Gráinne Lynch

### Family

Rónán (older brother), Oisín and Conor (younger brothers), unnamed sisters, unnamed parents

### Known Physical Features

Grey curly hair (formerly black), blue eyes

### First Mentioned

Season 6, Episode #1: Monday 22 October 1973

**Gráinne** is the main subject of season 6 of Within the Wires. She was an elderly woman recovering from a broken hip, and the recipient of stay-at-home care from a young nurse, Clíodhna. She was the only resident of a bombed-out town from before the Great Reckoning.

> *"So self-centered,” she said. “To think that everything strange that happens in this world is unhappy dead people. If that were true, girl, we could hardly move for mystical disturbances."* **--Gráinne in *Episode #10: Samhain***
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## Biography

### Early life

Gráinne was born in 1886 and grew up in a village that was about 15 miles from Ballinroche. She had three or four older siblings (none more than 9 years older than her), and her older brother was called Rónán. When she was three and he was nine, Rónán died from a sudden onset of illness. She also had two younger brothers, Oisín and Conor, and a border collie. One of her little brothers was very afraid of thunderstorms, and once attempted to hide behind the curtains without realising how poor a choice it was until the lightning frightened his hair into standing on end. When she was young, her family bought chickens, and soon had a surplus of eggs. Gráinne would take fresh eggs round to their neighbours in the mornings, and when there got to be too many eggs for a single trip, a boy from next door, Pádraig, let her borrow his toy wagon. The two became good friends.

In 1913, Oisín and Conor enlisted in the army. The family received notification of Oisín's death, but never heard what happened to Conor. Pádraig stopped coming around when Oisín died, and he died a year later himself. In 1917, someone with the surname Lynch had an obituary in the local paper, and Clíodhna said it was not related to the conflict, rather it was "“Grandmother of 12, died surrounded by loved ones,” that kind of thing." Gráinne's village and the surrounding area was bombed over three months in 1924, and almost every house in the village was destroyed. She also later referred to "the virus" spreading amongst the survivors, likely to be the "cobbler's flu" which had a global resurgence in the same year.

By 1973, all the rubble had been cleared away with Gráinne's house the only one left standing, and she was the only resident. Old Joseph used to bring her deliveries from the shop in Ballinroche, and Colm took over after he died, which he did every week for about 15 years.

### Clíodhna's stay

As she got older, Gráinne began suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. On the 6th of October, 1973, she fell in her kitchen and broke her hip. She spent two weeks recovering from surgery as an in-patient at University Hospital Kerry, before returning home on 20 October. She had a temporary nurse for that weekend, and he rearranged the ground floor for wheelchair access and converted the living room into a bedroom for her. On Monday 22 October, her full-time nurse Clíodhna Byrne arrived, but she was drastically late and the temporary nurse had already left. Clíodhna got the impression that Gráinne generally distrusted or disdained medical professionals.

On Tuesday, Gráinne was marginally more communicative while Clíodhna took her through her physiotherapy exercises, because she understood that a failure to communicate might result in making her injury worse. When Clíodhna heard a voice while she was taking Gráinne's blood pressure, Gráinne said she heard nothing. Gráinne refrained from talking about her family when asked. At dinner, Gráinne was more up for conversation, and asked Clíodhna about herself and why she had chosen the career she had.

On Wednesday, Clíodhna went into Ballinroche for groceries in the afternoon. However, the drive back to Gráinne's house again took hours. Gráinne was not angry when she got home, although her tea was late, and Clíodhna got the impression she believed her, although she didn't say so.

On Thursday evening, Gráinne told Clíodhna about the area and the people who used to live in the village, and mentioned boys called Pádraig and Oisín. That night, Gráinne and Clíodhna were woken by the sound of a storm, stayed up together watching the rain until it turned to sunrise. When she heard whispering again, Clíodhna asked Gráinne if she heard it too, but she just smiled and teased her for being scared of the rain, like her little brother had been.

