It's time to celebrate my Annual HeadFest!

Thanks to trekearth.com

Drowning in Galway’s annual torrent of festivals celebrating film, the arts, poker and horse racing, I pack Blue Bag and head northwest, to celebrate Charlie’s Annual HeadFest.

The sky is a burning blue, the tarmac is melting and after a couple of hours I stop in Bangor for a coke and a sarnie. The girl in the local shop is incredibly friendly, and the waitress in the café lets me off 25c with a smile, forgoing her tip.

Has Bailout Ireland once again become the land of Céad Mile Fáilte, the Hundred Thousand Welcomes?

On Belmullet’s pier a sign declares a littering fine of €125. Below there’s a picture of litter bin. I walk up to use it, but there is no bin; just a sign.

Escaping the late afternoon heat, I go into a pub where some of the locals have been hiding for possibly a little too long. The exuberantly cheerful barmaid keeps them ordered, as a conductor in front of a raggedy yet benign orchestra.

We’re hearing about her visit to the fortune teller who has pitched up outside the pub.

“She told me I had a bubbly personality and that I work most nights! Sure, there I was all smiles, and hasn’t she seen me coming and going out of here at all hours? I think I’ll set up outside here too, and tell you all about yourselves. I know everything about ye all!”

We all laugh but a couple of the regulars look faintly nervous.

“Did she say if Mayo’d win Sam?”

“No, I didn’t ask her.”

Much general male groaning.

Stumbling back out into the glare of the low evening sun, I skip and dance across the road, avoiding the constant convoy of tractors towing trailers full of cut turf. A father and his young red-headed daughter empty their trailer into their back yard, turn the tractor around and head straight back out to the bog. There’s something wonderful about the way that even in the height of this heat wave, the Irish are preparing for the cold long nights of Winter.

The thrill of a true Blue Bag trip is to have no route planned, no end in mind. Like life itself, the best journeys evolve, just as this one has become a coastal tour of Bangor-Erris and my beloved north Mayo.

The following morning a thick sea fog clings low to the coast. Undeterred, I pootle around the Pollatomish loop and then drive north again to Rossport and beyond. Rolling grey white and black waves of moisture cascade over the clifftops, falling onto the searing heat of the grasses and boglands. The high views down to virgin sandy shores and distant craggy headlands are impressive enough, but driving through this natural battle between water and steam, heat and cool, the ethereal air of a dream envelopes me.

I am blissed out. Alone, free, aimless and ecstatic, I pootle back towards the Ballycastle Road, but have a lingering memory of a tiny bog road that goes all the way to Belderg, and yes, lovely, there it is!

Hanging a left, I experience what has become a rare treat in this modern world: for 20 minutes I drive slowly along the tiny road, during which time I see not one house, nor a car, nor a single human being. The only evidence of people occupying this planet are the hundreds of bags of turf left drying on the bogs and the recently-sheared sheep sporting multi-coloured paint brands.

On a day such as this the drive is pure pleasure, but were the car to break down, I’d be a heck of a long way from help, and wouldn’t fancy trying to explain my whereabouts!

Back on the main road, the fog clears just as I pass the Céide Fields, revealing a view of Downpatrick Head, prominent and pristine, as green as the ocean licking it is blue.

Forget the Giant’s Causeway: with a gentle breeze carrying 23°C, Downpatrick Head with its glorious sea stack Dún Briste is more impressive, more beautiful and more unspoilt.

Perched on the corner of the clifftop, I’m sitting at the same level as the grass atop the stack, 200 metres away across the ocean. Between us, a sheer and deadly 45 metre plunge, waves out of sight far below.

Up here, level with the flying gulls, my eyes are drawn to the wondrous layers that build the stack. It feels as if I’m looking at the history of the world in those slices of rock. I’ve seen sedimentary layers elsewhere, but how many centuries of seismic and volcanic upheaval does that thick pink stone layer represent? What cataclysmic event was happening to this planet during those thousands of years?

