“Damn your soul!” she replied. “Won’t I know myself what it’ll be like by then.”

“What is the Naomhog?” asked Jonathan Adams, trying to curb his natural caution.

“There’s the very woman will tell you,” smiled the meteorologist.

“Yes,” the old lady said. “It was a stone statue kept on the Inishkea Islands that the people in another century, and for ever and ever before that, used to adore.”

“What was it like?” asked Jonathan.

“Well, it wasn’t like you or me, it was just a stone. That’s what the Godstone was.”

“A round stone maybe,” said the son helpfully behind the bar.

“They kept him,” said the old lady, “in a tweed jacket and trousers.”

“In what?” Jonathan asked, marvelling.

“In tweed I was told,” she continued. “And they prayed to him to keep the seas calm when they went fishing.”

“And he did, no doubt,” interrupted the weatherman.

“He was more reliable than you are,” she jibed. “They prayed to him that their fishing might be successful. That he bring them luck. Then a group of visitors to the island saw the locals praying to the Naomhog, and they brought the story back with them to Dublin.”

“Of course,” said the Corkman drily.

“And an item appeared in a daily newspaper about the idolators on Inishkea Island.”

“Trust them,” the Corkman said to Jonathan.

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “And this item infuriated the local curate – one Father Pat O’Reilly – so much that nothing would do him but that he hire a boat to take him out to the island. Oh, he was mad. It was a pity there was a vessel to be had. They should never have brought him.”

“They should not,” said the son.

“What harm were they doing? None.”

“That’s right,” said the son.

“And he went out to the Inishkeas, took the Naomhog and threw it into the sea.”

“After he smashed it,” nodded young Noone.

“Tell him the kernel of it,” said the Corkman knowingly.

“Well, that same Father Pat was my great grand-uncle. Upstairs I have his memorial card, and his breviary.” The old woman shook her head. “It travelled down to us. And there it is up above!” She looked upward in amused dismay. “He never should have done it. It brought bad luck on him. He took an ailment of the face and died six months after. As a matter of fact, all that had anything to do with the destruction of the Naomhog died soon after. And eventually the drownings came on the people of Inishkea. They left. And the government put them into Glash.”

“And Glenlara,” added the son.

“There’s not a soul out there now,” she said. “Oh, they were superstitious people then, God bless us. But he should never have done it.