<> The Mortal Place John Hewitt Estate 1986 Linen Hall Library Wednesday, March 16, 2016 TIFF Hewitt004 Manuscript Catholic, Estate, Shot English https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hewitt004 Linen Hall Library Linen Hall Library Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hewitt004_0.jpg LHL Archive John Hewitt The Mortal Place Now it has come to this, the little glen within the tree-groined slope of the quarried hill where we lit our twig-fires some Saturdays on flat ground near the stream we paddled in, a few months since was nest of a hid body, a Catholic shot by gunmen never named. The gate which leads to that glen steps off the road that is a highway now with frequent cars, but once a country lane. Here then it was my mother pushed my pram, when once I spoke my first recorded words observing the lough, Ship. Boat. Water – saluting its distant port below us south in the sunny valley. A new estate swarms up its rising ground; there in the house, in the bed a young woman was shot, her only crime to marry outside her faith. From nearer home peal out familiar names of streets beside our terrace, chiming names, a litany of Dargle, Annalee, Avonbeg and Roe. The two last resonant in anxious bulletins Text