Today these gentle waves are simply nibbling at its base, yet one of the wonders of the stack is how it’s still evolving. When I lived down the road, I often came up here in Winter, lost somewhere between King Lear and the French Lieutenant's Woman, braced fearful and inspired against the ferocity of a storm. Gigantic waves swallowed mouthfuls out of stack and cliffs alike, salty spume filling the air, as nature’s full power relentlessly ripped out stones, created new arches, undermining the stability of the pile.

If it were like that today, those tourists walking back to the car park could not so easily ignore that fenced-off tidal pool in the middle of this grassy field. They’d stop in their tracks, transfixed, as the roar of water exploding on rock boomed and a plume of seawater rose majestic and incongruous from the blowhole.

Now I’m a tourist too, but with the benefit of local knowledge, I can  today fully appreciate the magnificent views of north Mayo’s stunning landscape, because I have often been up here when all is grey, dull, soaked and deadened by days of dreary rain. Now, as Summer delivers joy to the landscape, it soothes my spirits and calms my brain.

Would you like to learn the craft of writing?

Loving what you do for a living is one of life’s greatest gifts. Before I took up writing professionally I worked in a plethora of corporate jobs, many of which sapped my soul and made me wonder whether life was worth the effort.  

Fortunately I never felt like that when I was employed by non-profit organisations, mainly because the work I was doing made sense. 

Whether I was training a teenage football team, looking after a gentle professor with terminal Alzheimer's or facing the challenge of helping a severely autistic boy, I rarely felt that my efforts had been wasted. At worst, I’d earned a crust and done no harm. Sometimes I might even have made a positive contribution to other peoples’ lives.
 
In all those jobs I felt like a visitor in someone else’s world. Yet sitting here at my keyboard in a typically ungainly position, with my ankles badly twisted underneath my desk, I feel completely comfortable.
 
Some of you already know what I’m on about. If you love your work then you know how lucky I feel. Of course sometimes, just like anything one has to do, it can be a pain in the derrière. 

Occasionally my ideas become as blocked up as an 8 year-old’s nose, or I’ve got the ‘flu and can barely sit upright, let alone make my deadline. But somehow I always make that deadline, because I’ve got the best gig in the world and I won’t waste it.
 
From the age of 15 I wrote every single day, keeping a diary until the age of 21 that contained as much fiction as fact. As a precocious teenager I thought it might be interesting for an ‘older me’ to look back and see what I was like in adolescence.
 
In truth the 6 volumes constitute a terrifying journey into petulance, paranoia and sexual fantasy, but their making instilled within me the discipline of a lifetime: to sit and write each day.
 
Since then I’ve completed 4 novels, had over a million words published in Ireland and the UK, and had 3 plays performed. A few months after I arrived in Galway my one-woman show Aileen Stays In won Punchbag Theatre’s Month of Sundays competition.
 
As well as this colyoom, I had a column in the Irish Examiner for over two years and several features published in the Irish Times, Irish Post and other media.
 
So why am I telling you all this? Have I become such a pathetic praise junkie that I need to brag at you from your newspaper?
 
Far from it. The reason I’m sharing my credentials is that I’m excited and delighted to announce that I’ll be leading a residential weekend writing course in the historic and beautiful village of Killala.
 
So if you ever wanted to be a writer and you fancy a Spring weekend break in an unspoiled fishing village, you can combine the two this April, by enrolling in The Craft of Writing Weekend.
 

The Old Deanery Cottages

Staying in a 4-star holiday cottage on the site of the Old Deanery overlooking the harbour, you’ll participate in 9 lessons over a fascinating weekend, after which you will know how to use the essential tools of writing craft.
 
Before you can paint a portrait in oils, you have to learn how to draw a straight line. Writing is just like every other art form. There is a craft, which can be learned by anyone. There is no mystery to this craft. It’s abc, 123. Some of you will have talent, which cannot be taught, but talent is useless without craft.
 
I have dedicated my life to learning this craft. Having to some extent now mastered the rules, I can break them, because I know how they work. But I’m still learning, and hopefully will always learn, because clearly you never know it all. 

 The Old Deanery

Over the course of a fun and fascinating weekend, you will learn how to free yourself from fear, write a first draft, develop characters, structure, plot and voice. You’ll discover how to use shape, tense and dialogue to enhance your particular style, while becoming expert in the vital business of editing. I’ll also give advice about how to sell your writing.
 
