Read Online Even on Days when it Rains by Julia O'Donnell - Free Book Online

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    If two teaspoons were accidentally placed on your saucer, it was the sign of a wedding.
    You’d be terrified of breaking a mirror because it apparently meant you were going to experience six years of bad luck, and nobody wanted that!
    And if it rained on 15 July, folklore said it would then rain for 40 days and 40 nights. Wasn’t I born on a bad day!
    It was also said that no one ever saw a donkey dying because donkeys are holy animals. They have a cross on the back of their neck. One day our donkey was dying on Owey. I decided to keep a vigil beside my beloved animal as I wanted to be the first person to see a donkey dying. I sat beside the sick pet all day. Eventually I ran into the house for a cup of tea, and when I came out the donkey was dead. And that’s a true story!
    Any spare moment I’d have at home was spent doing knitting, which I’d mastered as a child, taught by a neighbour called Mary Boyle. I was too young at the start to use needles, as they were considered to be dangerous in the hands of children. Instead, I used feathers from a rooster’s wings. My father had honed and shaped them with his pocket knife. Later I graduated to proper needles. At night the women would gather in one house knitting and chatting, while the men would go to a separate house to pass the hours by playing cards and telling yarns. On the way home the men would look at the night sky, and somehow they could predict the weather for the following day. They could tell by the appearance of the sky, the moon and the stars.
    When I got older, I discovered the joy of dancing. It became a real passion, even an obsession, to the point where I would deceive my mother and father by pretending that I was going off to houses to knit with some of my friends, when really I was going off dancing with them on the island. On those days, I’d knit as fast as I could while I was away looking after the cows. If I felt that it was less than I’d be expected to achieve at a night’s knitting session, I’d stretch the sock to make it look longer. Then I’d hide my handiwork in a hole in the ditch so that my mother wouldn’t see it. That night on my way home from my dancing, I’d return to the hole in the ditch, retrieve the woollen sock and then confidently enter the house. If my mother woke up, she wouldn’t be bothered as to where I’d been because I had knitting to show for my night’s escapade. At other times after the rosary was said at night, and my mother and father had gone to sleep, I’d go out to meet some of the other teenagers to chat and dance. The clock in our house used to strike on the hour every hour, so while my mother and father were sleeping I’d put it back two hours in case they awoke when I was coming in late. Then I’d get up in the morning before them and put it forward again. I didn’t see any harm in it as we weren’t doing anything untoward.

chapter four
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    Guttin’ and Tattie Howkin’
    AS THE PACKED train chugged through the pleasing landscape of Gweedore in the Donegal Gaeltacht, where the native Irish language is spoken, I didn’t dare blink for fear of losing sight of Owey.
    My heart was full of sorrow and my face a soggy mass from crying as the island became smaller and smaller in the distance.
    I let out a big sob as it shrank to a mere dot on the horizon. I was taking the train to the boat, which in turn would take me far away from the island. It would be several months before I’d set foot on Owey again, not until Hallowe’en.
    My poor mother and father hadn’t been able to conceal their heartbreak as I’d headed down to the currach on the shore. My father would never cry, but I could see in his eyes that he was suffering pain. Three of the family were leaving that day. My older brothers, James and Edward, were travelling with me, as they had got jobs to do with fishing too. My sister , Maggie, and younger