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so early in the afternoon, something the mints he sucked on failed to hide. Having extracted a half-promise from her that she would at least talk to Larry about it, he left. He did not, she noticed, make any reference to her absent husband. Now here was Seamus Norbert trying his level best to get Larry to quit school in favor of hurling and a job. It might not be much of a job that he was offering, but anything was worth considering at a time when the talk was of little but recession and hard times.
    After much agonizing, Brona had decided that she would leave it up to Larry himself to decide. She had more than enough to do in running the farm and looking after the young ones without having to decide the future of her eldest child. Though still a month short of seventeen years old, Larry had a good head on his shoulders. And a brave heart, too. She smiled as she remembered how he had stood up for her when her husband had ranted and roared about there being no food in the house. Where others might have cowered with fright, Larry had stood up to him with clenched fists: “If you gave Ma half of what you give to the bookies every day of the week, we’d have all the food we could eat.”
    Of course the boy was right, but Sean, she supposed halfheartedly, had done his best. Backing horses was the only luxury he allowed himself, even if it was an increasingly expensive one since they had let him go at the Creamery. He had tried to get work around Trabane but without success. The work just wasn’t there for anyone. It wasn’t until after he had left that she’d found out he had borrowed money from his friends. The last straw was the letter out of the blue from Leo Martin, the bank manager. It had arrived that very morning and she had had to sit down after reading it. Little wonder then that she found hurling a safer topic than Larry’s future to discuss with Norbert, who showed no signs of leaving despite his claims to be run off his feet. She tried to sound concerned as she asked, “Will they beat Lisbeg this time?”
    â€œI certainly hope so. Lisbeg have beaten us for the past three years, though we should have won it out last year. Only for that blind bastard of a referee—in pardon to you, missus—sending two of our best men off in the first half, we’d have beaten them fair and square.”
    â€œIt’s being played in Lisbeg this year, isn’t it?”
    â€œIndeed it is and that’s no help, I can tell you. Their supporters are the biggest bunch of savages I’ve ever laid eyes on. I’d say half of them would eat their young without salt if they got the chance. How they managed to steal that factory from under our noses is something I will never understand till the day I die.”
    Brona laughed ruefully. A call center with sixty jobs that would handle subscription lists and renewals for several international magazines had been promised to Trabane before the last election, but it had gone to Lisbeg in the heel of the hunt. As for Norbert, he was a fanatic where the GAA and hurling were concerned and could see no further than Trabane Gaels. Brona regarded the Gaelic Athletic Association as just another sporting organization, neither better nor worse than the others, and hurling just a game the same as any other. Not that she would speak such heresy to someone like Norbert. Instead she chided him ever so gently, “Are you forgetting that my husband comes from Lisbeg?”
    Norbert could have kicked himself for the oversight. Of course Sean Lynch was born and reared in Lisbeg. That could explain a lot, he decided. Sean, the useless bastard, would bet his last shilling on two flies going up a wall, and look where it had got him.
    â€œIndeed I was, missus. I was forgetting he was born and bred in Lisbeg.” A pause, then: “Any word from him yet?”
    Brona didn’t answer, and Norbert, fearing that he had overstepped himself, hurriedly changed