At the Edge of Ireland Page 4

  2

  “Blow-In” Initiation

  I DON’T THINK I’LL EVER DO it again. At least if I do, I’m not sure I’ll be around later to tell the tale. I suppose I escaped this time only because, first, it was relatively early in the evening and the little time-worn pub in the heart of Wexford barely contained a quorum of imbibers, and second, because I managed to turn my inane question into a lousy wimpish joke that generated enough dismissive sneers and sniggers to dispel, or at least divert, the threat of malicious mayhem. Of course it also got me labeled as a loopy “blow-in” tourist—harmless and certainly not worth correcting in the traditional Irish manner. Which can be a rather messy business, what with all that threatening verbosity followed by the bludgeoning, spurts of blood, splintered cartilage, purpling bruises, and facial lumps the consistency of extremely hard-boiled eggs.

  And what, you may well ask, was this question that could have brought about such a potentially traumatic and painful termination to an otherwise very pleasant evening?

  All I did…honestly, this is the whole thing in all its naïve simplicity…I asked the barman—“Is it possible that you have a bottle of Sam Smith’s Ale…or better still, a Newcastle Brown?”

  Now, I asked this, not for any troublemaking reason or devious intent, but merely because I was, despite my growing enjoyment of the ubiquitous Guinness, longing for a good old pint of British ale, preferably one brewed in or near my home county of Yorkshire or certainly somewhere in the north of England.

  There was a sudden somber silence. You could have heard the legendary pin drop, although a sharpening of ax blades might have been more to the point.

  “Wha’…wha’s that yer askin’ fer?” asked the barman, preceded by a sly malicious wink to the cluster of arm-flexing, Guinnesschugging giants by the counter.

  “Er…just, ah, a bottle of Sam Smith’s? Pale Ale will be fine—or a Newcastle Brown…Even a Worthington would be okay if…”

  More silence. Of the sinister, sniggery kind. And then: “So—that’s the way then, is it? Guinness is not good enough f’ya, then? Is that it? Or Smithwick’s or Harp. Or Murphy’s. Or Beamish. In fact, it seems t’me like nothin’ made in our beautiful country will suffice? Is that right? Y’ll just be lookin’ exclusively f’yer English piss-water, it seems. Puttin’ our poor lads at the breweries here out o’ the business while y’ be asking fer yer own imported rubbish instead…”

  “Look…listen…if you don’t have any, it doesn’t—”

  “Don’t have any?! As if I’d let anythin’ with a name like Sam Smith’s or Newcastle or Worthington get into my cellar while my lovely barrels o’ the black stuff rest there waitin’ t’be appreciated by them’s as knows their beer an’ their stout…”

  I began to suspect that I was becoming the butt of some stupid insider joke or the recipient of a silly little hazing ritual for blow-ins with a hankering for the great British ales. Or maybe it was my accent. Very obviously British. Sort of middle–working class with overtones of grammar school. But definitely not that upper-crust tone, all clipped, authoritative, and dictatorial—the one that conjurers up days of Empire, Rule Britannia, Churchillian bombast, and Prince Charles’s speeches. “You’re not being serious…,” I suggested with a kind of “that’s enough now—just pour me a pint” nonchalance.

  A nonchalance that was not reciprocated. “So, what’s it t’be then?” The barman had an unpleasant habit of stroking the under-side of his chin with his finger, sliding it about like a short but deadly knife.

  “Well, I guess if there’s no Newcastle in the house…I suppose a Murphy’s stout will have to do.”

  “We don’t sell Murphy’s.”

  “Beamish then?”

  “We don’t sell Beamish.”

  “Smithwick’s Bitter?”

  “Out.”

  “Harp Lager?”

  “Out.”

  “Look—why don’t I just try the place across the road…”

  “One more guess. Y’get one more,” said the barman with a menacing leer that suggested no contradiction.

  “Okay—right. Fine. I’ll take a pint of your Guinness, then.”

  Utter transformation!