Arriving on Friday April 19th, you’ll find a turf fire lit in your 4-star holiday cottage, which you’ll share with other participants on the course. Each cottage has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, so privacy is no problem, while the village of Killala offers lively pubs, welcoming smiles and great craic. 

Should you wish to explore, a local guide (my very excellent friend Denis Quinn) offers walks in the stunning surrounding countryside, which is laden with virgin white sand beaches, stone circles, ogham stones and the world-famous Ceide Fields.
                                   

 Ross Beach, Killala

The Craft of Writing Weekend starts at 6pm on April 19th, with refreshments served before the introductory lesson at 7pm, after which everyone can relax together in one of the local pubs.
 
The entire cost of the weekend is only €250 per person, which includes The Craft of Writing Weekend course, cottage accommodation for 2 or 3 nights, a light lunch on both the Saturday and Sunday, as well as tea and coffee during well-earned lesson breaks. Hot breakfasts can be delivered to your cottage at very reasonable rates, while excellent dinners are available locally. 

 

                       Killala village                              

I have to confess that where Killala is concerned I am utterly biased. I lived there for nearly four years and loved both the people and the place. The village and surrounding area is truly the jewel in Co. Mayo’s crown. You’ll have a fabulous weekend in Ireland's beautiful best-kept secret, meet friendly and fascinating people and leave laden with all the tools you need to write well.
 
For bookings and more information please contact me by email at : cadley1@eircom.net
The Old Deanery: liz@olddeanerycottages.com
www.olddeanerycottages.com
Facebook: Old Deanery Cottages; Joe Keane Creative Centre.

Twenty years in twenty paragraphs…

Two weeks ago I was at my friend The Goat’s 65th birthday party in Clifden, and as Stretch tuned up his guitar with a few bars of Pink Floyd, I realised that it had been 20 years since I first walked into Terry’s pub and watched these boys play…  (cue wavy screen and diddydiddlydiddly harp music…)

It’s 9th April 1992, and the Conservatives have won their fourth consecutive English General Election. I’ve just finished writing a novel, feel the British public deserve their Tory fate, walk into a travel agents and ask for the cheapest one-way ticket out of the country. £39 flies me to to Malaga and then I hitch, looking for a new home.

Saturday August 1st, I step off the French ferry from Roscoff onto Irish soil for the first time. Over the previous 20 years I’ve been around the planet a couple of times, but never visited the country next door. I have neither friends nor family here, no addresses, a clean sheet, which feels perfect. I’ve run out of countries, so Ireland’s going to be my home. Flipping on the TV in a Cork City B&B, I watch the Galway Races.

After cold calling for jobs in Cork I head to Kinsale, work split shifts as a kitchen porter while living in a hostel, go mad and flee to Galway, where I fall deeply in love with Connemara. I find a room to rent in Salthill. It’s 24 hour party people, Crusties and lost souls such as myself.

One month later I have this colyoom and a FAS course working as a youth worker in the Rahoon Flats. Escaping the other blow-ins I meet the mightiest crew of local lads in the shape of Blitz, The Body and Whispering Blue, but exhausted by the craic, I plot my escape from Galway.

May 1994 sees me loading all my worldlies into the back of my transit van and driving off to the first house I’ve ever lived in alone. Off the road between Ballyconneely and Slyne Head, Bunowen is bliss. I walk and write another novel and walk more and write six columns under six different names and then fall in love and move to America to be married.

Four years later I return to Galway, failed and lost, to be rescued by old friends who offer me a room to rent in their house in the Claddagh. The good people of this noble rag offer me back this colyoom, for which I am truly grateful.

Evidently I’d had to leave my home to realise that, after a lifetime’s search, I’d already found it in the West of Ireland. Whiskey and mayhem ensue between Taylor’s Bar and Harriet’s Nimmo’s, but I keep it together enough to open and run a charity shop for Age Action, write minority sports interviews for the Irish Examiner and plot my escape from Galway.

The Snapper serves me at Nimmo’s and my life once more becomes a C&W song: “Just when luuuuurvve’s a million miles from my mii-iind, she smiles and pours me a glass of wii-ii-iine.”

