‘Was he drunk?’
‘Naturally,’ he grinned. ‘Anyway, the open palm to you, lad. Well done.’
‘Sheer luck, Father. That poem I chose just caught the spirit of Passiontide.’
He looked at me curiously. ‘Nothing of the sort, Father Neil.’
‘No?’
‘Indeed not. D’you not know who wrote that poem?’
‘Joseph somebody or other.’
‘God hasten.it to us. ’Twas Joseph Plunkett.’
The name meant nothing to me.
Another sceptical look in my direction. ‘You are not pulling me leg, like?’
‘No.’
‘Wait till I tell you. Joseph Plunkett was in the Easter Rising.’
‘Never!’
‘His intended was Grace Gifford, a lovely young girl with great artistic talent. And a Protestant at that. They were the good old days, you follow? when ’twasn’t Catholics against Protestants but Irish folk against the foreigner.’
I sniffed at his interpretation of the good old days.
‘Well, now, Father Neil, Joseph Plunkett was in prison. And on the night before he was executed, Grace Gifford was allowed in and they were married by candlelight in the prison chapel. After, the chaplain left ’em alone for ten minutes only. That was when Joseph gave his brief little wife the poem, written in his own hand, that you recited so beautifully tonight.’
‘In an English manner of speaking only. Joseph Plunkett was a rebel certainly. The sort that every Irishman condemns. Until a British firing squad proves ’em wrong, if you’re still with me.’
I could do nothing but shake my head incredulously again and again.
If God is an Irishman, I thought, it explains an awful lot.
‘And you really knew nothing of this, Father Neil?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Oh, Father Neil, sometimes I ask meself if you, with your Buster Keaton face, are the cleverest curate I ever had or the dumbest.’
I finally accepted that my New Year’s resolution to wise up had been a failure.
‘The dumbest’, I said. ‘I’m like a sheep.’
‘And who but the silly sheep will inherit the earth?’ He took my arm in a fatherly grip. ‘I am fast coming to the conclusion we are a fine pair, lad, you and I.’
I liked the sound of that. ‘Are we, Father?’
‘Indeed and indeed. Here am I, the shaggy old ram in charge of the flock. And here is yourself, Father Neil, a dear little baby lamb who is only woolly on the inside.’
THE END
Saint Patrick’s Day 1978
About the Author
Neil Boyd is a pseudonym of Peter de Rosa. After attending Saint Ignatius’ College, de Rosa was ordained as a Catholic priest and went on to become dean of theology at Corpus Christi College in London. In 1970 de Rosa left the priesthood and began working in London as a staff producer for the BBC. In 1978 he became a full-time writer, publishing the acclaimed Bless Me, Father, which was subsequently turned into a television series. De Rosa went on to write several more successful novels in the Bless Me, Father series. He lives in Bournemouth, England.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1979 by Neil Boyd
Cover design by Jesse Hayes
ISBN: 978-1-5040-0520-3
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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