Ten minutes later, I was pulling down the main street of tiny Dromahair, searching for signs and symbols. I was not sure where to begin. I couldn’t start knocking on doors, asking questions about people who had lived so long ago. I walked through a church cemetery, eyeing the names and dates, the clusters that indicated family, the flowers that indicated love.
There were no Gallaghers in the small graveyard, and I climbed back into my car and continued down the main street until I saw a small sign that said “Library,” underlined by an arrow pointing down a narrow lane no bigger than an alleyway.
It was little more than a stone cottage, with four rough walls, a slate roof, and two dark windows, but libraries were great for research. I rolled to a stop in a gravel space not big enough for more than three patrons and turned off the car.
Inside, it was smaller than my home office in Manhattan. And apartments in Manhattan were notoriously small, even when they cost two million dollars. A woman, maybe a few years older than I, hunched over a novel, and books that needed to be reshelved were piled on her desk. She sat up and smiled vacantly, still lost in her story, and I stretched out my hand in greeting.
“Hello. I know this is strange, but I thought maybe the library was a good place to start. My grandfather was born here in 1915. He said something about his father being a farmer. My grandfather went to America in the early thirties, and he never came back. I wanted to see”—I waved my hand helplessly toward the broad window that gave me a view of a little alleyway and not much else—“where he was from and maybe see where his parents are buried.”
“What was the family name?”
“Gallagher,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t hear the story of the woman who drowned in the lake again.
“It’s a common enough name. My own mother was a Gallagher. But she’s from Donegal.” She stood and made her way around her desk and the piles of books she clearly had no room for.
“We have a whole collection of books written by a woman named Gallagher.” She stopped in front of a shelf and straightened a stack. “They were written in the early twenties but professionally reprinted and donated to the library last spring. I’ve read them all. Delightful, really. All of them. She was ahead of her time.”
I smiled and nodded. Books by a woman with a common last name weren’t exactly what I was looking for, but I didn’t want to be rude.
“What townland?” she asked expectantly.
I stared at her blankly. “Townland?”
“The land is divided up into townlands, and each one has a name. There are roughly fifteen hundred townlands in County Leitrim. You said your great-grandfather was a farmer.” She smiled ruefully. “Everyone in rural Ireland was a farmer, lovey.”
I thought of the painfully small village I’d driven through, the cluster of homes, and the little main thoroughfare. “I don’t know. Isn’t there a cemetery? I thought I could just explore a bit. It’s a small county, isn’t it?”
It was her turn to stare at me blankly. “There are plots in every townland. If you don’t know the townland, you’ll never find the grave. And most of the older graves don’t have headstones. It required money to have a headstone, and nobody had money. They just used markers. The family knows who is who.”
“But . . . I’m family, and I have no idea,” I blurted, oddly emotional. Jet lag, near-death experiences, and needles in haystacks were catching up to me.
“I’ll call Maeve. She was the Killanummery parish secretary for almost fifty years,” she offered, her eyes widening at my distress. “Maybe there are some church records you could look through. If anyone knows something, it will be Maeve.” She picked up the phone and dialed from memory, her eyes flitting uncomfortably between me and the stack of books on her desk.
“Maeve, this is Deirdre at the library. The book you’ve been waitin’ for is available. No, not that one. The one about the bad-boy billionaire.” Deirdre was silent, nodding, even though the woman she was speaking to couldn’t know she was being agreed with. “That’s right. I peeked at it. You’ll like it.” Her eyes swung to me and away again. “Maeve, I’ve got a woman here. All the way from America. She says she has family from the area. I was wondering if there are parish records she could look at. She’s wantin’ to find where they’re buried.” She nodded again, sadly this time, and I guessed Maeve was telling her what she already knew.
“You could go to Ballinamore,” Deirdre said, moving her mouth from the receiver, as if Maeve had instructed her to tell me immediately. “There’s a genealogical center there. Maybe they can help. Are you stayin’ in Sligo?”
