Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin's 'Swineherd'

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (1942- )

The Swineherd? What exactly are his or her ‘special skills’? Why is there a Portguese lay sister in the kitchen, and how does cream crawl to the top of the jug? Where does it get dark early in summer?

All I know is that the first four lines have rattled in my head on so many occasions.

Who ever or wherever the swineherd is, he or she has my sympathy.

(I apologise, but I do not know how to pronounce this writer’s name, and I do not wish to insult her by mangling it.)

This is taken from ‘The Second Voyage’ (Revised ed, 1986)