April 1912 - The Journey

Imagine them then, all fourteen of them, with probably another two dozen or more family and friends, fresh from the 'American Wake', ruddy-faced in the night air, all walking together on that 10th of April in the very early morning in 1912, having made it over the 'windy gap', from Lahardane to Castlebar, a last trek on the winding pathway through the lonely mountain pass, at night, like they were heading for the Mairgead Mor in Castlebar, only they weren't, were they? And sure didn't they all stop for one last look back at Nephin towering behind them, his head separating the scudding clouds, not wanting to see them leave. The valley below still with its winter hues and lovely Lough Conn in the distance beyond Nephin, glistening blue and silver in the weak spring sunshine. They were talkative, chattering about the possibilities, the wonders and the chance to make it big in that land of opportunity that America ever was for those strong and brave enough to make the journey.  They were headed to New York, New Jersey, St. Louis and Chicago, but first they had to cross the wild Atlantic.

They were a motley group, young and not so young, some barefoot, some sad, all expectant, in trepidation, scared yet excited, butterfly-stomached all the 14 winding, bohareen-miles to Castlebar. One of the ladies looked beautiful and proud wearing the new hat she had bought the week before from the shop in Crossmolina. Another brooded a little, troubled by the warning she had been given by the dark stranger at the last fair day in Lahardane.

No taxis back then, or cars, they likely walked most of it, in the dark, with their small suitcases, bags or whatever little possessions most of them carried, piled up on the train of five horse-drawn sidecars, the reliable carriages bumping over the rough road. Some of the group had bought new steamer trunks, wooden suit-cases, no wheels on them back then, nor smooth road to wheel them on either. How hard would that journey have been, walking behind the laden horse and carts, badly lighted by carburundum lamps, a silent procession as they made their way through the Windy Gap in the early dawn, to the town Castlebar, to the Railway Station and the waiting steam train. Most of them had never even seen a train before. They chatted quietly, nervously, their anxieties only matched by their excitement. Their companions on this first part of the journey were quiet too, thinking of the many times they had made this trip to Castlebar already only to return alone, another emigrant on their way, rarely to be seen again.

They arrive early for the 8.20am train and stand about the station watching as they engine is stoked into life, the steam hissing from the wheel pistons, the belching of black smoke from the stack, while the men have one last deoch a dorais in McGraths bar, well known to them from the cold fair days in October and November. Then finally it is time, and as the shrill whistle blows and the steam clouds billow about their feet, the final hugs, the bittersweet farewells, hands reaching up from the station platform, the tears and hand-shakes, their last kisses, (did they even kiss), and the train departs for Queenstown, white handkerchiefs fluttering from the departing windows.

It was to be an interminably long journey, over 12 hours, changing trains several times, going from one railway system to another, the Great Western, the Midland, the Southern. The passengers and their baggage move as one, from platform to platform, following the 3 experienced travellers in their group who have done this journey before, marvelling at their knowlege. Ireland was so big, who knew? The carriages were no better than carts, no in-carriage service, no bar-car, no soft seats, smoke and cinders from the engine's smoke stack sparking in the steam trail above the carriages, occasionally coming into the carriages through an opened window. They watched in wonder as an Ireland they did not know passed them by, the rich fields of Munster, nothing like their hard-scrabble holdings on the lower slopes of Nephin.

The pangs of hunger are now replacing the butterflies, as the trains wend their way south, through the counties of Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, then Tipperary and finally Cork. Did the train tracks connect, or did they have to change trains each time, at Claremorris, or Athenry or Limerick, or Limerick Junction? Had they time to buy hot food at the stations, or did they carry just a bit of hard bread and a bottle of milk or cold tae? Very possibly they were tempted to buy something along the way, with the couple of farthings or ha'pennies they had in their pocai. They might have spent them, but not the bright sovereigns or guineas sewn into the lining of their jackets, ar eagla na h-eagla, jealously guarded for the long journey and the necessary grub-stake when they arrived over yonder! No, they likely nibbled whatever bread they had in their packs, drank a little milk from a glass bottle. It was a long, wearying journey indeed.

And then finally, at last, after an exhausting day's travel, they come to Cork, the first city most of them have ever seen. The bustle and din of the busy railway station in the centre of the cathedral city is amazing to them, but their fascination had to be ignored and bags guarded while they waited for the boat-train to Cobh, or Queenstown as it was then known, and a night's lodgings, 2/6 (two shillings and six pence...today about 15cents, but back then, a full weeks wages, if you had a job) for each person, so much money for a hard bed for one night. Cobh was an amazing transit station, the place full of boarding-houses, each crammed with travellers just like them, eager for their ships to come and take them away across the sea to hope.

