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I composed this and later named it after my father, Christy O’Brien. One of the many things I remember about him was his expertise with a slane or slean. He was an artist at cutting turf with me as the forkman loading a wheelbarrow for delivery and final spreading on fresh grass for drying.
He told me a funny story about a neighbor who couldn’t handle a slean. Instead, he used a hoe! This inadequate choice of cutting tool became the cause of laughter all the way across our turf banks and people were mystified by the very idea of a hoe in the bog.
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