Ireland's angriest man wants the Irish to apologise to the English!

Many of you might well consider me a grumpy old bastard. I do not deny it, but prefer to see my grump as but a single band of colour in my moody rainbow.
I'm willing to admit that, were I a horse, I'd fall at the first in the Societally Acceptable Challenge Hurdle.
And then I climbed into a taxi, and encountered the most abusive and angry person I have ever met in my life.
Just being in his seething presence made me feel oh-so very much better about myself.
Between 1975 and 1995, I knocked off around 200,000 miles hitching, and on those roads met humans of every type imaginable (except for the ones who didn't stop - I never met them!), but on a midweek afternoon in my home town, from the rank at O'Brien's Bridge to my home in Salthill, I was entertained by a World Champion, the undisputed King of Fury.
A local man of slight build, he started hissing and spitting as we turned around, temporarily blocking the traffic emerging from Cross Street.
At first I took his torrent of 'effs' and 'cees' to be nowt but a burst of road rage, the like of which I suffer from myself, but it continued, almost unabated, throughout the journey.
At the risk of sounding disgustingly vain, I did at first wonder whether his venom was spilling forth in such a torrent as a result of him recognising me.
One of the more bewildering side effects of scribbling this colyoom each week is that, on occasion, and especially when their pencils are leaded with booze, we males of the species feels driven to share our wisdom, spread our little knowledge a long way, and if there happens to be a fella from da papers around, like, so much the better, like.
"Hey Charlie, here's one for you! Happened this morning. Now you know me! I'm not a racist you understand, but these black fellas, they're completely out of control!"
So I wondered if this taxi driver was maybe venting his spleen because he had me in his cab, but after a while I dropped that one.
I'm pretty sure that every fare he brings becomes an instant lucky winner is his Lottery of Wrath.
"F**king bastards can't bloody drive. Stupid f**king f**kers. Look at the way he's parked, bastard. Who does that c**t think he is?"
For a moment, as we drove down Dominick Street, silence dwelt briefly and happily inside the cab.
And then I went and spoiled it all by thinking perchance a little light conversation might ease our journey.
"Well, at least it's stopped raining. Looks like we're going to have a lovely afternoon."
"Don't talk to me about the f**king weather. I am so fed up to the back teeth with this bollocks country and its f**king weather, God almighty.
And look at the state of those grass verges. That f**king council of ours, they make me sick. Lazy f**king pigs. Fat bloody pigs getting rich while we wallow in the muck they leave for us.
Look at those grass verges. All f**king weeds and bloody litter. Really, makes me sick. How dare they sit up there in their bloody council chamber talking bollocks and taking f**king bonuses while they leave the city to rot? C**ts. Pigs and c**ts the lot of 'em.
And look at this abomination. Tell me now, what bright f**king spark decided to paint the Prom yellow? And were we asked? Were we f**k! And did we even know until it was done? Did we f**k. Ruined Salthill they have, the pigs. And the city.
Lovely it was, and now it's gone to shit. Shitty f**king Galway run by a chamber of pigs, ignorant c**ts and filthy fu**king liars. I tell you. I f**king tell you.
And look at the state of the grass by the car park. Ignorant p**cks. What did they expect with 100,000 people watching the Air Show? Did not one of them think that might f**k up the grass? Makes me sick. I have had it with this f**king country.
And yes, we have the Big Wheel now, but only after they had to fight the f**king council for the right to power.
Yes, huh. I'll tell you one thing I know. There's not much I know for sure, but some things I do know, and this thing I know for f**king sure. Oh god yes, that I do. They wouldn't listen, but if they had, I can tell you, this f**king mess of a country wouldn't be in the f**king mess it's in.
One thing I know. Old Garrett was right. Oh yes, you might laugh, but let me tell you, old Garret was right with what he said back in the '80s. If only we'd have listened to Garret."
Clearly the man was fishing for a question. I was worried that if I didn't give him what he wanted, he might have a heart attack, or worse, I might be considered a filthy f**king ignorant c**t p**ck myself.
"So what did Garret FitzGerald say back in the '80s?"
"I'll tell you what he f**king said. He said that we should go cap in hand to the English, and apologise! Yes, that's what he said, and that's exactly what we should f**cking do. Go cap in hand to the English, apologise, and ask them if they wouldn't mind taking the country back, and maybe please make it better again."
Was I really going to take him on?
I was nearly home, exhausted by his tirade of abusive language and, as I said, feeling a better more wholesome human being with each disgusting phrase and tortured clause that hammered into my ears.
"Wow! Did old Garret FitzGerald really say that? He - I - wow! Well, bugger me!"
"Yes he did. And he said a lot more besides. F**king pigs. Lazy f**king pigs and stupid fucking c**ts. That's what we have become!"
"Keep the change!"
"Why, sir, you're a gentleman and a scholar!"

http://doubledoublevision.blogspot.com

Will Ireland survive the loss of the rural pub?

