An Innocent in Ireland: Curious Rambles and Singular Encounters by David McFadden

Author:David McFadden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2016-12-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

THE POET’S CORNER

Lourdes was a joy. With her along, we were given greater attention, my mind was working faster, decision-making time was down to practically nothing, and I had someone to laugh at my jokes full time. The whole situation was much better than I imagined it would be. Her presence even had a beneficial impact on my way of looking at things.

We were driving along the south shore of Galway Bay, west through the famous Burren area of County Clare, stopping occasionally to drink in the out-of-time stillness and enchantment which is always on tap – though you have to give the lever a pull. We stopped to take pictures of megalithic burial grounds up the side of a hill, on top of which was a cairn and a stone fort. My leg was not feeling up to the climb. The subtle hand of the ancients was everywhere.

I’d been telling Lourdes how Mr. Looney figured the Germans like Ireland so much because of their Wagnerian notions of racial purity. After all, Ireland is still 99 per cent Irish, except for the Brits, who don’t seem all that noticeable in the Republic, and who seem to be liked, paradoxically, although there are Brits who claim they’re not. We also talked about the problem of Yeats, in the last few years of his life, becoming soft on Hitler. Lourdes began asking questions about Mr. Looney. Her interest in him became overwhelming. She dropped hints about wanting to meet him. I had more questions for him anyway, and he would be pleased to meet Lourdes.

We stopped at the Cliffs of Moher, overlooking the Atlantic. The tourist office was open, and to get to it from the parking lot we had to run a scraggly gauntlet of people selling cassette tapes of Irish music, even though it was only March. We bought some maps, changed some traveller’s cheques, agreed we hadn’t come to Ireland to look at cliffs, and were soon back on the road heading for Kilkee, an upscale resort town on the small peninsula on the north side of the mouth of the Shannon.

Kilkee (also known as Cill Choi) was full of alluring old hotels and imposing mansions – but it was so early in the season the only sign of life was the waves crashing in on the rocks protecting the wonderful, welcoming arms of the steep-cliffed harbour.

We found a pub in Kilkee, away from the resort area. The men’s toilet had a sign saying “Please Use Ladies’ Toilet for a Few Days Due to Repairs” and the ladies’ said “Please Use Men’s Toilet for a Few Days Due to Repairs.” The fellows at the bar were talking about music and telling corny old jokes, such as the one about the guy who goes into a bar in Colorado and says, “What kind of music do you have here?” Bartender says, “Both kinds, country and western.”

Another guy yelled out, “Both kinds, rock and roll.”

On the wall was a poster featuring Fats Domino, who’d been packing them in at a concert in Dublin.

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