After 9 o'clock on Saturday, Clíodhna had not come downstairs, so Gráinne wheeled herself to the landing, having got herself up, and shouted up, "Clíodhna! Are you dead?" Clíodhna then forgot to toast Gráinne's bread for her breakfast before pouring baked beans over it, and Gráinne just stared at her until she realised. Clíodhna ate the soggy bean bread after getting Gráinne a new breakfast.

In the afternoon, Clíodhna asked Gráinne when the shed had last been used, and she replied that she had not touched it in decades. Clíodhna decided not to ask Gráinne who tidied and stocked it, because she didn't want to know the answer. That evening, Gráinne seemed to be in a talkative mood, and Clíodhna told her about her dream, even asking if Gráinne had had the same one. Gráinne told her she had dreamt of a different party, and they had not shared a dream because that was not how dreams worked. She told her she was strange, and then wheeled herself out of the room.

Gráinne took a nap on Sunday afternoon. Later on, Clíodhna asked about a boy she had found in the family photograohs who got no older than 7 years old. She was quiet for a long time before telling Clíodhna to put the photo album back where she found it. To change the subject, she told Gráinne about a field she had passed nearly every day on her walks, filled with pumpkins that were one time gored by a small group of deer. Gráinne laughed and told her that there were no pumpkins growing there, maybe in all of Ireland, but Clíodhna insisted she knew what she saw.

Gráinne woke early on Monday, but did not seem troubled, and told Clíodhna that her breakfast could wait until a more reasonable time. Clíodhna mentioned the whispers, but not what they said, and Gráinne seemed to know what she was talking about, but didn't attempt to explain. Afterwards, Clíodhna went back to bed, as Gráinne had suggested. After Clíodhna rushed inside to try the phone in the evening and found it still disconnected, Gráinne laughed that she had known they wouldn't be able to fix it. Clíodhna snapped at her about the boy in the photograph, and Gráinne went quiet and got an "empty" look in her eyes before leaving.

On Tuesday morning, Clíodhna begged Gráinne to let her call the Department of Societal Health and move them both to a different house, but she refused, scoffing, “Leave if you think that’ll save you.” Clíodhna became convinced she had something to do with the death of the boy in the photograph. After failing to reach the village, Clíodhna ranted hysterically to Gráinne, but she calmly told Clíodhna that the phone was fixed. When asked how it had been fixed, Gráinne asked if it wasn't enough that it was working. There was a dial tone, but Clíodhna couldn't get through to the Ballinroche.

On Wednesday, Clíodhna sat Gráinne down at the kitchen table and laid out everything she had seen and experienced, demanding that they put "Oisín" to rest. Gráinne was quiet throughout, until she finally said that the boy in the photograph was her older brother Rónán, not Oisín or a son she didn't have. Seemingly with some irritation, she asserted that the boy was not her lovechild passed off as her sibling; Rónán was buried in the churchyard, and both of her younger brothers lived to adulthood. Gráinne said that the voices Clíodhna heard were nothing to do with wrongful deaths, just the world being ancient and full of things they couldn't understand or change. She said it was best to accept humanity was a guest of some much older part of the world, as there was no point fighting it.

## Additional info

* The name "Gráinne" appears in Irish mythology as a goddess of grain, and is often associated with "gráidh" meaning "love".

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Season 6, Episode #5: Friday 26 October 1973
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Season 6, Episode #1: Monday 22 October 1973
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Season 6, Episode #10: Samhain
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Season 6, Episode #7: Sunday 28 October 1973
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Season 6, Episode #4: Thursday 25 October 1973
6. ↑ You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, p.12
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Season 6, Episode #3: Wednesday 24 October 1973
8. ↑ Season 6, Episode #2: Tuesday 23 October 1973
9. ↑ Season 6, Episode #6: Saturday 27 October 1973
10. ↑ Season 6, Episode #8: Monday 29 October, 1973
11. ↑ Season 6, Episode #9: Tuesday 30 October 1973