She’s nothing but a great hinge!

All over the world there are billions and billions of hinges that we never think about. They exist and operate in perfect silence. 

Then there is the rusty hinge. We cannot ignore the rusty hinge. It drives us demented, creaking and groaning with weary metallic sighs each time the door is opened and closed.

The rusty hinge fills our minds until we can think of nothing else. It gives hinges a bad name. We focus on it, obsess about it, just as we ignore its trillion perfect cousins.

I park outside the little shop in a North Mayo seaside village. Inside, the woman behind the counter has her back to me as she chops some onions for sandwiches.

Not wanting to give her a shock, as she has a knife in her hands, I wait until she senses my presence, which precipitates her subsequent flood of apologies that I rebuff as kind yet utterly unnecessary.

“So, what can I do for you?” 

“Well, actually, I’m looking for the Community Gardens. You wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you?” 

“Follow me.”

We head to the back of the shop, where she stands on tiptoes as she battles with a long sliding latch. Bit by bit she manages to ease it across. The door opens and there, stretching out in front of me is the Community Garden. 

“Well, I really hit the jackpot, didn’t I!” 

“You did, now.” 

“Thanks so much !” I say as I wander off to explore the impressive efforts of the local crew. 

The morning temperature is only 2°C, but the northerly wind chills it to way below freezing, so I’m surprised and a little concerned to find as I return that she has left to door open, to allow me back into the shop.

I close the door behind me, and slide the latches, amazed at the tacit kindness and generosity of the woman. 

Back at the counter I thank her profusely for leaving the door open, as the cold wind has robbed her shop of all the warmth it held when I arrived. She waves her hand to dismiss the notion that she has been in any way inconvenienced.

I offer her my hand to shake.   

“I’m Charlie, and there’s a bunch of us looking into starting a Community Garden in Killala. I was told yours was impressive and that it is. Had no idea it was out the back of the shop, though. Dead lucky there, wasn’t I! Thanks so much for letting me have a look.” 

She tells me her name and the name of the other woman working behind the Post Office window. She shakes my hand and then she wishes me luck with my endeavours.

I leave the shop having bought nothing, but gained so much. The woman had asked me nothing about my mission or motives. She just let me out the back to prowl unfettered, and left the door open despite the freezing morning.

“Another beautiful hinge!” I say out loud to myself, as I get back into Joey SX and drive home.

Between the ages of 15 and 35 I hitch-hiked over 100,000 miles. As a teenager I hitched back from school, to the pub, to my girlfriend’s, and each summer I took the ferry to France and hitched around Europe and the Middle East.

In my early 20s I hitched in the USA, New Zealand and Australia, and then four years later went back and did it all again. I hitched just about every inch of the UK’s extensive motorway network, getting to know the best junctions and Service Stations so that I travelled faster than Public Transport.

When I arrived in Ireland back in 1992 I was delighted to find a fabulous hitching country, and explored the west coast from Cork to Donegal with my thumb and the generosity of others.

Somewhere along the way  - I cannot remember where or when - a driver shared with me the theory of the Rusty Hinge, which perfectly matched my own experience of people.

All over the world I met thousands of fantastic people. I enjoyed a special and sometimes intense one-to-one conversation with every type of human, save for the ones who don’t stop for hitchers.

That doesn’t make them rusty hinges. I don’t blame them for not stopping. Why should they? 

Countless times I was invited to stay the night at a driver’s home. Often an onward lift had been arranged for me by the time I awoke the next day. I was driven, housed, fed and watered, and in the process got to know and better understand the people of each different country in a unique way that guided tourists cannot.

The vital truth I gleaned from those years of travels is that people are good. Old young rich poor: doesn’t matter. After all my years on the road I recall only one bad lift, in a Jag in the middle of the night on a German Autobahn, with a man who behaved in a sexually predatory way, but he was my only rusty hinge.

With a rusty hinge in the White House and another in Moscow making all sorts of grating and offensive noises, it’s so easy to think of the human race as a bad bunch, but we are not.

When times are hard we might need some spiritual WD40, in the shape of hugs and care. Although we are incredibly different and hold opposing views on everything, we are all good hinges, getting on with our lives in fairly gentle, inoffensive and efficient ways.

For that, and for my awareness of that, I give thanks.

©Charlie Adley
23.11.2025

Farwell to a rare politician and president!

 

As Michael D. steps away from the presidency, here's a short colyoomistic excerpt from my first gentle encounter with him, way back in 1993.

 

I'm glad to say we worked together, successfully and happily, several times since this interview...

 

Double Vision - October 1993

By the way, what does the ‘D’ stand for?

 

'Michael D. Higgins floats a spoonful of whipped cream on top of his coffee. The Piano Bar of Murray’s Salthill Hotel provides an other-worldly atmosphere of times gone by, and the present Minster for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht offers the same.

 

At a time when politicians are rarely anything more than pendulums, swung this way and that by public opinion, Michael D. offers a flashback to the days when people had principles and opinions, which they were not shy of airing in fiery manner.

 

At first glance he appears more elfin than ministerial, but as he sits, he rubs his hands over his face, pushing them hard down over his head, and the person that emerges is ready for action.

 

It is the movement of a tired man, which he repeats several times over the course of the evening. I resist the urge to send him off home to bed.

 

Michael D. speaks with fluidity and conviction. He may be small of stature but he is not someone who can hide in a corner. Throughout the interview many who pass feel at liberty to say ‘Hello!’, and he responds to them all by name.

