No Mate for the Magpie

by Frances Molloy

Confronted by the unceasing irrationality of life in Northern Ireland, Ann Elizabeth McGlone, a Catholic girl, decides to emigrate

Genres: Fiction, Ireland

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Frances Molloy (1947 - 1991) was born in Dungiven, Co Derry. After working in a factory and spending some time as a nun Molloy moved to England where she married and settled in Lancaster. Her novel No Mate for the Magpie (1985), remains the most original novel to emerge from the Troubles, not least because of its use of local dialect. A collection of short stories Women Are The Scourge of the Earth was published in 1998.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished. I'm reading it for an Irish novel class and I'm glad I was exposed to it. It's a coming of age in a world full of crazy people type of story- buildungsroman isn't quite correct.

Young Anne Elizabeth McGlone is half Catholic and half Protestant in Northern Ireland, though her Protestant grandmother died before she was born so she might as well be Catholic. And, well, she might as well be a lot of things...

The whole thing's written in what is a vivid working-class Derry dialect- no introduction, no afterword, no glossary, nothing but the lively, vibrant, (s)punky, quicksilver voice of our Anne. It's funny reading novels in first person and in highly slangy regional dialect, I was reminded of A Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting, just to name a couple obvious examples. I wonder if it's a GB thing- are there many Continental novels which are written this way? Russia? Asia? I doubt that it's unique to the Isles but I don't really know any offhand.

I love it, whatever it is. There's something about that crackly, meaty, bitter, innovative curled-lip eloqunce which is such a treat to read. Molloy (nom de plume, interestingly enough) gets quite a bit of mileage out of it. It's tart and sharp, like our eponymous narrator.

It's essentially a picaresque. Anne finds herself tossed pinball-like through the helterskelter of Northern Ireland...we've got sternly religious parents, feckless men, wild street people, the tawdry spectacle of Orangemen rallies, resentful dead-end Catholics, winding corridors where the stick the unwanted and the unbroken, slimy buggers with bad teeth and lust in their fingers, self-satisfied spinster bourgeoise who are too narrow-minded to have any idea how vulgarly stupid and morally grotesque they are, and the dear, dirty, Ireland which they scramble within.

Anne's mind is as incisive as her voice. Indeed, like any good narrator her thoughts and her expressions seem to wind together like leaves in a river. She's no fool, we see the world which inflicts itself upon her as in a fun house mirror darkly, the better to understand how a bright, humane, resourceful young thing negotiates the seething folly and simmering ressentiment (I swear, if there's one word going to college out to teach you...) of the adult world.

The dystopia of adolescence???

It's fairly slicing social realism filtered through the rich sacriledge of Anne's voice. It puts language- the Irish specialty- in the forefront as both bathful witness and means to an unfolding. Anne's got plenty of the young punk rocker in her and it's her lip that gets her thrown into the hot seat more often than not. But that's not her fault- it's the adults who betray children, by treating them like children (for one thing) and its up to the pluck, grit, wit, and unshakeable decency and intelligence of the young to slalom through the social mess.

Here's a couple samples:

"Wan of them said, are you a catholic or a protestant? A said nothin'. Another of them took a cigarette lighter outa hir pocket an' lit it an' hel' the flame close te me face an' said, we only allow catholics te sit at this table. A got up an' walked away an' set at another table. They all follied after me an' kept on askin' was a catholic or protestant? In the en' a said a was a christian. Then the wan way the cigarette lighter said, we know you're a prod. A said, if ye know so much why de ye waste yer breath askin' questions? She lit the lighter again an' set fire te the side of me hair. A screamed an' beat the flames out way me han's. Then a woman from our town seen all the hullabaloo an' come over te see what was goin' on.
The girls said a was a prod but she said, what nonsense an' toul them who a was. Then all the girls said they were sorry but they were sure a would understan' that a body couldn't be too careful. They asked me what a thought of the factory an' a said it was gran'. Then they toul me that a should come to a hop way them that night because the hops were great an' all the lovely fellas of the day would be there but a said a would be goin' home."

Boom. In two paragraphs you've got just the place where Twain meets Heathers.

