[{"node":{"title":"Hanna011","Collections":"Part One","Contributor":"Linen Hall Library","Coverage":"1951","Creator":"Linen Hall Library","Date":"Thursday, April 7, 2016","Format":"TIFF","Identifier":"Hanna011","Item Description":"Manuscript","Keywords":"Echlin, Daughter","Language":"English","Path":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/content/hanna011","Publisher":"Linen Hall Library","Relation":"Linen Hall Library","Rights":"Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA","Scanned image":{"src":"https://www.niliteraryarchive.com/sites/default/files/Hanna011_0.jpg","alt":""},"Source":"LHL Archive","Transcript":"6\n\ncurve of the bowed earth walls. The house faced inland; to its right,\n\ntowards the lough, were the barns and byres. To its left, the stackyard,\n\nbounded by a delicate file of rowan trees which ended where the rutted\n\nloanen, climbing from the road, emptied into the close.\n\nWhen Margaret Echlin turned her face from her husband and sons, from\n\ndung-crusted beasts and hungry fowl and clashing pails, only then did her\n\nhusband Andrew realise what part she had filled in Rathard. It was as if the\n\nwhole framework of the farm\u2019s daily life had been withdrawn, hardly a task\n\nabout the kitchen or the fields but now lacked some essential part. Urgently,\n\nAndrew set about finding someone to tend to himself and his sons.\n\nHis task was not an easy one, for Rathard was surrounded by prosperous\n\ncottiers, the farms of which absorbed all the labour that each family could\n\nexpend. But in the neighbouring townland of Banyil was a group of labourers'\n\ncottage in which lived the old residenters or their children, tenants of a\n\nvanished demense. In one of these cottages lived Charlie Gomartin, a thatcher\n\nwith his wife and daughter Sarah, now a woman of thirty years. Charlie had\n\ntravelled the countryside to ply his trade; but as time passed and Sarah\n\ngrew up, his circuits became wider and his appearances at home more and more\n\ninfrequent, until at last he disappeared entirely, and a rumour drifted to\n\nBanyil that he had died on a Sligo road among tinker people.\n\nMartha Gomartin and her daughter earned their money working in the\n\nhouses and fields of neighbouring farmers, more often that of Mr Bourke,\n\nowner of the cottages. Martha was held in regard for her labour, frugality\n\nand honesty. Sarah, like herself, was a fine worker^better in the kitchen\n\nthan her mother. Some said that she was as simple as a mouse, others that\n\nshe was a sly lady. But she went her road quietly and didn't meddle with\n\nthe boys\n","Type":"Text"}}]