In March 2001, I move to a beautiful farmhouse outside Killala, Co. Mayo, but am then trapped indoors by the Foot and Mouth epidemic. I’m writing this colyoom and Diary of a Blow-In, a column for the Irish Examiner, and selling bags of features to the Examiner and the Irish Post in London, but I’m such an emotional wreck from my failed marriage, I can’t write fiction.

My first two years in that house are exceptionally happy. North Mayo is Ireland’s best kept secret, with virgin white sand beaches and the most excellent bunch of people, pleased to have me in their midst.

By my third year in Killala I realise that no locals ever visit my house. Scenting the first whiffs of loneliness, I start to plot my escape to Galway. Ironically, the entire village arrives at my house to throw me a surprise leaving party. Truly wonderful, if only they'd visited earlier...

Eventually I find a one bedroom house in Salthill and get a job as a youth worker in Ballybane. My boss is so brilliant at his work, I learn as much about myself as the teenagers with whom I’m working.

The Snapper and I move into a new house together. Sadly I leave my job, as I’m spending so much time in England with my chronically unwell father. I’m finally getting to grips with the fourth novel, and then my father dies and the Snapper and I are married two weeks later. With the help of friends we throw a wedding bash at Massimo's that blows us and half of Galway away; truly a celebration of life.

The Celtic Tiger dies, the freelance market dries up, and this colyoom is cancelled in 2009. I go through a deeply dark year with no income and no dole, forced to spend my father’s inheritance just to buy the groceries, which breaks my heart.

I work crazy hours trying to earn money and when our families buy us a holiday, I end up in a French hospital with a massive panic attack. Time to learn that I’m not invulnerable. At Public School they told us we were worthless pieces of scum and exceptionally gifted leaders of men, which screwed me and most of my friends up for life, but now I know: showing weakness is allowed.

I sell a couple of features to the Irish Times, but columns are rare as sunny Galway summers. The Snapper and I hunker down with the rest of the nation, moving out to a lovely house, half an hour from Galway.

At last I don’t have to plot an escape, because now I have both country and city. A couple of months later this noble rag offers me back this colyoom. Hoorah.

This is a very Happy Anniversary! Thank you, the West Of Ireland! Here’s to the next 20!

We drink to life - L'Chaim!  

Ethel never sat on the fence!

(A quick aside to say how much I love working with my computer. In the old days, finding the piece below would have meant hours sifting through hundreds of columns and features. Instead, just by typing the letters ‘kingf’ of the word ‘kingfisher’ into the drop-down spotlight gizmo on the top of my Mac’s screen, I’m immediately given access to Diary of a Blow-in #8, a column I wrote for the Irish Examiner during the years I lived  in stunning north Co. Mayo, near the splendid village of Killala.)

In the midst of life we are in death, and I’m loath to apologise for all the obituaries appearing in this colyoom recently, because believe me, I’d rather not be writing them. However, on the same day that Merlin died, an old friend of mine passed away in Castlebar hospital.

Ethel was loved by many, and universally revered, respected and admired. Her fierce wit and long-lodged opinions presented a very firm fence, which you were either her side of or the other. For reasons I’ll never fully understand, yet always appreciate, she took to me when I lived in Killala, and we formed a cross-generational friendship that I suspect gave us both much pleasure.

Ethel’s sister in Cork sent her copies of my Diary of a Blow-In columns, which Ethel read and then tested me on.

“How have you seen the Brent Geese yet? I didn’t think that they’d be around yet, but you said in the paper that you’d seen them. When did you see them? I see the beach from the field every day when I visit my cows, and I have not yet seen them.”

Throughout the entire area her prowess as a cook was unquestioned. Ethel’s cakes and jams were legendary, as was her love for the man she ironically referred to as ‘His Lordship’.

I remember my inevitably unexpected visits to her house so clearly: met with fussing and great hospitality, the living room toasty warm, huge pots boiling on the range, her late husband Jack sat in his chair by the stove, with Ethel up on the blanketed and cushioned shelf she called her ‘nest’; all was well with the world.

