‘I knew none of you would believe me, and would think me a loose-tongued scallywag of the Kells variety, therefore the moment I saw so many creatures of such enormousness I weaved towards the beasts, through this unruly crowd of Dubliners, a breed who are so savage at the sight of food, despite being so listless in the face of work, and I took an eye. I would have taken the tongue, but it was too long, big as a bed and twice as soft. It was still breathing out its top when I did it, for they do breathe out the back of their necks like Catalans, and I saw it seeing me, but I took it for my children and grandchildren to have them believe me.’

Her family was silent, afraid to avert their gaze from the eye, but little Colca, perched on her knee, had said, ‘So it is monster’s eye, and then monster is a real thing?’

‘Yes,’ Balffe said, ‘but they do call them whales by the coast and when there are many of them they are called a gam of whales. Call in the neighbours and distribute the meats I brought back with me.’

The little town packed in for two days to see the eye, and many took whale flesh from her father’s cart. Amidst a slew of unruly visitors who crowded in uninvited at all hours, her family watched the eye on the table, until the priest, the then-young and headstrong Father Unction, ordered them to consume its remnants or to bury it, because he had heard the Prestons had begun praying to it. So Raghnailt boiled the eye and sliced it into delicate, thin slivers, but her father would only let the men eat it.

While her two brothers, Colca and her father enjoyed it she watched them eating, jealous, and said, ‘I have never eaten the issue of the sea, only the issue of the lake. It does make sense that the eyes in the sea would be proportionate to its size, as I hear it is a very large thing, but Moynagh lake is very small, so it does only have small eyes in it. You know as well as I, Father, that I have always remarked that pinkeens’ eyes are too small to look out of, especially as water is very dirty and cloudier even than cider. If Dublin fish are bigger than Meath fish, are Dubliners also larger than Meath men, and are their eyes proportionate to their largeness?’