Original subtitles

That child is not my daughter!

She's not kin to me and she will not inherit.

BETH: The heartbreak of this place?

Love lt‘ and hate it like no place else on earth.

Tomorrow I leave it foreveri

DONNELLY: Do you know a not so young man called Maurice Fairbrother?

BILLY: And you think this Fairbrother's a Dublin Castle agent? A spy?

I don't know what he is, Billy, but he intends to call on you.

Say what it is that has you moody.

The last time you came in and sat on my bed

kissed me, not fatherly...

HE WHISPERS Oh, God.

I'm Liam Ward of Brackagh.

You have a problem, Liam?

BETH: You know, since that first time in the yard

you‘ve seldom been far from my mind and heart,

You've done this before, Liam?

A question? — A statement.

BETH: One night, when I was twelve, he got very drunk

opened the big safe in the gun room and showed me his gold,

Why not take what we need?

I couldn't kill anyone. Nor would I want you to.

There are bromides.

Opiates that will pacify a nervous horse.

When will he next have drink taken?

July tenth, my birthday,

BETH: One thing is certain sure...

God will not smile on what is planned for tonight.

WAGON GETS CLOSER

BIRDS CHIRP — CHICKENS CLUCK

Is this the gentleman? — PIG OINKS

That's Albert.

BLESSING: And a very stout gentleman he is,

Albert...

MERCY: Come on, Albert. - BLESSING: Come on, Albert.

MERCY: Come on, Albert.

BLESSING: Fetch us a scald of water, Mercy, will you?

PIG SQUEALS — Poor Albert.

Blinky Blessing's here.

SQUEALS CONTINUE

You'd wonder sometimes about killing creatures at all.

Small wonder. We seem good at it.

DRIPPING

Jesus, is all the help going?

Tip the scald for me at least.

SHE GRUNTS - How about it, Mercy?

Huh? — BOTH GRUNT

Hey.

All you'll get from me, Blessing, is a thick ear or a scrabbed face!

Let me out.

What are you counting your wee beads?

Saying your rosary?

Jesus, Boyle! You've me pants destroyed!

No, but you're the sudden wee bunt!

Huffl am.

It's a sight sweeter than your smelly danglers.

He's a bad dog that fellah.

Blessing? He's strange, certainly.

Bad. My father says that bad dogs should be put down.

"You'd wonder sometimes about killing creatures at all?"

MERCY CHUCKLES

We should shape to go, miss,

Flight... let's see... - MARTIN: Boss!

A gentleman for you here.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

Maurice Fairbrother.

Are you free to talk a little?

Are you buying or selling, Mister Fairbrother?

Inquiring.

Then you'd better come with me.

FAIRBROTHER: I'll not waste your time, Mister Winters.

My brief here has to do with Irish—American plots to bomb England,

As you see, on Saturday 24th of January alone

three bombs exploded in London.

One in the House of Commons, in Westminster Hall

and in the banqueting room of the Tower of London.

What has that got to do with me?

The plots are Irish—American, Mister Winters

the dynamite stolen from closer to home.

The man we suspect is both a neighbour and a tenant of yours... Liam Ward.

Surely you know the man, sir?

I know him.

He was in this room a few hours ago.

Is he one of them? A Fenian?

He's listed Clan na Gael and Republican Brotherhoods in Boston and New York.

BILLY WHISPERS Dear God.

We arrested a known associate of Ward's in Liverpool.

When we searched his room we found a case beneath the bed.

It contained sixty pounds of dynamite

some of the dynamite sticks marked with the name of your quarry.

So why haven't you arrested Ward?

That's none of your concern, Mister Winters.

What we need from you is information.

Well, I can't help you, I know nothing,

But you would if you can?

But how? If I know nothing?

The British Administration here relies on three things

Mister Winters: the Army, The Royal Irish Constabulary, and landlords.

No, sir, you can't shrug it off.

We're not talking about back—street cut—throats.

We're talking about the evil that guides them:

the cells in Dublin, Boston, New York, Paris and God knows where else.

We're talking about hatred versus loyalty,

What the Fenian Dynamite Campaign aspires to

what it declares openly it has sworn to obtain

is not merely the repeal of the Union

but the establishment of a perfectly independent Irish Republic.

As you can see I have a quarry here, a stone—cutting business.

And my cows milk, my hens lay, my pigs fatten

my garden yields

and I have orchards full of bramleys

and ditches full of damsons, and bogs full of turf.

And when it rains the grass grows, and when it shines we make hay.

I believe in that, Mister Fairbrother, and very little else.

