The Death of an Irish Tinker by Bartholomew Gill Read Free Book Online Page A

mechanized farming that replaced seasonal labor. Forced to shift to the cities, Travelers were cramped onto small plots heaped with rusting auto parts, trash, and such. The men went on the dole; the women begged in the streets.
    But the greatest tragedy—to McGarr’s way of thinking—was the effect city life had on Tinker children. Schools for them were segregated and poor, and few attended. With little to do and no place to play, many took to roaming the camps and the city. Vandalism led to more serious crime, drink, and drugs.
    Government efforts to improve the Travelers’ lot had largely failed. Only half of Dublin’s seven hundred Traveling families were housed, usually in squalid, ghettolike neighborhoods, and the percentage and conditions of life for them countrywide were little better.
    But McKeon had returned with the drinks, which he carefully lowered to the table in front of them.
    “You were saying about your daughter and Mickalou Maugham?” McGarr prompted. “Ten months ago.”
    Maggie Nevins nodded and picked up her new drink. “It’s what I come to tell you about. A Thursday last February. The very hardest part of the winter, though we were in great heart—me and the kids—since Ned had come back to our caravan from the Labor with pockets of money and a nice feed for us from the chipper.
    “But I should have known better, for what did I hear when I opened the door”—she paused dramatically—“chatterin’ magpies.” Her eyes swung to McGarr, who shook his head. He did not know what she meant.
    “Trouble comin’, and I should have known. For the truth is, I only got the washup done and the kids in bed when the door opened. Who should it be but Biddy in a huff and Oneyin her arms, saying she had trouble and had to shift? Could I take the baby for a while? She’d send for her when she could; she was going to get out of the country as quick as she could.
    “With that Ned, who had nodded off, wakes up and asks her what it’s all about, but she says she can’t say. ‘If they thought you knew, you’d have to run too,’ was her words. And she scarcely said good-bye. ‘Speed it! Put it going!’ she gave out to Ned. And they left in a rush for Rosslare and the ferry to Folkstone.
    “And”—Maggie sighed and looked down at her now-empty glass—“they be no sooner gone than an awful thumpin’ comes to the caravan door, and some man starts roarin’, ‘Get out o’ that! Get out o’ that, you Knackers!’ And another thump that fairly knocked the door off its pins.
    “I look out and there’s two big shadogs, uniforms, buttons and all, the one with a big gun pointin’ right at me head. My God, the fret it give me. I was in bits, only half alive. ‘Open up, you Knacker bitch!’ he calls me. ‘Or I’ll blow yeh away!’
    “I see lights goin’ on in other caravans, and I says to meself, says I, ‘If mindin’ me granddaughter be a crime, they can take me off.’ So I opened the door, and didn’t the one peg me from the top step right down into the mud at the feet of the other with the gun.
    “He shoved it against my temple, roarin’ pure savage, ‘She in there? She in there?’ at the top of his Joxer lungs. ‘Who? Who?’ I got out. ‘Biddy, you fookin’ Knacker cunt!’” Maggie Nevins turned to Bresnahan. “Sorry, miss, but them was his words.
    “The other one was already inside the caravan with a big white torch, shinin’ it around and tossing things about. Some of the kids was cryin’; the others was screamin’ for me. But nobody came out from the other caravans to help, and I don’t blame them with the uniforms and the guns and all.
    “When I tried to get up, the one with the gun roared, ‘Down on the ground! Down on the fookin’ ground!,’ thencut me legs out from under me and stood or somethin’ on the small o’ me back. When I howled out in pain, what did he do?”
    The three of her listeners waited—Bresnahan’s pencil poised—while Maggie Nevins,