I'm sorry, but religion- especially in its dogmatic, bigoted version- is political. Sorry to have to say it but it's blammo true. There's an Irish joke that goes:

Guy is driving down a street in Belfast (or wherever, for that matter) and he get s stopped at a checkpoint by some guys with guns. They walk up to the window. He rolls it down.
Peering in suspiciously, they ask him: "Catholic or Protestant"?
Pause. "Atheist", the man replies.
The soldiers stop a second, absorb this piece of information.
"Catholic atheist or Protestant atheist?"

Just. Like. That.

Later, after being arrested at a demonstration in the proximity of which she happens to find herself:

"As soon as the polisman shoved me through the arch inte the arms of the crowd that had gathered te watch from the other side, they all started te hug me an' slap me on the badly bruised back an' tell me how brave a was. The crowd then caught a hoult of the polisman an' started te pull him limb from limb. Wheniver a tried te stap them a nearly got mesel' kilt be me own admirers of a minute before so a went away feelin' sorry for the polisman, because a knew that he was only tryin' to do hes duty be upholdin' the laws that were made for all of us be the acutely deranged, imbecilic, illegitimate, offspring of the mother of parliaments."

One of the blurbs on the back mentions that Anne is a kind of mini Irish female Candide, which is quite a bit off the mark. Candide learns that life ain't the way it seems after being taken out of his fey indolence and general guileless stupidities c/o Dr. Pangloss...Anne doesn't, to her credit, seem to have very much innocence to lose. Her naivete is distinctly of the faux variety.

To wit:

"Me an' Miss McBride spent the whole of that mornin' an' most of the afternoon sittin' there confabbin' away, about god, an' sex, an' sin, an' education, an' how travel broadens the mine, an' race, an' politics, an' duty, an' responsibility, an' all the other burnin' issues of the day that interested hir greatly. A niver felt the time movin' by atall, because Miss McBride was easily the most grotesquely fascinatin' individual a had iver come across in the whole of me life."

And then, in conclusion, here's a bit of a montage, a long reel from desolation row: (No wonder the way in is the way out)

"That day a didn't bother searchin' for a job, a just walked about the city lookin' at the people. A poorly dressed pregnant woman in hir fourties, way a pile of scruffy wains, buyin' a badly worn left foot, size four shoe for a penny aff a pile of junk heaped up on a street near the pro-cathedral. Children, naked save for tattered, transparent, waterproof macks, beggin' in the doorway of a city centre pub, fearful of bein' penniless when their drunken parents emerged. Young nuns, starched an' dehumanized, movin' stiffly through the crowds, afraid of bodily contact. Farmers scrubbed an' freshly shaved, down from the country for the day to sell cattle, hopin' to catch the eyes of lovelorn nurses after their work was done. A mother fingerin' prayer beads in her pocket on hir way home from the pawn shop. A child smacked hard across the face for handlin' toys in a supermarket. 'Please give generously an' god will reward you' boxes shoved under noses, by well-fed, well-dressed, well-past middle-age ladies. Punch-ups about places in a bus queue. Invitations to walk 'roun stores with no obligation. Why not visit our movin' crib?- bring all the family- great reductions. A black english student cryin' on the doorstep of a boardin' house because the lan'lady didn't like the colour of hir skin. A mean-mouthed woman dressin' down a teenage girl for wearin' a maxi-lengthh coat. A hungry youth oglin' cream buns in a baker's window. A mother stoppin' traffiv on O'Connell Street because hir toddler was missin'. The vacant eyes of a young drug addict who'd got lost forever on a bad trip. And the people with the answers to all the problems of the land, toutin' their propaganda sheets for nine pence a copy outside the historic General Post Office."

And that's not a spoiler, so don't send me any angry letters.

I do want to say that as much as I enjoyed the book I do think it loses a star for a very important reason- I like it especially in novels such as these when the characterization is strong enough to include a self-relexivity. What I mean is, that with a character who is prone to action (and she is critical of all the wide world over, don't get me wrong) I think the real coup in the narrative is to include that reflectiveness in something surprising coming through on the chracters' ruminations. Juxatposing a character's thoughts with the action is great, juxtaposing a character's thoughts with their own thoughts- excellent. I would have liked to see more in the narrative which would have surpised me. There isn't much in the way of numious moments. This is not a prerequisite by any stretch of the imagination, but it does do aesthetic wonders for a spiky, energetic, wise novel like this one. I think, if anything, that's where such a thing comes in really handy.