Nor am | over-fond of informers.

Now there's the door. I think you should use it.

FAIRBROTHER SIGHS

What's this?

It's a copy of a complaint lodged by your late wife Catherine

at Enniskillen barracks fourteen years ago.

You must know what it's about.

It says you punched her drunkenly and locked her out in midwinter.

Police reports tend to use words like "molest".

I looked it up. It means interfere harmfully

to cause acute distress, to abuse, to brutalise, to debase...

You have a foreman down there.

Would he, for example, know or suspect anything about missing dynamite?

You have six tenements in the village, a farm and two cabins on your land.

Are you saying from all these people there's none can tell you anything

none in your debt can oblige a query?

You're in the wrong shop, so...

And your tell-tale foolscap can't dock me for old sorrows.

Not just old sorrows it would seem.

There is fresh detail.

You have a daughter...

l have.

Dearer to me than all of this.

Apparently your daughter has twice this past year sought refuge

in the bed of a maidservant Mercy Boyle, to avoid...

BELL RINGS - .,.and again

the word used in the report is "molesta——" - Get out!

EXPLOSION

HE COUGHS

MERCY PANTS - Shall we swap?

Let's sit a minute.

MERCY SIGHS

BETH: Does the stealing not worry you?

Surely it must?

It's not stealing. It's taking back what was stole from us long ago.

I've never taken so much as a farthing in my life.

Think about what we could do with that gold, Beth.

Not just for ourselves but for Ireland.

Life on the run.

Billy Winter's owes you, Beth,

For the beatings, the humiliations heard long ago.

For using you as a dairymaid—come—housekeeper.

For all the drunken gropings, for the shameful suggestions.

He owes you.

What?

We should go,

MERCY SIGHS

Go, go, go!

It's a class of slavery.

What is?

All the go we're at now and every day, slaves to the fire

lugging grub miles to feed men, baking and boiling and cooking

sloistering with buckets and mops, Sunday to Sunday

Christmas to Christmas, till we're fit for nothing but the chair in the corner

or the box in the ground.

Do you know it's a wonder there aren't more whores in the world.

It's a short life but more sport in a week than we have in a lifetime. God forgive me,

If we hadn't this to lug to the bog we'd have missed the sun in the fields

talking here like this...

You could be right, though, in a way.

You'd need to be fierce brassy for the like of that

and begging your pardon, miss, I'd make a better whore than you.

BETH CHUCKLES

I'm going to miss you, Mercy Boyle,

When we do part.

Part?

Are you going somewhere, miss?

Come on now, they'll be shouting for their food.

Are you, miss?

We'll talk later.

RUTTLEDGE: About time too.

MERCY: What did I tell you?

It's a class of slavery.

What time is it?

It's gone half past five.

Oh, I must go. — Go where?

Boss's orders. HE GRUNTS

I have to go into town with him. To see Percy French.

MERCY: He'll be too grand to talk to us plain folk after this outing,

RUTTLEDGE LAUGHS

SHE GASPS Oh, Jesus, it's the Dummy McGonnell.

He put the heart across me!

RUTTLEDGE: What the hell's he staring at?

HE SHOUTS What the hell are you staring at?

Well, you carry your share of the tea things back to the kitchen at least

and don't leave empty—handed.

I'm leaving, Mercy...

early tomorrow, and I'll not be back.

I doubt I'll ever see you again.

I couldn't leave without telling you, without saying goodbye.

That's put very bare. - I can't tell you more.

Does the boss know? — No. And he mustn't.

If you hear movement in the house tonight, please stay in bed.

Well, he'll grieve something awful, miss.

When you're gone for a day it's "Miss Beth this, Miss Beth that..."

"Have you told Miss Beth..." "We don't want to worry Miss Beth..."

The man dotes on you.

That's partly why I'm leaving.

It'll break the man's heart.

And mine.

SHE BABBLES You're having me on, miss.

There's no sense to it.

There is.

Are you not happy here? - I'd be happier elsewhere.

Do you think? - Yes, I do.

Is it... Is it because of the boss touching you?

In part.

Jesus, you're never running off with a fella?

Don't be silly.

Oh, Jesus, you are, you're elopingl

You've gone all red, miss! You're running off with a fella.

It's never any of them dull dogs the boss brings out betimes?

Is it anyone I know?

It's no one anyone knows... least of all me.

BELL RINGS — BILLY: Bethl

Whisht, there's the boss. - I heard. There's a salad set out for him.

BILLY: Mercy! - But...

Someone will need to wet him a pot of tea. - Let him drink whiskey.

