aye, an you do look so much like yer mother, child; that’s a fact it is! Nothin’ to be cryin’ about but fer the missin’. I know.”

She looked at him and saw his tears, which made her want to cry all the more. She had never seen such emotion in her father; the stoic fisherman seemed to be changing inside almost as much as she’d already begun to change outside. She looked at the birth certificate once again; a passport to another ‘country,’ almost as she was changing her citizenship slowly but surely. She noticed a handwritten note held by a paper clip at the top of the form, and began to laugh softly through her tears.

“Da….I think you should look at this again,” she said, holding the certificate in front of her as Eammon was just about to start the car. He peered at it as she laughed softly.

“Some changes in store for you, too, Da? I think so!” She said, pointing to the note, which read,

“Call me…CAS-2314, Bridget McGowan.”

The following day….

“You look nice, Seonaid,” Moira said, her head bowed slightly. She was trying very hard without much success to keep from crying.

“I…you don’t mind? I…” Seonaid begain to echo her friend’s mood and began to cry softly. She stepped closer to hug Moira, but the girl pulled away.

“It’ll be only a year…My doctor in Dublin found a surgeon…only we can’t get all the work done…but it’s a start, and I’ll be able to come back. I only wish you happiness, Moira. You’ll find a boy you like and settle down and have lots of kids, you’ll see.” It hurt the girl something fierce to utter the words, ‘find a boy,’ but she knew she could never give Moira what she needed; indeed probably what she wanted. Her heart ached, but there was nothing to do but say goodbye; perhaps forever as every vestige of the boy they both remembered would no longer exist in only a few short months.

“You’ll see, it will be alright, Moira. I want you to live and be happy. It’s what has to be.” Seonaid put her head down once again, her hand against her face as she tried futily to stop crying. Moira pulled her close and kissed her cheek; a sisterly kiss since that’s what they’d become, hadn’t they?

Next: Inside My Heart

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May
1909 by John Willam Waterhouse

Bi-se i mo shuil
Reprise/Uptempo version
words and music by the performers
Iona
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGKosUNMxGk&feature=related

Translation:

Be my eyes, O king of creation
Fill my life with understanding
And patience
Will You be my mind every night
And every day
Sleeping or awake
Fill me with Your love

Will You be my guidance
In my words and actions
Stay with me forever
And keep me on the right path
As my Father take care of me
And listen to my prayers
And give me a place
To live inside Your heart)