A friendly finish for Cúirt Festival of Literature!

In the course of my travels I’ve lost count of the number of bars in which I’ve sat, alone and happy, staring at a bunch of blokes having an uproariously good time.  Alongside singular freedoms, being on the road brings an inherent loneliness to life. Even as I thrilled at being in that bar in that village in that foreign country, I envied those lads, hanging with their everyday mates, having a right laugh.

Like life itself, travelling is a wasted journey if you don’t learn how to be happy on the way. So I was very aware the other night that I was among those lads, those everyday mates who I’d coveted on the road.

Sitting between The Body and Whispering Blue, I was the Chelsea in a United-City Club Sandwich, and even though I was in a pub, I was completely at home, surrounded by my brethren.

I was, as the Irish are wont to say, ‘happy out.’ So I appreciated it. I enjoyed the moment and noticed the happiness coursing through me.

The bad times you never miss. They come up behind you and hit you over the head with a baseball bat, repeatedly and rudely until you beg for mercy. Yet our happy times are very likely more numerous and long-lived than any of us realise. We smile and share a chuckle, hug a brother or a friend and feel a rush of love back, yet walk away as if nothing happened.

So I try to make sure that I notice and appreciate the good. If my family are a gratefully-accepted given, then without doubt the greatest good in my life has been my friends.

At Public School I met and bonded with a fairly extrovert bunch of individuals who were kicking back in a mildly non-conformist way against the entrenched regime of the institution. Over the last 4 decades we’ve all remained in touch, becoming embedded in each other’s lives somewhere between family and other friends. We’re an incredible bunch, our friendships forged in the searing hot fires of teenage rebellion, and I am eternally grateful to have them in my life, as both individuals and a collective.

It’s over 20 years since I moved to Ireland and met Blitz, The Body and Whispering Blue, but such is my luxury and fortune that I’m able to think of them and all my Irish pals as new friends.

My awareness of how unusual it is to call friendships of 20 years’ standing ‘new’ came to a head a couple of years ago, when I was at a gig at the Roisin Dubh, hosted by Tuam’s revered poet and songsmith Seamus Ruttledge and Conor Montague, a.k.a. Monty, the creator of the hilarious series ‘Who Needs Enemies?’

The two lads were reminiscing on stage about how long they’d known each other, talking about 1994 and that little paper they worked on. All of a sudden something twisted deep inside me. I felt happy, swollen-hearted and deeply sentimental. Oh please god no don’t make me cry right here, please, no, not in front of all these fairly drunk people.

Thankfully with the help of another Jameson, I managed to keep my tears to myself, but I felt moved. Here were these old friends, locals talking of a shared past, and I, a lowly blow-in, had been there at that time.

Seamus had asked me to contribute to that paper, and ever the opportunist when there’s a chance to make money from my scribbling, I wrote four columns for it, under four different aliases. I wrote the drug-crazed biker Freebase Kevin; the Muse with the Views, Swami ben Carpenter; the ingenue blow-in, Poor Little Greenie, and my personal favourite, the petulant politico, Pink O’Bum.

Back then I didn’t really know who Seamus was, or even what he did exactly, but I dribbled a merry dance around the streets of Galway trying to find him and the money he owed me!

Even though I saw them as new friends, going by their time frames I have now earned the right to be referred to by that esteemed and comfortable title: ‘Old Galway Head’.

After that gig I said to Seamus that I’d love to participate in one of these events, and sure enough, last Summer I got the call. Would I read a piece at the charity fundraiser ‘A Night For Celia’?

That fun-filled, relaxed yet uproarious evening was last July, and following the success of several such collaborations between Monty and Seamus, I’m delighted to announce that their event ‘Far From Literature We Were Reared’ will close this year’s Cúirt International Festival of Literature this Sunday, April 28th.

Like all of Galway’s other festivals, Cúirt relies on and is inspired by talented local personalities from both Galway City and County, so it’s perfectly fitting that this year’s festival will finish with an irreverent and eclectic programme, from an array of Galway-based writers and performers - including this very ‘umble colyoomist.

Following on from the success of last year’s fun and frolicksome event, this cocktail collection of performances by well-known literary figures, musicians, comedians and emerging writers has moved from the cosy confines of upstairs to the main stage at the Roisin Dubh. Mixing Hennessy Award nominees with known miscreants on day release, the stage will be shared by poetry, song, comedy and fiction, in what will be one of this year’s Cúirt Festival highlights.  

Together with music from Seamus, Willow Sea, Pearse Doherty and Michel Durham, there will be readings from Olaf Tyaransen; Kevin O’Dwyer; Laura Ann Caffrey; Fiona Farrelly; Helena Kilty; Paul McCarrick; Ruth Quinlan; Emma Comerford; Kernan Andrews; Aideen Henry; Paul McMahon; Alan McMonagle and myself.

Comedic satire will appear in the forms of the unique John Donnellan, grumpy taxi driver Hugo Seale and Street Theatre Artist, Midie Corcoran.

A mighty night is guaranteed. I’m really looking forward to being there, grateful and happy to be surrounded by friends.
 
