The Wild Irish - Robin Maxwell Page A

I’d thought that as she grew I’d give her some of the freedoms of a boy that I had had, but she proved as soft as an Irish summer, the most feminine of girls with no desires outside her sex.
    Margaret’s brother Owen was a sight too gentle for a boy, so said Donal, who’d been expectin’ a small version of his warlike self. To me Owen was a lovely child who had a natural way with animals of the forest as well as the herd. This was his saving grace in the eyes of his father, for at least if Owen was not a warrior he could have a useful life in husbandry.
    My third child, Murrough, was everything Donal could’ve wished for—a strident little brat from the moment he came squallin’ into the world. He was barely out of nappies before his father made him his first wooden sword, and he terrorized his brother and sister and even tried it on me, though it was a short-lived attempt. One day he ’d come pokin’ at my bottom, quite vicious, with his wee sword. I wheeled round sudden like, picked him up by his shoulders, held him at eye level, and shrieked abuse at him. Well, I must’ve appeared a right Medusa, for the poor child shat himself where he hung. But it was the last time he meddled with his mother, I can tell you that.
    Of course my fourth child was Donal himself. Jesus, he was a wild thing. Even now, when I think of him I cringe. We hadn’t been long married when he earned the name that was to stay with him the rest of his life—Donal an Chogaidh, meanin’ “Donal of the Battles.” Very apt, that name, for every day there was a new fight to be fought. If it didn’t come his way, he ’d go out and find one. Failin’ that, he ’d invent one. It didn’t matter the size of the altercation. He ’d be just as happy with a dogfight as a skirmish at the border, so long as somebody else ’s blood was spilled and it got his own to boilin’. Excitement to Donal was every bit as important as the air he breathed.
    Of course the drunkenness didn’t help things much. All men like to drink, but in Donal’s case it poisoned his soul. The meanest temper and the basest instincts welled up in the man and spilled out of him when he was deep in his cups, and I could see he lacked the self-respect that my father always told me was so necessary for a peaceful life.
    One summer when we were booleyin’, our turn came to host a gathering of the clan. ’Twas a great excitement for the children, who loved to see their cousins from all over the O’Flaherty territories, and endless opportunities for mischief. We ’d set up our booley that year near a magnificent forest that teemed with red and fallow deer, and nothin’ was more anticipated than the hunts in the wood.
    As hostess of the gathering, sure I had my responsibilities, but I was not about to miss the hunt, not for the world. I’d done a bit of plannin’
    beforehand and bribed a number of the O’Flaherty women who I knew to be the best cooks and bakers and cheesemakers, to tend the fires and prepare the feast while I was off with the men. So I rode away that morning through the well-worn paths of the wood surrounded by members of my new family, altogether happy to be alive. But what I saw up ahead of me quickly dampened my spirits.
    My son, Murrough, eight years old, was up ridin’ there amongst his cousins, and like a perfect monster was knockin’ ’em, one after the other, off the trail and into the thicket. One poor little O’Flaherty landed in a briar patch. I rode abreast of my son, and before he knew what had happened, I’d reached out and plucked him completely off his horse and onto mine. I pulled him down to the ground and grabbed him by the shoulders, shakin’ him hard.
    “What in Jesus’ name do you think you’re doin’!” I cried. “Those are your cousins you knocked into the bushes, your kin!”
    “They were ahead of me,” he replied, as if I were stupid.
    Then Donal arrived on horseback to see what the commotion was. I told him of our