it.
Paddy hated January, the deep, dark, cold month when the sky was always grey and hovering close to the ground, while mist lay heavy in the hollows. He longed for the brisk winds that blew off the sea and the high blue skies of the coast. On a particularly still and bleak January day, a letter arrived from his sister, Honor. He opened it as he walked across the grounds of St Columcille's and as soon as he read the first few sentences, he wished a strong wind would blow the letter from his hand and sweep it away.
Mam is too ill to pen this letter to you so I am writing what I believe she would say to you and that is that you must try to do better. How could you think so little of our Mam, to bring her grief when you know she hasn't been well all this long winter? How could you be so thoughtless?
Each sentence was more cutting than a blow from Father O'Keefe's cane.
Paddy crumpled Honor's letter and stuffed it into his pocket, but the words continued to spin round and round inside his head. Some boys were playing football in the quadrangle. Paddy didn't want to join them. He felt tired and heavy in his limbs as he made his way to the college library. Since Christmas, it had been the only place he felt at ease. It was a long room with high windows that the winter sun cut through in the morning and was warm and bright with gaslight in the afternoon. With a book open before him, he could disappear into the words on the page and blot out all the harsh things Honor had written. He pulled out a small brown leather book that was wedged tight between two fat ones and took it over to the study table.
It was a book of poems in Latin. He read them slowly, savouring each word, playing with it until he had found just the right way to translate it into English. It was the only part of studying Latin that Paddy found easy. Sometimes Father O'Keefe would seem almost annoyed and suspect Paddy of cheating, so quickly did he find his way through a Latin poem and yet stumble endlessly when conjugating a simple verb. The little book of poems quickly absorbed him. They were poems about St Patrick, St Brendan and St Columcille. He especially liked one stanza from an Invocation from the Blessed Bishop Patrick. Some of the lines in it made his heart feel less heavy.
Pelle merorem â¦
Cast out sorrow
and sing with joy
through night and day
with your sweet voice
from the rising sun
to the highest stars .
That night, he dreamt of a bright, open landscape where the wind swept off the sea and he ran free across the wilderness. He woke the next morning with the words of the poem ringing in his head, and as clear as a revelation, he suddenly knew what he needed to do to win back everyone's confidence, to give his mother hope, to make everyone proud.
Every Easter, St Columcille's College offered a poetry prize for the best translation from Latin of a holy work. Paddy knew that he could translate the poem that he'd read the day before. The words sang out to him, even as he broke the ice in his washbasin and scrubbed his face and neck before morning mass.
Every free moment that Paddy had, he scurried to the library and studied the invocation. It was a long poem and far more difficult than anything his class was studying. He had to be careful to make sure he got all the tenses right, that every part of the poem was true to the original but that it didn't lose any of its sweetness. When he had translated the first three stanzas, he showed them to Father O'Keefe.
The old priest frowned as he read through Paddy's careful lettering.
âAnd this is your own work, with no help from one of the older boys?â asked Father O'Keefe.
Paddy nodded. Father O'Keefe looked back at the page and Paddy could see he was impressed.
âThis reads very well, Delaney. But you realise the Easter prize requires you translate the entire poem, not merely a few stanzas? And that it is grammatically correct. There are a few small mistakes here.â
âI
Paddy hated January, the deep, dark, cold month when the sky was always grey and hovering close to the ground, while mist lay heavy in the hollows. He longed for the brisk winds that blew off the sea and the high blue skies of the coast. On a particularly still and bleak January day, a letter arrived from his sister, Honor. He opened it as he walked across the grounds of St Columcille's and as soon as he read the first few sentences, he wished a strong wind would blow the letter from his hand and sweep it away.
Mam is too ill to pen this letter to you so I am writing what I believe she would say to you and that is that you must try to do better. How could you think so little of our Mam, to bring her grief when you know she hasn't been well all this long winter? How could you be so thoughtless?
Each sentence was more cutting than a blow from Father O'Keefe's cane.
Paddy crumpled Honor's letter and stuffed it into his pocket, but the words continued to spin round and round inside his head. Some boys were playing football in the quadrangle. Paddy didn't want to join them. He felt tired and heavy in his limbs as he made his way to the college library. Since Christmas, it had been the only place he felt at ease. It was a long room with high windows that the winter sun cut through in the morning and was warm and bright with gaslight in the afternoon. With a book open before him, he could disappear into the words on the page and blot out all the harsh things Honor had written. He pulled out a small brown leather book that was wedged tight between two fat ones and took it over to the study table.
It was a book of poems in Latin. He read them slowly, savouring each word, playing with it until he had found just the right way to translate it into English. It was the only part of studying Latin that Paddy found easy. Sometimes Father O'Keefe would seem almost annoyed and suspect Paddy of cheating, so quickly did he find his way through a Latin poem and yet stumble endlessly when conjugating a simple verb. The little book of poems quickly absorbed him. They were poems about St Patrick, St Brendan and St Columcille. He especially liked one stanza from an Invocation from the Blessed Bishop Patrick. Some of the lines in it made his heart feel less heavy.
Pelle merorem â¦
Cast out sorrow
and sing with joy
through night and day
with your sweet voice
from the rising sun
to the highest stars .
That night, he dreamt of a bright, open landscape where the wind swept off the sea and he ran free across the wilderness. He woke the next morning with the words of the poem ringing in his head, and as clear as a revelation, he suddenly knew what he needed to do to win back everyone's confidence, to give his mother hope, to make everyone proud.
Every Easter, St Columcille's College offered a poetry prize for the best translation from Latin of a holy work. Paddy knew that he could translate the poem that he'd read the day before. The words sang out to him, even as he broke the ice in his washbasin and scrubbed his face and neck before morning mass.
Every free moment that Paddy had, he scurried to the library and studied the invocation. It was a long poem and far more difficult than anything his class was studying. He had to be careful to make sure he got all the tenses right, that every part of the poem was true to the original but that it didn't lose any of its sweetness. When he had translated the first three stanzas, he showed them to Father O'Keefe.
The old priest frowned as he read through Paddy's careful lettering.
âAnd this is your own work, with no help from one of the older boys?â asked Father O'Keefe.
Paddy nodded. Father O'Keefe looked back at the page and Paddy could see he was impressed.
âThis reads very well, Delaney. But you realise the Easter prize requires you translate the entire poem, not merely a few stanzas? And that it is grammatically correct. There are a few small mistakes here.â
âI
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