I know where
Skibbereen is well. In the County Cork. Cork is a big county. As big
as Dublin and Wicklow. That's where the people died when there was
the hunger.
CRIPES
He came before the meeting of the Guardians, and he told them
he owed them the whole of his year's pension. Then he got some sort
of a stroke, and he broke down. And the Guardians gave him the Select
Ward there for himself.
SHANLEY
They did well for him.
CRIPES
Why wouldn't they give him the Select Ward? It's right that
he'd get the little room, and not have to make down the pauper's bed
with the rest of us.
SHANLEY
He was at the altar to-day, and he stayed in the chapel
after Mass.
CRIPES
He'll be here shortly.
THE OLD MAN
Skibbereen! That's where the people died when there was
the hunger. Men and women without coffins, or even their clothes off.
Just buried. Skibbereen I remember well, for I was a whole man then.
And the village. For there are people living in it yet. They didn't
all die.
SHANLEY
We'll have somebody else in the Select Ward this evening.
CRIPES
That's what they were talking about. The nuns are sending a
patient up here.
SHANLEY
I suppose the Ward-master will be in here to regulate the
room. _(He rises)_
CRIPES
Aye, the Ward-master. Felix Tournour, the Ward-master. You've
come to your own place at last, Felix Tournour.
SHANLEY
Felix Tournour will be coming the master over me if he finds
me here.
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