Next morning, after a final prayer in the cathedral overlooking the harbour they settle in for the long wait. Ticket agents wandered to and fro amongst the crowds, bargaining, touting, urging groups of passengers to buy passage on the various liners that are due that day. Yet the Addergoole group were patient amidst the bustle of the steamer quay there, finally shuffling in line with over a hundred others, all waiting for the next tender, out to the ship itself which is far out in the great harbour, unseen. Finally they are all walking unsteadily up a ganway from the quayside onto their tender, itself huge, their ship surely, 'is this it'? No it is either The America or The Ireland, both of them ships in their own right, but here in Cobh, merely tenders, taxis to the Titanic, nothing like the mighty ocean liner that awaits off Roches Point. Underway now, they all cling to the rail, holding firm against the unfamiliar sway of the deck, the shudder of unimagined power from the engines, the rush of adrenaline, leaving Ireland, leaving home, perhaps forever. A piper aboard pipes Erin's Lament and as the melancholic air floats across the waves, they huddle together on deck, looking shorewards, waving their kerchiefs to the well-wishers on steamers quay. Despite their excitement, the tears flow.

Then out onto the harbour they steam, as in a dream, looking back at the church spire, a prayer on everyone's lips. Behind them the cathedral spire fades into the landscape as the vessel clears the harbour and steams towards Titanic. The engines slow, a silence, the sea-mist clears and suddenly, looming above them, the huge black hulk of the Titanic, soaring high, like Nephin from the surface of the sea, a sea most of them have never even seen before, nor smelled nor tasted, such salt, the spray on their faces, carefully across the gangway into the hold, and now the 'luxury' of the steerage cabins, the music, the personalities, the food and warmth, the style and fashion, the electricity! The lights, so bright, each room ablaze with light and hope, how they must have blazed with pride and already a fairytale had come true, sure only a half-dozen floors now separated them from first class and the super-wealthy, they couldn't even imagine it and now it's true. Unbelievable!

Three days out, seasoned sailors all now, their sea-legs fashioned from the dancing they were doing each night, yet the doors to the stairs and the rooms above were locked, no promenading the deck for the girls from Addergoole. Their's was a journey of confinement, they could only look out the port-holes at the infinite sea beyond the steel hull of the ship. Tonight the 14th of April the Addergoole fourteen gathered together to celebrate Nora Flemmings 22nd birthday. Songs were sung and they danced a few steps to the tunes the piper from Athlone played. In third class that night there were 10 birthdays celebrated. The songs of travellers from Turkey, Ireland, England, Gernmany, Norway, Italy and Russia all intermingled and echoed around the great ship as the happy throng sailed on westward to their new destiny.

The din of their fellow travelers harmonised with the hum of the deck plates and the throb of the engines far below them in the hold of the ship, a not unpleasant sound, hypnotic, re-assuring, constant, lulling them to sleep far from Nephin's watchful gaze. As they rested and slept, their thoughts were with their families at home. What were they doing now, at home, were they asleep too, under the thatch, listening to the crickets by the fire-place, was it raining, did they miss them.

Suddenly, as in the distance, the mighty ship is groaning like a living being, an injured animal, the calamity has happened, the panic begun. Now the alarms sound, lights flicker, the floor tilts, no one down here knows the truth, the few crew are ashen, and do not tell. Most are awake and in their night attire, some wearing coats, all in corridors now, dozens of languages, all shouting, seeking their friends, their families amid the panic and the flickering lights. There is banging at the steerage exits but the doors are still locked, the men are wild-eyed, the women and children are crying and praying. The din and noise is louder now, the mighty ship is in it's death rattle, a metallic moan fills the ships cabins from stem to stern, momentarily silencing the panicked chorus from passengers and crew. Nothing can help them now, the ship is sinking and they are trapped below decks.

Finally, in answer to their prayers, better late than never, an opened door is discovered, or remembered, a door that leads to a ladder and allows them up on deck, the Addergoole fourteen move as one, holding hands, white-faced against the bitter cold, huddled against the wind. The scene that awaits them up on deck is shocking, from the slanting deck by the light of the stars, movement is reflected on the ocean where already some lifeboats float, now and then brightly illuminated by the intermittent white flares the crew set off. Some life-jackets are found and hurriedly donned, though there are none for the men. The cold is biting, but the trembling is from fear, fear of water, none of them ever swam and the water is a cliff-face down the side of the ship away. The deck lights are flickering on and off now, slowly dimming, their hopes fading.


Frightened knots of men struggle to lift two heavy lifeboats from one side to the other side of the tilting ship. Another group are fighting each other, frantically attempting to assemble a canvas kit-boat that has been hauled up onto the deck. Another of the lifeboat dangles helplessly over the side, trapped by tangled ropes on the davitts. Everywhere the screams and shouts of men and women is confusing and frightening.

One of the Lahardane group finds a pen-knife in her bag, a gift from her father. It is tossed to the boats mate, and he succeeds in freeing the tangled hawser. There is space on the boat and they are exhorted to jump in. Now the harried hesitation, who shall be saved? 'No, we will not be separated'. Three of the girls are persuaded to go and now the last lifeboat's lowered, there are no more. Stranded, the remaining eleven huddle together and pray, the dread certainty and the realisation of the journey's tragic end, the loneliness as the darkness and the salt sea soaks them for the last time, the moon reflects the cries, a last prayer, a plea for mercy, 'A Dhia, dhean trocaire, a Dhia na ghrasta, a Dhia, a Dhia!' The last few weak cries peter out as Titanic slips below the water and the darkness and the silence of the mighty Atlantic closes in. Oh the humanity!

