It Occurs to Me: A memory of Máire Ní Bhraonáin
‘I had the lyrics of three places in my pocket, they’ve carried me since, alongside the melodies, ghosting in the winds over Gweedore’
An oíche a casadh Máire orm den chéad uair,
I had the price of three pints in my pocket.
Near O’Byrne’s Pub in Rathmines in 1973,
The Donegal ‘wans’ were gathering.
It was Friday, the rent was paid, bus fares measured,
And the rest would soon be history.
I can’t recall who hissed with excitement,
“Jesus lads, it’s Clannad!”, but that starstruck
Shyness set in, and other than furtive glances
And embarrassed shuffles, there wasn’t even
A “How’s it goin’?” or “We’re from ‘In Through’”
“Wrong language” I thought…and smiled:
“Gabh mo leithscéal, Maíre,
Is as Dún na nGall muid
Agus is lucht leanúna móra muid go léir.
Tá áthas orm bualadh leat.”
I paused, and she smiled too:
“Ah…táimid buíoch as sin. Cá as duit?”
A voice thundered from behind:
“Jesus Galligan, that’ll take an hour!
Come on, the lads are waiting!”
And yes, perhaps an hour…
To tell of her of 3 rocks and a hard place,
Carrigans, Carrigart and Carrick, and now.
Three pints later, a short walk home,
I hummed her ‘Pretty Fair Maid’
“Then to her I made my advances
‘Good morrow, most beautiful maid
Your beauty my heart so entrances
"Pray, sir, do not banter," she said.
It was the year of ‘Nil Se'n Lá’
I had the lyrics of three places in my pocket,
They’ve carried me since, alongside the melodies
Ghosting in the winds over Gweedore.
Táim buíoch fosta, Máire Philomena,
‘Jesus lads, it’s Clannad!’
Frank’s poem Maire Ní Bhraonain will feature in the Poetry Moment segment of the Anything Goes show hosted by Kevin Dunleavy on Owenea FM at 10am on Sunday, April 26
The 1926 Census
I’ve literally been buried in the census since its release. Gardaí were the enumerators and all Irish garda stations are included. Fascinating stuff! For example, Sgt Bredin in Letterkenny only lists his gardaí by initials, not names. Was this for security reasons?
Also, the sergeant in Ardara was born in Kingstown, Jamaica. His name? Sergeant White.
United we fall?
I just read a great article by Patrick Murphy in The Irish News, headlined:
“United Ireland? United in incompetence, maybe. If our politicians cannot build a new hospital or road, how do they expect to build a new Ireland?” Hard to argue against considering the current prevailing winds in Belfast and Dublin.
GAA matters
A good friend, someone who grew up near the legendary Mick O’Connell in Valentia Island, admitted me to me over a few pints last week that - a bit like the Healy-Raes - he was capable of hunting with the hounds and running with the hares day before the National League Final between Donegal and his beloved Kerry, he went to the local bookies. “What are the odds on Donegal winning the All-Ireland?” he enquired. “7 to 1” he was told, so he put a right few pounds on them. “Ah sure” he confided, “I want Kerry to win but if Donegal do, the few pound will soften the blow!”
I hope he’s buying rounds come July 26th!
It’s no secret that GAA management in its current state is not for the fainthearted. Ciaran Meenagh stepped away from his role as Down coach last year and was appointed as the new Derry manager. Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Derry manager Ciaran Meenagh in the Irish News recently.
“One Friday night last year on his way home from Down training, he fell asleep at the wheel between Killeeshil and Carrickmore. ‘I said if I could get back home, I’d close my eyes and take a sleep in the car. The airbag didn’t come out, whatever I hit, it was over that rabbit burrow in towards Carrickmore, I hit the ditch and came back out again. When something like that happens, I’m really good at dusting myself down, shrugging my shoulders and getting on with it. drove another five minutes, pulled in, slept for 20 minutes and then drove home. The side was pulled out of the car.
One night, I was that exhausted I slept in the back street, I couldn’t even get into the house. “That’s what goes with the territory of the job. After that I would have pulled in at Dungannon, I had the exact same place where I slept for 20 minutes every night. ‘Whatever way the rhythm of my body clock worked, that’s what worked for me. Like anything, you look and reflect at what works and that certainly wasn’t working. Them’s all challenges but that comes with the territory of the job. I’d say everyone in here tonight that’s involved with a county senior team could share many stories that are similar,” said the Derry boss .
One of the more fascinating interviews I read of late was the Examiner’s chat with Marty Morrissey. Marty spent his first 10 years of life in America, “but his mother, Peggy, flew from New York while pregnant so he could be born in her home county of Cork. That was 1958, and a few weeks later, she brought him back to the Bronx. Morrissey’s earliest memories are of life there, ‘swearing allegiance to the American flag every school day, playing ball with friends in Van Courtland Park on Saturdays, and football and hurling in Gaelic Park on Sundays’.
“Everyone had to do military service and my father always said no son of his would fight for America,” says Morrissey. ‘So they aimed to save enough money to be able to come home before I started secondary school and when a pub came up for sale in Dad’s local village of Quilty in West Clare, they bought it.’
“Moving to Ireland was a big adjustment for 10-year-old Morrissey. His summer trips were a taster, but he struggled with ‘the dark of winter. Our fourth-floor apartment in the Bronx looked out onto other apartments, and there were always so many lights. Quilty had one shaky streetlight and the only other light was from the Aran Island lighthouse. It would shine every 13 seconds and I remember looking out across the Atlantic, counting those 13 seconds and wondering what in the name of god we were doing there.’
“Then, one day, our postman, Patrick Galvin, talked me into recording a video commentary on the county final on the back of a tractor and trailer. The video was shown in our pub and people paid 50p to see it. I thought it was awful. Everyone else liked it and Morrissey commentated on other local sporting events. He eventually felt confident enough to approach RTÉ. ‘I spent four years ringing them from a public phone box, before they gave me an opportunity.”
I had the pleasure of interviewing Marty many years ago in Ballybofey…he was warm, accommodating and giving of his time. It’s easy to see how he’s much loved throughout the country.
Numpicissism?
I’ve decided to invent a new word, in the forlorn hope that it might end up in the Oxford dictionary in due course. If I could add a funny emoji to that sentence, I would. In any event. It’s a mixture of Numpy, Trump and Narcissism - Numpicissism!
It’s long been acknowledged that Trump is the archetypal narcissist. He cannot feel or understand human emotion. Love, compassion, and empathy are a dark void in his soul, notable only by their absence. Like a computer programmed with AI, he has the ability to calculate how someone might react to a situation and adjust his strategy, but he cannot account for the unpredictable or the illogical. He expects human behaviour to fall within certain parameters he has observed over a lifetime.
However, as in the case of Iran and Pope Leo, who refuse to bend to his narcissism, he has no plan B, and resorts to spite, bile and anger, as manifested by his many rants on Truth Social, the most inaptly named social media platform…what about unTruth Social?
Watching his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth recently, reminded me of one of my most favourite Blackadder quotes: “There hasn’t been a war run this badly since Olaf the Hairy, King of all the Vikings, ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside.”