BILLY: Beth! Mercy!

This is a quare turnabout.

BELL KEEPS RINGING - BILLY: Beth! Mercy!

COWS MOO

Go on! Go on!

BILLY: Any sign, Mickey?

Ijust seen Mercy, sir, up on Feenan Hill.

She'll be five minutes off at most.

And Miss Beth?

Mercy's alone, sir.

Hurry up.

Get Punch in the gig, bring him to the front and wait.

Aye, Billy. Sure.

And what do you think, Captain Winters?

Am I a gullible fool, a push-over, to be spied on by a maidservant

reported to constabulary, questioned by an Englishman?

So much for the Christmas bribes to the barracks

stout for the constables, whiskey for the sergeant.

And what does it add up to?

A bucket of piss!

And who informed?

Oh, Mercy's knight in blue, her constable companion, shit Shanley

Seamus Grin Shanley

her well-informed, uniformed informer!

Christ, Mercy, he's like a bag of weasels in there, shoutin' after you a fright.

We heard... for why, Mickey?

Well, whatever it is he's in there talking to himself.

A sure sign he's in wicked form.

MERCY: Oh...

BILLY: Is that you, Mercy? - Yes, sir.

BILLY: Can I see you a minute, in the dining room?

Coming, sir.

You brought tea to the bog, Mercy?

We did, sir, yes.

How did they manage today?

There's a sight of stuff spread

sir, tomorrow will be the end of it; they wrought well.

That's good.

The weather's been lucky.

Yes.

Where is Miss Beth now? - Gone for the cows I'd say.

Have you anything else to tell me, Mercy?

Blinky Blessing came and Albert got the business.

A Blessing in disguise?

SHE CHUCKLES Yes, sir.

Death comes to us all in this way or that, isn't that so, Mercy?

Yes, sir.

You fell to your knees

to kiss Bishop Donnelly's ring this morning, do you remember?

Yes, sir.

Has he housed you

or fed you, or paid you

forgone rent for years on end

helped your family in every possible way, employed your disadvantaged brother?

No, sir.

Have I been unkind to you ever?

No, sir.

Well then?

I don't know what you want me to say, sir.

Oh no, not say Mercy, tell... I want you to tell me now

what you've told about me outside this house!

All the malice, and the slander

and the lies! Why are you hiding your mouth, girl?

SHE SOBS I say... I've done, I've done nothing

sir, I said nothin' about you to anyone.

Now you lie to my face!

Time was you'd be whipped for what you've done

and you will be when I'm back if you're not gone

you and your gulping half—wit brother!

Now pack your bags and get out!

SHE SOBS

DOLPHIN: Go on, then. — HE CLICKS HIS TONGUE

COW MOOS

Constable Shanley? What are you doing here?

Better ask Mercy, miss.

She's inside.

BETH: Mercy? What are you doing?

Mercy?

The boss, miss.

He's told me to go.

He says If I'm still here when he gets back he'll have me whipped.

What?

I've said things I shouldn't have, please don't ask me more.

What things?

What things have you said?

Things about you and the boss.

Never nothing unkind about you, miss, just...

about how you came up here to me some nights to escape him...

And who did you say such things to?

You know who.

Him outside.

I didn't mean nothing by it.

I don't know who it is could have told the boss.

Shanley will know. Ask him.

SHE SOBS I'm sorry.

Miss, I'm sorry.

I wouldn't harm you for all the oats in Ulster.

I'm fonder of you than any fella

ten times fonder than Shanley with his bare—faced lies.

SHE WHISPERS Are you really leaving?

I know.

Why would you tell me?

Why would you trust me ever again?

Oh no, Miss Beth.

No.

0h... - Oh, Mercy.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

BILLY: Stable Punch and be back here in half an hour.

And stay sober! - DOLPHIN: Aye, Billy Sir.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

DONNELLY: He swears he's an atheist's son.

Billy Winters.

Twice in one day, Jimmy, you're spoiling me.

Could you not persuade Elizabeth?

It's her mother all over again... punishing.

It's not a dislike of Percy French, it's a dislike of anything I like.

What's that you're drinking?

Tea.

Bewley's most likely and very good.

How in hell do you people stay on the straight and narrow?

Or do you?

l have a Cathedral to finish that's putting money in your purse, Billy

and there's pastoral work and | read and travel a lot.

All that keeps me half-decent for whatever judgement's pending.

I saw Billy Winters on the road. Where's he gone?

Come inside.

He's on his way to see Percy French in Eniskillen.

He presented me with a ticket this morning, a birthday gift.

