I hope her trip goes well.
Obama is going over too – to Moneygall. Never been there, I think, but I am sure they will make a big fuss over him.
I am going over too – in June but I don’t want everyone to go to any bother – really, I just want a quiet visit. I am meeting up with an old friend, Sean, who now lives in South Africa. Most of the people I grew up with are scattered to the four corners of the world.
“Yerra sure isn’t it all madness,” Finbarr McCarthy decided one night in McMurphy’s, an oasis of whimsy in the disjointed side of Eglington Avenue East, in Toronto. “It’s a madness that we embrace because we are all afraid. We’re afraid that someone might look into our minds and say – Jazus, but you are thinking some strange thoughts in there, me buccko!”
Finbarr is from Cork and all the years in Toronto have re-enforced his commitment to keep himself sane in a world that rushes into madness.
“When you think of it,” he said, pointing his unlit cigarette at me, “Ireland has changed. What with Celtic Tigers running around the place and the people running off to have holidays with the sunny Port-a-gees, visiting with Eduarda’s people – and that’s not a bad thing – they have all become sheer mad for money.
“I suppose in a way that we are the last of the true Celts. You and me, and ‘Ryan-ner’, there, but I can’t be sure about him sometimes, if you know what I am saying, eh?
“We got out before they all got contaminated. We are all that is left of our race – the pure Celt, that’s us – hiding out beyond in McMurphy’s in Toronto, Canada. Yerra Christ, what is the world coming to?”
“True enough for you,” laughed Alan Ryan, with the same smile that he wore when he and Sean and I grew up together in distant Templeogue, back when we were all Irish and before we became Celts.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteI am writing purely out of interest in the mention of the word weather. It draws conversations from strangers and leaves them as best friends, after a healthy discourse about the kind of rain and if 'the like of it has ever fallen before'.
On the other hand, I always box clever. I carry a fold-up umbrella and a pair of fashionable sunglasses in my handbag, all twelve months of the year!!
That is the true sign of an Irish upbringing, with class!!!!
Best wishes, Eileen
Eileen,
ReplyDeleteYou show a wisdom beyond, even, an Irish upbringing. In fact fold-up umbrellas and fashionable sunglasses are as Yin and Yang as you can get!
Peter
Peter,
ReplyDeleteIn keeping with the weather analogies, as befits my sunny disposition (or words to that effect from you), I have to say that we have been having some clement weather (clement as in merciful rather than mild, is'nt Google wonderful?) up until the start of May. March and April were both dry and relatively warm.
Once Summer started it was downhill all the way i.e. May has been shite.
And Finbarr wonders why we are "running off to have holidays with the sunny Port-a-gees...."!
PhiLIP
And there you have it folks - words of wisdom from Ireland's one and only optimist.
ReplyDelete