If I were in America,
I could say, “I love you, Dad,”
the way they do
in the films.
But in Limerick,
they’d laugh at you.
In Limerick, you’re
only allowed to say...
you love God and babies
and horses that win.
Anything else
is softness in the head.
Go home, Frankie.
In another week,
a telegram arrived for three pounds,
and we were in heaven.
The next Saturday,
there was no telegram.
Nor the week after.
Nor any Saturday forever.
What are you doing?
Careful. We’re making a fire.
It’s freezing.
Come on, Frankie,
give us a hand, will you?
Oh! Yay!
Take the Pope, Michael.
Here, put the Pope
on the bed.
– Is that you, Frankie?
–is, Mrs. Purcell.
Come on in
out of the cold, son.
Holy blessed God,
you’re freezing with the cold, boy.
Isn’t it grand,
the radio, Frankie?
’Tis, Mrs. Purcell.
Do you see Bedouins
in the Sahara...
and the cowboys
on the prairie?
I do.
And people sipping wine
in cafes.
And sailors in their galleons
sipping their cocoa.
And plays about the Greeks, where they
have to pluck out their eyes...
because they married
their mothers by mistake.
And the Shakespeare.
I love the Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes,
Mrs. Purcell.
You can’t get enough
of them.
I’m sure Mr. Shakespeare
must have been an Irishman.
If you want
the things you love
You must have showers
Ah, Billie Holiday.
Oh, Billie, Billie.
I want to be with you
in America.
There’ll be pennies
from heaven
For you and me
Oh, America.
Where no one has bad teeth
and everyone has a lavatory.
Great God in heaven,
where’s the other room?
What room?
I rented you two rooms
up here, and one is gone.
I distinctly remember a wall
because I distinctly remember a room.
– Where’s that room gone?
– I don’t remember a wall.
And if I don’t remember a wall,
I can’t remember a room.
I want to know where that wall is
and what she did with that room!
Do any of you
remember a wall?
Is that the wall
we burned in the fire?
Dear God.
This takes the bloody biscuit.
It’s four weeks behind
in the rent you are, and now this.
Out, missus.
I’m putting you out.
One week from today,
I’ll knock on this door,
and I want to find
nobody home.
Everybody out.
Never to return.
’Tis a pity you weren’t alive
when the English...
were evicting us
and leaving us on the road.
No lip from you, missus, or I’ll send
the men to put you out tomorrow.
It’s out on the pavement you’ll be
with the sky peeing on your furniture.
Oh, dear God in heaven,
what am I going to do?
Your cousin, Laman Griffin,
is living on the Rosbrien Road...
in that little house
of his mother’s.
He’ll surely take you in
till better times come.
I’ll go and see him now.
Frankie, come with me.
And put your mac on.
I haven’t got a mac.
Jesus, what a family.
Grandma caught a chill that day,
and the chill
turned to pneumonia.
They shifted her
to the City Home Hospital,
and when she died,
Mam said that her family...
was disappearing
before her very eyes.
– Frankie, will you shut the door?
– Let’s go.
– Right. Let’s go.
– Malachy, the wheel’s all bockety.
– Kaiser Bill marched over the hill
– Shut up, will you?
To fight
the British Army
They’re all going to know
we got the eviction. Will you be quiet?
And so Malachy, Michael, Mam, and me...
moved into mom’s cousin’s--
Laman Griffin-- on the Rosbrien Road.
– Did you get the library books?
– I did.
Go in the yard and see if there’s
something else to go on this fire.
– Is that for us?
– No, his lordship upstairs.
Why ask?
It was the same every week--
one steak, four potatoes, an onion,
and a bottle of stout.
Frankie, are you back?
Will you
take up the books?
Good boy, Frankie.
Put them on the bed there.
Angela, the chamber pot
is full.
Is there anything else
your lordship would like?
Woman’s work, Angela.
Woman’s work and free rent.
– I’ll empty it.
– You will?
Okay, Frankie. Take it outside
and rinse it under the tap.