Dada was not one to waste time on dreams. Instead, he preferred to spend his time worrying about all manner of things.

I found it strange how much he fretted about his standing amongst our neighbours. Mama showed no concern for what anyone else thought, although she did care that she did right by God, Our Lady, Jesus and the angels and saints. But, apart from all of them, she concentrated on being herself through and through.

Of course, she had her heart set on entering Heaven when she died and was doing her best to make sure that there was room for the rest of us. She tried to make Dada see things from her point of view, but he never quite managed it.

For instance, there was that time when he and our neighbours were helping to dig Stella, Mr O’Leary’s old cow, out of a ditch that had caved in following heavy rain.

Stella was bellowing mournfully from where she sat, plonked up to her chest in mud, showing no gratitude to the sweating men who had managed to drape a rope around her thick neck. They began to form a line, each man a chunk of rope in his grip, shoulders bent forward, preparing to pull together as one.

‘Heave Ho! Heave Ho!’

How they had strained in their attempt to drag a reluctant Stella back on her feet.

I asked Mama, ‘How heavy can she be?’

We were standing by with some of the wives and children, glad to take a break from our chores, eager to be entertained.

Sarah McSweeney, who was two years older than me, giggled at my question and said, ‘It looks like they are trying to pull apart the Red Sea. Where is Moses when you need him?’

All the women had laughed until a couple of the men glared at us as if we had sullied the day and their good intentions.

Sometimes I felt that the men were out of step with the women because all the women I knew seemed wiser and calmer and not prone to worrying unnecessarily about everything.

‘Poor cow having to rely on that lot,’ murmured Sarah, almost setting us off again.

I could see Sarah’s mother squirming as she glanced at her husband. For her sake, we straightened our faces and pressed our lips together. We knew that if Mr McSweeney heard his daughter speaking so freely there would be trouble later. Some days his wife and daughter’s bruises were exactly the same shade and size.

Stella hated having so little space in which to manoeuvre herself. She hardly knew the whereabouts of her own feet thanks to her own bulk blocking them from sight. She looked embarrassed to be the centre of such a tremendous fuss and bewildered too.

‘Silly old girl,’ said Mr O’Leary, though not unkindly. His cap was askew as he tried to do two jobs at once, telling the men how to pull while encouraging Stella to do as he bid.

Dada always said that Mr O’Leary liked to be in charge, whether he was propping up the bar in Becher Arms or out in the fields acting the big man on account of his position as our landlord’s ‘middleman’. Dada and most of our neighbours paid the rent to Mr O’Leary, who passed it on to the landlord. Whoever he was.

Details about our landlord were scant. All I knew for certain was that he was an Englishman and very rich. I could never remember his name, which did not matter as Mama assured me that I had more chance of sailing off to a strange country than ever meeting him. His continual absence made me curious about this man that we all worked for. It was our job to keep him happy. At least, that is how Sarah put it to me.

‘Have you ever met him?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ she replied, ‘though I suppose I’d remember if I’d met an Englishman, wouldn’t I?’

‘Are they very different from Irishmen?’ I asked.

She laughed. ‘They must be. Sure, aren’t they in charge of us?’

‘But,’ I argued, ‘aren’t our Irishmen in charge of us women and children?’

She was about to laugh again but then touched a bluish patch on her cheek, just below her eye, caressing it for a moment. Sighing, she said, ‘Well, perhaps the difference is that Irishmen think they are in charge of us, but the Englishmen really are. Or is that the wrong way around?’

With that, she grabbed her thick plait and pretended to fasten it across her upper lip, as it if were a moustache. ‘Do I look like I could be in charge of anyone?’

‘Only yourself,’ I laughed.

‘Good enough!’ She winked.

In any case, I was free to imagine the landlord however I chose. Was he tall? Did he have a loud voice? Had he ever been to the Russian or Chinese empires? I bet that he had a map just like ours and could go wherever he liked, although it seemed that wherever he liked did not include Ireland. He never came here. This fascinated me. Fancy owning all this land and not wanting to see it! If I owned something, I would want to see it every day.

Mama said he probably lived in a great big house with a hundred windows and servants.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘like the workhouse?’

The workhouse was newly finished when Mama decided that the four of us should have a look at what we had heard described as the most splendid building in the whole of Cork. Sure enough, we saw it long before we reached the entrance gate.

‘Why, it is taller than the trees!’ I gushed.

‘I prefer the trees!’ muttered Dada.

It was the biggest thing that I had ever seen that was not the sky or the sea or the land. Not that we could see it in its entirety thanks to the high walls that surrounded it. Dada had Seán on his shoulders, while Mama and I stood on our toes, even jumping up to snatch a better look.

What I could make out was that its slated roof was longer than any street I had ever walked upon. At each end was a tower whose pointed head was taller again than the bit in between.

‘Would you look at all those windows?’ gasped Mama. She had put a hand on my shoulder to help her jump up, greedily seizing upon as many details as she could before landing on the ground once more. Then she generously offered me her arm and I made the best jump that I could. She was right. I did not know that one building could have so many windows.

Seán was barely five then, but even he was impressed. His eyes widened as he pointed at the workhouse. ‘Oh, look … look!’ He did not yet have the words to describe what he was seeing.

‘Yes, my love,’ said Mama. ‘Isn’t it grand?’

‘How many rooms does it have?’ I asked.

Mama shrugged. ‘I don’t know, pet. Maybe twenty, maybe more?’

‘Twenty rooms!’ I roared. ‘Really and truly?’

Nineteen more than our cottage.

Dada tried not to echo his family’s admiration, yet he was just as impressed. Of course he was! None of us had ever seen the likes of it before. However, he clicked his tongue in annoyance at the building and, probably, at himself too.

I was curious. ‘What, Dada? Do you not like it?’

‘It is a workhouse, Margaret. There is nothing good about it and you may pray to God above that this family never needs to step through these gates.’

I was never to forget my amazement at all those windows.

‘Would the landlord live in something as big as the workhouse?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Mama.

‘Sure, it makes sense why our landlord stays away then. If I owned a big house like that, I would not want to leave it either. Of course, he must prefer his lovely house in England to just fields and trees here.’

Mama made no reply to this. Then I thought of something. ‘Could our landlord not build the same sort of house here and that way he would be beside his land?’

‘His land?’ said Mama, her mouth curling as she repeated my words. ‘Don’t let your father hear you talking like that.’

I was confused. I mean, I sort of understood what she meant but I also knew I was correct in what I had said. Our landlord owned the land that we lived on. Otherwise, why were we paying to be here?

Anyway, he did not need to be in Ireland as it was Mr O’Leary’s job to collect our rents, which ended up somewhere in Cork city. At least, I think that is where it went. All our money.

This is how I imagined it: hundreds of coins in a potato sack that had been scrubbed clean by Mrs O’Leary, and the neck of it tied prettily with one of her ribbons.

Maybe she even wiped each coin clean before it left so that the landlord could forget that it came from our men whose hands were the same shade of brown that lined the soles of Mama’s feet.

I envied our landlord his big house and hoped one day I might have one too.