The Wee White Ba'
• A N Irish country town is not usually thought of as 4-1- being an abode of peace and harmony—particu larly if it is in that debatable and debating district towards the Border. Meenaroy is in the Free State, but from the hill at the back of the town we see, more than twenty miles distant, the hills in the Six Counties. And in this district, where we speak with an accent that is neither the hard speech of the Six Counties nor the soft drawl of the South, North and South meet.. At Meenaroy, however, we have arranged things so that North and. South meet on a golf links. We laid it out two years ago, and it makes a difference.
The links sprawl up the hillside at the back of the town. The first hole is at the bottom, the ninth amid the boulders and gorse at the top. Between the two toils half Meenaroy, golfers first and priest, parson or what not, afterwards. So it is that old John McTavy (they say he is a Freethinker, which is a terrible charge in a town clamorous with church, chapel and meeting-house bells) halves a hole with the Presbyterian minister. Whenever old John wins the minister consoles himself by warning him that lie will not always be a hole ahead.
It is on the links that more than one embarrassed man of business, having allowed himself to be narrowly beaten by the bank manager (a keen golfer), has broached the subject of an overdraft. There the priest sometimes helps the pars on to find a ball lost in the rough. There the retired Constabulary Inspector discusses the last Election with a certain young teacher who, " on the run," was throughout 1920 hunted across Ireland from cabin to cabin. Sometimes on a summer evening the two girls from McRory's General Drapery vary their usual pro- menade up and down Main Street by hacking their 'unscientific but exuberant way round the nine holes. And it was on the airy ninth green, one morning when there was spring in the air and the sun was on the hills, and when the rest of Meenaroy. were conveniently at work, that there was talk of marriage from the doctor's daughter and the young solicitor from Belfast, It is true. that we are .subjects for ridicule to the farmers,and.!`.mountainy.fo*" who come into licenaroy from the surrounding countryside. They say that it's " a puir thing to be dandering round-a field after a wee-white ba'." They say that we are "not wise "—an expression equivalent to. touching their foreheads ; that we are " no reet in the heid." Well, we are all right in the lungs, for at Meenaroy golf is a game for hardy people. On two days out of three all the year round grey veils of rain from the Atlantic sweep through the valleys and fling them- selves along the unprotected hillside, and many a golfer, absorbed in the dilatory progress of his ball up near the eighth and ninth, is caught unawares and has to cower behind an inadequate gorse bush. Even if he had time . to dash down to the tin shed, in which are hung coats and hats, beside the first tee, he would usually find it com- pletely filled with the huge bulk of Father McMerty ; for Father McMerty spends most of his golfing time flounder- ing in the rough between the first and third holes and, with regard to the shed, he is like the figure that pops into a box at sign of rain.
It is stern business now when it unexpectedly rains, but it will be fun when we get a real clubhouse and we all shelter together. Even now we have fun sometimes when a crowd of us are held up at the first tee by Father McMerty.
" Damn McMerty ! " says outspoken Attorney McClanchy, gripping his driver viciously.
" I beg yuir pardon ? " says the minister, who is a little deaf, in his Scottish-Irish accent.
" I said ' Damn McMerty ! ' " exclaims McClanchy. " If I was the Pope I'd make it a m it Al sin to do nine holes in over fufty. McMerty takes fufty over the fairst. We might see a few priests less on the links then : for one thing, they'd be too busy hearing confessions."
" Who are you playing, McClanchy ? " inquires the bank manager, tactfully.
" Doc there," replies Attorney MeClanchy. " He beat my man in Falcarragh Court to-day over that Health Insurance case, so I'm going to get my own back here."
But Father •McMerty has at last holed out on the first green, and a cheer goes up—to be redoubled when he gives way to the oncoming players—and in ten minutes the little group of Meenaroy men is strung out up the hill- side, united in their intent following of the " wee white
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