1923
Diary 10th January, near on midnight.
It was I who had to tell them. Daddy was in the bottling store and when he saw me come in, the state of me with tears running down my face, he just stood up from his work with the bottle still in his hand, and waited.
I didn’t know how to say it so I just blurted it out. “Barney’s dead,” I said. “Shot in an ambush.”
For a long, long minute he just stood there holding onto the bottle like a child asked to mind something without knowing why. Then he said: “I knew. I knew this was how it would end.”
He got down onto his knees and began to pray. I couldn’t just go and leave him to it, though I felt we should be telling Mammy, so I crossed myself along with him but couldn’t pray for wondering how long he’d be.
After an Our Father and three Hail M
