low skullcap and a black robe with a cross on his chest. Dad says he was a Pope,Leo the Thirteenth,a great friend of the workingman.He brought this picture all the way from America where he found it thrown out by someone who had no time for the workingman. Mam says he’s talking a lot of bloody nonsense and he says she shouldn’t say bloody in front of the children. Dad finds a nail but wonders how he’s going to get it into the wall without a hammer. Mam says he could go borrow one from the people next door but he says you don’t go around borrowing from people you don’t know. He leans the picture against the wall and drives the nail with the bottom of a jam jar.The jam jar breaks and cuts his hand and a blob of blood falls on the Pope’s head. He wraps his hand in the dish rag and tells Mam,Quick,quick,wipe the blood off the Pope before it dries. She tries to wipe the blood away with her sleeve but it’s wool  and  spreads  the  blood  till  the  whole  side  of  the  Pope’s  face  is smeared.  Dad  says,  Lord  above,  Angela,  you’ve  destroyed  the  Pope entirely, and she says,Arrah, stop your whining, we’ll get some paint and go over his face some day, and Dad says, He’s the only Pope that was ever a friend to the workingman and what are we to say if someone from the St.Vincent de Paul Society comes in and sees blood all over him? Mam says, I don’t know. It’s your blood and ’tis a sad thing when a man can’t even drive a nail straight. It just goes to show how useless you are.You’d be better off digging fields and anyway I don’t care. I have pain in my back and I’m going to bed. Och, what am I going to do? Dad says. Take down the Pope and hide him in the coal hole under the stairs where he won’t be seen and he’ll be out of harm’s way. I can’t, says Dad. It would be bad luck. Coal hole is no place for a Pope.When the Pope is up, he’s up. Suit yourself, says Mam. I will, says Dad. This is our first Christmas in Limerick and the girls are out in the lane, skipping rope and singing, Christmas is coming And the goose is getting fat, Please put a penny In the old man’s hat. 93