I enjoy hearing stories of Irish saints and heroes. St. Brigit throwing her cloak over acres of Leinster land. Cú Chulainn smashing a sliotar down the throat of the king’s wolfhound. Their adventures grip me as much as the adventures of Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins. Our school has a set of slim, glossy books, numbered one through twenty four, that tell tales from Irish mythology in big letters and with vivid drawings. I race through my sums to make time for reading. At home, I play in the fields. Squating on the horizon is the mountain, Keshcorran, with its row of yawning caves, where it is said the lovers, Diarmuid and Gráinne, settled after fleeing from Fionn Mac Cumhaill. Wrapped in these legends, I twirl and hack through the grass, smashing a tennis ball at imaginary wolfhounds.
Games and Myths
July. 2016