  “Well! Yessir! O’course, sir!” He smiled his best “at your service” customer smile. “A pint o’ Guinness it is, then, and a fine choice, sir, if I and my colleagues here might say so. It’ll just take a couple o’ minutes. T’get the top right. ’S’not Guinness without its proper head, y’understand.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m quite familiar with Guinness by now.”

  “Well—are ya, now? I wouldna known that from what it was y’ were askin’ for a minute or two ago…maybe y’were just havin’ a little confusion of the mind…”

  And that’s when I should have left. But he was already pulling the pint and the black stuff was pouring in with its surges of infinitesimally tiny brown bubbles and that creamy head building. And it looked as good as all the ads you see on television, particularly the one shot in sepia colors with a young guy mesmerized by the gradually rising nectar of his stout and a bead of anticipatory sweat easing slowly down his forehead to the tip of his nose as the glass gradually fills…

  Barman in Pub

  Finally the pouring ritual was over, and as I reached to pick up the glass, I sensed a concerted gathering of onlookers around me at the bar. They seemed to be watching me and my drink very expectantly. Well, I thought—I guess I’ll show this crowd I can drink a pint of Guinness just as well as the next man. This is no wimpy blow-in here. So I picked up the glass and slowly downed the whole pint without a break for breath or anything else for that matter. Then, when I’d finished, I placed the empty, froth-laced glass back on the counter, wiped my mustache and lips with my left hand, and smiled. “Not bad…” I mumbled while half turning toward the door. It was only ten or so broad steps away, I gauged, and there was no one blocking the exit. Maybe I could make it because I certainly had no intention of hanging around this malevolent place—an obvious bastion of blow-in bashing if ever I’d seen one.

  “So,” sneered the barman. “Y’seemed to enjoy that right ’nough, then…”

  Go for broke, my proud little Yorkshireman whispered internally. So I did. “Well, t’be honest…a pint o’ British ale obviously would’ve been far better, but…”

  I think the but was actually delivered as I reached the door, flung it open, and rushed out into the dark streets. I expected a clatter of feet behind me, but fortunately, no one seemed to think the chase was worth the trouble. I’d survived this little unexpected brush with mortality.

  Which of course I hadn’t because…I’d left my bag on the bar-stool and had no choice but to go back and retrieve it…but that, as they say, is another story…

  3

  Irish History—Fast

  HE SAID HIS NAME WAS LIAM—Liam Farrell—but to me he looked more like Liam the Leprechaun. He was little—very little—with sharp ferret eyes, a purple nose, strangely long and thin fingers, and a definite preference for shamrock green in his clothing. Not a very clean green, in fact a distinctly grubby green, but close enough to traditional leprechaun getup, I suppose.

  We met kind of incidentally. I was sitting on one of the benches by the Waterford waterfront wondering which restaurant Anne and I should grace with our presences for dinner when she’d completed her “shopping” (always a mysterious process. Beyond a diminished bank account—I rarely got to see the results of her retailing pursuits. Especially in the clothing area when, if I see her wearing something new, she’ll inevitably respond with a dismissive—“Oh, darlin’, I’ve had this ages…don’t you remember…”). Anyway—next thing I knew, this little man had slid into position beside me and was offering me something that looked like a once-white peppermint now coated in thick pocket-dust.

  “Er…no thanks. I’m fine…”

  “Oh, I can see that. You’re lookin’ very fine indeed, sir. Are you touristin’ round here then, is it?”

&nb
sp; “No, no. We’re driving down to the Beara Peninsula. I’m just about to go and buy a couple of books. On Irish history.”

  That was my first mistake.

  “Ah—the Beara Peninsula, is it now? Fine, fine choice indeed, sir. One of the finest spots in the southwest. Very…authentic, one might say…very wild. And—well now—that’s a true coincidence…”

  “A coincidence? How’s that?”

  “Well, y’won’ need ’em now, will y’?”

  “What?”

  “Y’books. On Irish hist’ry. ’Cause I’m a walkin’ encyclopedia of Irish hist’ry. Y’couldn’do any better than ask me anythin’ about Irish hist’ry.”

  “Okay,” I said politely (hoping to get rid of him—and wondering if maybe he was just a few slices short of a full loaf). “I’d like a nice accurate summary of your history.”