Roisin Dubh: Sunday 28 April: 8pm 'til late: Admission €8/5

Are the English becoming more Irish?

thanks to chiffandfipple.com

“So what is it that you write about?”

“I write about my life as an Englishman living in the West of Ireland.”

“And why would the Irish enjoy reading the opinions of an Englishman?”

In her straw hat and Laura Ashley dress, she couldn’t look more perfectly English. I’m in Gerard's Cross, an affluent outer-London suburb, where large houses have remote-controlled entrance gates and oaks have great girth.

My uncle’s funeral finished a couple of hours ago and we’re now back at my aunt’s house, where the strong summer sun is baking the back garden terrace.

The hot afternoon air is heavy with sadness and nostalgia. Tea is drunk from bone china cups. There are strawberries and cream. Looking down the steep slope of the long green lawn to the other side of the valley, I watch horses lackadaisically munch lush pasture in the distance.

Whoops! While I’d lost myself in the utter Englishness of the scene, the lady was patiently awating an answer to her question.

“I’m not sure if they enjoy it, exactly, but I think it engages them.”

She smiles with a manner well-practiced by affluent society types, suggesting equal measures of boredom and fascination.

A little later I seek shade, sitting inside on the sofa, taking a breather from making smalltalk, giving myself a moment to appreciate the emotion of the occasion.

Just beyond the French Windows, around a shaded table on the terrace, sit a group of my late uncle’s friends. Most of them are over 80. All of them have lived through the war, worked hard and become financially successful. Even though I have diddly squat in common with these people, I completely understand why they think the way that they do, and smile as I listen to their banter.

“Oh, so you went to the air show did you? Were the Red Arrows there?”

“They were indeed, and most splendid they were! They had a Spitfire and a Hurricane too!”

“Should’ve had a Messerschmitt going down in flames!”

Much laughter.

“I don’t suppose that would have helped relations with our neighbours in the Eurozone.”

Pause.

“Who cares!”

Much laughter and general loud guffawing.

My political views are a world away from theirs, yet I can’t help but respect them. They’ve come through times of hardship that make our present predicament look like the Teddy Bear’s Picnic. Each of them has already regaled me with tales of visits to Ireland in times gone by, just as each retains an affection for the country that mirrors my own.

There’s a reason this colyoom is called Double Vision, and it has nothing to do with alcohol: having lived in other English-speaking countries, I fell in love with the one next door, where everything which looks familiar proves to be slightly yet intriguingly different. These days the political borders and cultural barriers between England and Ireland have become ill-defined in ways that never applied when I lived in Australia or the USA.

On my previous visit to London, my mother and I ate fish and chips as we sat together watching the Eurovision Song Contest. I was surprised when she said she liked Graham Norton, who replaced another Anglophile Irishman, Terry Wogan, as the BBC’s commentator on the show.

It wasn’t so long ago that she found him loud and irritating, but now his show is series-linked on her Sky+ box. At one point Norton says “We” referring to a score allocated to Englebert Humperdinck’s British entry, and I turn to my mum.

“Don’t think they’ll appreciate that pronoun in his native Cork.”

“Oh yes, I keep forgetting he’s Irish.”

Well done Graham. You’ve replaced Jonathan Ross in the hearts of the nation.

The next evening we watch Dara O’Briain hosting the BAFTAs. My mother is upset. As a fan of The Apprentice, she preferred Adrian Chiles as the host of its follow-up show, You’re Fired!, complaining to me regularly on the phone how

“That Irishman is so hard to understand. He mumbles, he talks so fast and he seems to think the show’s all about him.”

I sit and marvel at how blurry the lines between the country of my birth and my adopted home have become. Two potentially very patriotic English TV shows are now fronted by two Irishmen, while Dara is also actually nominated for a BAFTA.

Mind you, these days there’s a Bafta award for a category called ‘Reality and Constructed Factual’, so perchance the award has lost some of its cachet of old.

Have the Irish have become more English, or the English more Irish, or are we all simply homogenising into a lesser European beast?

If there comes a time when you can barely tell the difference between the two peoples, I’ll be out of a job. I need you to be different from me, because for every glaring gash of obvious difference between us there are the millions of subtly similar yet quintessentially Irish quirks that I love, which end up here on the pages of this noble rag.

As he’s wrapping up the BAFTA show, Dara refers to the fact that Graham Norton can’t attend tonight’s ceremony, as he’s still in Azerbaijan, where

“… poor Graham has spent the last 24 hours consoling Englebert Humperdinck. Ah well, that’s his cross to bear.”

Oh thank goodness and vive la différence!

Only an Irish TV presenter would ever use that expression.

***

On Thursday next, 26th July, your ‘umble scribbler has the honour of performing alongside Tuam’s very own and most excellent songwriter and wordsmith Seamus Ruttledge.

‘A Night For Celia’ is a fundraiser for the Galway Famine Ship Memorial and the Celia Griffin Children’s Park, taking place upstairs at the Roisin Dubh at 9.00 pm. I’ll be reading three short pieces, and then the musicians take over, led by Seamus and special guest Don Stiffe.

Hope to see you there!