 

For someone doing what is essentially an inhuman job, he retains an accessibility that many others have lost, or never had.'

 

©Charlie Adley

11.11.2025

The truth we choose to ignore!

Fab artwork by Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures-Ireland.com

Forget about speaking truth to power. It’s time for power to speak truth to people.

The simple truth we all know.

The truth an ever-increasing number of us choose to ignore.
The truth we trade for fear and hate, because for some that’s easier.

When will a political party refuse to seek votes through fear?
When will a political party refuse to slander and libel strangers?
When will a political party speak the truth to us?

Where is the party of hope?
Where is the party of compassion?
Where is the party which created the welfare state?
Where is the party that protected workers within Trade Unions? Where is the party which created our magnificent National Health Service?

Void of vision and courage, so-called ‘Left of Centre’ political parties appease the Far Right rather than oppose it.

Starmer’s Labour Party panders to the Right because it feels the only way to defeat hatred and bigotry is to swallow and spit some. It has lost its soul, lost itself, lost direction and Keir’s cowardice breaks my heart.

When will a political leader explain that what is happening is a massive human migration, driven by climate change?

When will a political leader explain that this is not going to go away; it is not going to get smaller; it’s only going to expand?

When will a political leader explain that these people are fleeing famine? They are fleeing war zones and they need help.

Show me one country in the world which has not sent people abroad to earn money and send it back home: such a place does not exist, and yet we turn our back on refugees, both economic and those seeking life-saving asylum.

When will a political leader speak out and declare what we already know: that no western democracy can succeed without the help of an underpaid, unprotected and often unwelcome migrant labour force?

When will a political leader speak out and say we need these people to do the disgusting jobs that our people will not do? We need these people to pick our crops, to harvest our yields, to wash our cars and dishes, to babysit our children and wipe our grandmothers’ backsides.

We need these people as much as they need us, because we are these people. We need to stop demonising immigrants, because who the hell are we? We are nothing but a bunch of immigrants as well.

Yes we are. Originally we all came from somewhere else. I am certainly an immigrant, because my great grandfather came to England from Germany, and I myself have lived in England, Australia, USA and Ireland, but I was born in London. This is the way of the world. This is the way we are, and it is a good way.

This way we mix our flavours, our art, our languages, our music and songs. We share our sadness and our stories. This is the truth of the melting pot. It does not mean that a country will lose its core culture. Italians will always be Italian. The French will be fantastically French, and you Irish will stay Irish.

Yet our culture can grow. Immigrants are not going to inhibit that, but they will contribute riches to it.

People say Ireland is full. As an Englishman who’s lived here almost 35 years, I say to them: “Slag me off by telling me there used to be over eight million people living here, before the English created your horrific famine, or you can tell me that Ireland is full, but you cannot do both."

Not both. No no you can’t, because if there used to be over 8 million here until the famine, how can the country possibly be full at five and a half million, especially when so many are now focused around the cities?

I have been to densely populated countries. I have travelled through Java. Let me tell you, emphatically and categorically: Ireland is absolutely blatantly not full. What’s missing is sufficient resources applied to social and public services, that can support an expanding population.

We do not need to hate other people simply because we don’t have enough GPs, nurses, teachers, surgeons and dentists. Instead of wasting money and energy making everybody terrified of immigrants, we should be demanding taxation and military spending be diverted so that we can pay GPs, nurses, teachers, surgeons and dentists.

We need to aspire to a nation in which every family can feel safe; where every individual, every child, every Elder can feel safe in their homes, regardless of where they were born.

That’s what we need.
That’s what we need right now.

We need politicians with vision, with courage, who do not appeal to fear, but choose to strive for hope and friendship; politicians who are driven by compassion and an understanding that the best way to get elected is to promise a brighter future, not a future where peoples’ fears are aflame, where hope is diluted by ignorant immigration hype.

We need a brave visionary of a politician. Every country does, right now, to speak out and tell the truth, the huge truth that we are witnessing a human migration the like of which we have seen repeated over and over again, throughout our human history.

No immigration policy will stop what is happening, as the Sahara moves north into Southern Europe, as sea levels rise, as fossil fuels run out, more and more people will be forced to share a smaller and smaller area that is safe to live in, a tiny area that is able to produce food, and we will all need to respect each other in that area.

It must be safe for us all to survive in.

We must appreciate each other.
We must understand that we are all equal in our right to be alive and live in a safe home.

A wise man once told me that if you go to bed with a full belly in a warm house, and nobody that you love will be taken in the night, you have nothing to fear.

If we set our sights as low as that then surely we can offer a welcome and safety for all.



©Charlie Adley
09.11.2025

I'll teach you in your home!

 

Now in County Mayo:

For the first time I'm offering my popular Craft Of Writing Course in bespoke form.

In the comfort and privacy of your own home, I’ll deliver my course at a time that suits you best.

Just as carpenters learn how to use their tools, so too writers must master their craft.

Anyone can learn these skills. There is no mystery to it.

In fun and supportive lessons I'll help you to discover how to overcome fear, write a first draft, develop characters, structure, plot and voice.

I'll show you how shape, pace, tense and dialogue can enhance the power of your words.

We will explore the art of editing and I'll give advice about how to sell your work. 

By the end of my enjoyable course you will feel much more confident about your writing, because you’ll be able to use powerful new skills that enable you to express your creativity.

 

To find out more, call: 085 729 4204
Email: cadley1@icloud.com

***

Student testimonials

“Thanks for a fabulous course. It was practical, factual, educational and jovial, and you managed to get stories from us each week!”
John.