  I should never have said that.

  “Would y’ now—well, d’y’wan’ it fast o’ slow?”

  “What?”

  “Hist’ry—our hist’ry. The grand hist’ry of our fair land.”

  “Well, let’s start with a fast version, and then I’ll flush out the details later when I get the general hang of it.”

  “Oh, that y’ll never do!”

  “What?”

  “Get th’gen’ral hang of it, like y’jus’ said sir. Likely hang y’good self in all the complexities of the whole t’ing.”

  “Well—the fast version’s fine for the moment. I’ll leave the big books ’til later.”

  “Right y’are then, sir. Very good decision y’made there or I’ll be talkin’ at y’ ’til the fairies pop out with the stars…Not that I’d mind, mind y’, because y’seem like a decent enough fella an’ it’d be a pleasure…”

  “Thanks, that’s very nice of you, so…any time you’re ready…”

  “Ah, I see y’re a man who gets t’th’point, so t’speak. T’th’ nub o’ things, and I like that. Can’t stand people prattlin’ on about nothin’ an’ never getting started…so much time a’wastin’, don’cha think? So much paddywackery in a lot of the Irish blarney…”

  “Yes, I do. So let’s not waste time. Let’s get to the nub and hear your fast version.”

  “Ah yes—a man after me own heart y’are, sir. So all right, then. This is how it goes…thousan’ plus years in a nutshell, so to speak. Although, I must admit, I never really understood that nutshell thing. D’y’think maybe…”

  “Whenever you’re ready…”

  “Ach, y’re a real cracker, sir. Okay, here goes. It seems that after all the great times of legends and the mighty magical worlds that wrapped our little Ireland in shrouds of mist and mysteries…should I tell y’more about that time…before the coming of the Celts…I’ve got some wonderful tales of far off down all the years…tales of our ancient rulers, the Tuatha Dé Dannan, who were defeated by Milesian invaders around 250 BC and went to hide underground and became our fairy people. And all the great stories of that time like Táin Bó Cuailnge—The Cattle Raid of Cooley—or lots of others and Finn MacCool, our great warrior hero, and the Druids…”

  “Let’s maybe come back to all that fairy stuff later…”

  “Ah, sir—be careful now. You don’t mess about with the fairies—you never know when they’re listening and they’re devilish clever, and cruel when they get upset. Oh yes indeed…”

  “Okay, point taken, but let’s start with the coming of the Celts. When was that?”

  “Well, they sorta crept in like from around 600 BC. Not like later fast invasions—the ‘casserole of the cultures,’ as they like to call these times. Slowly they got rid of the ancient Stone Age–type tribes, and after St. Patrick arrived in AD 432, they kind of merged their old Celtic and Druid pagan ways with the new Christianity coming over from Rome. ’Course by that time, there wasn’t much of Rome left. The barbarians were flooding in—including a few of the old Asian Celtic tribes, and you’d be right in thinkin’ where the heck was Jesus when he was needed, especially as Constantine had made the Roman Empire Christian! Bit of a letdown there, I’m thinkin’. Anyway, so the Celts settled down nicely as Christians and built churches and monastaries despite what happened later on, they gave the Irish—us—a deep love of language and poetry and mysticism and music and all that good stuff…”

  “So what happened later on?”

  “I’m comin’ t’that. Don’t rush the storyteller once he’s off and runnin’…”

  “Sorry.”

  “Right. Well. Anyway, so what happened was that the damned Scandinavian Vikings at the end of the eighth century came roarin’ in. Sailin’ by with their huge boats, pillagin’ and plunderin’ and messin’ up the whole Celtic world here. They were a restless bunch to start with—makin’ off with our women and all the rich stuff from the monasteries—even burning the books our monks had copied from libraries brought over here from Rome, which was in a real mess. Most famous is that Book of Kells in Trinity College Library. Beautiful, beautiful thing. And then there’s that book writ recently—How the Irish Saved Civilization—that tells if it wasn’t for our monks in the monasteries in lonely places here, we’d have lost most of the world’s classical learning. Think of that! Little old Ireland savin’ the whole cultural world! Anyway, the Vikings were a real nuisance and a threat to the Church, so around AD 1169 the pope, who just happened to be English at the time, granted the Anglo-Norman King Henry II—you’ll remember the Normans had conquered England in 1066—everybody remembers that date. He granted him the whole of Ireland as an ‘inheritance’ to protect his churches and whatnot.”

