The Whitest Flower. Brendan Graham
the cabin window. She’d kept it since it had been blessed on Candlemas Day. Even in these inhospitable days, it was still a symbol of welcome for the Holy Family journeying to Bethlehem for the birth of Jesus. It was a sign, too, of hospitality for any poor stranger wandering the roads this Christmas.
As they climbed Bóithrín a tSléibhe, Katie was at them to: ‘Hurry up, so we can get near the front to see Baby Jesus!’ All three children were excited at the prospect of seeing the Christmas crib with the statues of Mary and Joseph, and the donkey, and the cow. The manger, empty at first of the Baby Jesus, would receive the tiny statue of the new-born Christ-Child at exactly midnight, as Mass began. The twins chattered happily about how, in a few short months, they would ‘get a baby of our own’, as Mary so maternally put it.
The atmosphere as they approached the little Finny church was one of great joy and mounting expectation at the coming of the Saviour. Neighbours exchanged the traditional Christmas blessings, ‘Beannachtaí na Féile’ and Father O’Brien stood at the entrance of the church to welcome his flock.
‘Michael, Ellen, and the gasúrs – welcome, and may the blessings of the Holy Season be upon all of you,’ he greeted them. Then, lowering his voice, he asked Michael, ‘Has there been any trouble back in the valley of late?’
‘No, Father, nothing at all,’ Michael replied. ‘Everything’s gone quiet. I heard tell Pakenham has gone beyond to London until the Christmas is out.’
‘C’mon, a Dhaidí!’ Katie tugged impatiently at Michael’s sleeve, dragging him away from the priest so that they could claim seats at the top of the church where they would better see the proceedings.
A hush fell over the church as Father O’Brien began his Christmas sermon: ‘My dear people, we are gathered here tonight on this joyous occasion to celebrate the birth of a baby …’
Ellen was disappointed in the young curate at this opening. Everyone had been hoping that he would denounce Pakenham from the pulpit, but this sounded like the standard ‘Peace on earth and goodwill to all men’.
The homily went on in the same vein, Ellen growing more impatient with each sentence. She could not believe it: he was going to say nothing. She had thought him to be an independent spirit who would not stand meekly by and toe the Church’s line on ‘not inciting the people to riotous behaviour’, but here he was – ignoring their plight completely. She was growing more angry with him by the minute.
Throughout the sermon she tried to catch his eye, to register her annoyance, but instead he looked at a point in the far corner of the church, above the heads of his congregation.
Pilate! Ellen fumed. ‘Pontius Pilate!’ she whispered to Patrick beside her. The boy did not understand what his mother meant, but he could tell that she was cross, very cross.
So much for Michael going all the way to Clonbur – and the priest telling him that he would take up their plight with Archbishop MacHale in Tuam. The archbishop had obviously told him to keep the people quiet; the Church wanted no trouble in the West.
But who would defend them, if not the Church? Who would prevent mass starvation or save them from dying on the roadside, their little cabins tumbled down behind them? There was nobody else. Not the shopkeepers, the traders, the scullogues with their money-lending, nor the middle-class Catholics in the towns. Not the constabulary, who would be too busy protecting the grain stores of the rich. Not a Government beyond in London. Would nobody lift a finger?
When Father O’Brien concluded his sermon with the traditional Christmas blessing, as if this were a year no different from any other, Ellen could contain herself no longer.
Father O’Brien, his back now to the people, had begun to recite the opening words of the Nicene Creed, ‘Credo in Unum Deum …’ when he sensed a commotion behind him. Casting a quick glance over his left shoulder, he saw Ellen Rua O’Malley – shawl clutched tightly in one hand and her three children trailing from the other – storming for the door, her wild red hair streaming out behind her.
He faltered in the Creed, the Latin words of belief somehow ringing hollow against the sight of this woman leaving the church in anger. A murmur rose from the crowd. Abandoning the service, he turned to face them. Ellen had by now reached the back of the church, whereupon she turned and looked straight at him. He held her stare, though the fire flowing from her eyes ignited the space between them with its intensity. The O’Malley woman was enraged – and with him!
He expected a tirade. What he got was two words – not much above a whisper, but spoken with a vehemence which cut the air – ‘Pontius Pilate!’
Then she was gone into the mountains. Into the silent night of Christmas.
Ellen knew he would come. Even before Biddy rushed into her cabin to tell her, ‘Ellen, the priest is coming! The priest is coming down the valley!’
Her actions on Christmas Eve had caused quite a stir in the locality. It was unheard of for anyone, let alone a woman, to walk out of the Mass, and at Christmas too! And then to insult the holy priest, and him on the altar of God.
Michael, who had followed her out, supported her actions. ‘We can’t depend on the Church. The bishops will always line up with the Crown to get more money for Maynooth, and more power for themselves. And come the day when we’re all lying stretched with the hunger, and no one to give us a decent burial, the Church and the Crown will still be saying, “What can we do? It’s the will of God.’”
She nodded. ‘We have to leave Ireland, Michael – get to America before it’s too late.’
‘We will, Ellen. I promise you, we will.’
But now, the priest was coming to see her.
The village would see this as a sign of shame on it, that the priest had to ride out from Clonbur to talk sense to Ellen Rua. But the way Ellen saw it, the priest had more to answer for than she did.
‘I’ll speak to him alone,’ she said to Michael, who wanted to stay. ‘Please. You take the children to the Tom Bawns’.’
Michael reluctantly left her, and she could hear him rounding up the children outside as they made a fuss of the horse that had carried her visitor. Then the light from the doorway darkened, signalling the approach of her visitor. She got up from where she tended the fire, and wiped her hands.
‘God bless all here,’ the figure in the doorway said.
‘God bless all who enter,’ Ellen responded. ‘You’re welcome, Father.’
At her invitation he sat across from her at the fire. ‘I think we might have a fall of snow yet – the sky has that colour to it,’ he began.
She nodded, allowing him to ease into the conversation in this way if he chose. ‘Yes, Father, pray that we will. A green Christmas makes a fat churchyard, a white Christmas a green harvest,’ she said, quoting one of the many sean-fhocails she had learned from the Máistir. The priest, she could see, was uncomfortable at the choice of her words.
He straightened himself, tore his gaze from the fire, and looked directly at her. ‘The Midnight Mass – it was a wrong thing to do, walking out like that. You caused scandal among the people, and scandal to your children.’
Ellen was prepared for this, but was not prepared to sit meekly through it. ‘Well, Father,’ she said, ‘the Church is always great with condemning people for causing scandal. Sure, isn’t it their way of keeping the people down?’
She saw him tense at this.
‘Is it not a scandal that the people are going hungry?’ she put to him. ‘Yet food is being exported to line the pockets of the merchants. Is it not a scandal that there is no work for our menfolk, when the whole country is a disgrace with lack of roads and bridges? Yet Ireland is a part of the great British Empire – the richest power there is?’
Father O’Brien was taken aback by this attack.
‘Well?’ she