The Country of Our Dreams
in memory of my dear friend,
ceili dancer, gardener, knitter, storyteller and listener,
and fellow noble failure at An Scoil Ghemhridh, Sydney
Áine ní Cuidithe
1946 Co. Kilkenny - 2019 Blue Mountains, NSW
The mark of that old enslaved Ireland
The mark of that old enslaved Ireland still lay heavily on the lands it had colonised, long after Ireland had itself thrown off, in large part, the conqueror’s yoke.
The history of Ireland, pre-1916, pre-Independence, statehood, weighs thereafter heaviest on those who most distantly inherited it.
Patrick O’Farrell,
Vanished Kingdoms, Irish in Australia and New Zealand.
.
List of Chapters
Prologue: The drowning of Cerisa Palmer
Part One
Ch 1 - the most beautiful man in the world
Ch 2 - The prospects of this country were never so hopeless
Ch 3 - the greedy landlords of Coogee
Ch 4 - we are a dark people
Ch 5 - the dancing of the Otherworld
Ch 6 - in the night dark
Ch 7 - seek and ye shall find
Ch 8 - It was not God who starved the Irish people
Ch 9 - that bastard left me behind.
Ch 10 - Hold the Harvest!
Ch 11 - the enchanted garden by the sea
Ch 12 - A most dangerous experiment
Ch 13 - the winner of the family Davitt competition
Ch 14 - The men from Dublin Castle
Ch 15 - thinking only of yourself
Part Two
Ch 16 - Love songs of Connaught
Ch 17 - Women of Ireland
Ch 18 - first, pay homage
Ch 19 - the woman who could not be bought nor sold
Ch 20 - The heroes of Mitchelstown
Ch 21 - shifting the perspective
Ch 22 - The Harrest of Parnell
Ch 23 - the fifty questions
Ch 24 - A strangely compelling atmosphere
Ch 25 - the Lament for Art O’Leary
Ch 26 - Hilary makes an attempt
Ch 27 - I am here on behalf of Miss Parnell
Ch 28 - the Maritime Hotel
Ch 29 - the arse end of the world
Ch 30 - one big episode of Friends
Ch 31 - Mum wants you to come
Ch 32 - Set in the crown of a stranger
Ch 33 - the raven-haired prince
Ch 34 - looking for Xavier
Ch 35 - We have been lonely for you
Ch 36 - the Abbey
Part Three
Ch 37 - The Archangel Michael
Ch 38 - I hear it in the deep heart’s core
Ch 39 - The release of the suspects
Ch 40 - early music
Ch 41 - The eye of the storm
Ch 42 - the Davitt Symposium
Ch 43 - The apprehension of the Lord Lieutenant
Ch 44 - the Egg Man
Ch 45 - It is not revolutions that are so costly
Ch 46 - about my mother
Ch 47 - the end of the affair
Ch 48 - everyone is related
Ch 49 - Gliding further and further away from the actual world
Ch 50 - a great cloud of witnesses
Ch 51 - I have been very blessed
Ch 52 - in love with Hannah Reynolds
Ch 53 - last drinks
Ch 54 - the long dappled grass
Ch 55 - he rang on the landline
Prologue – The drowning of Miss Palmer
Ilfracombe, Devon, England, September 1911
Lifted up by the sea, held in its irresistible arms, she had simply floated over the wall of the baths. And although she made no sound, raised no hand for help, Thomas Austin, the Tunnel Baths attendant, saw Miss Palmer go. He had turned, by some magnetic pull, some deep instinct, in time to see her drifting over the wall, like a leaf. The District Coroner, George William Brown, leaned forward as if captured by a powerful sea tide of his own.
‘Did she call out?” he asked. ‘Did she call out as she went over the wall?’
‘No, sir.’ Austin replied. ‘She never said a word.’
Everyone was gathered in the small stuffy Ilfracombe courtroom. The Baths attendants, the Baths manager Mr Parkin, Miss Palmer’s landlady Mrs Rowe, Mr JP Finch, the lawyer for the Tunnel Baths Company, the members of the jury, and the reporter from the Ilfracombe Gazette.
There was a big sea running, Austin told Mr Brown. It had not been coming over the wall when Miss Palmer had entered the water at about one o’clock, but it was rising. He had heard the tide’s increasing lashing of the stone, seen the sea’s attempt to breach the protective walls. He had called out against the harsh sounds of the waves, the gulls crying in the air above. ‘Miss Palmer, time to be getting in now.’
She had waved back at him. He would swear to that. He assumed that she had heard. And even at that stage he was not very concerned. She’d been coming down to the Baths in the middle of the day, regular as clockwork for well over a year. Sometimes she had brought her paints and easel, most days she swam. She had not much conversation with him. She was, after all, a lady. But there was always an acknowledgement of him, of his presence. He had grown fond of grave little Miss Palmer.
She had swum determinedly through the winter months. Despite her small form, and her strange way of swimming almost upright, she could easily swim the length of the Ilfracombe baths. So he had not really been concerned about her safety, until he had turned, just in time, and seen her go.
Austin had run and grabbed the long pole, and then raced back along the seawall to her aid, calling and shouting for others to come to his. He got within ten yards of her before the sea beat him back. And then Miss Palmer was being taken too far away for the pole to ever reach her. He said she was still alive then. She appeared to be swimming still.
A woman in the courtroom sniffed and dabbed a tear from her eye. It was Miss Palmer’s landlady, Mrs Rowe. Austin appreciated her gesture, the recognition of the power of his storytelling. He was not a man used to public speaking, yet he felt strangely uplifted on the wave of their listening.
Thomas Austin had