Then Ethel would put a glass filled with whiskey and a mountain of thickly-sliced fruit cake in front of me. I knew that neither drink-driving laws nor my desire to fit into my clothes would prove useful as excuses for not eating and drinking the lot. Ethel did not have to behave like Father Ted’s Mrs. Doyle, with all that “You will you will you will!” blather.

Ethel was not one to blather. Not a chance. Ethel just put the drink and food in front of you and told you to eat and drink it, and you did. She was one who must be obeyed.

Possibly it was my confidence in her presence that attracted her, or maybe merely that I wrote about the rural world that she loved, but I was happy to have her as a friend. My thoughts and love now go to her close family and all the people of Ross.

I didn’t know Ethel well, but I liked well what I knew, and also knew that I was honoured to be on the right side of her fence.

Here’s the kingfisher piece, wherein I first meet Ethel, which appeared in the Irish Examiner, May, 2001.

Diary of a Blow-In #8

I have now enjoyed half of the journey through a year's seasons up here in north Mayo, and it really feels like my place now. As if to prove it, I have a garden that's grown out of control.
The September sunshine was kind to my nasturtiums, which have spread over every spare spot of earth, climbing up the back hedge, and tumbling over the raised stone bed, cutting long straight orange blades across the green grass.

The end of my first summer brings a small but pleasing harvest. The wee herb garden I built has proved a major success, and now I cut and dry the copious growth of rosemary, oregano, mint, chives and thyme, before they whither in the early frosts. Flowers from my home-grown lavender are snipped and stored in a jar that smells somewhere between dizzy and divine.

It took me only an hour to spot the arrival of the ram in the field opposite my house, but I'll bet it didn't take the ewes that long! He has a white face, and a brown fleece - well, it's beige really, but that sounds so terribly urban, dwarling! - and the only other white-faced sheep in there is the aptly-named Bianca.

Romeo Ram systematically walks the white-fenced edge of the field, like a rampant lad in a nightclub easing his way along the red carpet, hugging the brass rail. Sheep are more direct than humans, so Romeo simply tries to stick his schnozz up each ewe's rear end. The gals cop on to this ruse pretty quickly, moving away before Romeo even gets close to a genital whiff.

But all of a sudden he strikes lucky. A big old ewe raises herself to her feet, slowly and deliberately walking backwards onto Romeo's nose. There she lingers for a while, before wiggling her Sunday Dinners off to a bucket of feed.

I recognise this behaviour as the ovine equivalent of Isabella Rosellini singing Blue Velvet. This is sheep-talk for Lauren Bacall telling Steve he knows how to whistle.  Just more honest. And more effective.

My plan was always to arrive in the area with a mild plop, rather than a loud bang, and it is paying off. I have seen what happens when others elsewhere have tried to make a quick and big impression on new neighbours. It was always my wish that the locals would come to me, rather than the other way around, and gradually it is happening.

Landlords in pubs are starting to call me by name, and the other day, I was visited by a charming mother and daughter-in-law team. Much to my delight, they came bearing jars of home-made gooseberry and blackcurrant jam, and rather less welcome, they also brought a dead kingfisher, which the elder of the two emptied from a plastic bag onto my outstretched hand.

She told me that she had read of my birdie adventures in this column, and was eager to show me a beautiful bird that we had living in our local environment. I agreed that indeed, when alive, the tiny kingfisher is a glorious sight, but pointed out that it does lose a certain charm after it's been wrapped in a plastic bag, a good few days after a cat killed it. I had to ask:

“Please tell me you’re leaving the jam and taking the bird away?”

I enjoyed their short but pleasant visit, which culminated in my accepting their kind invitation to a party. Unbeknownst to me, the celebration turns out to be a Silver Wedding Anniversary, and the warm friendly house is packed to the gunwales with crowds of friends and relations. There is an enormous effort made to make me feel welcome, which I do as soon as I enter, but I become nervous when I am introduced to a silenced kitchen of revellers thus:

 “This is Charlie - he's a writer, and he'll be putting all this down in the paper!”

From that moment on, I feel conscious of my every movement, and end up drinking far too much beer, and boring the bejazus out of a family visiting from Yorkshire.

