I just read a short story by Colum McCann called Cathal's Lake in a collection called Fishing the Sloe Black River. It is about a man digging a newborn cygnet out of the mud at the edge of a lake in which it is buried during a winter rainstorm.

I was confused by this story. Does this happen often where a cygnet being born gets buried alive in mud in a storm? The implication is that the guy has been doing this by choice for years, saving the swans, and is juxtaposed against a story of young people killing and being killed in senseless political violence apparently during the IRA -British conflicts, about which he can do nothing. Just trying to sort it out. Thanks, Donna Aileen