“We owe it to the girls.” She indicated by pursing her lips that the matter would not end at that. She stood. “And we owe it to ourselves.”

“This is blackmail,” said the Sergeant stoutly.

“Homes are going there for a song,” she answered.

“Indeed.” He gave her a stern glance. “Ye have, a’course, established this beyond doubt.”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He looked out the window above the sink. “I’m sure I’ll be med very welcome in the Free State.”

“No one will know who you are down there.”

“They’ll know soon enough.”

“By then it will be forgotten.”

“Ye underrate the Catholic mind,” replied the Sergeant. “They never forget.”

“The South has forgotten.”

“Has it?” His voice rose angrily. “Is that so!”

“We can’t go on living like this.”

“What would you have me do?”

“I’d have you take us elsewhere.” Though it never struck the Sergeant that he would ever live in the Republic, he found himself the following weekend taking the shortest route to the west, via Blacklion, Manorhamilton, Sligo, Ballina. On the road between Easkey and Ballina they ran out of petrol. Now, he said, Easkey, this is where the madness will end. But before the Sergeant had time to raise a lament a friendly man stepped out of a cottage with a can of petrol to help them on their way. Nor would he take any money.

That afternoon they entered Belmullet. The sky was a vast blue. Even nature was conniving with the women against the Sergeant. The FOR SALE sign was still there on the pier of the gate. With a neighbour who had the key the family toured the light-keepers’ house. But while the others grew excited, Jonathan Adams remained negative and condescending. He found damp where there was no damp. He pointed out that no one had lived in the house since the days of the light-keeper. But the neighbour corrected him there. A local family had lived there till the late sixties. Jonathan Adams said the stonework collected damp. It’s quite the opposite, the neighbour corrected him, these houses are built to withstand the weather. Water does not come through these stones. A new coat of plaster and you’ll be flying. Jonathan Adams found fault with the roof, with the porch. The wood in the windows was destroyed, he said. A few days’ work, said the neighbour, and you won’t know the place. What Jonathan Adams was really afraid of he did not say. But Sara and Catherine were all agog with the idea of having a house a stone’s throw from the sea.

“And there’s a gaeltacht down the road,” added the neighbour.

The Adamses went quiet.

Eventually Catherine said: “I’m sure they won’t mind us.”

“Why should they? They don’t mind people that speak English. As a matter of fact they speak a little English themselves.”

“They do?” said Jonathan Adams, astounded.