Dermot Agnew

Dermot Agnew is the son of Michael Agnew and Joanna Agnew. His brief appearances bring Michael’s private family life into Cushla’s view, then return the focus to that family at the funeral, where Dermot is one of the young people carrying his father’s coffin.

Identity and Introduction

At a restaurant, Cushla recognizes Dermot from a rugby photograph in Michael’s flat. Seeing him in person feels to her like meeting Michael at eighteen. The resemblance connects the adult Michael she knows to the younger man preserved in the photograph, while Dermot’s presence makes Michael’s life as a husband and father impossible to keep at a distance.

Dermot’s name and schooling also hold a cultural contrast: he has been given an Irish name and sent to a Protestant boarding school. When his mother prompts him to greet Cushla, he shakes her hand, smiles, and blushes. Cushla returns his greeting but keeps her fists in her pockets; she cannot bring herself to touch him.

At Michael’s Funeral

At the funeral, Dermot is only a couple of feet away as the coffin is carried down the aisle. In his new suit, he looks too young to be bearing his father’s body. The moment gives his earlier, youthful resemblance to Michael a different weight: the son who recalled his father as a young man is now helping carry him away.

Joanna is overwhelmed as the coffin passes, her legs buckling while two women support her. Outside, she clings to Dermot beside the hearse. His place beside his mother makes him a visible point of attachment within the family’s grief, even as Cushla stands apart and watches.