Promo: The Ballad of Mary Kearney by Katherine Mezzacappa
Today, I'm delighted to welcome award-winning author Katherine Mezzacappa to Ruins & Reading. I'm sharing an intriguing excerpt from her new novel, The Ballad of Mary Kearney. It's a novel you should check out. Read on!
The Ballad of Mary Kearney is currently on blog tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club. Find other fascinating posts HERE!
The Ballad of Mary Kearney
Katherine Mezzacappa
Excerpt:
“My name is Thomas Kearney, eldest son of Patrick Kearney of Tullaree Townland in this county. I farm twenty-two acres of land belonging to my Lord Goward in the Big House there, and for this I pay two shillings every quarter day. But my father he did tell me that this land was mine and he gave me a document the priest gave him to say so but that no Englishman will look at it for the priest wrote it. Do you get this down, sir? My father had his letters from a hedge school-master and he did try to learn me them but I could not be kept at them as my hands were needed from when I was seven years old.
“As you are a learned man sir you could tell me what is writ here but the priest tells me that for as long as my Lord is there in the Big House then I must pay him to farm the land that is mine own. I have five childer that live and two buried and my wife is in her seventh month and it is hard for me to pay my Lord sometimes, but it is not my Lord I fear but his man Blanch who tells me always that if I do not pay it is because I am idle and I will be turned off and how will my own live then? It is not one time that I have gone to the Offices round the back of the Big House—you will know sir that the horse-whip is there for any tenant who takes that there path where Lord and Lady can see us from the windows—and my Lady has put the coins into this my hand or I do not know how I should be here yet.
“Before Mr. Blanch it was better. My mother may perpetual light shine upon her said in the old Lord’s day when the Quality danced in the Big House the tenants came to the windows and seen all the fine people leaping and all the candles burning. No, we have no money for tallow but rushes are plentiful.
“My age, sir? I believe I am about forty years of age. My father built this cabin himself. I have two cows in the byre here and we sleep on this wood above for to get the heat of the beasts. Potatoes and milk we have and some flax. The year there is a calf then more seed potatoes I have and sometimes a herring but only if there is money for to pay for the bull, if you understand me.
“Bridget my eldest is in the kitchen at the Big House and my boy Patrick goes the messages for them. If they take my daughter Mary too then it would not be so hard for us but I fear my Lord Goward’s son and that lady who is there with him when he came back all dark from foreign places the priest said Rome. They say her husband is an old gentleman from down the country and for me it is not right and I know from Father O’Dowd this is so and their punishment will come he says.”
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Mourne Mountains. Image: Dieglop. Wikimedia Commons |
The family of Thomas Kearney from my visitation I would judge better-situated than many by the possession of his two cows and the two children already in service. I have inspected their dwelling and it is of the usual two rooms, the byre to one side with a sleeping loft above, the other being where the family cooks at the peat fire. Their belongings number one hanging cooking pot, one griddle, two rush-seated chairs of peasant make and two or three farm implements, no ornament save their Bridget cross nailed above the fire. There is little light and air in the cabin and what there is reeks of peat smoke so I must confess I remained but a short time within, but I will say the room was swept though whether in honour of my visit I cannot say. Their windows are as usual small, and stuffed with rags. In the sleeping loft is an ancient straw-filled palliasse. The father tells me that he and his wife sleep in the centre, with the youngest child next the parent of the same sex, and thus lying outwards in order of age—this arrangement we have often seen. Thomas would not accept our offer of help willingly, for he feared that we would take his children from him and send them to the Charter School, and, he says, he cannot put in danger their immortal souls. After some reasoning he accepted of the Society clothing for the children of the most rude cut and stuff. The entire family goes barefoot but he would not permit me to speak of any shoes for he said this would arouse too much suspicion especially from my Lord Goward’s man Blanch, of whom we have already heard speak and little of it good especially when that gentleman have drink taken as he do often. The presence of Lady Mitchelstown at the Big House is of scandal to us all that even his lowliest tenants should know of it though it is said that Lord Goward tolerates this as it keeps his son from the servants and Lady Goward will hear nor see no ill of her boy.
The deed Thomas shew’d me is in the form of a last will and testament of Patrick Kearney inheriting his only surviving son Thomas against the day when this land be returned to its owners, but this document have no legal worth though Thomas set great store by it.
We are grateful to our brother Edwin Chittleborough for bringing this family to our notice. Our brother warns that the House is not a fit place for girls without protection though he and our sister Janet do what is possible that the girl Bridget not be ruined nor her sister Mary if she is to follow her there.
I have sought to put down Thomas’s words faithfully to shew that he be worthy of our charity. This is the deposition of Brother Samuel Ingham, Chandler, of the Religious Society of Friends, Moyallan Meeting House, in the county of Down the eighteenth day of the first month of the year seventeen hundred and sixty-five.
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Blurb:
‘I am dead, my Mary; the man who loved you body and soul lies in some dishonorable grave.’ In County Down, Ireland, in 1767, a nobleman secretly marries his servant, in defiance of law, class, and religion. Can their love survive tumultuous times?
‘Honest and intriguing, this gripping saga will transport and inspire you, and it just might break your heart. Highly recommended.’
~ Historical Novel Society
‘Mezzacappa brings nuance and a great depth of historical knowledge to the cross-class romance between a servant and a nobleman.’
~ Publishers Weekly
The Ballad of Mary Kearney is a compelling must-read for anyone interested in Irish history, told through the means of an enduring but ultimately tragic love.
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