"Herself does be saying her prayers half through the night, and Almighty God won't leave her destitute," says he, "with no son living."
First of all, we don't know much about Nora because most of what she says is merely repeating what the young priest said. Clearly this man is very important on the island, and it is no wonder given his enthusiasm and confidence as God's professed mouthpiece. He seems particularly popular with young people and represents encroaching modernity. He is less popular with people like Maurya because he is an outsider and does not have the deep understanding about the power of the sea as the older denizens of the island do. He uses calming, placating sentiments like this quote, he but ends up being proven wrong: the sea does indeed take all of Maurya's sons. The young priest must be more cognizant of the ways things are out here in the Aran Islands, or he will continue to alienate people. That being said, this period of alienation will no doubt be temporary given the fact that Maurya and her ilk are aging and dying, and it is people like Nora and Cathleen who will inherit the island.
I hung it up this morning, for the pig with the black feet was eating it.
Synge is a subtle master of symbolism. He uses the color black in the text multiple times to refer to death; this can be seen in the black cliffs of Donegal, the black hags, and, of course, the pig with the black feet. This pig chews on the very rope that Barkley plans to use on the gray pony, and that pony is the creature that drags the young man into the sea. Furthermore, in much ancient religion and folklore, pigs are traditionally sacrificed; here Bartley, Michael, and Maurya's other sons are all sacrificed to the sea as well.
Bartley came first on the red mare; and I tried to say "God speed you," but something choked the words in my throat.
This is one of the most important moments in the play. Maurya is prepared to bless her son begrudgingly, but her frightening vision takes her words away. She is now certain that Michael has passed into the beyond and that Bartley is next; to bless him would be to defy the conviction she has and knows to be true. Some critics claim her failure to bless him here caused him to die, but a closer reading reveals that she could not bless him before she looked up and saw Michael; furthermore, she had failed to bless him earlier as well.
What more can we want than that? No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied.
The final lines of the play signify Maurya's resignation to the power of the sea. She has spent her life fighting against it, desperately looking for warnings and omens and always failing to keep her family safe. She ignored the platitudes of the Catholic Church as she vied with the sea, and stubbornly refused to give in to her family's gibes and derision. In the end she becomes a symbolic Mary, grieving for dead Jesus: she is an eternal picture of patient suffering. No longer having to worry about the sea, she can turn back to the comforting (and more anodyne) rituals of the Church. Holy water is the only water that matters now, as the sea has metaphorically receded from her cottage.
