The Weir

Breaking the poor girl’s heart. Ah, you get older and look back on why you did things, you see that a lot of the time, there wasn’t a reason. You do a lot of things out of pure cussedness.

And I don’t know why it was a thing with me that I... an irrational fear, I suppose, that, kept me here. And I couldn’t understand why she wanted to be running off up to Dublin, you know?

But sure you can’t just accept that, that you, you know... I mean... surely you, you have to look at the broader thing of it here.

I had a good job at DCU. I had gone back to work after having my daughter, Niamh.

I do often wear a suit. Don’t come in here for the first time in God knows, thinking we’re fucking hicks. ’Cause you’re from round here.

And she says she was after getting a phone call from the young one, Niamh, and she was after doing the Luigi board, or what do you call it?

Mmm. Might be. Might be, alright. Didn’t want the loneliness maybe, you know?

But she was a grand, you know, spritely kind of a woman ’til the end. And had all her... She was on the ball, like, you know? And she swore that this happened. When she was only a girl. She lived in that house all her life. And she had older brothers and sisters. She was the youngest. And her mother, eh...

Oh he is! Valerie, look at this. That’s Big Finbar now. And that’s Brendan’s father, Paddy Byrne. This was when the ESB opened it. Big thing around here, Brendan.

And so... I’m not going to listen to ‘Do this and do that, and you’ll be right.’ Just to get a few bob. There’s no fun in that and the principle of it, you know?

FINBAR