For my brother Karol on the occasion of his 29th birthday.
Thank you K-Man for encouraging me to write this down.

Abram and Sara are mother and father in faith for Jew, Muslim and Christian. Having heard God, Abram becomes Abraham and Sara becomes Sarah. An extra half breath is added to how their names are said. Ha. Isaac is born laughing. Call me Ishmael.

My people are hereditary breitheamhs to the ruling O’Brian clan. A breitheamh is an interpreter of Brehon law. Ó glúin go glúin, from knee to knee, from generation to generation, we provide legal council to the O’Brian’s.

In 1156, with the erosion of the Brehon ways, we move from the stony bosom of County Clare to the banks of the Shannon at Limerick. The O’Brian’s grant us fishing rights there. Our hereditary bent is switched from the law to the mysteries of the Salmon. There we persist as we did before, conducting our business in adherence to the Brehon Way.

In 1691 the English with a Dutch king come to take Limerick. Twice they are refused. A treaty is drafted and signed on a large limestone mounting stone. We are reliably informed centuries later in our school rooms that the treaty is broken by the English before the ink is dry.

I imagine that it is blue ink.

[As some artists can only think in bronze, I can only think in blue. If a felt Pilot Fineliner Blue pen does not come to hand when I am disposed to making a few notes it can comfortably take me an hour to come to terms with the impasse and soldier on with some other tool. This is why I buy the PFB’s in threes.
I adopt the same strategy when buying Rizzla Blue cigarette papers. As with the pens, always in threes. Despite interchange of garment, over time, I tend always to have the desired about my person.
As a result of working extensively with blue felt pens, my hands, particularly my right hand, is often stained with blue. I call these stains “scholar stains”]

I imagine it is blue because of the high ceremonial aspect to the proceedings. Blue at this time is the rarest of pigments and is more valuable than gold. It is extracted from the highest grade lapis lazuli mined from current day Afghanistan. It is reserved by the Italian Masters for adorning the Virgin Mother and the Child Jesus. And I imagine that they use it for the Treaty.

My people are not that involved. We even have dispensation to fish during the sieges of Limerick. But as the treaty is presented, one of my father’s fathers is asked for his opinion in view of his legal heritage. As he peruses the document with his index finger, an ebullient faction of Limerickmen, drunk in the throws of victory, grabs the document from under that one of my father’s fathers’ finger and then a merry dance. There is wet blue ink and a few atoms of limestone on one of my father’s fathers’ finger. His feeling is the that this dot is going to be the best that the English and their Dutch king is going to do for his people and sees nothing fitter to do than to swallow it, and carry on fishing.

This is the blue key.

The “h” in the Irish language is at times represented by a dot called a séimhú (shayvuu).
The Irish for a key is eochair (ukker).
The Irish for clever is glic (glick).
With the suppression of the ‘aitch, a guttural swallowing ukker and a nod and a cute click glick and a wink, a cant and accent is born of gesture, sound and no sound.

The Tommy-gun Limerick accent is born.

Deeze, dat, dem and doze, dat’s de way the tee ‘aitch goes. In Limerick, at any rate.

My people are waiting. Holding their breath. With the knowledge of the highest adoration of the Virgin Mother and the Child Jesus. Passing down from knee to knee. With a few atoms of limestone.

I got my own way of praying
And everyone’s begun
With a Southern Accent
Where I come from.
Tom Petty – Southern Accents