The Peter Robinson Experiment

Near the town of Kilworth, in County Cork, Margaret stood wearily beside the low doorway of a crumbling mud and stone hut staring blankly at an expanse of green pastures dotted with shallow ponds. The previous summer, she had married Patrick Heffernan, a tenacious tenant-farmer who, despite the times, held on tightly to hopes and dreams of a prosperous future in tilling the soil. But now, Margaret felt certain that they could only dream about the day when she and her husband would be assigned a lease of their own to plant and harvest. Over the years, in accordance with the law, the Heffernan plot had been divided and subdivided repeatedly with each generation until there wasn’t a sufficient amount to cultivate. After marrying, Patrick and Margaret were forced by circumstances into sharing this hut on a small lease with Patrick’s failing parents - Thomas and Catherine, his sister- Honora, her husband-Liam, and their three children- two young boys, Thomas and Edward, and a tiny girl, Norah. For months now, Patrick had reassured Margaret daily that their turn would come soon, that perhaps one of the abandoned leases would become theirs, and that, after so many years of faithfulness, Lord Mount Cashell would respond to their desperate need for more acreage. Leaning wearily against the damp wall and gazing into the distance, Margaret could only wonder what good a plot of their own would actually be if it were more lake than land.