Kildoon, Co. Kildare, Summer 1979

The sun was like honey on our faces as we piled out of the car onto hard dry caked clay. No rain in weeks. The dust trail of the car now half way across the field and as if we were in Texas. Flat and wide, the fields that surround the meagre cottage with small tended garden. The two border collies who greeted us at the gate were settling down now. The chickens clucked and pecked around in every nook and cranny. A calf pokes her head out between the bars of a gate as the dog licks her face. The hay barn is stacked high, almost to the red corrugated roof. There’s the grunts of pigs in the yard. Cows in the front field start over towards us for a stare. An old Massey tractor with forks on the back is parked up beside the Hillman Hunter. Joe can’t drive any more so he takes the Massey into town to get his cigarettes.

Into the house we flood and take up every inch of the kitchen. Lino and wood and stone. A large tea pot stands on a shelf in the fireplace and the smell of baked ham and cabbage surrounds us. Grown ups talk in defeated tones as we pet the dogs and and marvel at how their ears drop just as your hand passes over them. We gaze at the poor old couple and all the religious pictures and statues of Mary. Oh they have a Sacred Heart lamp too. The bacon and cabbage is all from the farm Mary tells us. Mary is quite hunch backed and walks with her elbows back and up in the air like a badly strung puppet. She’s a kindly warm woman who moves slowly but surely, a perfect example of the futility of haste. Her grey hair looks like a style from a long time ago, taken out and dusted. Joe is tall and lanky. A dark featured man with deeply set eyes and thick black hair, also a style from long ago, the one which caught Mary’s eye. He says very little, mostly nodding and agreeing with Mary. The dogs love him and younger one sits staring at him, the older one having gotten over him by now.

After lunch we burst out the door for hours of adventure, keeping in mind the bull is in the bottom field and not to go in. We go straight for it, stand at the gate mooing and making horns with our fingers trying to annoy him. He walks further away. Then it’s off to the river and we paddle along it, sticks in hand now. The dogs teach us how to play fetch, delighted to have the company of playful youth. Not far from this river is where my Great Great Grandfather was born in 1800. He must have done this too. Back towards the house, the men are pitching the tents for us children to sleep in. Tomorrow morning we go blackberry picking along the lanes of Kildoon.

Whooaah!

So there I am this morning, having a cheerful shower in the sunny bathroom, fresh air breezing in through the window. Oh what’s that tickling on my chest? Oh a hair. Oh not a hair, too thick and stiff, oh fuck, a spider’s leg. Oh and there’s another one on my leg, ah jesus there’s his body hanging off my pubes, ahh it’s moving. Ahhhhhh.

I’m not at all good with spiders.

Isla Fisher moving to Dublin

Yes Maxi, you read it right the minx herself is going to be all over me very soon. I hereby bags her in advance, both home and away.

Read all about it here.

 

Raarrrr

Grand canal thoughts

 

Giddy-down

 

 

I’ve written about it before here. I never tire of it though, this man-made wonder, a former highway of trade. Today on the way in to work, the water was a milky green, like pea soup only not really but kind of. I drifted off… I imagined how I’d love to take a big old barge and have it towed by horse along the path just like they did before they used engines. Just think of that a moment, lying on the roof in the honey sun, half pissed on white wine, passing under a stone bridge, a brief coolness of shade with an inch to spare. It would take days to reach the Shannon from Dublin, as though it was New York to LA in an old Chevy. A gentle Shire, eighteen hands high is our Chevy though.

I wonder if I had paying guests could I make a living out of this. They’d all have to do as I say though, which wouldn’t be much like.

The stoning of a muslim woman

She first started acting in television shows, most notably about a bengali rock band which was frowned upon for the child of a muslim parent in Calcutta. Following this, she was only 20 when she acted in India’s first digitally shot feature film in which she has a lesbian kissing scene with the leading actress. There was much controversy over it and she was accused of immoral behaviour and flaunting her undeniable beauty. She’s a very independent and courageous woman who had recently finished writing and recording her first music album. It’s not only strict Islamic countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia where women like her are seen as threatening and highly inappropriate. India too can suffer from this oppression of and control of women’s hopes and desires.