“I was very familiar with the language of can't and couldn’t, but in recent times and in your creative classes I have learned a vocabulary that involves embracing the terms can and could. Thank you for sharing your time, thoughts and energy and thanks for forcing me to see life with a new perspective.”
Niall.

“The course was fabulous. I learned a great deal about the skills and techniques of writing. I have enjoyed every minute of it. Thank you so much for all your feedback.”
Gerry.

“I am learning so much. Thank you. You have an amazing passion for words - it oozes out of you - and a great energy that is wonderful to be around.”
Sindy.

“Many thanks for the excellent course. I found it thoroughly revealing. Thanks once again for the enlightenment and the fun.”
Frank.

“I felt privileged to be part of the group. Your enthusiasm runs deep. It’s clear that you do this for the love of the craft. You have so much to give to people and are so generous with your time and passion. I can only offer you my gratitude for a wonderfully inspiring, educational and thought-provoking eight weeks.”
George.

“I booked this course with no real expectations. Little did I know that it was going to be one of the most enjoyable courses I have ever attended and that I was going to learn so much. The course layout, notes and your personal involvement made it a very easy and enjoyable way to learn.”
Walter.

 

Killala: a whisper, a wave, a story still unfolding...

 

The first time I landed in Killala back in 2001, I was looking for a place to call home. I’d pootled for two days along the road that unravels around the edge of County Mayo.

Past Bellmullet I headed east from breathtaking Pulathomas. There was Killala, curled around its harbour like a dog in front of the fire.

Killala is a village that both whispers and sings, where the land runs out and stories take over; a quiet place with a loud history, standing bold against Atlantic winds that will slap you awake, even in August.

I parked and wandered around the harbour at dusk, a man with too many thoughts and no plan. 

The tide was fully out, exposing a seabed carpeted by ropes and ancient creels.

Twilight silhouettes of boats resting on their sides resembled sleeping cattle. 

The light was frankly ridiculous, the sun turning the ocean into a sheet of molten silver.

A heron took off in front of me, wings wide as oars, and I just stood there grinning like a fool. Not because of anything profound, just the pleasure of being somewhere that hasn’t yet been polished to death by progress. Wildlife thrives in North Mayo’s ecosystem. 

It felt like the village itself was breathing out, having a moment to itself before the next shift began. You can feel that in places like Killala. A rhythm, low and old, moving slowly yet more powerful than any town clock.

I fell deeply in love with the unique land and seascapes of North Mayo. It truly has the lot: rolling green pasture and barren ancient bog; drumlins and mountains; flatlands and cliffs; so many white sand beaches, untouched by mass tourism.

 

At Downpatrick Head there are blowholes and the astonishing sea stack, Dun Briste, a sight that never fails to make your jaw drop.

North Mayo is also home to a wealth of megalithic and medieval sites. Stone circles rub shoulders with ogham stones. There are subterranean galleries and ancient abbeys.

On the water’s edge at Rosserk sit the incredible remains of a 15th century friary, where I like to stand on quiet cloudy afternoons, looking at the same vista enjoyed by a Franciscan friar of the middle ages, imagining how they felt standing there.

Before we get too lost in the flora and fauna, I have to say that the people here aren’t too shabby either. Not saying they’re chic, but fine humans? Yes.

Typically from this nation of paradox, the great thing about North Mayo is the worst thing: it’s a tough place to make a living; a region familiar with emigration and poverty.

What survives is an environment with acres of breathing space and a population who are genuinely pleased to see you. Killala doesn’t much care for your notions. It doesn’t perform. It just is.

There’s no hunger to be cute, no winking leprechauns or forced céad míle fáilte. They’ll not change for you, but once they like and trust you, you’ll have friends for life.

What you have here is people whose lives are determined by sea and sky, who fish and farm, fix engines and fence fields. They also create stunning art and crafts, works that echo and resound with the area.

There’s something deeply reassuring about this authenticity, with our modern world blurred by filters and obfuscated by fakery.

North Mayo doesn’t try to be anything apart from the essence of itself. While West Cork panders to the English and Germans, while Kerry turns towns like Killarney into Oirish theme parks for American tourists, North Mayo is what it is: a wonder.

Killala carries its vital and violent past with pride. Best known for the French landings of 1798 and the ensuing rebellion.

  

The round tower stands tall and stubborn, a twelfth-century monastic marvel reaching into into the sky, keeping watch over the village. Beside it, St. Patrick’s cathedral leans into its own stories, echoing with the ghosts of bishops and blasphemers, depending on your perspective.

Killala won’t rush you, and it won’t apologise either. If you stop long enough you’ll feel the gentle defiance; the soft, steady roar of a place that knows exactly what it is.

Maybe, if you’re lucky, you might carry a bit of it home with you. Not in photos or fridge magnets, but in the way you start to notice the sound of your boots on wet gravel, or how the sea smells different depending on wind direction.

That’s what Killala does. It seeps into your bones, quietly, like the tide returning.

Long after you’ve left, you’ll still hear its name in your head, soft and strong.

Killala: a whisper, a wave, a story still unfolding.

©Charlie Adley
15.08.2022

My Wardrobes are up on DoneMyHeadIn.ie

The phone rings: “I’m calling about the wardrobes for sale. Are they gone yet?”

“No.”

“Well y’see, I don’t want to come all the way to Killala to find they’re gone. Will you call me and tell me when they’re gone?”

“No probs. So when might suit you to come and have a look?”

