EAMONN: We need our sons to carry on after us.
BRIDGET: And all of those sons have died young!
(She goes about her business, throwing the flowers furiously on the graves, blindly treading over them as she moves along. Beat.)
EAMONN: If you take him to America he’ll grow up to be some soft pretender, he’ll never fully understand what’s really happening. My cousins watched people fall to live rounds all around them. [The British] were only supposed to use rubber bullets! Jim Wray was laying face-down in the street, yelling that he couldn’t move his legs. A soldier marched up to him and shot him on the back from two feet away. Jim Wray didn’t have a fucking gun; his only crime was being Catholic and being Irish. If you take Michael away, how’s he supposed to understand that?
BRIDGET: I turned out fine, didn’t I? He’ll understand. He’s Irish.
EAMONN: What do you about it? You weren’t even born here! You’ve spent two years in Dublin studying literature. Fucking American imposters. You think blood makes all the difference in the world but you don’t know shit! It’s easy to put on airs and pretend to be righteous, but you don’t understand why!
BRIDGET: I can try if you’ll let me! I can’t help where I was born. I can’t help that my parents ran away!
EAMONN: What the fuck do you think you’re doing now? Running away, just like them! And stop with the damn flowers, will you! You’re driving me mad!
(He grabs the mutilated flowers out of her hand and throws them down.)
BRIDGET: I don’t want him to grow up to be like you!