For the full story see the Addergoole-Titanic Society's wonderful website http://www.addergoole-titanic.com/
And on Facebook see Mayo Link for the full story of the celebration of the centenary of the Titanic's sinking and this little villages outstanding memorial to their fourteen brothers and sisters who sailed on Titanic. Eleven of them drowned. three survived.

Icarus and the Magpie

You are 100% right about Ireland..or Oireland...we really are a bunch of old codgers, driving around in last century's mercedes, rooting in deep pockets for shallow change for the priest and the poor box, we haven't changed really, we're still the Gombeenmen of Europe...rarely paying for our round, but always the life of the party...charming...but always so charmingly non-commital...perhaps living for so long as we did under the yoke of John Bull, shivering in caravans or tents..or under the bush on the side of the road has made us that way...we were landless tenants, we didn't own our own houses..even our poor patethic little bogside bohans, so why would we pay taxes for them...as well as rent...? To improve the roads, hah, sure a bad road will keep the Peelers away, and the Agents, and the feckers with the bad news. We made sure we spread the pig-shit across the street, and they kept well away from us, only visiting when there was someone to be buried or hanged, or both. We were a miserable bunch, not willing to pay the piper, but always calling the tune, or the piper a bolix, and swearing to God that the Brits were exporting their potholes here, much like the holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.


And then one day the fairy godmother..or the Pookie as we call her, came along and waved her 'sciathan' and hey presto, in the blink of the eye, we actually could afford real houses, real clothes, real cars, real holidays, to be really whom we always acted as..or aspired to...and for a fleeting day, or maybe a fortnight, we truly believed, we believed in ourselves and our dreams, we drove at speed around the potholes in our new fancy cars, we built things only the Americans built, we started to join up the dots with autobahns across the island and we began the climb, up the ladder to acceptance, to respectability, combing our hair and polishing our boots as we went, one-eyed on the road, one-legged, looking back awhile, in dis-belief!

T'was the Colour Purple, it was, 'cept we were Green...and sure green suits us, we decided, and the greener we got, the closer to the sun we flew! Flew? We soared, higher and higher, mastering the rising currents, then the current-torrents, like no one before, and the more we soared, the more we heated up, sweating in the unfamiliar glare, the clothes came off, we stripped down to the buff, preening, tanning ourselves, while soaring, between soaring, soaring upsides-down, no hands, always soaring, gliding was for cowards, we soared...roaring like the mighty Celts we were, bating our chests, defying gravity, sure weren't we born to it, everyone cheering us on, glad the duck was a swan...and so we roared and soared and then suddenly, in one feiry burst, we were burnt, burnt to a crisp, exposed for the ordinary folks we were, unprepared for sun-burn, limelight, fame, champagne hangovers, or money, money damnit, lots of money, mullah, or responsibility, maybe, just maybe we can buy our way out of it, buy new wings, and new wings were bought, and we borrowed more for wings for friends, for singers, for entertainers, ya need music for such a tragedy and musicians don't come cheap, so we borrowed and paid, and partied, while we tried desparately to learn to glide, on inferior wings, in dangerous winds, on bad days, ...and no one said stop, why did ye not shout stop?

And so, pretty quickly after it all began, we recalled our envoys, we cancelled the parties, we tightened our belts, but it was too late, far too late for such measures. Alas, we had failed, we lost our semblance of sensibility, our mantra of maturity, our dreams were shattered, taunted for what they were, unrealistic aspirations of an unworthy race...typecast for so long as curs and gombeens, we failed to realise our destiny, to grasp our future with both hands, and so, slipping, did as they all do falling down an Everest, we reached out and grasped at straws, or ropes and stabbed blindly with pithons into the passing grikes and helping hands, praying for any slim hope, for a finger- or toe-hold on that hallowed ground we had glimpsed, and had briefly gained, shamefully kicking out and squirming, hoping to dodge our fate, melding and morphing into what we were not, though such seemed our lot, we eventually fell back, and as we fell, the slack from the rope around our swollen bellies, tautened, tightened on our climbing buddies, our backers and our back-slappers, those who would dare to soar with the marauding Celts, to scale to the exciting new highs, and yet, when we fell, they, forewarned, or in true fore-knowlege, for hadn't they lent us the money, they in turn braced for the impact of our fall, on the one hand supporting us, their team-mate, on the other hand, bemoaning at the unfairness of it all, disbelief and a re-born, re-remembered morality in their shrieks, we were kept awake at night.

So bad was our sudden cataclysmic fall, and so great was the dead-cats rebound that our jolt dislodges all their hard-won, foot-holds and upwardly-only strangle-holds and all at once they were exposed them to the rising tide of bitter mis-fortune, and thus dislodged, and sliding, slipping, screaming, their collective momentum brings them out over the precipice, all strung together, connected inexorably to the first faller, or climber, depending on your perspective, screaming ineffectually at the passing cliff-face, at the rising reef of mis-adventure and happenstance...but the rush is great and so is Allah, and life is ...hmm, I suppose good...enough! Musha, isn't it good to be alive.

C'mon....Be honest now though, ....wasn't it great while it lasted?