“No, just call me when they’re gone. Bye now.”

But but but why did you bloody call me, if you don’t want to see the wardrobes?

In England, buying is simple: you point at the thing, hand over the cash, job done. Nobody cares about you, you don’t care about them. Efficient yet joyless.

Here in the West of Ireland, commerce is not a transaction - it’s a performance; a conversation; a confession; occasionally even a test of your very soul.

I walk into a shop to buy a hammer and emerge an hour later, having acquired not just the hammer but also a potted history of the owner’s great-uncle’s roof repairs during the hurricane of ’87, a rundown of local funeral arrangements, and an unsolicited recommendation for the best chipper “this side of Tuam.”

After moving to Connemara in 1994, I went to buy turf from a man down the road.

After knocking on the door, he appears, hands deep in pockets.

“How’s it goin’?” he says.

“Great, thanks,” I reply, and then, way too quickly: “I’m after a trailer-load of turf.”

He doesn’t answer.

He looks out across his yard, as if considering the broader fate of humanity.

Then: “You will have a cup of tea.”

My London brain says: ‘Tea? I’m here for fuel, not chitty chat.’

But my west of Ireland survival mind kicks in:‘Sit down. Drink the tea. This is the deal.’

Two mugs later, we’ve discussed the weather as an intricate, almost sacred topic involving historical rainfall comparisons and predictions, grass temperatures and cows.

Finally, he nods towards the shed.

“Right, sure, we’ll see about that turf then.”

It’s not the money that seals the deal.
It’s the tea.
The chat.
The time spent.

My introduction to this obfuscated style of Irish business came in the form of the Galway Advertiser Accommodation Sheet.

Every Tuesday at midday the youth of Galway would queue up outside the Advertiser office, to be given an A3 sheet with all the rooms and houses available to rent in that week’s Classified Ads section.

Then we’d dash to a phone box and pump coins in, as we called place after place.

Glaringly absent from both the adverts and conversations was the the single most important detail: what would the place cost to rent?

I couldn’t fathom for the life of me why these landlords potentially wasted everyone’s time by refusing to reveal the price of the place? I had much to learn.

Part of my education came 19 years later. Trying to outwit the indigenous do-si-do rental dance, I placed an advert in the paper saying I was looking for a place to rent outside Galway City.

A bloke calls offering what sounds like the perfect home.
“So when can I come to look at the house?” I ask.

His breathing strangles into a whine.
“Weeeell now, I’m not sure, now, really.”

“How would Sunday be?” I offer, trying to move things along a little.

“Sunday? No, sorry, y’see Sunday would be a bad day for me. Saturday would be better.”

“Great, so Saturday, I’ll come look at the house. What’s a good time for you on Saturday?”

“Weeeell there’s the tenants moving out now, on Saturday d’ye see, so things could be a bit messy, and -”

“Okay, yes, I see, sure, that’s probably not the best time to look at a house.”

“So, right, now, grand so, come on Saturday at 1 o’clock.”

“Oh, okay, I er yeh, great. I’ll call you Saturday morning. Oh, and just so we don’t go wasting each others’ time, did you have any idea about what you might be asking for rent?”

As I ask my voice trails off, because I know he’s pure old school. He doesn’t want to talk money at this stage.

“Ah well now d’ya see I oh I haven’t really oh -”

“Sound. Perfect. Why don’t we chat about that when we meet each other, eh? That’d be better, wouldn’t it?”

He sounds ridiculously relieved at my suggestion.

“Yes, that’s the way. Grand. Lovely. So call me during the week and we’ll sort out a day for you to come look at the house.”

“But I thought I was coming Saturday at 1?”

“Ah, so we did. So call me Saturday morning and we’ll sort a time. Bye now.”

This fella’s called me because he wants me to rent his house, but he will tell me neither when I can look at his house nor how much the rent will be.

This feels more like tickling a trout than finding a home.

So I call Fishy on the Saturday morning, to confirm that I’m about to drive out to the house.

“Well, I’m up in Mayo today,” he tells me, “So tomorrow would be best.”

“But you told me last time we talked that Sunday was bad for you. I thought we’d set up a meet for today.”

“No no, not today, d’ye see. I’m in Mayo. Why don’t you call me next week? Tuesday I’ll be here and -”

I’ve had enough now.

“No. I’ll leave it, thanks all the same.”

A bollox is just a bollox in any language.

Selling is another kettle of fish. I once tried to sell a lawnmower to a man from Moycullen. He turns up, circles the machine as if stalking prey, stands over it for ten minutes in silence, and then he compliments it with faint suspicion.

“Ah, she’s not a bad looking yoke. Does she cut the grass?”

“No,” I reply, deadpan. “She makes tea.”

He doesn’t laugh. Just squints at me like I’d passed some kind of arcane test.

Haggling is not merely concerned with saving money. It’s about the dance. To say ‘Yes!’ too quickly is to spoil the fun. To say ‘No!’ too firmly is to appear prickly. The game is to reach a point where both sides can agree, not on the number, but on the feeling of fairness.

Finally, he asks: “Would ya take twenty less?”
We settle on a price neither of us will remember a week later.

I’ve learned that these dances are not inefficiencies: they’re social glue. Buying and selling here is never merely about the object changing hands. It’s about the slow weaving of trust, the acknowledgement that we’re all in the same wind-battered boat.

You can’t cut the chat or skip the tea without damaging more than the deal - you risk fraying the fabric of the place.

