Is there anyone in Ireland who is actually shy? I guess there must be, but whoever he/she is - we haven’t met yet. People here are astonishingly forthcoming. You kind of expect it in the pub, but I’ve lost count of the old codgers who’ve heard the Aussie accent and bailed us up on the street, all ready for a cosy chat. And everyone has a relation/friend in Australia - everyone!
It’s nice, really nice. In fact, I’d understand perfectly if they were sick to death of tourists with their open-mouthed curiosity and stupid questions. But everyone is unfailingly charming, welcoming and courteous.
For example, Peter - who, I suspect is a professional ‘character’ - taught me how to play the spoons in the pub in the village of Doolin the other night. I actually managed to play along with the band for a few bars, before I realized I was probably bugging the hell of their sensitive musicians’ souls and stopped. Peter very generously made me a gift of the spoons, saying airily he’d lifted them from the bar in the first place.
I’ve been driving My Beloved crazy by practising as we drive along. He’s threatening to sing, which means he’s pretty desperate. Heh.
The music has been a highlight, but it’s only one face of Ireland and the Irish. The scenery is wonderful and it changes all the time. Here is Kylemore Abbey, in Connemara. (Note rainbow please!) I was so inspired, I think it might appear - complete with dark lake and heathered hillside - in Book #4 of the One-Sided Pentacle series. It’s set on Green IV, a strangely skewed version of Regency Ireland. Going to be so much fun!
One ‘up’ side of all this rain, is of course, the forty shades of green, but the rainbows are another. I’ve never seen such complete rainbows, or so many. They make whole arches across the sky. Really makes you believe you could catch up to one end and grab a leprechaun!
Then there are the picturesque villages, like Adare, where this thatcher is patiently explaining to the tourists what he’s doing and how’s he doing it. Lucky the Irish love a chat, hmm?
On the other hand, when you see the desolate, windswept landscape of somewhere like the Aran Islands, it redefines the meaning of ‘a hard-scrabble life’. No trees, no soil, only rocks and sea birds and the cold. The fences were made of stone because there was literally nothing else there. Each field is tiny, not much bigger than a living room, because they had to be cleared by hand and then covered with a mixture of sand and seaweed so that something - anything - might grow. When I add in the violence, the repression, the famine, the mass migration and the new economic downturn, I can only admire the sheer dogged courage and faith of the Irish. They’re an amazing people.
We’ll be in Dublin tomorrow, which means our time in Ireland is pretty well over. Once we leave for Paris, on Thursday, I have no idea what Net access I’ll have, if any. So - this may be the last post for a little while.
As for the hoodies in the title of this post, I never realized before how useful the hoods on hoodies actually are. At home, they hang down over your shoulders like a decoration because it’s never cold enough to bother. An absolute revelation!
Keep well and happy!
Fort frowned more ferociously than ever, one big finger running down a column of figures.