The first entry was dated:
Thursday, June 5, 1969
Today, Darragh Gallagher, our despicable neighbor, was caught—again—moving the property line markers. Tiernan nearly walloped him with a spade. This is the third time he’s tried to claim that stretch of pasture. Tiernan’s had enough. He says he’s building a stone wall and daring Darragh to move that.
I felt the baby kick today. Just a flutter, but it’s the first time. I lit a candle at the chapel and prayed we made it the whole nine months this time. I don’t think I can bear another grave.
Aisling sat back, heart caught somewhere between sorrow and awe.
Her grandmother was…real.Vulnerable. Funny. Fierce. And absolutely not a woman to cross.
She turned the page.
June 9, 1969
Darragh saw the foundation stones and lost his mind. He ranted about his grandfather grazing cows there in 1912 as if that gave him squatter’s rights. Tiernan threatened to call the Garda if he so much as sneezed near the wall.
The baby hasn’t moved since Saturday. I’m trying not to panic. The doctor says not to worry. I’m trying. But I don’t know if I can take another miscarriage.
She kept reading, flipping gently as if the paper might shatter under her fingertips.
There were prayers, longings, and so much raw grief. Three miscarriages. Silent nights soaked with tears. Candles lit, names never spoken again.
And then?—
July 19, 1969
I’ve been in bed for days. We lost her. Again. I can’t do this anymore. I love Tiernan, but I can’t look at him without feeling like I failed us both.
The Americans walked on the moon today. The whole world watched. I barely noticed. What use is space when your world is breaking under your hands?
Aisling pressed the book closed, heart hammering.
This wasn’t just about the feud. This wasn’t about roses or goats or property lines.
This was aboutloss. Layered and unspoken and buried in a trunk no one ever touched.
She turned the pages more slowly now, journal after journal, reading little windows into a life shaped by grief and grit. And Darragh Gallagher—what a piece of work.
At one point, he’d stolen the O’Byrne sheep for breeding season and “forgot” to return them. When confronted, he claimed they had “defected to better pastures.”
Another time, he dug up every rosebush on the shared fence line and replanted them on his land.His excuse?
“They grew legs and walked toward quality soil.”
Aisling laughed out loud. “Oh my God. He wasRonanbefore Ronan.”
But the laughter faded quickly.
Her mother appeared in the later entries. A spirited child. A bookworm. Bright and wild and curious. Noreen wrote about her like a gift from heaven.
And then—nothing.
The entries became shorter and more formal until they stopped altogether. There was no longer a journal, and she wondered if they had been misplaced or if this was the end. There was no mention of Maeve leaving, and there were no entries after 1994 as if Noreen had sealed her sorrow in ink and never picked up the pen again.
Aisling closed the journal and leaned back on the floor, staring at the trunk lid like it might open again on its own. There was so much more she wanted to learn about the women in her family.
A soft buzz pulled her back to the present.