In a landscape where an Atlantic storm can lock you in for days, the Irish have created a culture where every exchange is an opportunity to reinforce connection.

So now, when I walk into a shop, I leave my watch at home. I listen, I nod, I tell my own stories, even if they’re half as good as theirs. I’m not just buying a hammer, or selling a mower. I’m joining the dance.

And if I’m lucky, the tea’s too bad either.



©Charlie Adley
14.08.2025

Why was it so hard to write this colyoom?

Sitting in my car on the clifftop at Kilcummin Back Strand, I looked out at the sumptuous bay. The greenest of headlands deliver quintessential Ireland, as they fringe an empty beach sheltered by massive dunes.

I was about to walk this beloved beach, where my ashes will be scattered, and then watch the tide turn.

Call it meditation, mindfulness or mooky-mooky-moo.
I don’t care.

It’s what I do.
I’ve been watching tides turn for 35 years.

Find a rock or a piece of driftwood to sit on, breathe out and stare at a fixed point near the water’s edge.

A spiral of sandy wormcast.
A smooth black pebble.
The tip of a rock poking out above the ocean shallows.

Then watch that point until either it disappears, subsumed by the Atlantic Ocean, or is left high and dry as the waters recede.

Before I left the car my phone rang, and I’m told that my lovely mum’s care has cost the inheritance that might have bought me a house.

I’d never own a home, because my mum is still alive. Happy with that equation every day of the week.

18 months ago this was, after a 6 year tsunami of major life poop, including a divorce, two evictions and a rare bacterial infection that nearly killed me three times.

I’d lost all my savings, all my income, half a lung and my dog, alongside several lifetime friends, who chose my most vulnerable time to become angry with me.

Although the pain of those losses is indescribable, I give thanks that I still have many wonderful friends.

As the inimitable Dalooney put it:
“Jeeze Chazzer, I’ve never seen someone lose so many lifetime friends and have so many left!”

During those dark years I also discovered that my PRSI payments were a disaster, and when the time comes I’ll inherit just enough to exclude me from the means-tested pension.

Old age suddenly looked decidedly grim: no home, no income.

A couple of months after that clifftop call I had a terrible fallout with a close family member, which finished off whatever was left of my mental health.

I reached out to a close friend, unaware that they too were enduring mental health issues, and instead of comfort I was ridiculed in public.

Reach out, they say.
Let me tell you, reaching out is not always successful.

There then followed a hellish weekend I will never forget, chewing valium dawn 'til dawn, asking myself what is the point?

That’s when I discovered suicidal thoughts don't come with a fanfare.

No melodrama.
Not a scream in sight. Merely a deep sigh and fuck me, is it really worth it?
Life is such hard work.
Just too much hassle.

I’m blessed by the love of many, but nobody relies on me, so what difference would it make?

Then I thought of my beautiful friend who walked into the sea just the year before, and the pain I feel for her loss; that devastating grief of wishing I’d done more.

No. I wouldn’t put others through that.

Well, if I wasn't going to die, I had to sort my life out. After working all my life, I never imagined it ending homeless and penniless.

Loyal colyoomistas, be aware: none of us are far from that oblivion.

I thought about the guy who lived by the river. The weather forecast said that there was going to be a massive flood, but he prayed to God and felt safe.

Then a woman from the village come to tell him they were all evacuating, but our guy just smiled and said he trusted God to help him out.

When the rains came and the river flooded, a man came in a boat, but our guy just waved him past and prayed.

Then the flood came, so our guy was on the roof of his house when the helicopter arrived.

“No thanks, I’m not leaving. I trust in God.”

They flew off. Our guy drowned, and as soon as he arrived in Heaven he had a right go at God for abandoning him in his hour of need.

God shrugged and said:

“Oy! What more could I do? I sent you a weather forecast, and I sent a woman from the village. I sent a man in a boat, and I sent a team in a helicopter. I can’t help you if you refuse to help yourself.”

 

I can be a righteous pit-bull when I want to be. Like a dog with the scent of hare, I chased it.

I secured the signature of my lung consultant on my medical needs housing application form. He asserted that the old stables where I was holed up were mouldy and damp; lethal to a man with chronic lung conditions.

Then a local councillor agreed to be my advocate with Mayo County Council, and I enlisted another friend who has local political clout.

They both proved a massive help.

Six months ago I got the home, for which I gave thanks two colyooms ago, so take a look: click here to read it 

Around the same time a friend told me about a scheme that allowed me to pay retrospective contributions for a UK pension. I filled out the forms but doubted success, sure that my young hitching life was too peripatetic to qualify for any pension.

Fear is a powerful fuel, while the love of others offered me a whole heap of help.

I love being wrong. Like a rescue dog, I’m now in my forever home, and as of last week, after a rare miracle of bureaucratic efficiency, there’s the distinct possibility that I’ll qualify for an almost full UK pension.

I called the friend who encouraged me to apply for the scheme, and told him I will be forever grateful.

The vast majority of my life I have enjoyed swimming with the tide. From 2016 to 2024 that tide turned against me, and it was brutal.

Confession: I’ve been uncharacteristically nervous about hitting the right tone in this piece. Despite my fervent love for the passion of the First Draft with Capital Letters, there are rare colyooms such as this that leave your scribbler unable to whack it all down, as I usually do.

The first draft is the soul of writing, all subsequent efforts being editing, and it is my duty to preserve the passion and power of that first draft as I improve my work.

However this piece has been the opposite of a first draft. My emotions are still so raw that I managed only a series of short jabs to the keyboard, over weeks, as I came to terms with the profundity of safety.

