CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN
CHARACTERS
PETER GILLANE.
MICHAEL GILLANE
his son, going to be married.
PATRICK GILLANE
a lad of twelve, Michael's brother.
BRIDGET GILLANE
Peter's wife.
DELIA CAHEL
engaged to MICHAEL.
THE POOR OLD WOMAN.
NEIGHBOURS.
SCENE: Interior of a cottage close to Killala, in 1798. BRIDGET is standing at a table undoing a parcel. PETER is sitting at one side of the fire, PATRICK at the other.
PETER. What is that sound I hear?
PATRICK. I don't hear anything. [He listens.] I hear it now. It's like cheering. [He goes to the window and looks out.] I wonder what they are cheering about. I don't see anybody.
PETER. It might be a hurling match.
PATRICK. There's no hurling to-day. It must be down in the town the cheering is.
BRIDGET. I suppose the boys must be having some sport of their own. Come over here, Peter, and look at Michael's wedding-clothes.
PETER [shifts his chair to table]. Those are grand clothes, indeed.
BRIDGET. You hadn't clothes like that when you married me, and no coat to put on of a Sunday any more than any other day.
PETER. That is true, indeed. We never thought a son of our own would be wearing a suit of that sort for his wedding, or have so good a place to bring a wife to.
PATRICK [who is still at the window]. There's an old woman coming down the road. I don't know, is it here she's coming?
BRIDGET. It will be a neighbour coming to hear about Michael's wedding. Can you see who it is?
PATRICK. I think it is a stranger, but she's not coming to the house. She's turned into the gap that goes down where Murteen and his sons are shearing sheep. [He turns towards BRIDGET.] Do you remember what Winny of the Cross Roads was saying the other night about the strange woman that goes through the country whatever time there's war or trouble coming?
BRIDGET. Don't be bothering us about Winny's talk, but go and open the door for your brother. I hear him coming up the path.
PETER. I hope he has brought Delia's fortune with him safe, for fear her people might go back on the bargain and I after making it. Trouble enough I had making it.
[PATRICK opens the door and MICHAEL comes in.]
BRIDGET. What kept you, Michael? We were looking out for you this long time.
MICHAEL. I went round by the priest's house to bid him be ready to marry us to-morrow.
BRIDGET. Did he say anything?
MICHAEL. He said it was a very nice match, and that he was never better pleased to marry any two in his parish than myself and Delia Cahel.
PETER. Have you got the fortune, Michael?
MICHAEL. Here it is.
[He puts bag on table and goes over and leans against the chimney-jamb. BRIDGET, who has been all this time examining the clothes, pulling the seams and trying the lining of the pockets, etc., puts the clothes on the dresser.]
PETER [getting up and taking the bag in his hand and turning out the money]. Yes, I made the bargain well for you, Michael. Old John Cahel would sooner have kept a share of this awhile longer. 'Let me keep the half of it till the first boy is born,' says he. 'You will not,' says I. 'Whether there is or is not a boy, the whole hundred pounds must be in Michael's hands before he brings your daughter in the house.' The wife spoke to him then, and he gave in at the end.
BRIDGET. You seem well pleased to be handling the money, Peter.
PETER. Indeed, I wish I had had the luck to get a hundred pounds, or twenty pounds itself, with the wife I married.
BRIDGET. Well, if I didn't bring much I didn't get much. What had you the day I married you but a flock of hens and you feeding them, and a few lambs and you driving them to the market at Ballina? [She is vexed and bangs a jug on the dresser.] If I brought no fortune, I worked it out in my bones, laying down the baby, Michael that is standing there now, on a stook of straw, while I dug the potatoes, and never asking big dresses or anything but to be working.
PETER. That is true, indeed. [He pats her arm.]
BRIDGET. Leave me alone now till I ready the house for the woman that is to come into it.
PETER. You are the best woman in Ireland, but money is good, too. [He begins handling the money again and sits down.] I never thought to see so much money within my four walls. We can do great things now we have it. We can take the ten acres of land we have a chance of since Jamsie Dempsey died, and stock it. We will go to the fair of Ballina to buy the stock. Did Delia ask any of the money for her own use, Michael?
MICHAEL. She did not, indeed. She did not seem to take much notice of it, or to look at it at all.
BRIDGET. That's no wonder. Why would she look at it when she had yourself to look at, a fine, strong young man? It is proud she must be to get you, a good steady boy that will make use of the money, and not be running through it or spending it on drink like another.
PETER. It's likely Michael himself was not thinking much of the fortune either, but of what sort the girl was to look at.
MICHAEL [coming over towards the table]. Well, you would like a nice comely girl to be beside you, and to go walking with you. The fortune only lasts for a while, but the woman will be there always.
[Cheers.]
PATRICK [turning round from the window]. They are cheering again down in the town. Maybe they are landing horses from Enniscrone. They do be cheering when the horses take the water well.
MICHAEL. There are no horses in it. Where would they be going and no fair at hand? Go down to the town, Patrick, and see what is going on.
PATRICK [opens the door to go out, but stops for a moment on the threshold]. Will Delia remember, do you think, to bring the greyhound pup she promised me when she would be coming to the house?
MICHAEL. She will surely.
[PATRICK goes out, leaving the door open.]
PETER. It will be Patrick's turn next to be looking for a fortune, but he won't find it so easy to get it and he with no place of his own.
BRIDGET. I do be thinking sometimes, now things are going so well with us, and the Cahels such a good back to us in the district, and Delia's own uncle a priest, we might be put in the way of making Patrick a priest some day, and he so good at his books.
PETER. Time enough, time enough; you have always your head full of plans, Bridget.
