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tiler, took the one on the road from Killimer. After that it became a custom. Faha went elsewhere. There are signposts to it all over the world, but none in Ireland.
    You’ll come to the village first. The Church lets you know someone got there before you and said Jesus , but that’s what you’ll be thinking. ( Gee , if you’re reading the American edition.) You’ll be looking at the crooked twist of the main street, the only street, and the way church and street both tilt down towards the Shannon. It’s a street falling into a river. The church is heading sideways. None of the shops are in a line. They’ve all half-turned their backs on each other, as if centuries ago each one was built out of a fierce independence, shouldering its way in and setting up overnight. Each one tries to take the best view so that the street which is Main, Shop and Church Streets all rolled into one is a ragged westward-facing curve hugging the river. It wasn’t until after the village was built that the shop-owners realised they would all be annually flooded.
    Next to the church there’s Carty’s, the funeral parlour. They’re the one with the brass handles on the door, the opaque glass with the Celtic crosses in it, and, inspired touch, the plate of Milky Mints inside the door. Jesus Mary and Joseph Carty is a barrel-chested man with Popeye-arms he keeps crooked as he walks. Looks like a Lego-man, only rounder. He got his name from calling down the Holy Family on all occasions. Jesus Mary and Joseph at the Minor matches against the hairy-legged Kilmurry Ibrickanes, Jesus Mary and Joseph at the price of petrol, at the bankers, the developers, at everything ever proposed by the Green Party, Jesus Mary and Joseph. But don’t worry he’s sweet and has big-man gentleness and restrains himself during the service.
    Somewhere standing at a doorway will be John Paul Eustace. He’s the fulltime Life Assurance man, part-time Epistle reader, Eucharistic Minister. Long and skinny, green eyes, narrow nose, oval face that can’t be shaved cleanly, topped with a cowlick of brown hair he tried to dye blonde the time he thought girls would go for it. He has thin lips he keeps wetting and the whitest hands in the county. He’ll note you passing. That fellow couldn’t be fattened, Nan says, which is a curse in Nan language. Navy suit, clipboard in hand, Mr Eustace – Oh call me John Paul, please – stands three inches shorter than his height as he stoops in your doorway. He goes round the houses and drives out the townlands collecting five euros a week for the unforeseen . He has perfected an apologetic air. He’s sorry to be calling, it’s that time again. He never used to call to us, then Dad must have signed us up and he started coming. He’s a threshold man, a door-stepper, who commiserates, lets slip who has taken ill, who has Not Long Left, and who has Nothing to Leave Behind, God help us. Is Mr Swain at home at all?
    In case you’ve fallen out with Carty, at the other end of the village is Lynch’s funeral parlour. There you can exit the world through Toby Lynch’s sitting-room-turned-undertakers. Toby turns off the television and lays a doily over it when he has a corpse, except that time during the World Cup. In my mind he’s played by Vincent Crummles, Theatrical Impressario in Nicholas Nickleby (Book 681, Penguin Classics, London). A lovely man, as they say hereabouts. A lovely man . Toby does the make-up for the Drama Group during Festival season and so Lynch’s is a good choice if you like a little Red Number Seven and Brown Number Four on your cheeks or are planning on making a Good Entrance in the next life.
    If you get past Death and enter the village proper you’ll pass Culligan’s Hardware that’s no longer a hardware shop and MacMahon’s Drapery that’s no longer a drapery since Lidl came to Kilrush and started selling Latvian wellingtons for nothing and blue one-piece overalls that make the farmers look like