This is not me telling you what you should do.
This is not me telling you to look at what a mighty man I am.
This is neither practical advice nor philosophical guidance.

This is simply the story of a process.
It’s what happened to me.
You might like to know.

15 months ago I had neither a home nor a pension.
Life was not worth living.
Now I’m safe.
My tide turned.



©Charlie Adley
28.07.2025

Backroads are best, but you do need cars to hitch!

Artwork as always from the excellent Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures Ireland.com

 

I’m watching the sun rise, vast and slow, through the glass wall of my friend’s West Cork clifftop eyrie.

A silver morning haze hangs over the ocean.
That sky will be blue within the hour.
A perfect day to hitch back to Galway.

My friend drops me on the Bandon Road. I’ve looked at the map, and decided that getting through Cork City might be tricky. Cut up to Mallow, a few backroads, sure, what’s the rush boy? You’re in Cork, d’ja’know?

My first lift comes from a nice guy in a Citroen Van, who wants to talk about my accent.

Then a lawnmower man pulls over, almost crashing into the transit van who also decides to stop for me.

My friend Susan reckons it’s something to do with my relationship with the Goddess of the Road. Whatever it is, I’m glad it works. Yer man tells me I should go to Cork City, but I feel it’s time to leave the main road, time to walk a few miles in the early morning sun.

A little old lady takes me three miles, saying “Oh I know!" over and over again. She drops me by a hedge, where I marvel at the beauty available to the hitcher.

What other form of transport offers you such a place? A gentle rush of flowing water from invisible grassy depths; birdsong; all the time in the world.

And then some.
No cars.

A farmer with the hairiest nose in the world stops his ancient Nissan Bluebird, tells me I should have gone to Cork City, and drives me one mile.

I never walk and hitch,. What’s the point? But I do walk until I find a good place to hitch. After a few miles around bends where the road is lined with hedgerows, I come finally to a small straight stretch.

Hitching is only empathy. Think like a driver.
The first car stops, and I am in a metal box with a mad woman. 

"Don’t mind me - I’m late. Where are you going? Mallow? Oh I am going to Macroom. I can take you to Macroom. Mallow? But I am not going to Mallow? Why are you on this road? Where are you going? I am turning for Macroom. Don’t mind me, I am very late. Why are you going to Macroom?”

She lets me out.
Ahhh.

As she wends her crazy way, I laugh out loud. I am in the most glorious place.

A river deep and blue
rolling verdant hills of velvet pasture
meadowsweet and cow parsley
crows cawing in the tall trees
wild cherry blossoms and bumble bees.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A woman approaches, walking. I smile, and understate the obvious.

"Lovely day!" to which she replies in a way that only a very small number of exclusively Irish are able

"We’ve got it too soon, so. Too soon, that’s what it is!"

She passes me, no eye contact, no hint of a smile. Astonishing attitude, yet a catalyst for me to enjoy the sunshine all the more.

Another short lift, from a charming man who talks of childhood bacon and cabbage. After he drops me off, I eat a chocolate bar watched by a herd of cows who come to make me feel guilty.

Horror of horrors, a truck crawls up the hill towards me, engine screaming in the redline howl of second gear.

Please don’t let him stop.

Please please, ple - oh shit. The truck is going so slowly, I'm walking along beside the open door, as it crawls along with its load of grit.

"Where you going? Mallow? Well, throw your bag on boy."

Over the next twenty minutes I employ various Zen techniques to turn this nightmare into a, like, positive experience, man.

Oh look how well I can see over the hedges, and how much time I have to watch the cows ruminating.

All life is the scream.
The engine scream.

And the rattle.

The scream and the rattle and the fact that he insists on shouting at me over this cacophonic duet.

I’m left at a dusty crossroads, where I stand for hours and hours and hours. There are two pubs (closed), a garage (who knows?) and a hair salon (closed), but apart from a woman in slippers and a very friendly dog, I see nobody.

No people. No Cars.

I begin gently hallucinating in shadeless sunshine.

Maybe I'm tripping.
Maybe Ireland is Spain.

After decades hitching, I know not to feel despair, but that crossroads pushes me close to it.

It’s taken me six hours not to get to Mallow.

A fast car with a yellow-shirted builder takes me to the outskirts of Mallow, where I climb up a steep bank and scramble onto the edge of the N20.

Aharrr, Jim Lad, look ye at all them cars!

A walk to the next exit ramp, and a lift to Charleville immediately.

"In all fairness, now, in all fairness, I have to say, I have to. How old do you think, in all fairness, a turkey might live for, as much as you can say, in all fairness?"

Maybe I am mad, and they are all wonderfully sane.

A sales rep wants to turn a bad day into a good one, so he takes me to pick up his child and girlfriend, and then drives me all the way over to the other side of Limerick, just so that I can swiftly pick up a ride.

I do, in a transit with a guy who tells me he’s not slept for three days. He decides to drop me at Shannon Airport, (what is that socks smell?) where Victor picks me up, and tells me of Nigeria as he whisks me to Ennis.

The sun is drooping a little, my legs are falling off me, and it’s a long old walk through Ennis. I pray, just in case Susan is right about my Goddess.

She’s right. A car suddenly pulls over, blocking the traffic, and the lady in it asks me if I know the road to Gort. I tell her I am hitching on it. She tells me to jump in.

I’ll be in Galway before dark. That pint...

The very amiable Philip picks me up from Gort, whisking me around, to buy a wheelbarrow and borrow an electric planer.

