The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

wasn’t a horny teenager, he was a businessman. Gallagher’s Pub was now very much part of his interests.
    And it appeared to be a thriving one.
    Most of the tables were full—families, couples, tour groups huddled together over pints and glasses and conversations. A young boy who couldn’t have been more than fifteen sat in a corner playing a weepy tune on a concertina. A fire had been lit, as with evening the weather had gone chilly and damp, and around the red glow of the simmering turf a trio of old men with windraw faces sat smoking contemplatively and tapping booted feet to the music.
    Nearby, a child who couldn’t have seen his first birthday bounced and giggled on his mother’s knee.
    His own mother, Trevor thought, would have loved this. Carolyn Ryan Magee was fourth-generation Irish, born of parents who’d never set foot on Irish soil, any more than their parents before them had. And she was unabashedly sentimental over what she considered her roots.
    She was, he understood, the only reason he knew as much as he did about family history on his father’s side. Family, no matter if they’d been dead and buried for generations, meant something to her. When something mattered to his mother, she made certain it mattered to her men. Neither of whom, Trevor mused, could resist her.
    It was she who’d played Irish music in the house while his father had rolled his eyes and tolerated it. It was she who had told her son stories at bedtime of the Good People and silkies and pookas.
    And it had been she, Trevor knew, who had smoothed over in her fiercely determined way whatever hurts and resentments his father had felt toward his parents. Even with her powers, she hadn’t been able to add warmth, but at least she’d built a shaky bridge that had allowed for civility and respect on both sides.
    In fact, Trevor wondered if he’d have noticed the distance between his father and his father’s parents if it hadn’t been for the love and openness of his own home.
    Of all the couples he knew, he’d never known any as cheerfully devoted to each other as the one who’d created him. It was a marvelously intimate miracle, and one he never took for granted.
    He imagined his mother would sit here, as he was now, and soak it all up, join in the songs, chat with all the strangers. Thinking of it, he scanned the room through the pale blue haze of smoke, and thought of ventilation systems. Then he shook his head and headed to the bar. Whatever the health hazards, he supposed this was precisely the atmosphere those who came here were looking for.
    He saw Brenna at the far end of the bar, working the taps and having what appeared to be the most serious of discussions with a man who had to be a hundred and six.
    The only stool left was at the opposite end, and sliding on, Trevor waited while Aidan passed out glasses and made change.
    “Well, how’s it all going, then?” Aidan asked, and added the next layers to a pair of Guinnesses he was building.
    “Fine. You’re busy tonight.”
    “And busy we should be most nights from now till winter. Can I quench your thirst for you?”
    “You can. I’ll have a pint of Guinness.”
    “That’s the way. Jude said you were by to see her today, and having some concerns about our local color.”
    “Not concerns. Curiosity.”
    “Curiosity, to be sure.” Aidan began the slow, intricate process of building Trevor’s pint while he finished off the two in progress. “A man’s bound to have some curiosity about the matter when he finds himself plunked down in the middle of it. Jude’s publisher has the notion that when her book comes out, it could stir more interest in our little corner of the world. Good business that, for both of us.”
    “Then we’ll have to be ready for it.” He glanced around, noted that Sinead was moving with a great deal more energy tonight. But Darcy was nowhere to be seen. “You’re going to need more help in here, Aidan.”
    “I’ve given that some thought.” He filled a basket with crisps and set them on the counter. “Darcy’ll be talking to some people when the time comes.”
    As if hitting the cue, Darcy’s voice rang through the kitchen doorway in a peal of heartfelt and inventive curses.
    “You’re a miserable excuse for a blind donkey’s ass, and why you require a head hard as rock when you’ve nothing inside it needing protection, I’ll never know, for you’re brainless as a turnip and twice as disagreeable.”
    When Trevor