When I lived in Connemara, I used to frequent (the old) Keogh's pub in Ballyconneely.
I was green back then, and by that I don't mean pure unadulterated paddy: I mean that, as an Englishman new to an Irish village, I smiled a lot, kept my head down, myself to myself (with the notable exception of the local Chelsea posse) and pretty much did what I was told.
Soon I learned the hierarchy inherent in the place. Older people scored much respect, but if you managed to be old, cantankerous and loud, you stole the show.
"EeenglishmMAN! EeeeenglishmMAN!"
There I was, sitting at the bar, minding my own business, when a fella who fitted all the above criteria suddenly pointed his finger at me, and sat there yelling.
"EeeenglishMAN! You will be my TAXI!!! You will be my TAXI tonight! You will drive me HOME!"
Right then. So that's me driving him home then. Hmm, got that. Wonder when he's going to want to leave. Ah well. Better just wait... tum te tummm...
Over the following months, I got to know the older gentleman in question, alongside all his peers, a dark-clad club of septua- and octogenarians, who appeared to be in the pub all day every day.
To me they became the Manly Brethren of the Bar. I had no idea how they drank so much; where the money came from; when they ate, washed or saw daylight.
But I knew how himself was getting home. I was his taxi, and after an interminable wait on that first night, I quickly learned to suppress my humility and earn some respect by tapping him on the shoulder and informing him that his taxi was ready and it was now or never.
Every rural Irish pub had its Manly Brethren of the Bar, and now, as we know, they are gone, victims (depending on how you look at it) of either the smoking ban and the clampdown on drinking and driving, or of smoking and drinking and driving.
Whatever the reason, Ireland faces a real problem. A very Irish problem.
As an ancient nation and a young country, Ireland is born out of paradox, and presently faces a serious and essentially Irish dilemma:
Is it wrong to drink and drive? Yes.
Will the rural Irish pub survive in the wake of the smoking ban and the introduction of random breathalysing? No.
You really have to live in the country to fully understand the significance of the loss of a local pub. In a lonely geography, where depression and isolation stalk the cloud and rain, the rural pub has always been the sole source of social sanctuary.
Indeed, your colyoomist would have lost his sanity, gone doolally fifty times over in Co. Mayo, chewing the wall and up the ceiling, way beyond this twittery nutsoid state you endure each week, had I not been able to nip up Sweeney's, Golden's, Declan's, Lynn's, Gilvarry's, Danno's, McHale's.
Now only a few of those remain.
But even when the craic was mighty, when the bar was filled with friends and everyone was getting plastered into the bargain, I would suffer the slagging of my drinking buddies and drive home after a couple of pints.
Can't help it. Maybe it's just inbuilt if you're English. Believe me, I'm no goody-goody. There are rakes of laws I break every day, along with the rest of ye, but I just don't want to lose my licence. Or kill anyone.
Of course I knew I wasn't going to get stopped by the Gardai. The two availiable were patrolling an area the size of Texas, and they only set up checkpoints on Bank Holidays and Christmas. And even then it was always just over the bridge from my house, so I wasn't going to get nicked.
On a couple of occasions I stayed and got lathered, thinking I would risk it, only to find myself being driven to my door by the landlord of the pub.
He insisted drily that he was only investing in his future custom
I knew better. Vot a Mensch.
But what is to be done? The auld fellas and their forty pints of stout are gone from the daytime bar. People are buying beer in bulk down Lidl and Aldi, living it up in their living rooms and avoiding the taxi queue.
Out in the wilds, pubs are disappearing like melting snow, and nobody seems to be facing the problem head-on.
It seems to me there are only two routes available, and one target in mind.
There are millions of houses at the end of long bohreens, and if people are to leave their cars at home, they need to be picked up and dropped home by a network of small people carriers, MPV's and minibuses.
Either the government officially recognises the threat to rural communities, isolated households and local economies, and subsidises an extensive network of publicly-owned vehicles (somewhat unlikely, methinks), or the breweries themselves will have to supply the means with which to deliver their customers to the point of consumption, and perchance be offered excise relief as financial compensation.
Such a service could be useful to some people who should never be on the roads at all, sober or drunk. Include hundreds of suicidal cyclists who insist on being lightless and invisible at night, as well as the auld fella who drove a white Escort van all the way to the village at 4 mph.
I drove behind him going apoplectic. On the pavement in the village was an 80Something friend of mine who told me she hadn't had such a good laugh for ages.
"Whoooh-hooo-hooh! I was watching you stuck behind yer man. He's blind!"
"Bloody right!"
"No, I mean he is blind! Lost his sight altogether! Says he has driven that road all his life, knows it off by heart, so he does!"
According to the United Nations, the world's population is neatly cleft in two, between rural and urban dwellers. 3.2 billion of us live in rural areas; 3.2 billion in cities.
In Ireland it would be a cultural disaster and national disgrace if good people stayed silent while rural pubs became extinct.
Gandhi once said that the real India was 'in the villages'.
Well, the real Irish still live in the Townlands, but they are no longer in the pub.
cadley1@eircom.net
http://doubledoublevision.blogspot.com