From Kilcolgan I am delivered to Galway by a man with a fixed babyface smile, who speaks of pouring the concrete for his house tomorrow, and how since yesterday he is the proud father of Rebecca.

Finally, I’m walking along the Eglington Canal, towards that Galway City pint.

As I enter Taylor’s Bar on Dominic Street, the last drop of light drifts from a long day’s sky.

 

 

 

©Charlie Adley

 22.07.2025

Bring back our barstools!

                   

Thanks to Allan Cavanagh at Caricatures Ireland.ie

As I walk into the hotel bar my spirit sags.

No barstools.

Oh bloody hell.
Bang goes another one.

 

That’s my plans for the evening scuppered.

A couple of years ago I sat at this bar eating great fish and chips, enjoying a little gentle craic with the barman, but not tonight.

 

Once my dinner is in me I’ll not feel like hanging around. Sitting alone at a table, I feel self-conscious, a bit too BillyNoMates for my liking.

 

In pubs, bars and especially hotels, barstools are disappearing. There’s so little money to be made from selling booze these days, pubs and hotels sacrifice service at the bar to focus on flogging food to tables.

 

As a single person who likes to spend an hour or three in a bar drinking whiskey, I truly deeply mourn their passing.

 

I love barstools.

 

It makes no difference if it’s a tiny stool in a train station corner bar; a familiar friend in one of my locals, or a stool which hasn’t yet had the opportunity to meld with my voluptuous arse: wherever the barstool, I sit, breathe out, relax and stare at the optics.

 

At the bar I am blissfully and defiantly alone: might want conversation, but more likely I just want to sit, sip whiskey and trigger reflections in my brainbox.

All those random barstools in countless other bars.
This barstool here equals that barstool there.
What was life like, back there, back then?
Can I glean some wisdom from this mirror gazing?
Am I simply disappearing up my own hole?

That barstool in the Deluxe on Upper Haight, San Francisco, when I lived down the road. The barman had cheeky eyes, twinkling between the brim of his straw boater hat and his grey waxed moustache. That was a good cocktail bar.

We’ve already lived America through our movie screens and TVs, so the bars are familiar to our European eyes. Different from both English and Irish pubs and European cafés, I love American bars. They feed my addiction to their low-life culture.

My mind wanders to that wobbly tall wooden barstool in the bar just up from the Projects. Good people who were looking out for me advised me not to drink there, but they needn't have worried.

I grew up sitting on barstools in London pubs, where mine was a rare white face, so I never gave it a second thought.

Galway City and County are home to many of my favourite barstools. In the early 90s the middle three barstools in an Tobar, with Blitz on one side and The Body on the other, Whispering Blue serving behind the bar, that far away look in his eyes: everyone happily resigned to another great Galway night of excess.

The knackered brown barstools in Keogh’s in Ballyconneely, before Brendan converted the place in ’94. You’d leave with a rim imprinted on your buttocks from the frame, while the cushion, long retired from supporting human backsides, actually sank below the seat altogether.

While he was building the new pub, Brendan erected a massive marquee over the pub garden, and set up the bar inside. So for a few months we sat on barstools and drank our pints staring at a palm tree and a flower bed. Sometimes we thought we were losing our minds, drinking beer in Connemara while the white canvas walls blew in and out like vertical waves on the western wind.

That vital barstool in Terry’s in Clifden, where each trip I ceremoniously have a pint of Guinness in celebration of having yet again driven past my hills and lakes; yet again been moved and enthralled.

Sadly, over the decades, it has also become the barstool to which I flee when someone dies.

Any of the middle stools at the bar of Harriet Leander’s Nimmo’s, with Charlie Minot behind the bar. Bliss.

The corner of the front bar in (the old) Taylor’s Bar; a great afternoon barstool. Just away from the window, perfect for a crossword, to look out at a rainy Dominick Street, or over the bar to inimitable Una.

Down the road, the barstool at the very far end of the Blue Note used to have my arse-groove worn into it.

A freezing cold midweek afternoon in Neactain’s middle bar, on the barstool facing the coal fire; steam from the wetness of my jacket, staring at Boske’s fantastic festival posters.

To this day, any barstool downstairs at The Crane.
A rare place indeed.
Long may it last as it is.

So much of our society, from supermarket shopping to housing and holidays is geared towards couples and families, it’s a tragedy that we happy lone individuals are denied the chance to sit alone in silence, with our backs turned to the world, or have a good old chat with a bar person or the punter sitting next to us.

My late father, gordlovehim, who drank with and talked to locals and strangers alike, would definitely have said:

“More life destroyed by progress.”



©Charlie Adley
14.05.2025

Thanks, Colyoomistas! We're over the half million mark!

 

Half a million readers: they can’t all be wrong - and that's just online since 2007. 

Double Vision ran in physical newspapers from 1992-2019. Other works here include features from the Irish Times, Irish Examiner and Irish Post, with a shmattering of fiction and autofiction.

Have a browse around.

Thanks!

Thanks - you gave me a home!

Fall, 1998. We’re walking through San Francisco’s Marina District. My beautiful friend Meg stops, turns to face me, upright in relaxed yoga goddess style, Scandi bob and shardic blue eyes.

“Here’s what I don’t get. You spent all those years travelling around, living all over, looking for somewhere that felt like your home. And then you finally found it. And then you left it.“

I stare down at the sidewalk.

