KELLS — It's the start of November, and across Ireland families are writing the names of the ones they've lost on the list for the month's prayers. This year, Kells has added one more name. It's the Book of Kells.
The family wants to clear one thing up straight away. The Book isn't dead. It's in Dublin.
The November list is an old custom. You write down the people who are gone, and for a month the town remembers them out loud. You don't usually put on it someone who's alive and well, sitting 69 km down the road in a glass case. But people in Kells say there's never been a custom for this. Something leaves home in 1653 to be kept safe. It's minded somewhere else from the 1660s on. Then it's never sent back. So they did what they could with the form they had.
A fictional composite of Kells people at the back of the church after the All Saints' Day Mass said: "You remember the ones who are gone. This one's gone, but not the way they mean. It doesn't need our prayers. It needs a lift home."
Next to the name, in brackets, somebody has written: not deceased. Address known. Visiting hours apply.
The town knows its saints. It has Colmcille, whose monks made the Book, and the old monastic ground where they worked. All Saints' Day is a day for remembering where holy things came from. Kells doesn't need reminding. It's the town with the name on the cover.
The list will be read out through November, the same as every year. People expect the Book's name to get the longest pause. Nobody is grieving. Everyone is waiting.
A fictional composite of Kells families who've kept that list going for generations said: "We'll take it off the list the day it comes home. Not on loan. Home. Until then it stays on, in brackets, every November."