The Whitest Flower. Brendan Graham

morning dew!’ said the cleric, in a tone that suggested he thought Moore had taken leave of his senses.

      ‘That is no dew! Look at it – feel it. That, Canon, is the blight. Have you not read of it in the journals? Introduced from America, it has wiped out the potato crop from the Low Countries to Northern France. Now it is here in Ireland – and may God have mercy on us all!’

      ‘Will it be of … of such a consequence?’

      ‘Consequence! If it takes root here in Ireland, this murrain will wipe out the entire potato crop in a matter of months. With two million acres – one third of all tilled land – given over to its cultivation, well over half the population is heavily dependent on the crop. Of those, some three million souls rely on it totally. This could be the biggest disaster Ireland, or the Empire itself, has ever experienced.’

      ‘But what is to be done? Is there nothing you …?’

      Moore had not registered until then the awful burden which now rested upon his shoulders. As curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens it was natural that he should be looked to for a solution to this calamity. Sounding more composed than he felt, he began to outline a plan of action: ‘Firstly, I must alert the Lord Lieutenant. He, no doubt, will inform London with utmost expedition so that the Government can mobilize its resources to avert a catastrophe. Here, in the gardens, we must immediately find a cure. We must prevent this blight from taking root in Ireland, whatever the effort, whatever the cost.’

      ‘God will provide,’ Canon Prufrock said tremulously. ‘God will provide,’ he repeated. And then, almost sotto voce, he added: ‘If it be His will.’

      Slowly and deliberately, David Moore opened his notebook and recorded the first occurrence in Ireland of a blight which would leave a trail of death and desolation, and forever change the lives of Ellen O’Malley and her little family:

      Late Blight – Lumper Potatoes Royal Botanic Gardens, Dublin.

      Twentieth day of August, 1845.

      As Ellen walked back up towards the village, an unseasonably cold chill swept in from the lake, catching her about the neck and shoulders. She shivered, and for a fleeting moment the old cailleach’s strange prophecy echoed through her mind. But Sheela-na-Sheeoga’s words were drowned out by the rí-rá coming from her neighbours’ cabin. When young Roberteen emerged, scurrying up the mountainside like a scalded cat, she laughed and relaxed. Then smiled, thinking all the more of her new condition.

       2

      As Ellen re-entered the cabin, Michael was rising. He watched her incline slightly to negotiate the door and the fall of her breasts brought back to him all the urgency of last night. Framed in the doorway, the sparkling August morning behind her, she seemed to glow with light and life.

      Silently Michael gave thanks for this woman, the most beautiful he had ever seen. Tall, she carried herself like the warrior queens of old, her bare feet clenching the ground, knowing it was of her and she of it.

      In her face intelligence as well as beauty was held. And those eyes – it was like looking into the waters of the Mask: a mixture of green and blue, forever drawing you in, deeper and deeper. Her lips were wide and generous, not thin-lipped from whispering about the place like some of the other women. Sometimes she gave a little laugh when he kissed those lips. He never knew whether this was encouragement or shyness at his advances. Whatever it was, it made him all the more fervent in his desire for her. And when she laughed fully and threw back her head, then he was completely lost to this woman – his red-haired Ellen.

      She caught his look, and, knowing what he was thinking, cast her gaze to where the children were still sleeping.

      ‘Dia dhuit,’ he said.

      ‘Dia’s Muire dhuit, a stór,’ she whispered, returning the blessing.

      ‘It’s time to wake the little ones, Ellen,’ he said softly. At her gentle touch, the still-intertwined twins were up in an instant, tumbling into her waiting arms.

      ‘A Mhamaí, a Mhamaí, what will we do this morning?’ they insisted simultaneously.

      ‘Wait a minute now,’ Mamaí prompted, ‘the first thing we do every morning is …?’

      ‘The prayers, a Mhamaí. But what then?’ they clamoured, undeflected.

      ‘Sshh now, and kneel down. Patrick, are you ready?’ Patrick rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles. He did not go to her as his sisters did, but she reached over and put one arm around him, drawing him towards her. He was growing, she thought. He gave her a quick look and a sleepy smile, and she nodded back understandingly. They didn’t need to say much between them. It was the same with Michael – more the silence than the spoken.

      Together they all knelt down and, for the second time that day, Ellen crossed herself. Then she led them in the first of the morning prayers while the children joined in sleepily behind her. Katie, as always, elbowed Mary at every mention of the name of the Mother of God. This drew a similar elbowed response from Mary, coupled with, ‘Sure, you’re only jealous ’cos there’s no prayers for Katies.’ Ellen, fixing them with her most baleful glare, ordered Katie to lead the Hail Mary. This Katie did reluctantly, annoyed at having to give praise to her twin sister’s name. ‘Now, Mary,’ Ellen said when Katie had finished, ‘you will say the Act of Contrition.’ Mary considered that the Act of Contrition applied more to Katie than to her, and in consequence gave it plenty of emphasis for her sister’s benefit.

      Some semblance of prayerfulness was restored when it came to Patrick’s turn. He was getting to the age where ‘O Angel of God, my guardian dear …’ seemed childish. Katie and Mary might still need guardian angels, but he was big enough to go to the top of the mountain by himself. Nevertheless for a quiet life he fell in with the part required of him.

      Finally Michael concluded the morning prayers with the petition: ‘Keep us from all sickness and harm this day for ever, and ever, Amen.’ Then, having started the day off properly, he went outside – ‘To see what class of a day is in it.’

      The others, meanwhile, had their own rituals to attend to.

      Patrick cleared the night ashes from over the glowing turf and fetched fresh sods for Ellen to show him how to build up a new fire. Now he watched as she took the longer, narrower pieces of turf and stood them on end, balancing the top edges against each other for support, so that they encircled the smouldering embers of yesterday’s fire.

      ‘Always leave plenty of space between them for the breeze to get in and fan the flame,’ she advised. ‘Fire means life – never let the fire go out. When the fire is gone, so too are those who tended it.’

      Patrick was too young to fully understand, but he knew from the way she held her face close to his and fixed him with those eyes that these were the Máistir’s teachings and therefore to be respected.

      Mary and Katie, meanwhile, were up at the spring. For protection of both spring and playful water-carriers, Michael had laid two flat slabs of stone over the rock where the spring emerged. Forgetting the task at hand, Mary and Katie now lay on those slabs studying their reflections, fascinated by their sameness, and trying to find some feature in one that was not replicated in the other. Eventually a shout from the cabin below reminded them what they were there for: to bring back a pot of water. So they scampered back down – the lift in the land now being in their favour – pulling the pot this way and that between them, and spilling half the water in the process.

      Thus began their day, like most every other day in the valley.

      Then it was time for ‘the Lessons’.

      Ellen’s love of learning came from her father. Forced to leave the priesthood when he fell in love with her mother, Cáit – a great scandal, and still whispered about in the valley – he had become a hedge-school teacher or ‘Máistir’.