The Texas Challenge

A friend recently explained to me in great detail how a pendulum, swinging in an arc, never again reaches the height of the point that it started at. In truth his explanation was fascinating....science, when couched in simple terms is always good for interesting after-dinner or over-pints conversation. Speaking of dinner and pints and pendulums reminds me that I once went to a Texas steakhouse, near Houston, a cavernous music-hall style place on whose menu was 'The Texas Challenge', a 72oz steak, served with Texas fries and refried beans, which if the patron finished it, entitled him (inevitably an 'him') to a meal on the house, like you'd ever eat again after consuming 41/2 pounds of a Texas steer in one sitting. Needless to say, there are several takers for this challenge each night and this night was no exception.

The 'Hall' was filled with hundreds of diners, many in Stetsons, huge and high-ceilinged, with a grand piano onstage at the front...being played by a nonchalant pianist, when suddenly, mid-tune, a sultry, scantily-clad, long-legged, long-haired, long-horned Texan temptress, stepped onto the stage, her impossibly high stilletto heels shimmering, she crossed the stage and with an athletic tour de force, summersaulted onto the piano, and side-saddle mounted onto a white-silk-ribboned swing, which had been, until that moment, invisible to me, suspended by 30 foot silk-ribbon ropes from the high ceiling's centre-point, far above the pianist's head, simultaneously capturing the attention of most of the diners in the restaurant, in particular the males.

She slowly started to swing to his melody, back and forth, slowly, tantalizingly slow at first, the effort, seemingly impotent as she stretched and kicked to get the swing to respond, her pumping legs and breasts and hair, the arc getting longer as she pedaled her legs, back, and forth, hypnotic, daring, sexually-sensuous, higher and higher she swung to the music, whooshing across the huge room, above our heads, impossibly high, her dress and hair extended against the wind's flow, pressing against her breasts, her flowing hair alternatively revealing and hiding her gloriously rapt face and smile, the room, growing more and more silent, as all conversation lulled and ceased entirely, ceding to the interloper's performance, all eating and drinking forgotten, as she accelerated, the swing responding now to her obvious effort, her face intent, her flight, back and forth, swiftly swooping down from across the room, at each pass, ruffling the pianist's hair, trifling with him, daring him to flinch, impossibly rising again from her death-dive, to cross and soar up over the other half of the room, and turn, at the breath-taking peak, to swoop again, the music crescendoeing now, faster, faster, higher, higher, closer, closer, everyone holding their collective breaths, hundreds of pairs of eyes fixed on her flying folly, her graceful legs, toes pointed, stilettos shimmering, sword-points to cleave the pianist's head at each pass, the danger, obvious, thrilling, hypnotic, whish, swish, beads of sweat on every watchers brow, stop her, stop her, she will fall, he will die.

Unspoken, breathless, all frozen now, the scene was set for the inevitable climax as she approached the apogee of her arc, her knees almost touching the room's roof at the end of each pass, her whole being now a comet, her dress a glimmering meteor shower, approaching the point of no return, the final pass, the music deafening now, impossibly tortured notes shook the whole room as she reached out one long, slender, tender leg to break her collision with the roof, but instead, at the last moment kicked out, hard and fast..... to ring the heretofore un-noticed cow-bell suspended there, ding-ding, and turned to swoop again, to repeat her feat by kicking the second bell, on the opposite side, and again and again, and again, the music poised, stopped mid-note and finally, carillons of joyous peals rang out over the room, a collective panting pent-up breath-release, as she turned her knowing face to ours and satisfied, exhausted, she lays back flat on the swing, prone, spent, her swing slowing, gliding back to earth.

We breathe again, conversations resume, cutlery clinks, yet everything has changed, all of us now, fading embers, aglow in the evening fire, sated; Our steaks were well and truly done!

You should've seen their faces as we waited to get to the box office....€15 each for the tickets (through Ticket-master no less, used to be they cost ten shillings), wound up by the sound of the trumpets blaring brassy tunes tunes only circuses play, the boys were beaming with expectation, lions and tigers and trapeese artists, tumblers and jugglers, llamas, clowns and horses,... same as ever it was, and the smell of sawdust, and oh so expensive candy floss and the wind howling, rain spattering on the canvas tent, held up by huge poles and guy wires, garishly painted hard bench seats tiered around the arena, and the Ring-master, with his red coat-tails and top hat and booming voice...'Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, it is my pleasure to present to you, and at great expense, the finest troupe of circus performers gathered together under one big top, from the 4 corners of the world, from Mongolia, from the Steppes of Russia and the sands of Arabia.... Duffys Circus'... transported me right back to the Fair-green in Loughrea, and the open-mouthed, wide-eyed stares of a little boy in short pants, vying with his friends to volunteer to help erect the big top with the 'carneys' in the hopes of a free ticket, or a chance to pet the animals, fascinated by these exotic visitors in their painted caravans and sequinned women, a dreamed-of escape from the bleak 60's reality of grey old Ireland, a window to another world...Aaaah, Priceless!

