The Queen of Dirt Island

Saoirse realizes that her mother has never told her anything of substance regarding her own life, so Saoirse takes to eavesdropping to figure out her mother’s mysteries. Nana, instead, is the one who tells Saoirse about life. One summer day, a blackbird hits one of the house’s windows and breaks its neck. While Nana is dismissive, Eileen is distraught, picking up the dead bird to kiss it. Saoirse runs off to find the local priest to deliver the bird its last rites, and they all bury the bird together.

Saoirse speculates that the end of the world sounds “like someone chewing with their mouth open” (15). She tries to get out of eating with her extended family due to this sound. Saoirse understands that nuclear weapons will likely cause the end of the world. Her mother wants to practice hiding under a table from the bombs, but Saoirse thinks it’s merely a way to keep everyone scared.

On the anniversary of Saoirse’s father’s death, the three women always go to the graveyard. When Saoirse is nine years old, a female stranger greets them at the gravesite. The woman’s name is Sally, and she is the daughter of the other man who was killed in the car accident. Sally hugs Saoirse while she cries. One day, Nana begins to talk about Saoirse’s uncles, her father’s brothers, Paudie and Chris. They work as farmers, having been cast adrift in life following her father’s death. Nana then makes Saoirse promise to visit her uncles after Nana is gone.

Saoirse’s uncle Paudie is arrested for storing illegal weapons and explosives in his shed. Paudie is kept in jail for a month and is then released to stand trial. He returns with bandaged hands, claiming that British soldiers tortured him for information, which he never gave up. Nana smacks him in the face, knocking him over, for hiding the weapons.

On a summer evening, Saoirse’s uncle Chris proposes to Eileen. After stumbling nervously through the conversation, Chris suddenly asks Saoirse’s mother to marry him, which she responds to by yanking him into the kitchen and shutting the door. Chris is dumbfounded at being roughly handled and tries to explain his reasoning, but Saoirse’s mother rejects him, and he doesn’t return for a long time after.

On her way down the road, Saoirse passes a boy named Gleeson, who is riding a bike without any hands on the handlebars. As the boy passes Saoirse’s mother, he invites her to his 21st birthday party. Saoirse’s mother sends her inside, and she and the boy have a private discussion overheard by Saoirse, implying that Eileen and Gleeson are having an affair.

Saoirse is 12 now and eavesdrops on a conversation between Nana and Eileen. Nana tells Eileen that she saw a lesbian couple in town, using a slur to refer to them, which angers Saoirse’s mother. When Nana argues that the lesbians should keep their business private instead of “broadcasting it to all the living and the dead” (28), Saoirse’s mother suddenly screams at her to shut up. Nana storms off, and Saoirse’s mother follows to make up for the fight. People tell many stories about the girls in the area. One girl is known for sleeping with truck drivers passing through. Another is fired for sleeping with several of her bosses. A third girl is known for walking around the neighborhood with her father and brother, injuries from abuse visible on her face. There are also good girls, but Nana and Saoirse’s mother laugh about them, claiming they never knew them.

Stories are also told about the local boys. One boy hit a teacher’s car with a chestnut fired out of a slingshot and was beaten up in the hallway for doing so. Another boy, a hurley star, died by suicide after winning a game. Another was always covered head-to-toe in black dust due to his delivery job. Finally, a local boy was killed in a car accident the week after his child was born. The chapter ends with the words, “God help us, God help us, God help us” (32).

Nana frequently tells Saoirse happy stories as well. Saoirse loves them so much that she wants to write them down. She recalls one story in which Nana and her family head into town to sell a sack of chickens to purchase a cardigan. On the way, Saoirse becomes motion sick and vomits into the sack containing the chickens, and the chickens go berserk inside the car. Saoirse is afraid of being punished, but nobody blamed her for the incident.

Saoirse stands in the yard, kicked out of the house while Nana and Eileen discuss whether Eileen should get a job. Saoirse wanders away from the house and encounters a boy she has a crush on. She pushes him onto the ground impulsively because he doesn’t seem to notice her. Unable to explain herself, Saoirse insults the boy, who responds with a dig at her incarcerated uncle, infuriating Saoirse. Back home, Saoirse discovers that her mother is going to get a job.

