Churched

My first ever short story has been published, hurray! It comes out of an odd ritual called ‘being churched’, that used to happen in Ireland well into the 1970s (schoolmates in Tipperary in the 1980s told stories of it happening to their mothers after the birth of older siblings). What may have begun as a blessing and thanks after a baby is born was often practiced as a required cleansing ritual before a woman would be let back into the church building. There were always stories of women who’d chosen a name for their baby but found when it was brought home from church the child had been baptised something else – as typically the churching took place some weeks after baptism, so mothers often missed the christening. The idea of a post-birth woman as unclean is pretty repellent, especially in an essentially theocratic state that kept women pregnant through many of their fertile years. It stuck in the craw of many at the time.

The other thing the story is about are the marooned generations of Irish in London – people who came over from the 1950s onward, pushed out by economic and social stagnation, and who rarely got home again. The pre-Ryanair generations’ ties with home were more or less cut, and they often felt they hadn’t done well enough financially to return. The Irish Embassy in London has a lot to do with the Irish Centre in Kilburn, which is a social hub for many left behind by the Celtic tiger. I always feel there is a quiet care and respect from them for so many of our people who have aged past any chance of return and wouldn’t feel at home in Ireland now anyway. Walking around my south London neighbourhood with my dog Milo, I’ve made friends with several erstwhile Kerry and Connemara men who often talk of going home for a visit, but never actually do. Failing health is one reason, and the death of siblings who they might have stayed with – the parents of course long since gone.

They speak in idioms that sound anachronistic to most Irish people today, but are how people talked when they were young. I’ve tried to capture that in the story, though it probably makes it sound a bit Oirish to the modern ear. The guys I chat to are also pretty racist. A couple of weeks ago, one of them was giving out about “immigrants”, and I said “But sure we’re immigrants.” He went uncharacteristically quiet for a moment, and then roared laughing, agreeing that indeed we are.

Here is the opening. The rest of “Churched” is at Lunate.

“I don’t know how it is in Ireland now, but here if you want to see old people and babies, go to Mass. Mass is full of people you don’t see most places except the dole queue or A&E which is full of drunks with a bang on their head that might be a brain bleed and babies with runny noses that might be meningitis. We see the babies first. A sick child goes downhill fast but a drunk with a sore head will always be looking for company.”