Of the Living or of the Dead?

by Conall O’Cuinn

We were told Mr Bomford held a service only once a year on Christmas Day in the Protestant Church in Athenry, a steepled building, long in decay, its graveyard derelict and overgrown.

The churchyard was our continent of exploration and discovery. We'd creep among the raised tombs, peer through the narrow gaps left by earlier conquistadores who in previous forays had slid back the heavy stone capping allowing in enough light for us to decipher what lay below: perfect skeletons reposing like sets of bone cutlery, each piece lying in state with intended symmetry. The long femur bones, however, seemed out of place, huge, more like white hurly-sticks on the edge of a pitch waiting to be picked up.

A mausoleum stood like a small house near the perimeter wall, with its front door, large keyhole, its riveted hinges rusting in the damp undergrowth. The door creaked in complaint as we prized it open, shoving back a layer of detritus like the wide blade of a bulldozer as it unearthed the hidden treasures within. As our eyes adjusted, shelved coffins slowly revealed themselves, some intact, others but crumbled dust among a tangle of bones. From a top shelf a leering skull defied us to come closer. We entered this twilight meeting zone between the living and the dead, trembling like timid kittens as we sniffed the stale air, testing the ground beneath us for trapdoors, wide-eyed like bats, and ready to bolt at the merest crunch of an empty snail shell. Later as we returned home for our tea, we debated whether Mr Bomford himself, the Reverend Canon Isaac John North Bomford, belonged to the living, or to the dead.

The old gentleman lived in the Rectory which stood in from the Raheen Road beyond the railway crossing at the edge of town, a large red-bricked house - unusual for Athenry - hidden in a mature wood with deep undergrowth. We used to climb over the high wall, drop down into the depths of his garden, sneak across to the windowsill of his living room to peep though the cobwebbed window. We’d make him out in the half-light sitting in his armchair. The large high draft-excluder, like blinkers, obscured his face so that he could not see us. He always had a book in his gloved hands, and sliced pan wrappers on the ground surrounded him like mammoth confetti. The carpet showed itself in spots like an earlier exposed strata hidden below a layer of turf mould that over long years had crept out from the fireplace and inch by inch surrounded him.

One day we balanced atop the ivied wall to have the bejesus knocked out of us when we spotted the dark eyes of his uncountable cats staring out at us like a battery of surveillance cameras. We jumped and scattered.

Sometimes we'd lead a novice explorer, usually one of our little brothers, never a sister, on an initiation trek deep into the rectory woods to a clearing, Mr Bomford's private cat cemetery with its miniature carved tombstones: "To my dear Elsie, who departed this life, September 23rd, 1945. RIP. A whole history of cats laid out for us, monuments to the memory of lost companions.

My doctor-father once told us of his non-medical visits to Mr Bomford to chat with him about French literature, an interest they both shared. His amusement at how, when the subject had been dealt with and before the conversation could degenerate into small talk, the reclusive host would stand, pronounce his 'Good-day, doctor,' and exit the room leaving my still seated father to make his own way out.

And then how I met the man himself one day, face to face in Connolly's Pharmacy on Old Church Street, seated on an upright chair, his string bag with its sliced pan lying obediently beside him on the floor. How he engaged me in quiet conversation, human, warm, respectful, enquiring. The answer to our question sat there in front of me. Mr Bomford belonged very much to the living and not to the dead.

Galway, 2019