Tales from the Bog

Four years ago, when we had only been living on this boggy hillside outside Galway city for 6 months, one day in April, I got a phone call from the Gardai (Irish police).
'Aaah, Hallo, is that Brian Nolan?'
'Yes, this is he. Who's this?'.
'This is the Guards!'
Instant stocktake occurred in my brain. My son 8, was safe in school. My 2 daughters, the more likely suspects, were also both safe in School. My wife, was at work. My criminal past came rushing back to me, a veritable train-wreck of petty crime. How could they possibly know about my unpaid parking ticket in Tullamore in 1992? Or the time I set fire to the 'banned' bonefire at the Stoney Brennan festival in Loughrea in 1975? Maybe it was the time I borrowed Jack Martin's 20 year old Mini for a thristic joy-ride in 1981? Hmm, what could possibly be wrong?
'How can I help you Guard?' I replied, trying to sound confident, but really full of trepidation, as anyone who receives a phone call from the 'authorities' is, by whom one is considered guilty until let off the hook.
'Do you live at Paddys Cross, Barna?'
'Yes I do?' Shoot. He knows where I live and that I have a car parked round back that isn't taxed.
'Is there anyone in the house now?' Blast, he is there now at the house, going to tow the car and serve a search warrant for the 2 bottles of Poteen under me bed.
'No Guard, there's no one in the house, and I'm at work in Galway' Hah, nothing they can do if  there's no one home. I could sleep in my mother-in-laws house for a week or so, y'know, 'til the heat is off.
'Why?' I ask sheepishly. Just a hint, thats all I need. Jeez, thats it, the feckin' dog isn't licenced! Blast it, the last of the free rangers on Barna bog, caught at last. Poor Puff, probably have her in the dog-catchers van now, and the Paddy wagon is there, waiting for me. Probably spotted the dog on Satelite feed from NASA. The Guards are gone all high-tech now, wouldn't put it past them. Why don't they licence cats? The bog is feckin' alive with feral cats, escapees from mollycuddlin' matrons in Knocknacarra and Rahoon. Note to self, call local TD and try to get Cat Licences on the national agenda. €10 a year for each cat in the country would pull us out of recession.
'Your xxxx aaa aaaa on fire' the guard replied
'Sorry Guard, what was that you said?' I was distracted by a cat crossing the road in front of my car, missed him, dammit.
'Your House is on Fire!!!'
'What? How? Who? How bad is it? Is the dog ok?'
'Well the house isn't exactly on fire...'
'Oh thank God!'
'The whole mountain is...., like, on fire that is!'
'What???'
'The whole place is ablaze. You'd best get out here, fast as you can.'
And so began my first Bog Fire experience.

When I got home, driving through a thick and choking fog of smoke, the whole mountain was indeed on fire, or rather, the whole bog was. 'Seems some idiot farmer in an effort to clear some furze and heather on his holding, set a controlled fire to clear the nuisance weeds and improve his land. Though illegal to do so, it is not uncommon. However our idiot hadn't reckoned on the sudden change in weather and a gusting gale had came out of nowhere, as it often does on this western atlantic coast and it fanned the small brush fire, like a blacksmith with a bellows, within minutes it had become a roaring freight-train inferno, which rose up on the horizon and set off across the mile or so of soggy, boggy hillside, straight towards us. In a matter of fifteen minutes it had blazed a track a 1/4 mile wide, straight to our little hamlet of houses on the hillside at Aille.

A bog-fire is a force to be reckoned with. Terrifyingly fast, it burned everything in its path, trees, bushes, garden sheds, bicycles, fences, hedges, lawns, birds nests, rabbits warrens and the the extension on our neighbors house. My house was thankfully ok, but the fire had come within 10 feet of the house and thankfully stopped just 5 feet from the recently filled oil-tank for our home heat. All the lovely 30 foot tall scots pine trees and rampant rhodedondron bushes around the houses were gone, in a flash and a burst of blazing fire, gone in seconds in front of us, exploding 20, 30 feet into the air, gone in a flash. There was nothing anyone could do, poof! Gone! Left behind the still-travelling fire was a blackened smouldering expanse of devastation, worthy of a description in McCarthy's 'The Road'.

I rushed next door, where my neighbors were distraught. The fire had run up an ornamental shrub beside their house, set fire to their garden shed, caught hold in the plastic soffit of the eaves of the main building and was now burning merrily away under the roof. As I arrived, the abiding memory of the fire met me. Rill and Tina were holding each other, crying, clutching a few treasures, a laptop, hand-bags, a TV. Bill was nowhere to be seen 'Wheres Bill?' I shouted. Suddenly, Bill emerged from the house, coughing and choking, dragging their terrified dog behind him, pulling the terrified, old dog along by the belt he'd taken from around his waist, and as a consequence, Bills pants were down around his ankles! Quite a scene! Easily the most memorable sight of the whole fire, frightening then, but amusing now, in retrospect.

Worryingly, the fire in their eave was now smoking out through the roof tiles. There was no water pressure. Not a drop in the taps. The garden hose dripped when it should have showered. I ran back and forth with buckets of water from a small tank at the back of my house and we tried to hold the fire back but to no avail. By the time the fire engine arrived (having had to come across the city at rush-hour, and secure several other houses in danger) the whole back of the house, a new extension, was badly damaged. They quickly got it under control and slowly moved along the road, securing the remnants of other several fires near houses on our side of the road, while also ensuring the now sated fire didn't jump the road to grow again and devastate another village.

