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than Barry, was a merry young man with a lopsided smile. His unfailing
good nature had already made him popular with the rest of the column.
    As the pair strode along he asked, “D’ye play much football, Seventeen?”
    â€œSome. You?”
    â€œSenior for Monaghan,” O’Hanlon said proudly. “We were almost unbeatable last year.”
    â€œGood on you. Actually I’m more of a hurling man myself.”
    Feargal glanced sideways at his companion. “You have that look about you. Clever and quick for such a tall fellow. But …”
    â€œBut what?”
    â€œTo tell the truth, you have the oddest ears I ever saw.”
    Barry took no offence. “Inherited’em from my father. His ears came to a peak at the top too, or so I’m told.”
    â€œIs he dead then?”
    â€œHe is dead.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Feargal murmured. He said no more on the subject. A person never pried into another’s grief.
    A s a small boy Barry had simply accepted that his father was dead, in the way young children accept everything adults tell them. When he grew old enough to ask questions Ursula’s replies were unsatisfying. “What was my father like?” elicited only, “He was a good man.”
    That was not enough of a description. “Do you have a picture of him?”
    â€œI do not.”
    â€œWell, do I look like him?”
    â€œA little.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œYou have his ears.”
    â€œWhat else?” Barry persisted. “What about his hair?”
    â€œRedder than yours, with less gold in it.”
    â€œWas his name Halloran too?”
    The flesh around Ursula’s eyes tightened. “His name was Cassidy. Finbar Cassidy.”
    â€œSo you’re Mrs. Cassidy?”
    â€œI was never Mrs. Cassidy.”
    â€œWhy not?”

    â€œI did not choose to marry.” She clamped her mouth shut. There was to be no further discussion.
    Barry questioned both Ned and Eileen but could not reconstruct his father from their memories. Neither had ever met Finbar Cassidy. “Leave it be,” Ned had advised. “Your mother will tell you what she wants you to know.”
    â€œShe doesn’t want to talk about him.”
    â€œThen you must respect her wishes. Perhaps someday she’ll change her mind.”
    B RILLIANT in black and white plumage, a magpie alit on the path of the two Volunteers and strutted along ahead of them, puffed with its own importance. “Hello, Mr. Magpie!” Barry called. A lone magpie was said to bring bad luck unless spoken to respectfully.
    Feargal snorted. “That’s just an old piseog. k You’d best fly away,” he warned the bird, “or you’ll be the one with the bad luck. I’ll pluck your feathers for my girl’s hat.”
    â€œYour girl?”
    â€œA little sweetheart back in Monaghan who I see at the dances sometimes. You know how it is, Halloran. One of the show bands comes ‘round and we all go to the parish hall. Fellows on one side, girls on the other. Lads talking to lads, girls giggling and pretending not to look at us. Us pretending not to look at them. Someday I’ll ask her for a dance, though.”
    T REAT all women like you would the Virgin Mary,“the priests said. But they didn’t say how that applied to the thoughts that came to a boy at night in his bed; the thoughts that burned and thrilled … and shamed.
    So far Barry’s only experience of the opposite sex had been with a shopkeeper’s daughter in Ennis, who stood with her back against the wall in a narrow laneway off Parnell Street. Afterwards Barry had wondered, Is that all? Weeks of covert glances and sweating every time he saw her had resulted in a brief explosion
that left his knees trembling, then faded before he could savour it.
    The girl had darted anxious glances left and right while she pulled up her knickers. “Do ye love me, Barry? Say