The Man Carrying the Corpse (1941)

I seen mesel’ with me own two eyes, thanks be to God, a man coming over from Dooega (a village in the South coast of Achill Island about halfway between Allcaca Mionán and Béal na gCliait ) and a corpse on his back. He had “eirif dá lám” (straps or ropes crossing his shoulders and bound to a load carried on the back of a person) on the corpse. The corpse was without a coffin but the clothes that he died in, when he was passing our house , mesel’ and me mother and me sister were looking out, my mother send my sister to help the man to keep the feet of the corpse up, they were sweeping the road. He was going up to Kildownet graveyard to bury the man, my sister Lord have mercy on them on them all, went out and helped him with the corpse. She was about 8 years older then me. I was about 10 or 11 years at the time. He carried that corpse 5 Irish miles and he had a bad road to come, he came over through Aisléim (a village between Kildownet and Dooega) and down here on road to the graveyard. The road he came is called “Bealac na hAisléim go Dub Éige”. I was in the “bad times” they made that road and I was a gasúr working on it for a penny a day and some days we usednt’t get anything and other times we’d get a máimín o’yellow meal.
I saw another man from Dooega with a corpse, (his father’s corpse ) strapped on a ladder and the ladder tied on the man’s back on his way to Kildownet graveyard.
There’s a lot o’people from Dooega buried at the bridge at Hughey Iudóige’s house , down at the shore(H Iudóige’s house is about 80 or 100 yards on the Achill Sound side of Kildownet chapel on the right hand side of the road. The bridge is at the house and a little stream flows down to the sea, beside the mouth of this river the graves are .s.m.) There usedn’t to be any funerals that time except the people that was carrying the corpse. They were bringing them to Kildownet to bury them, but they weren’t able to bring them any father and they had no help so they buried them at the bridge  I was telling you about.