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a terrible job, so it was. Upset a lot of people, as you might understand.’ He spoke slowly, deliberately; each word pronounced as if it was not his first language he was using.
    ‘I’ll get that.’ Frank nodded at the glass of stout. ‘And I’ll have one myself.’ He handed Peggy back some of the coins.
    The old man’s lips twitched and he bobbed his head in Frank’s direction. ‘A terrible job. But sure, that was what they made us do. They came down from Dublin one day. A group of them. Like Cromwell did before them. Oh, with their measuring instruments, and big cars, and cameras. They took one look at the place and decided the whole lot of it would be better off under water.’
    Frank could sense Peggy’s embarrassment at the old man’s bitter appraisal of the engineers and civil servants who had probably only been doing their job. He guessed Coleman regarded Frank himself in much the same light.
    ‘1946 it was. Not long after the war.’ Coleman sat even straighter on his stool, squinting out before him into the past, remembering. For someone who would hardly speak five minutes before, it seemed that he had plenty to say after all. ‘But there were shortages of all sorts at that time. It took until 1952 before they finished it. 1948,’ he announced loudly, drawing out the words as though they should be set to music. Frank noticed a few of the locals in the bar look over briefly in their direction. ‘1948, 49. They bought up all the land, from Crumm and Ballyknock on the east of the valley to Slieve Mart on the west. And we all had to get out. That was it. We had the year to leave, that was all.’ He turned to Frank and looked him in the eye for the first time in the whole conversation. ‘And they did not pay what they should have for that land,’ he almost shouted, his eyes blaming Frank. ‘That they did not.’
    He turned back to his pint and went quiet for a moment. Peggy served another customer at the bar, but Frank could feel her watching them all the while.
    ‘They paid us what they wanted to, and that was that,’ Coleman said. ‘And we took it, of course.’ His voice, quieter now, was tempered with resignation. ‘That dam was to be built whether we got a fair price for our land or not. The water would be the sheriff.’ His face creased with the memory.
    Peggy laid a cardboard coaster on the counter in front of Frank, and set his pint down on it. ‘Coleman worked with the other men to move the graves to the new graveyard,’ she explained to Frank, looking hopefully at Coleman. ‘He might be able to show you where that was. Isn’t that right, Coleman?’
    Coleman nodded. ‘It is,’ he said.
    He leaned over to one side suddenly. Frank went to catch him, then realized that the man was just reaching into his trouser pocket. He took out a crushed packet of cigarettes and threw them onto the shiny, lacquered bar.
    ‘My land was to be flooded. I’d sold the few cattle I had. There was work to be had at the graveyard for a few of us, so that is what I spent the summer of 1950 doing. Moving bodies.’
    He went quiet then. Frank sensed the gravity of what Coleman was describing to him. Even Peggy was silent, as she stood behind the bar opposite where they sat, her arms folded, her eyes fixed on the old man’s face.
    ‘That must have been a difficult job,’ Frank said.
    ‘Aye. ’Tis better to leave those who are dead in their resting place. No old bones want to be lifted.’ He took a cigarette from the box and tapped it on the counter. ‘And my own people were there, of course. ’Twas that way for all the men. And if your own people were to be disturbed, you were not to work that day. That was how it was settled.’
    Frank shook his head. He couldn’t contemplate digging up the bones of the dead, and moving them to be buried somewhere else. It seemed wrong. But then, so did purposely flooding a whole village, and yet that was what had to be done. People wanted electricity, so people