Chapter Thirty-Five

It was the practice of Catholic families, living above the shops in this street, which housed their place of worship, to store refuse and rubbish of all kinds, for months before the event of The March, as they knew that the Band would commence its playing, so that it would march past the Catholic Church around 6.30pm, when the Benediction would be about to begin. The timing was made perfect and it was estimated the March would take approximately half and hour of slow marching, very loud music to reach the church, give or take a minute or two, but no more and the solemnity of the quiet intonations of the Benediction would be drowned in the beat of the many drums and the fast blasts of the piccolo.

The signal was given ... The base drum was struck and the music began as each member proudly stepped out to the beat.

‘It was green and white, with an orange stripe,

The sash my father wore.’

The Band leader battened his way out in front, occasionally throwing his baton into the air and catching it a few feet on, with practised agility. The sight was indeed glorious and the people followed in great excitement. Children with their parents, sang the chorus and the sound could be heard for miles around. All were in good voice and the Band had marched about one hundred yards along the street, when two ladies, clad in their tartan shawls and who had recently enjoyed a little spiritual revival of the intoxicating kind, began to join in the singing.

“Give us a song there, Maggie. You know the one we want to hear.”

“Come on Maggie. Let’s be ‘avin’ ye.”

“Hold yer tongues an’ give ‘er a chance, will ye?”

Maggie was happy to oblige and delivered the required aria, quietly as though the Band did not exist. Her toothless, musical orifice delivered the rendering with dulcet, if quivering notes, as she heaved her chest forward, closing her eyes and clutching her shawl more closely to her thin little frame.

‘Kevin Barry was no coward,’

Her tones were deliberate and profound under the magnificence of the hard-beating drums that surrounded her, but Maggie was oblivious to everything and everyone around her as she performed her mission. Her whiskied breath activated the words as her eyelids dropped heavily over her pale blue eyes. She hiccupped as she sang and tripped on her lisle stocking which had ridden down her scrawny leg, but the incident of the stockingless limb did not deter as she went on with her song.

‘Though there’s no-one can deny,

She wavered and quivered the last syllable with an expertise that astounded many.

‘As he went to death that morning,

He proudly held his head on high. ‘

Her friend, Ida would not be outdone, as she took over the plaintive tones in her own rite.

‘Just a lad of eighteen summers,’

CRUNCH! ... It was then that it happened. The collected garbage fell as heavily as rocks and everyone was covered in shit ... The Band slid about the slimy street, still playing defiantly, if with obvious distorted soundings. Maggie’s face was unrecognisable under the pollution that fell on her and her musical orifice was temporarily indisposed as she gasped and choked to relieve the situation surrounding her.

“Don’t move, Maggie. Don’t move a muscle. Leave it there till I get the Polis,” shouted Ida as Maggie tried in vain to remove the offensive matter from her mouth and she was in no position to argue, as she tried without success to finish her rendition of ‘Kevin Barry’

‘He proud ....proudly held. His ... h ...h ...head on high ...’

Maggie gasped and then fell to the ground and passed out, but the players skated about the street, making every attempt to keep the music going.

‘The sash my father wore.’

“Oh! Gawd, I give up ...”

The Band disbanded and trudged homewards smelling like a sewer, picking lumps of month old rubbish and other things from their fine Sunday clothes.

‘O Salutaris Hostia, quae coeli pandis hostium’

came the plaintive strains from the church, oblivious of the battlefield outside and the singing from the congregation seemed to hold Benediction for the sole benefit of the Orange Walk which had so courageously battled on through the mire and only gave up when they were unable to stand. Incidentally, Maggie never did wait for the Polis ...