As the party develops, a great banquet reveals itself. There is a large table laden with massive congratulatory cakes, cooked chickens, salads and burgers, while out in the yard, there are two barbecues grilling fresh mackerel and salmon. Everywhere I am greeted by smiling, kindly faces, and although still very much an outsider, I taste for the first time the 'joie de vivre' enjoyed by my local community.

It was an honour to be invited to such a special occasion, and an absolute pleasure to feel included.

The October sky brings rainbows back to the west of Ireland, along with an incandescent tangerine glow to the early evening sky that brings a glow to my heart. The air carries the sodden smell of decay, softened by the sweet scent of turf smoke, while the low sun shines brighter, the wind blowing ever colder.

As the nights close in on these burned-out ends of smoky days, there is no better place to be than warm and cosy in the Irish countryside.

No water, no minerals, just lashings of love and humanity!

 

My friend is disappearing into a hole in the ground.

 

“Pass me the empty bottle of Coke now, Charlie!”

 

 A few minutes earlier we’d been standing in the sunshine, chatting with his wife by a stone wall, by a field in north Mayo, when a young fella came up and whispered something into my friend’s ear.

 

He looks over to his wife, both of whom have worked for a month to help organise this wedding.

 

“There's no water left. No water and no minerals. Washing all those dishes has emptied the well.”

 

 “Well, we did three courses for 70, so that’s 210 dishes, and that’s a lot of water.”

 

No water and no minerals. 

Only alcohol then. 

Classic stuff. 

Great for the grown-ups, but what about the chil--

 

“Ah now, there’s another well just down the way there. I’ll go down now and draw some water.”

 

“I’ll come with you” says I, ever eager to do manly primal things. Bring water! Ug!

 

The Londoner in me expects to see a Hans Christian Andersen wishing well, but instead there’s an old pallet, which we lift from the grass.

 

He dives in head first, enthusiastically grabbing great handfuls of grasses and weeds, which he scoops out, only then to assuage my doubts and thirst by producing bottles of clear-(ish) water from the hole in the ground.

 

The well.

 

Three older locals meet us on the way back to the farm, and as soon as they find out the water came from the lower well, they raise the bottles to their lips, as if in eucharistic ecstasy.

 

“Now that is beautiful water. Didn't it keep our families alive not so long ago.”

 

The bride and groom have travelled all the way from their home in the Far East back to the village where I used to live in north Mayo, to celebrate their wedding with the groom’s family.

 

As if the great distance is not reason enough for emotion and love to run amok, there is also a tragic illness for the courageous couple to live with, and as the horse-drawn carriage takes the bride to the family home, I feel all passionate and think to myself 

 

‘Ah, that’s Killala at its best.’

 

Several hours later, I’ve gone past the ‘Killala at its best’ stage, straight on through the ‘This is the Irish at their best’ phase and settled finally and certainly for ‘This is the human race at its best.'

 

Admittedly by then I am ver’ ver’ drunk, but I know what I’ve seen, and I know what it means.

 

All the walls around the farm have been whitewashed; the garden has been cleared and planted; the barn has been transformed from ... from, well, from a barn, into a wedding fantasy land, with thousands of metallic twirly doodads hanging from the ceiling, a thousand tea lights lit and bails of hay lining the walls to reassure our spirits that we haven’t all lost the plot.

 

A pair of giant love hearts are mowed into the lawn, where the children’s swing has been wrapped with freshly twined leaf and summer flowers, so that poems and blessings can be exchanged under them.

 

There has been no ‘wedding organiser’. Nobody has been paid a penny. This is people acting out of love, friendship and community. There have been no caterers ‘In’, just neighbours and sons, and daughters of friends who have worked their fantastic arses off creating a beautiful wedding, alongside having cooked, served and cleaned up a sit-down 3 course meal for 70 hungry punters in the barn.

 

And then the well ran dry.

 

As the day drifts into evening we all drift back into the barn, to drink and dance and be entertained by the youngest lads, who climb bales of hay and delight us with their crazy belly-rippling dances, as 70s disco divas pump from the sound system.

 

Water has now arrived, but for me the day was made in that pure country moment:

 

No water, no minerals. 

Ah so, that’s the way it’ll be then.

 

And then again, I didn’t really need any alcohol.

Drunk on humanity, just for a few hours.

 

Oh boy it did me good.