Beneath lies the wreckage of the 1906 quake. The Marina was built on top of and out of that rubble, so these sterile mansions have foundations as precarious as their millionaire owners. The Marina is incubating the gentrification that has destroyed the Bay Area’s liberal artistic heritage.

None of us like being delivered harsh truths about ourselves. Life decisions are built on strata more complex than one simple fact. 

Yes, I loved Ireland and I left Ireland, because I loved her more.

No it didn’t work out, but The Beatles lied. Love is not all you need.

You need a home.

A year before I left Ireland for California, I felt my first explosion of joy. I didn't realise, but before I moved to that tiny house in Connemara, I’d felt at best happiness.

In that house in Connemara I felt joy and it was dangerous and powerful and it made me stop and breathe different as I walked.

A home.
A house.  
A house on my own. 
A house on my own in the place I love.
Off the road.
The ocean on three sides and a lake behind.
Less than two miles from the shop and pub.

My god but I loved her.

That’s why I left my home. Yet America was never home; not mine. You know it’s home when it feels like you’re swimming with the tide.  
In America I discovered how it feels when the tide goes against me, and after 4 years I broke.

Came back to Ireland.
Back to Galway.

 

I'd never been back anywhere, but went back to Galway three times.
That was my second time back, and the most extraordinary of them all; stronger and stranger than the first, because I was utterly committed to her and it and us and never envisaged any return.

Before Ireland I’d lived (earned a wage) all over North West London, in Cambridge, Bradford, Melbourne, Barcelona and Otaki.

As a teenager I’d felt at home hitching around the baked landscapes of rural France. I loved the long green avenues, the peeling plaster rustic walls, the plat du jour and carafe. At 17 I reckoned I’d probably live there as an adult.

A village somewhere.

On Friday 10th April 1992, the day after the Tory’s fourth successive general election victory, I went to to the local travel agent and asked for the cheapest one-way ticket out of the country.

Malaga, £39. That’ll do nicely. Check out Granada, up to Barcelona for their incredible Olympics, and then let the road lead me to my French village.

I make no apologies for sounding a tad hippy dippy. I’ve hitched to the moon and I trust the road.

End of.

JB still talks about the Road To Vic. After he nobly hosted me throughout that outstanding Barcelona summer (JB might well choose a different adjective) he drove me all the way out of the city to a motorway junction, concrete underpass glowing pink pumping 45°C, and left me roadside with the dust and Blue Bag.

At last, my French life awaited, but the road had other plans.
Saturday night I slept out on the lush long grass of French Pyrenean foothills, to awake covered in mountain dew.

Heavy dew for a heavy Jew puns aside, I knew Sunday was a terrible day to hitch, with families packing cars and Grandma behind the wheel for her one drive a week.

Perfect. I was in no rush. I’d stick to D roads, avoiding anything with a hard shoulder and HGVs.

I’d meander and - 

and that night I was in Rennes, way up in Brittany. Every lift had rushed me North. Instead of my desired dawdle, I’d dashed through to plans anew.

Much as I love Brittany, if I’m moving to France I’m going to warmer climes, somewhere south of a line from the Vendée to Dijon.

 

It’s absurd to say I was running out of countries, but that’s how it felt. I’m still yet to set foot on Africa or South America, but in my life’s hunt for a home, Ireland was looking like my destination.

I loved the irony of going around the planet twice and ending up in the country next door, of which I knew nada zip.

Disembarking at Cobh, walking through the streets of Cork City on a damp August afternoon, I was excited that I knew nobody.

I didn’t have a single connection to this new country, this final country, this country that really had to become my home, otherwise I’d be back where I bloody started.

I had no idea.

No idea how madly I would love Ireland and the compassion of the Irish. No idea how I would rip the skin off a tiny slice of Galway life in the early ‘90s, and fall deeply in love with Connemara: my soul’s home.

Then yes, I left, as we established, but I came home, and knew I was home because I had left and grieved and mourned.

I moved to live the second time in a house on my own, this time by a river in Killala, where I felt joy for the second time in my life.

Years later, back to Galway and married again, but in 2018 that all fell apart in crushingly unwelcome circumstances.

The following year I fell apart physically. Not enough there’s a global pandemic. Oh no. His Maj here has to develop an incredibly dangerous, ridiculously rare bacterial infection that tried to kill me several ways.

It started off with pleurisy and double pneumonia, and then there were months of empyema, with a litre and a half of pus in my chest cavity. Then I was coughing up blood.

Despite the best care and a zillion scans they didn’t know what was wrong with me (who does?) so they cut off half a lung to find out, and then there was another year of intense treatment, that involved giving myself intravenous antibiotics at home, with a van driving up from Galway weekly, delivering fresh medicines.

During this time I was also trying to deal with a divorce, a complete loss of income, my life savings already gone on keeping us afloat years before, and an eviction notice given on the day I was told about my lung surgery.

Didn’t have to make it up. Dark would be an understatement. I joked that if reincarnation is real, I must’ve been some special kind of arsehole in a previous life.

My friend in Killala offered me her stable conversion, and that was my home for four years. Were it not for her I would’ve had nowhere to live.

Nowhere.

I couldn’t pay rent, even if there had been anywhere to rent, which there was not.

She saved me, and then four months ago, Mayo County Council offered me a home.

A one bedroom bungalow in a quiet estate 300 yards from the village centre.

A place of my own.

A place where I can stay.

Joy.

Ireland became my home, and now Ireland has given me a home. 

No greater gift to this scribbler. 

Thank you.
 
 

©Charlie Adley

12.04.2025