Cormac's Corner - Softcover

MacConnell, Cormac

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0970587708 ISBN 13: 9780970587701

Publisher: Greenbranch Co Llc, 2000

Synopsis

A Collection of His Classic Stories from the West of Ireland

About this title

About the Author

Cormac MacConnell was born and raised in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland. He lived for many years in Galway, working as a journalist and writer with the Irish Press Group and other organizations. MacConnell is a well-known columnist, in both Ireland and the United States. Drawing on his experiences and intimate knowledge of the unique people and traditions of the West of Ireland, MacConnell's popular weekly columns in the Irish Voice and Irish Emigrant have garnered him a loyal following of readers. He has also written a novel about Gaelic football called Final Moments. MacConnell and his wife, Annett, currently live in County Clare where he is a news editor and on-air presenter with Clare FM Radio Station.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Liz Taylor and the Nuns

There is a convent away out far in the West, close to the ragged edge before the map turns Atlantic blue, and the nuns there pray publicly every morning and evening in their shadow-dusted cloisters for the happy repose of the soul of the late lamented Richard Burton, the film star, and for his former wife, Elizabeth Taylor.

I have heard these prayers myself a time or two, silvery tinkles at twilight, from upraised pale innocent faces, turned toward heaven. To look at the nuns there, at those prayerful times, one would never imagine at all that one of them, long ago, was directly responsible for the scandal which blazed across the headlines of the world when Taylor and Burton first fell into their long and passionate love war.

You will remember that it started on the film set of "Cleopatra" with Taylor in the starring role and Burton, his great Welsh voice ringing like an Angelus bell, playing Mark Anthony. You will remember that their love scenes in that film, echoing the private passion, were so searing that one cameraman afterwards remarked that Burton's plastic armour began to melt and the lenses of the cameras steamed over. You will remember also that it was a major scandal of the time because there were spouses involved.

It's hard to imagine that the nuns praying in the convent in the West were responsible for all that. but they were. At least one of them was and they all pray because they don't rightly know which of them it was. Most believe that it was Sister Bernadette, but there is also a body of opinion which blames Mother Patricia.

The community is not certain because Sol Zimmerman's letter, all those years ago before the scandal broke, was not specific enough for the culprit to be identified without any reasonable doubt.

I'll start at the beginning. Sol Zimmerman was the most famous theatrical wig maker of his generation. He visited the convents in the West of Ireland every autumn to buy the lustrous locks of hair willingly surrendered by the young nuns before taking their final vows. Sol Zimmerman always said that this hair was the finest in the world.

It was invariably long and glossy, had never been permed or tampered with, and had grown in the healthiest environment on earth. Each Fall, when Sol came calling, he was brought into the convent parlour, given tea and cake in the most delicate of china cups, and then was shown the special walnut box full of the lovely tresses of the new nuns. There are several grades of hair for theatrical wigs and the top grade is called Superfine A. I have it on the best authority that the locks from this convent way out West were always Superfine A, and Sol Zimmerman, a man of honour, always paid top prices for such a product.

There were a lot of vocations to the convent then, the box in the parlour writhed with glossy locks of loveliness, almost all of it inkblack, thick, and gently curling, and Sol would pay as much for the lot as the nuns would get later in the autumn for a bullock off their farm. He wore several gold rings on his long white hands, did Sol, and he would run his fingers through the box of hair, almost purring with pleasure.

And then, you see, one particular Fall Sol Zimmerman came, greatly more excited than usual, so that he clattered the china cup against his saucer in the parlour as he told Mother Xavier, who always conducted the business affairs of the sisters, that he had just won the contract to supply all the wigs for "Cleopatra".

His rings flashed in circles under a disapproving statue of Michael the Archangel killing the Serpent, as he said this was the contract which would make his fortune. And he needed all the Superfine Grade A hair he could get, especially the locks that were black as coal for Cleopatra herself. And Mother Xavier, for it had been a good season for vocations, triumphantly opened the box and there were the inkblack young pure locks of all the young nuns who are silvered now, praying morning and evening. And Sol Zimmerman actually kissed her hand! Unheard of! Even for a theatrical wig maker. It was the biggest scandal in the history of the convent until the infinitely bigger one surfaced a year later.

Because, you see, about a year later, when the film was shot and the scandal was still shooting, Sol Zimmerman sent a letter of thanks to the convent, in his own handwriting, saying that the two wigs he had made for Miss Taylor had been "totally superb" and he added, probably forgetting that he wasn't writing to theatrical people, "it is said that it was the coal black coiffure of Ms. Taylor that drove Mr. Burton out of his mind with love. I thank you from the depths of my heart."

Which is now why, morning and evening, the sisters pray for Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. And why, hearing and seeing and knowing the story, one is driven to musing about the mysteries of life and love.

Edition details

• Publisher: Greenbranch Co Llc
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0970587708
• ISBN 13: 9780970587701
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 243