Fires sprang up all over the mountain, intermittently blazing up before being doused by the now-blackfaced firemen, as the night dragged on and the wind grew and lulled. The firemen worked tirelessly at the heavy work of beating the flames and mouldering embers all across the bog. I remember in one surreal moment seeing a cluster of them at the back of one of the fire tenders, in the dark, talking among themselves as they took a water-break, their blackened faces invisible in the night, with just the glowing ends of their fags floating in mid-air to show where the men stood.

By 3am the next moring, some 12 hours after the fire started, the Fire Chief finally declared the fire out and the fleet of tenders went home, leaving us to wonder and breathe relief in the midst of a blackened, dead, foul-smelling landscape that defied description. The mountain smoked and smouldered for a full week afterwards as the turf under the surface embered away, slowly being quenched by the dampness of the underlying bog.

Mary and I were so disapointed. Our house and our lifestyle had been in jeapordy. We never thought for one minute that something so inherently wet as a bog could burn at all. For weeks, nothing moved in the dead bog. No birds, no foxes, hares or rabbits, not even the feral cats. The bog was stunned into quietude.

Later as we came to understand and appreciate our narrow escape, we learned that clearing the top 'dead' vegetation comprising heathers, sedges and grasses as well as furze and gorse by fire is common everywhere bogs are grazed. Seasonally, Spring and Summer, the bog is quite verdant and farmers get good grazing for cattle, particularly the rough breeds favoured here in the west of Ireland. After each 5 or 6 years of grazing the bog develops a dead brown under growth, an impenetrable cover which chokes the lights access to the smaller grasses below the top cover. Burning this 'dross' off is the only practicable way to clear it and renew the healthy grasses below. And despite the Green Party's attempts to curtail it, bog-burning is still an annual event, though usually on a smaller scale.

Amazingly within 2 months of our bog fire, the bright green shoots of new grass grew into the blackened bogscape. By August the entire hillside behind us was ablaze not with fire, but with green grass, flowers, and yes, birds, frogs, newtss and insects. Within 2 years you couldn't have guessed it had happened at all, save for the blackened skeletons of the Scots pine that march along the horizon where the sky touches the bog.

I have wandered the boggy hillside often since then, marvelling at the bogs powers of renewal and regeneration. The birdlife is amazingly diverse, pheasants, rooks, magpies, ravens, cuckoos, hawks, snipe and many smaller birds are all back rearing their young. Hares, rabbits and foxes leave trails that point towards healthy populations. The bog cotton this past June, or Ceann Amhain as the locals call them, whitened the whole hillside in a riot of waving white. The heather was in abundant flower all August. The cows and their calves graze the hillside, back and forth, obviously savouring the delicious bog grass. This autumn the blackberries, sloes and hawes were so bountiful that the birds are well catered for no matter what the winter brings.

It got me thinking, what else could be sustained from such a bog and from such a life-cycle?

Tourism is an obvious industry that could thrive in the bog. tourism of a special sort, walkers, dreamers, folks with an hour or a day to kill and a willingness to get out on the land and close to nature. I had visited the rather fascinating wind-farm at Inverin (see photo) where 7,000 homes derive their electricity from 5 beautifuly elegant turbines in the bog. The turbines make a sound, as they turn, but it was not loud, unless you stoop to listen under the softly whooshing vanes and frankly, the bog itself is full of strange noises. If anything, the slender white towers lend the whole place a Quixotic feel.

I also have been to see Cnoc Suain, the bog interpretative centre in Spiddal where one can see first-hand the flora and fauna and tradition of a bog community. The 16th century clochan village has been lovingly restored and now provides employment and education, with very little impact on the environment.

Turf Reeks on the bog roads are rapidly being depleted by farmers bringing in the now dried sods of turf, some for their own use and others for sale to folks who still use turf as their main fuel, for heat and for cooking.

The practice of bringing a sod of turf to school was almost universal in country areas, as the only heat in most 2-and 3-room rural national schools was an open fire, fed by donations of a pupil-brought sod of turf each month. (My dads school, Duniry in Galway, was heated this way until 1970).

In Waterford some schools had cast iron stoves as co-incidentally Stanley stoves is a Waterford brand and though it was 'the poor man's AGA', it served the kitchens of Ireland well for over a century, cooking other icons like Brown Bread, Soda Bread, Griddle Cakes, Champ, Boxty, Irish Breakfasts, Lamb Stew and freshly caught Mackeral with aplomb! Stanley amazingly is still made in Waterford (see www.waterfordstanley.com). Their 'range' of ranges and stoves is still popular and with the rise in oil, gas and electricity prices, their future is...ahem.. 'glowing'!

As for the lowly 'sod of turf', the bogs of Ireland are now ecologically protected as areas of Special Scientific Interest. Like the Amazon basin not enough is know about our bogs. Bog oak Carvings dating from 5,000 BC now grace art galleries and homes worldwide (see www.bogoakcarvings.com ).

And for those suffering from Acne, Psoriasis and other skin diseases another iconic Irish brand 'ÓG', have just launched a range of Turf-based Body Masks, (see http://www.ogireland.com ).

So, from the ashes of a turf-fire, or from a raging bog-fire, much like the Phoenix, so much good can come!