And it was her bright eyed curiosity and endless need for new ways to challenge her senses that inevitably led her to be stoned. Luckily, the stoning happened yesterday with me in my back garden (her via a joint, me via a grass infused yogurt), lying in the meadowy grass watching jet trails criss cross the sky and little creatures clambering about us. We talked in circles, laughed at nothing, kissed while smiling. Later we slow strolled the evening streets of this addictive town, her beauty inhaled deep and stored behind my eyes.

Watch, at your own chosen speed

About bloody time

At long last, people who cannot pay their debts, will no longer go to jail thanks to this court case. The only people who ever went to jail were ordinary joes and janes who probably only owed a few grand to the bank but never a white collar gangster who owed millions. Proof that the law was designed to protect the rich from the poor. The fact that a financial institution would seek the incarceration of a person for inability to pay a debt disgusts me. 

Well done to Caroline McCann.

The new sectarianism

For thirty years or more, sectarian flames of hatred were fanned by wealthy business and land owners in Northern Ireland in order to distract from the real trouble there which was in fact oppression of the working class of both religions. But the legacy of all that blind hatred seems to be the playing out as the abused becomes the abuser. Recent immigrants to Northern Ireland appear to have come in for a lot of racist attacks and intimidation. I have read numerous stories about Chinese, Polish and African immigrants being attacked and forced out of neighbourhoods. And now several Romanian families have been attacked and are seeking shelter in a church.

There have been sporadic reports of racist comments and the odd attack in the Republic but as far as I can tell it is not widespread or systematic like it appears to be in Northern Ireland. But that narrow minded ignorant thinking can spread easily, especially during tough economic times when there can be a perception that immigrants are favoured in housing and benefits. Well welcome to the modern world. If people want cheap clothes, food, entertainment and low interest rates, they take the whole package, which includes an open market for goods, services and employment. 

Governments need to do a lot of work in this area to educate people on the changing racial profiles of their countries and why they are happening. The 20th century is long over and one day, the people in the developed nations of Europe and the America are going to wish they can get working visas for India and China so they can earn a better living and broaden their horizons.

The partition of Ireland has caused a very insular and paranoid state to develop in the north. The irony of it for the last 80 years was the fact that both communities were white Christians and it was mostly working class on both sides who were involved in the fighting with each other as the middle class got on with educating themselves and slowly growing to absorb more working class. The old wealth class have always divided the working class in order to control them and distract them from their real ills. The Romanians and others are now that distraction.

Northern Ireland still has a way to go.

The barbers

Went to the barber today. He’s an old codger in Ranelagh. His shop is tiny with two chairs and a waiting bench with car magazines. The bottom half of the walls are dark paneled wood. The top half are rough painted plaster. There’s pictures, posters, postcards and stuff adorning them. I never have to wait long and the cut is €9.

Today, he’s cutting a customers hair as I enter under the candy sign. The subject is Ronaldo going to Real Madrid. The barber says you can buy God for €94 million never mind a footballer. We all laugh. I marvel at concept cars in the magazine as the conversation turns as it always does, to women, well birds. He tells of his wife who kept him on his toes all these years and still wants all his money. He warned us not to rush into marriage because there’s loads of gorgeous birds out there and to enjoy ourselves. Smirks are mutually reflected.

I sit down for my turn and just ask him to tidy it up a bit, not too short. The roar of a departing bus enters as the last guy leaves. “jaysus, those buses are awful loud, must be that vegetable gas… global warming…. birds in short skirts……. recession…….1950s…….. arse out of his trousers….. 1980s……. dose of reality……. will I bring up the locks for you, they’ve slipped down a bit there”.

15 minutes later, all done, brushed down, money changes hands. 25 minutes later, I leave.

Tomorrow I go to the other barber to get it fixed, as usual.

Xbox to be a Dad

I just discovered that XBox is going to be a Dad and his missus a Mam after a long time trying. His brilliant blog detailed the trials and tribulations of trying to conceive. As far as I can make out, they have been trying since 2007. So congratulations to Mr and Mrs XBox on their happy news. 

Of course one day, their child will storm off in a huff saying something like ‘I wish you never had me’. Oh how they will laugh.