A Ghost in the Throat (Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire)

‘When we first met, I was a child, and she had been dead for centuries.

I am eleven, a dark-haired child given to staring out window … Her voice makes it 1773, a fine day in May, and puts English soldiers crouching in ambush; I add ditch-water to drench their knees. Their muskets point towards a young man who is falling from his saddle in slow, slow motion. A woman hurries in and kneels over him, her voice rising in an antique formula of breath and syllable the teacher calls a caoineadh, a keen to lament the dead.’

Saothar i mBéarla faoi shaol mná agus a gaol leis an mórshaothar ‘Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire’ le hEibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill. Tá an dán ‘Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire’ ar fáil ag cúl an leabhair, i nGaeilge agus ansin aistrithe ag an údar.