Climbing Maumeen, Sunday September 19, 2010

 

It was a Sunday, like any other Sunday, but without the Sun. The merry band of fearless climbers included Peter, Brian, Peter, David (my 11 year old son) and my (sometimes) good self, all with a combined age of two hundred and something. Despite the portentiously pregnant cloud cover and spritz-spatter on BMW's best wiper-blades, we drove at pace through Connemara's wetlands, back past Maam, to the old school-house at Maumeen and after girding our loins with garish goretex, we made the climb through mist and sweat which oft obscured the stunning scenery as it emerged in our wake from the clearing cloud-covered vista, on and on, to the tip of Maumeen, and having passed alongside turbine-strength torrents of turbulent waters gushing arterially from every crevace and gorge of the beautiful landscape, we came to the mysterious reflective corrie lake just under the misty summit, whereupon to our surprise there was a coffee vendor and a roasted chestnut stand! Hmmm...well not quite, more like we discovered in Livingston-style, that there were folks already there before us. Two trolls emerged dripping from the languid lake, newborn in their guise as sylph and nymph, while far above on the rocky ridge, a band of brothers and sisters made their way, mountain-goating their way off the precipitous peak, as they hummed the tune from that classic film, snow-white and the seven horny toads. Not to be caught with my pants down, I leaped headlong into the dark waters and lo, a moment later, the sworded arm I had raised, froze mid-stroke and then, yes, shrinkage, there was shrinkage, while all the while, my comrades ate egg sandwiches, banannas and mars bars. Ahhh lads, you had to be there.

Then on the way back home we listened to the last spurts of Michael O'Muireaheartaigh as Cork beat the Red Hand Brigade and took the Sam Maguire to Collins-ville and we naturally had to toast the victors in a wee pub in Oughterard with a stunning American girl from San Diego, over to shoot a Range-Rover advert...even Peter took notice! Aaaah yes, another walk spoiled, by beauty!

Translation;

Truth was, we had a horrible start to the day...rain and wind...low, low cloud...no mountain, no view, nothing only damp, dense mist...we persevered tho' through the showers to the bottom of the mountain, when miraculously, the rain stopped, and it began to clear....slowly, so as we walked up the hill it cleared in front of us, a magical smorgasbord of layer-unveiling Connemara vistas and rugged, damp-weathered rugged nature, rock, and moss, a single marauding crow, several frogs and many red-arsed scrawny sheep, dying-off ferns, withered heather, long-abandoned famine-era lazy-beds, a possible passage grave...and a half-dozen heart-stopping cascades of white water...surprisingly random, delta-ing the bog below, and thus we were accompanied to the heights of the valleys by the constant traffic roar of joyous torrents... really amazing..a delight, spume and foam and power, awesome forced-downward fountains of cascading white horses, while the sky blued above us for a full hour of mackeral cirrus against an azure firmanent.

Brian and  Peter had found a dripping gorge on the previous trip.....well a chasm really, a chimney, soaring 40 feet above us and who knows how deep below us into the bowels of the rock, though today, the whole sluggah was struck vertically through with a smoking column of falling water...stunning...a white angry gash against the black rock, awesome, the raw energy of natures throbbing veins.

So after David found a horned sheeps bleached skull (that Brian refused to put in his rucksack), and after some poor choices of route, we made it to the top of, or more like the shoulder of Maumeen...not as high as The Reek, but high enough to render me speechless and red...beetroot shades, as we crested the last rise, only to be confronted by a totally unexpected corrie lake, maybe 300 metres diameter, reflecting the dark sky and the crags above, so when I saw the 2 other climbers dressing, as if after a swim, (one does not ask these questions), I togged off...to the buff and dove in...it was like diving into a champagne ice bucket...but what a feeling, cool, exhillirating, raw, enough for an echoing shriek after surfacing in the black pool...then it was I saw the other 8 walkers, male and female, coming across the opposite shore, having traversed from the top, 500 feet above us at a determined industrious pace....a mixed group, not old, ...none of whom had the sense of humour to stop and be amused at the 'shrinkage' as I dried myself with a single sheet of Downie from Davids pack. The climb down was not as tiring as the ascent, but we were facing the sea, albeit 14 miles away, and a stunning Twelve Pins view towards Carna and Cashel.

We did then adjourn to the car, change out of our very damp gear, while enjoying a beer and a hip-flask brandy-swig each, listening to the exciting tail-end of a pendulous all-Ireland football final, then off to the pub in Oughterard ...where indeed we did meet a gorgeous San Diagan, a long-limbed lass and her Irish beau...but that's another story, as is the wedding invitation we got for next year, but on that I'm sworn to secrecy, and so, 7 hours later, tired and sated, we arrived home, another walk 'ruined' by beauty.

Remembering Birdie Sheridan

If I ever did a chore for her, or helped her out in the house, she'd say, 'Brian, you're as handy as a pocket in a shirt!'

Brigid 'Birdie' Sheridan, came from Loughrea, Co. Galway, but like so many others emigrated and worked in England during WW2 and came back to Ireland in the mid-50's, just when I was born, (I was #5 out of 7 kids and my mother ran a ladies fashion shop and needed extra help at home), so Birdie became our 'House-keeper' in 1956 and really, she half-reared us all, bandaged our knees and fed us fabulous food, hugged us and plied us with words of comfort and wisdom. She never raised her voice, not even when I knocked her laundry off the line or refused to eat her 'Bubble and Squeak'.

