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Published: January 5th 2010
A good writer writes against cliché, so coming to this island at its least emerald-ish should work to my advantage. No green then, but with every other colour of the palate available, I set out to discover Ireland.
We arrive on The Burren in a total white-out, the landscape as blank and featureless as some inhospitable planet. From window one, the Aran Islands exist. From window two, the cliffs of Moher wait to be discovered. From window three, we face Connemara. But for tonight, the view is strictly interior: a peat fire glowing, dinner set out in front of the telly, Ron and I cocooned in oatmeal-coloured blankets.
We enter our third day of the storm. The snow blows sideways over the burren, obliterating our view of the strange steep slopes. Against the windows, the wind sets up a steady wall of sound. We are grateful to be in a substantial house, with central heating and all our machines (oven, dishwasher, washing machine, television) running. When night falls, the power goes out, intensifying our sense of isolation. The sky is blue-black and starless; someone has spilled a whole bottle of Waterman’s ink.
Our New Year's plans have to
be scuttled. All the music in Doolin can't convince us to make the short but icy drive down the hill and into town. Instead, we dim the lights, rearrange the furniture around our personal stretch of the Atlantic, and watch a distant lighthouse blink on and off.
Pipes freeze. Ireland is experiencing its worst winter in half a century, so we temporarily check into a hotel in Galway. This allows us a night on the town, the air thick with the acrid scent of coal. In the pub, the young people break into a chorus of "Black is the Colour of my True Love's Hair." The boys sling arms across each others' shoulders, and a dark-haired girl tips her head back and really belts it out. I am oddly touched by this, her love of traditional music which belies her skimpy tank top and too-thick mascara.
Sitting in pubs becomes a major preoccupation. The pubs are just as I imagined: alternate living rooms for tweedy gentlemen, tall pints of Guinness settling on the bar, cheery barmaids with mussed-up hair. The food is comforting: cottage pie, plaice with chips, soda bread with mushroom soup. A coal shuttle sits on
the hearth and, every so often, a freckled-faced lad dumps a crackling load of coal unceremoniously onto the fire.
I am experiencing a sense of being asleep wide awake. It transports me to another century (gentler would be a false way to describe it) when pleasures were simpler, people let down their guard, and subsistence became a collective responsibility. Caught in a time warp, we turn the car radio up high and trundle though towns with names - Lisdoonvarna to Limerick, Ballynalackan to Caheraderry- as musical as a penny whistle. The radio announcer tells a few jokes. It was December 31st in County Clare, at the local pub. To everyone gathered, a woman proposed that, to usher in the New Year, each man should stand next to the person who mattered most in the world. There was an awkward moment, at midnight, when the barman was almost trampled to death.
And here's another one. A group of Irishmen formed two lines at the Gates of Heaven. One line, very long, was for all the henpecked husbands. In the other line, one man stood alone. When St. Peter asked him why all the rest were in the other line
except for him, the man replied: "The wife told me to stand in this line."
Ron laughs too loudly at this one, if you want my opinion. Also, his true colours emerge as he sings along lustily, one hand on the wheel, one hand on the gearshift, occasionally fiddling with the radio, occasionally straying over to the unrecognized side of the road:
And it's no nay never
No nay never no more
Will I play the Wild Rover
No never no more.
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Mary
non-member comment
be careful Ron
My Jewish brother-in-law spent too long in Ireland a few years back and now claims to have deeply rooted Irish blood.