In Dublin's Fair City (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #6)

So little to go on: her approximate age and the place where she was born. And all of this happened over fifty years ago. Now that I was here, I had to admit that my chances of finding what happened to her were indeed slim.

Around me the other passengers chatted on in their lilting Cork accent, regarding me, the outsider with the fancy clothing, with obvious interest and suspicion as they passed along juicy pieces of gossip. It was hard to remember that I had lived such a life myself once. They did inquire of my destination, and when I told them the name of the hamlet beyond Clonakilty, they instructed me where I should change trains.

“Are you going to the seashore for your health, miss?” another asked. “I can’t think of any good boardinghouses in that area. You’d do better to go to somewhere fashionable like Bantry where I understand they have lovely hotels.”

“Actually, I’m looking for someone,” I said. “I’ve come over from America.”

This news caused quite a stir and almost everyone present in the carriage chimed in, asking if I knew relatives or acquaintances who had also gone to the New World. When at last I could get a word in edgewise, I told them I was trying to trace a relative who had been left behind when the family sailed in a famine ship. “Her name was Burke, Mary Ann Burke.”

They debated among themselves as to Burkes that they knew or had known, but most of them weren’t from around Clonakilty. When we reached the junction, they put me off the train as if I was a two-yearold simpleton,- and in fact one of them, also bound for Clonakilty, led me like an errant child across to the train waiting on the other side of the platform. During the next portion of the ride, I asked about how to get to a hamlet called Ardfield.

“It's a goodish walk if you’re not used to it,” one of my fellow passengers said, and I realized suddenly that I was no longer one of them. My clothing, my manner, were now that of a stylish lady, not an Irish peasant. I have to say it did give me a little thrill of pleasure.

Again I explained my mission. Again met with blank stares. Nobody had heard the story of the abandoned baby.

“Likely enough she’d have wound up in the workhouse,” one of them said. “That's where most poor wretches wound up in those days. And not many got out alive.”

With that depressing news we pulled into Clonakilty station. They set me in the right direction, and I came out to a bustling market square with the market in full swing. I pushed my way between the stalls, bought an apple from a child whose own cheeks were as rosy as his wares, and set off along the road munching it. On one side of the square there was a fine church with a spire. I was tempted to go right away to talk to the priests, but I had resolved to start at the Burke's croft and work my way back.

The town was soon left behind. It was a crisp but chilly day, perfect for walking, and I strode out, remembering how I had walked for miles in my youth with my hair blowing free behind me and usually no shoes on my feet. My current costume prevented me from taking more than dainty steps and the shoes pinched at my toes, but I hitched up the skirts as high as I dared and became less dainty after a few yards. I passed people along the road and asked each of them about the Burkes with no success, until at last I came to an old man, sitting outside his cottage door. He vaguely remembered a family called Burke, but couldn’t remember a baby called Mary Ann.

“Is there anyone you know around here who is old enough to remember the famine, besides yourself?”

He thought for a moment then spat down into the dust. “Paddy O’Reilly,” he said. “He lives out that way, if he's still alive. Haven’t seen him recently, but then he's got a gammy leg. Doesn’t get about much any more.”