I know what that would mean.

He'll sit in the front row and clap too loudly.

And then afterwards most likely take me backstage to meet Mister French.

And then the drunken groping on the way back in the gig

and the obligatory piano recital and the singing...

And no time to prepare the bromides.

Sol refused him.

Have you prepared them?

No.

Where are they?

What if he stays overnight? — He won't.

How many should I use? — WARD: Use all of them.

Really?

Tomorrow at dawn we'll be in the rail yard at Enniskillen

looking for the guard's wagon of a good's train bound for Belfast.

From there we'll take a cab to a hotel on Royal Avenue.

That night we'll board a packet steamer to Glasgow

and then a train down to London and the beginning of a new life together.

Can you do it?

Yes.

I'll be waiting by the broken silver birch.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

FAIRBROTHER: One more thing about your "daughter"...

What's that?

She "knows" him.

What? — I've said it: She "knows" him.

Talk plain, sir.

Your "daughter" spent a night with Liam Ward in a shack on Corvey Island.

Is that plain enough?

You're mistaken. - No mistake.

Also at least two other protracted assignations at night:

one in his cabin, one in the woodland that flanks your avenue.

That's what the report says.

Assignations.

Have you tortured me enough, sir?

I tell you this only because I think you should know

what is happening in your own house.

Well, you know where to find me if your IIdaughter" lets anything slip

or if you should happen to remember anything of significance about Ward.

You can find your way to hell, Fairbrother, if they'll have you.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

That's beginning to show.

Drunk, my lord, and for good cause.

Can I share?

I think you know.

What do you mean by that, Billy?

Oh, I think you know.

Fairbrother.

Did he call? — BILLY CHUCKLES

Did you not just see him here now?

Here? No, not at all.

Blackmail of a sort.

I suppose I can't ask? - No, you can't.

I inquired because possibly I can help.

I hope you didn't concede.

I gave him the toe of my boot.

Good for you.

Excuse me, padre. Excuse me.

Shall we?

Well, Mister Parnell is right about them at least.

There can be no peace here till the British army's gone.

Them?

Them? That's me, sir.

That's my people.

"Them" is me, Billy Winters, and if they go, well then what happens?

I want no truck with your Infallible Man in Rome. None.

It's almost three hundred years now, Billy, six generations

that's how long you've been with us

how long more before you become part of us... three hundred more?

Never.

A pity...

a great pity you feel that way.

You say you want to help when what you really want is "information".

About what?

Fairbrother's quest? Beth? Ward?

You know it all anyway, oldest secret service in the world.

Cathy always running to confession, forever quoting you

Father Jimmy this, Father Jimmy that

tattle, tattle, tattle, telling tales in a darkened box...

You're a ridiculous man sometimes, Billy, blunt, coarse

Ulster and proud of it. - Ticking me off for drinking.

Jesus, you don't need whiskey, you're intoxicated with yourself.

Still got half a notion you'll make a convert of me

no bloody fear, not my soul, not my gold, not my land.

|'|| defend it to the death.

PRINGLE CLAPS Ladies and gentlemen

I have just received the most agreeable confirmation.

Mister French is making his way up the street

towards the Town Hall with all possible dispatch.

MAN: Oh, it's about time. - PRINGLE: Yes. About time, indeed, yes, yes.

Members of the Percy French Appreciation Committee

may avail themselves of further refreshments downstairs

in the Council Chambers after the performance.

Where, where... you will be able to meet and greet in person

one of the most celebrated and loved lrishmen of this or any other century!

Hup, come along, as quick as you can!

WAITER: No, mate, not tonight. No... - DOLPHIN: I'm with Mister Winters.

He has a ticket for me. - WAITER: No... no... no, come on.

DOLPHIN: Mister Billy Sir! Get out! - WAITER: Go away. Go away, go on.

DOLPHIN: Mister Billy Sir!

OWNER: Get out! Go on... — DOLPHIN: Hands off!

Where the hell are you at?

WAITER: This hoeboy has no business here tonight, I'd swear.

And I'd swear he's no "hoeboy", he's my friend Michael Dolphin

and he's my guest.

Should we not go, Billy Sir?

The concert's started.

You go, Mickey. I'm staying here.

Why, Billy Sir?

I don't feel like seeing Percy French tonight.

I wouldn't want to be going in there on my own, Billy Sir.

Then, Mickey Dolphin

be so good as to have a drink with me.

DOLPHIN: Woah. Woah, woah, woah, woah.

Above all beasts l bow to you. Lord of all.

Never cross the laugh for a woman.

