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“That’s the baby,” Mac said, pointing to the cradle in the corner.

“What’s his name?” Vincent asked.

“He doesn’t have one yet.”

His mother, who had said several times that this would be her last baby, surely, because never before had she stayed so tired for so long, said suigh síos and gestured toward the cushioned chair by the fire. She hurried to make the tea.

Vincent told her not to trouble herself. He didn’t need to sit because he wouldn’t be staying. Then he said it twice more because in those parts the first two times were just a performance.

He asked who slept where, but to Mac’s great relief didn’t ask to see those spaces. Eamon and Seamus emerged from the baby room to stare. They were naked except for long underwear, and just like all the brothers they had the Joyce hair, which came in various shades—from Noel’s ink black to Thomas’s fire red—but to a child rose stick-straight from their scalps. There came shouting and a volley of conversation from behind the cottage and Mac knew some of his brothers were jumping off the roof of the turf shed and measuring who reached the greatest distance. Over the racket, Vincent asked about the stove, which was relatively new. He asked how Mary cooked before they got it. He asked about the row of dried fish hanging in the small back room, the chickens wandering the garden. He asked how much food the family went through in a day, a week, how often they had pork or beef, did they ever buy white bread from a store.

“So many boys,” he said, and Mac’s mother blushed again.

“Were you hoping this one would be a girl?” Vincent asked, peering into the cradle.

She looked at Mac as she answered in Irish.

“I’m very happy with my boys,” Mac translated.

Vincent walked over to the mantel, looked around the room. “There was a priest from Roscommon here for a few years, wasn’t there?” he said. “A fire-and-brimstone type? I heard he went around and collected holy items—”

“Ah now,” Mac said, his stomach dropping.

The priest Vincent was talking about had headed the local parish when Mac was small. They must have been talking about him in the pub. After weeks of warnings from the altar, that priest, Father Gallagher, went around to each house known to have a still with four strong seminarians and together they’d taken any holy thing—crosses, rosaries, portraits of Jesus wearing his crown of thorns, statues of the Blessed Mother—and held them hostage until the stills were destroyed. The consumption of poitín was sinful, Father preached, because it led to immoral thoughts and ways. The selling of it was far worse.

Cathal Joyce was the only villager who told the priest to keep his portrait of Jesus. Keep the beads and the statue of Mary too. A priest who’d never have a chick or a child had no business telling anyone how to make a living and maybe, just maybe, it was possible Father Gallagher was acting for the government, long disgruntled at missing out on a portion of the sales. Was Father’s motivation religious, or was it economic? Had anyone thought of that? Anyhow, Cathal Joyce had a direct line to God, and his soul was unbothered. For two and a half years, while this priest headed the parish, the Joyces were banned from Mass. Barry and Fearghal, who were born during this period, had to be taken all the way to Clifden to be baptized. Every Sunday, Mary walked into the hills where there was a small grotto unseen from the road. The women were sympathetic. Mary had lived there all her life and was known to be devout. What fault was it of hers that her husband was so difficult? What could she possibly do about it? With the other stills destroyed, Cathal’s business improved.

When the much more congenial Father Damien arrived to take over the parish, he made the trip up the lane to tell Cathal that he’d heard everything and his would not be a tenure as severe as his predecessor’s. They were all welcome back. To this, Mac’s father said he’d made a habit of praying at home by then, and that’s what he’d continue to do.

But from behind him Mary said she’d very much like to return, and she’d like to bring her children.

The professor’s visit added up to less than ten minutes, and when he took his leave he left money on the mantel for the baby.

“Is he putting us in a book?” Mary asked after Vincent left. “I wouldn’t like that.”

“I don’t know that I could stop him,” Mac said.

“Has he mentioned any kind of work for you beyond this? Does he know what a good student you were?”

A permanent job would mean he could stay. It would mean she wouldn’t lose them, one by one, year after year, until there were none.

“No,” Mac said.

“Mac-da-ra!” came a furious shout from outside, and he knew Rian needed him to mediate a dispute.

“There’s your boss calling,” she said.

“WHAT ABOUT YOUR FATHER?” VINCENT asked one afternoon, after he’d been watching Mac fix fences and patch walls and dig trenches and shoe horses and do whatever thing was necessary for several weeks. “Did you learn how to do all this from him?”

Mac looked at what he was doing. Digging didn’t need to be taught, did it? Fixing a fence only took strength and wrapping wire tight. Shoeing horses took more knowledge but you just had to study the horse very closely, and then you had to strike the iron exactly right until you got the shape you needed. If you got it wrong, you had to pry it off and fire it again. He supposed he’d watched his father and his grandfather do these things. The blacksmith told him he’d know he was striking true when the head of the hammer bounced off the iron just so.

“I see your father now and again, I believe. At the pub. People say that’s him.”

It was a kindness for the professor to act unsure, as if he might have the wrong man, when there was no doubt every local person, knowing Macdara had been working with him, would have pointed out Macdara’s father. They would have told him the story of stubborn Cathal Joyce holding on to his still. Holding on to his still was only one of the legendarily stubborn things Cathal was known for. A few years after he refused to hand over his still, Cathal attended the funeral of a Protestant man he’d known his whole life. The Cox family lived on the road to the next village and everyone got along so long as no one married one of them. Father Damien, hearing of the man’s death and knowing he had lived there all his life, said a prayer for the man’s soul but warned parishioners that they were not to set foot inside the Protestant church. Father Damien was normally amiable, liked a nip of whiskey at the parish socials, but on this point he was adamant. Mary returned home from Mass and stayed quiet when Cathal asked how it was, who she saw, if there was any interesting news. But he must have heard anyway because on the day of the funeral, as she was getting breakfast, he emerged from their bedroom in his best shirt.

“You’re a very foolish man,” was all Mary said.

When Cathal got to the small Church of Ireland—a neat little building with only eight pews—he paid his respects to the man’s widow and children, sat and prayed during Communion, and marveled at how similar it all was to his own religion. He stopped at the pub on his way home and shared his observations of similarity to anyone who’d listen. “I’m speaking only of religion, mind you,” he said. “The ceremony of the Mass. I am not speaking of any political thing. I know well what the Black and Tans did here and you’ll all remember it was my own father who offered shelter to those whose homes were burned. I only mean when it comes to God and prayers it struck me as the same.”