No mate may there be for the magpie; but may there yet be motion.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrator's character, snarky but generally warm and compassionate, makes for a very enjoyable read, even though it is essenially a social criticism. Dialect and a very adult voice speaking for a child just add to the fun.
"The first time a went te mass a was nearly three. It was said be a priest that we had in our parish at that time called Father Dan, an' he was a great man. All the people used to love him on account of the fact that he niver toulthem how they were goin' te burn in hell foriver an' iver because of their sins. Instead he taught them bigotry an' how to boycott protestant shops." (p. 6)

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book, loved to hear the lilting Irish voice in my head.

[Tracy Gaughan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I've read in years. An outstanding author, gone too soon. A master satirist, Molloy uses regional dialect, realism and laugh-out-loud humour to tell a story of sectarianism, racism, violence and discrimination rife against Catholics in 1960s Northern Ireland. She uses the faux-naif narrator, Ann Elizabeth McGlone, a magnetic, enterprising and spirited young catholic girl from the lower orders, to lambast the corrupt Northern Irish power structures: church and state, that preach love and practise intolerance. Deprivation is widespread and her life is in flux. In a few short years, she's worked as a machinist in a pyjama factory, as a bacon-slicer, a priest's housekeeper (hilarious episode), a maker of shrouds in a mortuary, in a delicatessen, she's become a political activist and has joined and been kicked out of the nuns - as the title suggests, she may have seen something shiny in all of these professions but ended up, as her father did, imprisoned for her troubles. Her casual portrayal makes all the more palpable, the hate-preaching politicians, corrupt priests, abusive nuns and horrific attacks by RUC officers, particularly the one against the People's Democracy march on Burntollet bridge in 1969, again the faux-naif device permits unmediated observation. Humour is a coping mechanism. She calls one of the housing estates they lived in 'Korea' because of all the fighting; she tries hard to live up to religious propriety but says: 'you couldn't ever imitate christ and manage to live in our house at the same time'; when her father will only allow her to leave home over his dead body, she talks about what a sorrow it is to her that he plans to die so young; and on her mother's anger, she calls it 'the menopause coming back to have another go at her'. It's just a fantastic novel. As I said it's written in Derry dialect, so a bit of getting used to but fascinating. Incidentally, Sarah O'Connor has an interesting chapter on Molloy and the use of dialect in 'Women, Social and Cultural Change in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Dissenting Voices'. She references O'Barr & Atkins thesis on how women's language is seen as a powerless language and talks about how, in turn, women tend to use more standard forms. Men, less bothered by stigma, use more localised forms. So, Molloy's use of Northern Hiberno-English was groundbreaking.
Highly recommended.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A semi autobiographical account of the coming of age of young Elizabeth McGlone in 1960’s rural Northern Ireland before the eruption of the `Troubles’. Elizabeth recounts her adventures in the sectarian culture of Northern Ireland with a wicked humor. No-one escapes the wry observational eye she casts over her first work experience in a shirt factory, her misspent time housekeeping for the parish priest and her alleged `nervous breakdown’ leaving all unnerved but herself.

September 12, 2004: I really wanted to like this, but had a very hard time getting into the dialect of the book. I did not finish it.

[Andrew McDougall · Rating 5 out of 5]

An underrated gem of Troubles fiction and another with an authentic working-class voice. This time, we accompany Derry girl Ann from her schooldays to adulthood. Written entirely in an engaging vernacular, this is a nuanced novel that places social class at the forefront of the Troubles narrative and questions accepted norms and authority figures whenever encountered. It deals, too, with the fatalistic perpetuity of prejudice and, yet, despite its serious contribution to Troubles literature, manages to be very funny in places.

Full review here

[Megan]

I took an Irish lit class, which is the only reason I read this. I'm really glad I was forced, since I loved it. I laughed a couple times a chapter. But if I hadn't been assigned to it, I wouldn't have picked it up at all, since it's written in dialect. Quite easy to read dialect, once you get the hang of it, but dialect nonetheless.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super cool book; I especially liked the way it was written phonetically. Really interesting how major historical moments were passed over as part of life. Her mobility through society was interesting.

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember I loved it. I also remember the Guinness and gingernuts. And the insanity. Wow, it's a long time ago.

[Janet · Rating 2 out of 5]

I slogged through the dialect, and though her story may reflect that of many other girls growing up in Northern Ireland, I found it a downer. This book was on my list since it was first published, then in my stack for many more years. I'm glad I finally put it to rest.