Breed with your own kind.

Three months gone so she was...

so she was, my...

late, lovely, lynx-eyed wife.

Long buried now with...

HE SOBS What did I do?

What did I do, that you did that to mel?

God in heaven...

What did I do!? — CROWS CAW

Hah! Caw! Cawl

There's no nightingales in Ireland.

No solitary nightingale in the whole bloody island of Ireland.

But there's Iarks in Brackagh!

They sing and sing, till their little hearts become unstrung.

ll Dear thoughts are in my mind ll

I! And my soul soars enchanted ll

I! As I hear the sweet Iark sing ll

It In the clear air of the day if

A Iark in the dark...

chancer to a maiden's prayer...

Good night. Good night, Mickey Dolphin.

Good night, Mister Billy Sir.

Go on.

DOOR CLOSES

KEYS CLINK

SHE BREATHES HEAVILY

it Long long ago ll

it In the woods of Gortamona ll

l I thought the birds were singing in the blackthorn tree I!

it But oh, it was my heart ll

it That was ringing, ringing, ringing ll

I! For the joy that you were bringing ll

it Oh my love, to me if

You missed it, girl

the best night ever in the town of Enniskillen

you might say the best night ever in the province of Ulster

and you out here on your own

with Mister Keats.

The place was packed to the gills

high, middle and low gentry.

Two bishops... ours and yours...

Your wee fella Donnelly with his chain gang.

Maquires and liars...

small squires...

And then, of course, myself, William Hudson Winters

without his daughter Elizabeth.

You missed it badly.

Perhaps I did.

Is there a splash of spring water?

Percy's the man for me.

By God, you fairly lashed on the mustard, girl.

I know you're partial to it, sir.

Percy's my hero.

They often end as clowns or criminals.

Who?

Heroes.

The greatest Irishman of this century or any other!

A clown?

A criminal?

Who the hell do you think you are?

You can tell me that, sir.

How do you mean?

You know what I mean... my real father.

You're being impertinent. - No, sir, pertinent.

You ask me tonight above all nights?

My dead love, Cathy...

hawk-proud and wren poor...

the dodgy daughter of a dodgy horseman.

Twenty three years ago I made a solemn covenant

with the Roman Catholic Church that all children born to us would be of that faith.

A small matter I thought. I'd...

I'd no faith much to lose, and I'll grant you I was no saint...

and gold can put a halo on the devil.

But to marry as she did, knowing what she knew.

There was no, there was no giddy mishap, no drunken blunder...

She coldly and deliberately duped me.

HE SOBS And I loved her.

I loved her.

My, my Jezebel...

HE SNIFFS l... I loved her.

HE SHOUTS A brazen, bare-faced bitch!

And you ask me now, I asked her then.

I asked and I asked till she screamed in my face.

She didn't know.

It was "one of two."

She loved neither, it was just "a wee bit of bad luck."

That's your answer.

The only thing I gave you was your name, Elizabeth...

that much I was allowed.

You ask hard, you'll get a hard answer.

HE SNIFFS "One of two."

"A bit of bad luck."

And that's all she told me.

Come back, Elizabeth.

Sit by me. I'm not out to hurt.

Want me to pass on my cup of sorrow...

A thimble of tears I wouldn't wish on you girl for all your days.

How you came into this world is not your doing.

The truth is you're all I care about now.

The whole world.

HE SIGHS

My crime is that I raised you and I loved you over—much.

But even the best of men can make the worst of blunders

and be heart sorry.

And the best of women I suppose.

I'll tell you more. HE SNIFFS

HE SIGHS No...

I've told you enough.

Now you tell me.

Tell, sir?

Yes...

tell...

Hm?

Nothing?

What is there to tell, sir, except you must be very tired.

You should be in your bed.

HE WHISPERS Oh, Beth... Beth.

Kiss me goodnight.

LOUD THUD

BILLY: What at you staring at?

I heard you stumble, sir.

HE SIGHS

You thought the drunken fool had broken his neck?

Are you honest, girl?

What?

Would you deceive me?

How could I, sir?

You tell me.

Could you, huh?

Would you?

Will you?

Ought you?

Could you pretend I'm your confessor?

Or are you loyal to Rome like your mother?

Rome is as much to me as your bowler hat is to you.

And what's that?

Dressing up to keep others down.

By God, you have all the answers, girl.

Do |, sir?

Your mother's daughter, for certain.

You'll lock up? — Of course.

You're worth your weight in gold.

Am I, sir?

LOUD THUD

SHE TAKES A DEEP BREATH