I nodded in surprise.
“There’s really nowhere to lodge around here, unless you’ve rented a room at the manor by the lake, but most people don’t even know it’s there. They don’t advertise,” Deirdre explained.
I shook my head, indicating I had not known either, and Deirdre reported this to Maeve.
“The family name is Gallagher.” She listened for a moment. “I’ll tell her.” She pulled the receiver away from her mouth again.
“Maeve wants you to bring her the book about the billionaire and have some tea with her. She says you can tell her about your family, and maybe she’ll think of something. She’s as old as the hills,” Deirdre whispered, muffling the receiver so Maeve wouldn’t hear her commentary. “But she remembers everything.”
The woman opened the door before I could knock. Her hair was so fine and wispy, it created a gray cloud around her head. Her glasses, rimmed in black and as thick as the palm of my hand, were wider than her face. She peered up at me through them with blinking blue eyes and pursed lips painted fuchsia.
“Maeve?” I realized suddenly I didn’t know her last name. “I’m so sorry. Deirdre didn’t tell me your full name. Can I call you Maeve?”
“I know you,” she said, her brow—already a topographic map of grooves and valleys—wrinkling even further.
“You do?”
“I do.”
I stuck out my hand in greeting. “Deirdre sent me.”
She didn’t take it but stepped back and waved me in. “What was your name, lass? Just because I know your face doesn’t mean I remember your name.” She turned and tottered away, clearly expecting me to follow. I did, shutting the door behind me, the smell of damp and dust and cat dander wafting around me.
“Anne Gallagher,” I said. “I’m Anne Gallagher. I suppose I’m on a roots trip of sorts. My grandfather was born here, in Dromahair. I would really like to find where his parents are buried.”
Maeve was heading for a small table set for tea tucked next to a pair of tall windows looking out on an overgrown garden, but when I said my name, she stopped abruptly as though she’d forgotten her destination entirely.
“Eoin,” she said.
“Yes! Eoin Gallagher was my grandfather.” My heart cantered giddily. I took a few steps, not certain if she wanted me to sit for tea or remain standing. She was perfectly still for several moments, her back to me, her small figure framed by the afternoon light and frozen in remembrance or forgetfulness, I didn’t know which. I waited for her to offer instruction or extend an invitation, hoping that she wouldn’t forget she’d let a stranger into her home. I cleared my throat gently.
“Maeve?”
“She said you’d come.”
“Deirdre? Yes. She also sent your book.” I dug it from my purse and took a few more steps.
“Not Deirdre, goose. Anne. Anne said you’d come. I need tea. We’ll have tea,” she muttered, moving once again. She sat at the table and looked at me expectantly. I debated making my excuses. I suddenly felt like I was caught in a Dickens novel, taking tea with Miss Havisham. I had no desire to eat ancient wedding cake and drink Earl Grey in dusty teacups.
“Oh. That’s very kind of you,” I hedged, setting the bad-boy billionaire book on the end table nearest me.
“Eoin never came back to Dromahair. Not many do. There’s a name for that, you know. They call it an Irish goodbye. But here you are,” Maeve said, still staring at me.
I couldn’t resist the lure of Eoin’s name. I set my bag down next to the chair across from her and slid into the seat. I tried not to look too closely at the little plate of cookies or the flowered plates and teacups. What I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me.
“Will you pour?” she asked primly.
“Yes. Yes, I’d be glad to,” I stammered, trying to remember a moment when I’d felt more uncomfortably American. I mentally scrambled for the etiquette, trying to remember what came first.
“Strong or weak?” I asked.
“Strong.”
My hands shook as I held the little strainer over her cup and filled it three-quarters full. Eoin had always preferred tea. I could serve tea.
“Sugar, lemon, or milk?” I asked.
She sniffed. “Plain.”
I bit my lip to hide my gratitude, splashed a little tea in my own cup, and wished for wine.
She raised the tea to her lips and drank with disinterest, and I followed her lead.