Saoirse’s mother becomes a bookmaker. While Saoirse imagines this to be about making books, she knows it has something to do with horseracing. When she visits her mother at work, she sees Eileen slap a rude customer to the laughter of the men around her.

A black car comes down the driveway to Eileen’s consternation. Eileen sends Saoirse to her room to cover her bare legs. From her room, Saoirse hears her mother refer to the man who arrived as “Daddy.” Eileen then hauls Saoirse out of her room to introduce her to the two people who’ve arrived.

Saoirse thinks about how it’s impossible to fully know what’s going on in another person’s head. While her mother claims Saoirse’s father was a perfect man, Saoirse can’t find any evidence of this in the photographs of him. At the bottom of a photograph of her parents, Saoirse spies a date that indicates that she was born only four months after her parents’ wedding. This is why Saoirse has never met her grandparents before—they were ashamed of her.

One day, a woman named Concepta visits the house and asks after Saoirse. Nana and Saoirse’s mother both treat the woman with disdain until Concepta tells them that there’s been an allegation that Saoirse is left at home alone while her mother goes to work. Saoirse’s mother produces her work schedule, proving that she only works during school hours, and she sends Concepta away. A few weeks later, Saoirse is summoned to Concepta’s office, where she is asked a number of questions about her home life. Saoirse feels angry that she’s been brought in and insults Concepta in her head but is unable to say what she feels aloud. Saoirse begins to cry, realizing that sitting in Concepta’s office is the first time in her life that she’s felt afraid.

The boy whom Saoirse pushed over is expelled from the school. The boy, whose name is Oisín, tells a group of kids the story of how he punched a teacher due to the teacher’s physical discipline. Oisín then asks Saoirse to walk home with him. During the walk, Oisín takes her hand, and the two of them sit at the edge of a lake, where Oisín kisses Saoirse on the cheek.

When Saoirse is 15, she visits her mother’s birthplace of Dirt Island, which consists of a farm and small town on an island in the middle of a lake, for her maternal grandmother’s funeral. Saoirse’s mother receives comfort from the large bald man who earlier visited their home, who turns out to be Saoirse’s grandfather. During the wake, Saoirse greets many distant relatives whom she’s never met before. Her uncle Richard suddenly takes her outside to tell her the story of himself and her mother as a child. Afterward, he tells Saoirse that her mother “broke [their] parents’ hearts” and that Eileen is a “whore” (52). He then sends Saoirse away, telling her she’ll never visit Dirt Island again.

One morning, Nana has a ministroke during a walk. At the hospital, she tells her old friend, Kit, a story about the African doctor she had. She asked the doctor why he was caring for her instead of people back home in his birth country.

Oisín’s father is a barber, and he gives Oisín and Saoirse two pounds to spend. When Oisín insults his father’s cheapness, Saoirse says that he seems like a kind man. Oisín drops her hands and asks her, “What do you know about fathers?” (56). Saoirse, infuriated, pushes Oisín again, but he yanks at her jumper, and Saoirse flees to go find her mother.

Paudie is to be released, and Saoirse’s uncle Chris borrows a fancy car to pick him up in. They don’t return for a long time, worrying Nana. When they do finally return, Paudie is asleep in the backseat, smelling of booze.

On the bus, a girl named Breedie Flynn asks Saoirse about her uncle, whose release was reported by the local newspaper. Breedie also invites Saoirse to Friary Castle on Friday night, but Saoirse, angry at Breedie’s assumptions, rudely tells her to go away. Breedie refuses to leave until Saoirse agrees to join her at Friary Castle, and Saoirse acquiesces. On Friday night, a huge crowd gathers at the Friary Castle to watch a local band play. Breedie and Saoirse find a group of boys to hang out with, one of whom propositions Saoirse. Breedie pushes one of the boys off of her, and the two girls run off laughing, hand in hand.