Kieran settles the score with our grandmother's goat in Roscommon

My youngest brother Kieran found nothing endearing about his first visit to Ireland.

He was a plump 10-year-old that summer of 1971, when he and his sister, Anne Marie, arrived with our parents to our grandmother’s thatched farmhouse tucked beneath Slieve Bawn in Co Roscommon. 

First off, there was the matter of eating. Kieran couldn’t stomach the corn flakes that were doused in warm, yellowy milk squeezed from cows each morning, or the boiled potatoes with skins that scorched the roof of his mouth, or the lumpy gravy he disgustedly spooned off his plate.

Nor could he make heads or tails out of his three uncles with their diddily i’s and diddily o’s Worse still, he had brought along his baseball glove, but his uncles hadn’t a clue how to play catch, “Peg a wee ball, ya say?”

His bed was no better--an old feathery press bed he shared with Anne Marie-- the pair sinking deeply into its middle where a flurry of elbows were exchanged throughout the night.

The outhouse, too, was out of the question, and Kieran’s task of laying his daily egg was a harrowing experience, squatting over prickly nettles while droves of tartan-clad girls skipped dangerously by.

But worst of all was Grannie Kelly’s pet goat, who, at dinner that first Sunday, walked into the kitchen and promptly butted Kieran clean off his chair.

“Why, our Queen Bess seems to be fond of your bum!” howled Uncle Bennie.

After three agonizing days in Ireland, Kieran prayed to be kidnapped by a host of trooping faeries.

Things brightened that second week, however, when a neighboring boy, Gerry Coyne, dashed into the house wearing a Yankee baseball cap.

“I lived in New York for a short while,” he spouted to Kieran, “but I haven’t played baseball in years. C’mon, I just gathered my school chums in Tiernan’s Field, so let’s teach ‘em baseball!”

Kieran grabbed his mitt and followed the animated lad to a large pasture where a dozen boys and girls, ranging in age from three to 17, had collected themselves.

“We can use these dried-up cow pies for bases,” said Gerry, “and my hurley stick and sliotar will do for a bat and ball.”

Despite Kieran’s initial enthusiasm, he found it difficult to teach this intricate game to kids who’d rather kick a ball than throw it, while stressing that “stealing home” wasn’t a sin, and that, cousin or not, no two players could occupy the same cow pie.

When Kieran took up the hurley for his first at-bat, he suddenly found himself airborne before landing on his already-bruised bottom. Dazed and bone-rattled, he looked up to see Queen Bess grinning down at him.

“Take first base, for ye’re a hit batsman!” shouted Gerry gleefully, as all the kids swarmed around Queen Bess as if she’d hit a game-winning home run.

In the final week of his Celtic captivity, Kieran sat safely on a high wall punching his fist into his mitt, while watching Uncle Mickey wrestle four large sheep into the back seat of his small Morris Minor. Abruptly, Mickey grabbed Kieran and threw him like a bag of spuds into the front seat.

“We’re off to the meat factory,” he announced, “so I hope you’re not squeamish.”

Uncle Mickey puttered down a maze of endless roads as the bleating sheep kicked up such a fuss in the back seat that Kieran’s face was soon squished up against the windshield and repeatedly pummeled by flying hooves. The meat factory itself, situated at the edge of town, resounded with the sickening din of bellowing cows and blast of shotguns.

“Ye’ll never make a slaughter boy,” laughed Mickey, seeing Kieran’s face grow green. He pulled a crumpled pound note from his pocket, “Go up the town, can’t you, and buy yerself some sweets.”

In the town’s main square, Kieran spotted a double-barreled cork gun in a toy shop and purchased it with one thought in mind. That evening, loaded for goat, Kieran hopped a gate, strode boldly across the field, and came face to face with Queen Bess. However, in his jittery preparation for the showdown, Kieran had pushed the corks too snugly into the gun. So when he fired at the nanny from point-blank range, only a soft hiss escaped the gun’s barrels. In turn, Queen Bess smirked beneath her wispy beard, bowed her regal head, and sent Kieran soaring into next week. 

Now it happened that my brother Dermot and I, fresh from adventures in England, arrived at Grannie Kelly’s to see our family off on the eve of their departure. That night, Kieran asked if we’d help him escape the field after he’d gotten even with Grannie’s marble-eyed goat.

On the dawn of execution, we hiked up to Queen Bess’s meadow and were surprised to find Gerry Coyne and his gang already there. Undaunted by the fanfare, Kieran fearlessly hopped the gate and entered the goat’s kingdom. The monarch, meanwhile, stealthily watched his approach, anticipating another cushiony contact with the cheeky American lad wearing his striped Sears Toughskin Huskies, “for children of generous proportions.”

Kieran quickly fired his gun from the hip. Pop! Pop! The first cork bounced off the queen’s forehead, and the second hit her square in the snout. That done, Kieran hightailed it for the gate with the regent hot on his heels, whereupon Dermot and I managed to haul him over the gate in the nick of time.

“How do you feel now, you stupid good-for-nothing old goat!” yelled Kieran from the safety of our arms. Queen Bess, paying little heed to his spitting bawl, went back to cropping grass.

August 1971: Kieran’s showdown with Queen Bess. (Kevin O'Hara)

Throughout the whole drama, the village children remained both confused and astounded by Kieran’s antics. Why, they had never seen the likes of him; a tubby Yankee lad mad for catching a wee ball and now strutting away like a big game hunter after bouncing two harmless corks off a pet goat’s head.

Dermot and I followed our brother’s swagger down the rutted cart path toward our ancestral homestead. Yes, Kieran had finally settled the score with his chief nemesis and was now ready for home. He shortly turned to thank us before slinging his toy rifle over his shoulder--the popgun’s two corks still dangling from the strings of its smoking barrels.

*Kevin O’Hara is the author of “Last of the Donkey Pilgrims,” which chronicles his eight-month, 1,720-mile journey around the coast of Ireland with a donkey and cart in 1979. You can visit his website at TheDonkeyman.com.