She’d walked into Ballycaróg from the bungalow and waited in the half light of a bus shelter until the doors of the community center closed, signaling the meeting was underway. The last to arrive were stuffed in the doorway of the meeting room and turned as she slipped inside, but they forgot her when Fiana began speaking. Annie surveyed the room from a sheltered angle just beyond the threshold.
Entering the room, she shifted into her public relations persona. The room was a stage, and she played her role with a confidence she knew how to exude, whether on a running track or in a boardroom, even if she didn’t feel it.
Yesterday she’d stood on a cliff above Ballycaróg Cove with James and Colm, surveying the proposed mining site. Already there were stakes with orange strips marking out construction areas. Colm had spread waterproof maps on a flat patch of ground to show her where the operations would take place, both on land and offshore. The sea had been too rocky to pay a visit to the spot—a half mile out—where the platforms would be built over the massive underwater mining operation, but she’d seen the blueprints, read the estimates of mineral extraction tonnage, and noted the millions of euros Eire-Evergreen Metals were prepared to invest in anticipation of harvesting billions in the years to come.
Her public relations challenge depended not on understanding the intricacies of extracting copper from the earth or beneath its oceans, or in explaining the growing world demand for a precious metal that played such a significant role in green energy, electronics, and the transfer and security of data. Her mission had everything to do with making a connection between the health and stability of this community and Eire-Evergreen’s interests in what lay beneath its surface. Statistics embedded in arguments and counter-arguments gleaned from white papers and studies filled her head. Her fingers had flown across her laptop’s keyboard these past days, transforming the reams of technical data into talking points and outlines.
Now she faced the opposition. This gathering would be her first chance to gauge how Eire-Evergreen was perceived by the community and whether there were any pro-mine feelings to be cultivated.
“Mr. Scott, how can you let your sons leave Ireland, when there will be good-paying jobs—with salaries your families can live on and save to buy homes, pay school fees, send your kids and grandkids to university—right here?” She strode to the center of the room as she spoke, turning here and there to catch and hold gazes. Her voice was warm and calm, as if she were simply having a conversation with a group of friends. “If your sons want to stay on the Beara Peninsula, if they want to raise your grandchildren here, Eire-Evergreen can help to make that happen. We can be a part of ensuring Beara remains beautiful, pristine, and healthy for generations to come.”
She turned to take in the entire room. And there was Daniel in the back, standing next to a gangly teenage boy. They had matching blue eyes and prominent noses, the boy’s hair bright red, Daniel’s a softer auburn. The boy mimicked Daniel’s posture, one foot set against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. The connection was unmistakable.
His son. She hadn’t noticed a ring during their hike, but that meant so little anymore. She wondered, with a twinge—envy or curiosity?—if any of the women in this room could claim Daniel Savage. The thought was fleeting and foolish, and she let it go.
“I apologize.” Now she addressed the head table, showing careful deference to the opposition. “I didn’t mean to crash your meeting. My name is Annie Crowe.” She paused to let her solid Irish name sink in, hinting at an ancestral connection. In fact, her grandfather had changed Chrzanowski to Crowe when he landed at Halifax, Nova Scotia, from Lódz, Poland, in 1921. But today, let them wonder. Let them assume. Let them think she was one of the vast Irish diaspora come home.
“I work for Eire-Evergreen Metals in America,” she explained, wringing a mostly true statement out of a business relationship. “My job is to make certain your voices are heard. I’m here to listen to your concerns and to provide you with the information from our company that will help you make the best decisions for your community and your families.”
The woman who had spoken so compellingly a few minutes before—what had Noah Scott called her? Fiana—seemed nonplussed by Annie’s interruption. She stared at her with a hurt expression, as if Annie had betrayed some solidarity between them.
Fiana opened her mouth but then turned to the two men seated at the table behind her. The smaller man, with a snow-white shock of hair and a neatly trimmed white beard, rose and placed his palms flat on the table.
“Ms. Crowe, Ballycaróg is pleased to meet you. I’m Mort MacGeoghegan, and on behalf of our village, I say Céad mile fáilte to you: one hundred thousand welcomes. Thank you for coming all the way from America with our best interests at heart.”
Some tittered at Mort’s irony, but Annie knew she’d made the connection. People listened when jobs were on the line. James and Colm assured her they’d listen even more closely if American dollars were behind Irish euros. No matter how bad the downturn, American investment still meant something in Ireland.
The skill that allowed her to size up her opponents and zero in on their strengths and weaknesses told Annie that Mort MacGeoghegan was not to be underestimated. The lines around his sparkling blue eyes and the dimple on his left cheek told her that he smiled often and deeply. Something ancient and sad in those blue eyes held her gaze. He could see through her, see past her smooth confidence into the well of ambivalence that was filling even as she remembered to keep her shoulders back, her chin up, to push the easy smile on her lips into her eyes. To convince them she was worthy of their time, their trust.
Annie pulled her eyes away from Mort’s. “I lived in Cork as a student.” She turned again to the crowd. “I brought my husband back to the west of Ireland a few years ago.” This she said to reassure the women that her blond hair and American accent posed no threat—she was one of them, a married woman with a husband to manage. “But it wasn’t until Daniel Savage took me into the Slieve Miskish mountains two days ago that I really understood how precious this land is.”
All heads swiveled to the back of the room to Daniel. He pushed himself away from the wall, his face registering surprise. Annie turned back to Mort, Michael, and Fiana, whose mouth was dropped in shock, her face flushed. Annie followed Fiana’s gaze to Daniel and the boy standing next to him. The boy had his mother’s mouth, the shape of her eyes.
Fiana and Daniel?
“Daniel took James MacKenna, the director of operations of Eire-Evergreen and son of the founder of MacKenna Mining, and me on a hike into the hills above Ballycaróg Cove. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. At that moment, I knew we—Eire-Evergreen Metals—had been given an opportunity to help the Beara Peninsula protect its unique beauty.”
“Aren’t you just in it for the money, lass?” shouted a voice from the crowd. Laughter and murmurs of assent and indignation followed.
“Of course we’re in it for the money. MacKenna Mining employs four thousand people worldwide; Eire-Evergreen is just one small subsidiary. It’s about creating jobs, sustaining a business, growing opportunities, and yes, answering to our shareholders.”
She addressed the room once more. “Mr. MacKenna recently purchased a home in Ballycaróg on the very same land his great-great grandfather, Orin MacKenna, helped homestead in the 1880s.”
Bodies leaned in again, eyes followed her, heads nodded. Time to make the connection, to bring it home and close the deal, at least for tonight. “Orin MacKenna mined at Minach Mòr until it closed in 1882. He left Ireland the following year to seek his fortune in Australia. It took four generations for the MacKennas to return. But here they are, hoping to create an industry on Beara so your sons and grandsons will never have reason to leave.” As she spoke, she looked right at Daniel.
Mise Éire, the voice whispered, and the room seemed to fall away. So low, the voice could be a woman’s or a man’s, or simply the wind moaning through the door that opened and shut in the hallway beyond.
Mise Éire, and she stared at Daniel, waiting for him to acknowledge the sounds that echoed between them. His eyes widened, as if he, too, heard the call. Then a shadow seemed to cross his face, leaving something like sadness trailing behind.
That’s it. Her convincing argument had alienated the one person here whose approval she yearned for. He’s gone.