A great woman for the Grand National, she taught me how to surgically pick a winner with a sewing needle while wearing a blind-fold! Really! And droll, Birdie had a great way with words! When she would be having her morning cuppa, she'd open up the 'death notices' page in the Irish Independent newspaper and sigh, 'Right Brian, let's see who's just given up smoking'! Or, if something was really tasty or enjoyable, she'd say, 'Now that was the goat's toe' or 'that was the cat's pajamas'. If dad was coming in her signature warning was 'Whisth', I suppose from the gaelic 'Eist' for 'Listen up'.

Her father, a local man, (last name Kiernan, cannot remember ever hearing his first name), fought with the British Army, serving in the Connaught Rangers in the Boer war in S. Africa and after all that, he returned to Loughrea as a Peeler, a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. He must have had a hard time in Loughrea, a town where the 'Black and Tans' ran rough-shod over the people after the 1916 Rising and  after they'd left the town in ruins in their Crossley tenders, no one was left to defend the Crown, 'cept the RIC, all Irish men, yet tainted by their uniform, not British themselves, worse, they were working for the British. No Poppy Day parades for those brave men then, just suspicion and prejudice. No wonder Birdie left Ireland as soon as she was a teenager, heading to England, where she found that she was not accepted there either, because in England she was Irish, not British in their eyes.

She married Paddy Sheridan after she returned from England and they lived in a lovely cottage in Cosmona, surrounded by neighbors who appreciated them for their character and their charm and wit. Paddy managed the town's sewage plant! Well someone had to. He'd tell me of tomatoes as big as oranges that grew there, though I never saw one in his house. He always reminded me of Norton in 'The Honeymooners', playing opposite Birdie, a male version of Jackie Gleason. 'To the Moon Birdie, to the moon'!

Paddy Sheridan was a dapper man, stylish and soft spoken, he wore his hat at a rakish angle and each evening after tea, he fished for little trout in the Dunkellin river below the mill, upstream from the sewage works and many's a lovely fish supper we had at her house, with their dog under the table, waiting for scraps. Each Stephens Day we would walk to Cosmona to bring Birdie a present from Mum and as if by accident, each year, share their Goose dinner with them, (we had Turkey, but I loved her Stanley range slow-cooked Goose), I can still taste it. I would bring a 'sciathan' home afterwards, a goose wing, feathers attached, to sweep our hearth just like Birdie did, the closest a goose got to Main street!

Birdie loved Bingo, and when Tommy Kilduff, or Tommy Bingo as he was known universally, would pull out the ball for 88, he would look down at Birdie and her mate from Cosmona and announce 'Two Fat Ladies, eighty eight' and the whole hall would cackle, and nod to Birdie, always festooned with wisps of cigarette smoke from her beloved Sweet Aftons. The Sheridans didn't have a car, so Birdie rode a Raleigh Bike, a huge black machine on which I learned to cycle. On Sundays you would see her pedal to mass in the Abbey, decked out in a lovely coat she'd gotten in my Mums shop and always a turban hat, the whole outfit fit for a Queen.

She'd tell me tales of the posh Boarding school in England, where she was 'Cook' in. She worked in England in the forties and fifties and she remembered the Toffs with their Oxford accents and their big feet (yep, that's what she said) and yet they were only little boys really, locked in a Harry Potter school, ghosts and draughts and rules, crying at night for their mums and their families at home, and only Birdie to mother them and make them 'goody'. I often wondered whether any of them ever remembered the wonderfully warm lady from Loughrea, who no doubt was crying inside for her family back in Loughrea. Her 'Bread Pudding and Custard' was legendary in our house, a dish she mastered cooking for hundreds of Eton Boys, but which she perfected on our AGA.

Birdie died in Merlin Hospital on the 13th of April, 1974, of pneumonia, no doubt spurred on by her Afton habit. I saw her the day before, struggling to smile at me from under her oxygen mask in her hospital bed. I was a first year student in University then, all sophisticated, but not a clue really and I was not able to appreciate her love and her loss, as I do now. She was young at heart, always with a ready smile and an apron hug, I miss her. Though she had no children herself, she left an indelible mother's mark on all of us Nolan kids and on many others besides.

Every time I think of her now, I conjure up that most unique of taste-smells, which I thought only I knew of, but Brian Friel outed me in  his wonderful play 'Dancing at Lughnasa', when his narrator, as a young boy described the taste of a bulls-eye sweet his sister had given him, which she'd had stashed for days in her apron pocket, with a half-dozen, half-smoked Afton butts. Aaargh, now there's a flavour you will never forget!

Birdie taught me my first real poem, from off of the front of her yellow cigarette pack, I still remember it. Sweet Afton, by Robert Burns.
'Flow gently sweet Afton among they green braes.
Flow gently I'll sing thee a song in thy praise'.

Life was never dull around Birdie...she enriched my life, and cherished my smile. Maybe she can add a smile to your life today too! Here is my song of praise for Birdie. Air dheis De go raibh a h-Anam dilis!