Decades rolled by, taking with them the original belligerents, their pamphlets and their ink-stained wrath. By 1860, the lingering bitterness of the Great Orthographic Schism had thinned into little more than family folklore. The endless pamphlets proposing Dell and Deaven had long since been used to light turf fires in Antrim, while Sir Horace’s treatises on the twin ‘H’s served as draught excluders in Inverness.
It was young Alistair Hunt, great-grandson of Sir Horace and Lady Hannah, who first crossed the choppy strait with a peace offering. He arrived in County Antrim carrying a leather satchel, a copper hydrometer and a heart full of commercial ambition.
He found Bridget O’Donnovan, third of her line, standing knee-deep in a bog, cutting peat with a spade and looking every bit as formidable as her ancestor Deirdre.
‘I come with a proposition,’ Alistair announced, adjusting his bowler hat against the gale. ‘Our forebears spent their lives fighting over where our souls end up. I suggest we focus on making the journey there considerably more enjoyable.’
Bridget leaned on her spade, eyeing the Scot with shrewd suspicion. ‘If this is another lecture on aspirates and consonants, Hunt, you can take a running jump into the sea.’
‘Not at all,’ Alistair replied with a slight smile. ‘I propose a merger. Scottish barley, Irish spring water. Highland patience, Antrim passion. We shall call it the H&D Distillery.’
Bridget raised an eyebrow. ‘And which letter comes first?’
‘We shall tell the Scots the ‘H’ stands for Heaven,’ Alistair said smoothly. ‘And we shall tell the Irish the ‘D’ stands for Delirious.’
Bridget barked out a laugh that scattered a flock of rooks from the nearby thorn bush. ‘Now that is a piece of rogue diplomacy my great-granddaddy Declan would have toasted.’
The union was sealed over a mug of hot punch, and work began on the shores of Rathlin Island, directly in the middle of the tempestuous North Channel. The distillery was an architectural marvel of sheer compromise: the Scots insisted on double distillation and heavy peat smoke, while the Irish demanded copper pot stills the size of church steeples and a smooth, triple-distilled finish.
The result of this theological and spirituous truce was the H&D Single Malt Celestial Batch, a drink of astounding complexity. The first sip hit the tongue with the fiery roar of a proper Gaelic underworld, a nod to Declan’s Dell, before mellowing into a heather-honeyed finish that Lady Hannah herself would have deemed Deavenly entirely.
On the day the first cask was tapped, descendants from both sides of the channel gathered in the stone barrel house. Glassware clinked, potheen and scotch met in harmony and the old argument was finally laid to rest.
‘To all the ‘H’s and the ‘D’s,’ Bridget toasted, raising her glass to the rafters where the angels were undoubtedly taking their generous share.
‘To Hell, Heaven, Dell and Deaven,’ Alistair agreed, clinking his glass against hers. ‘May they all taste half as good as this.’