  “The pope just gave it to the Normans—despite all the powerful Celts and Vikings still living here?”

  “Tha’s right. Jus’ gave it. He was the pope—the big boss! So—when Strongbow the Norman invaded to claim the king’s ‘inheritance,’ it turned out he had a pretty easy time taking over the whole place and building mighty castles and dividing the land up between all his Norman barons. And there’s an old saying that they liked the place so much that they became ‘more Irish than the Irish.’”

  “And that was it? The Irish just accepted things…”

  “Well, there was a bit of a ruckus when Scotland tried to attack us in AD 1315 and boot out the Normans, and also Richard II, who tried twice in the 1390s to remind the Irish who was boss but made a real mess of things and ended up with only Dublin and the Pale—a small area around Dublin—as his little tiny empire…”

  “So the English Normans were booted out?”

  “Well, not quite. It looked bad for them for a while, but then Henry VIII, after his break with the Catholic church—you remember, because the pope wouldn’t allow his divorce from two of his wives, well—he and his Protestant church of Englanders came over and grabbed all the land back. And then his daughter Queen Elizabeth I sent in massive armies in the early 1600s, then James I packed Northern Ireland, you know, the ‘six counties’—now called Ulster—with English and Scottish Protestant settlers. And then in came Oliver Cromwell in 1649 and his vicious army, which pretty well wiped out all Catholic power. And, oh God, was he cruel—massacring the population of Drogheda, slaughtering hundreds of women in Wexford, expelling all the Catholics from cities like Cork—just booted them out. I remember my mother’s warnings when I was young—‘Cromwell’ll get you if you’re bad!’”

  “Poor old Ireland. What a lousy history.”

  “Oh my, sir—I’ve hardly begun! It goes from bad to worse an’ then even worser! Especially when James II was king from AD 1685, and he was Catholic, would y’believe, and tried to be a bit nicer to us, but he got the boot too, and in comes William of Orange with his huge army and smashes us to pieces at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, and then later at Aughrim and Limerick. Then he, William—once again—hands out lands to his most powerful ‘Protestant Ascendancy’ supporters, enforces the terrible penal laws to destroy Catholic power, and right through to the 1850s the Protestants and ‘Orangemen’ fight off rebellion after rebell
ion—Henry Grattan, the Society of United Irishmen, the ‘White Boys’ and ‘Ribbon Men,’ Daniel O’Connell, and on and on. And then comes the worst thing of all.”

  Liam Farrell—“Historian”

  “Let me guess. The great potato famine?”

  “Spot-on, sir. Ah, so y’do know a bit of our terrible convoluted turmoil then. Although no one can truly know what a black time that was from 1845 to 1850. They called it Gorta Mór, the great hunger, when almost our whole potato crop failed every year for six horrible years, and well over two million people out of a population of eight million starved to death, or were evicted by Protestant landlords and sent off on emigrant ships to Canada and America. An unbelievable disaster, and all the while our food—grain, cattle, sheep—was being shipped off in the thousands of tons to England to—as they said—‘maintain the economy of Ireland.’ Maintain my bloody…you know what…if you’ll forgive the expression, sir. There was a popular saying at that time—‘God gave us the potato blight but it was the English who gave us the famine.’ While they were glorifying in their world empire, gentrified affluence, and pedigreed aristrocracy, we were trying to stay alive by eatin’ grass and leaves.

  “It’s amazing we ever recovered from all this horror, this pernicious scythe of death and human decimation that swept across our poor little nation—but by God we did! Irish emigrants abroad sent money back here to support nationalistic groups like the Fenians, the Manchester Martyrs, and the Land League, all demanding independence and home rule. Except up in Ulster, of course—Northern Ireland—they didn’t want to be split off from Britain, and so they had to battle on and on with Sinn Fein and the IRA.