How to be Irish #498: Can you feel the Feck?

Thanks as always to Allan Cavanagh at caricatures-ireland.com

Two questions. That’s all I had, when I arrived here, back in ‘92. 

A newly-appointed newspaper columnist, wholly ignorant of all things Ireland and Irish, I condensed my gaping inadequacies into two simple questions.

Yet in your obfuscatory paradoxical Irish way, you failed to answer both, offering only nebulous enigma as solutions.  

At least, that’s how it sounded to my English ears at the time.

"What’s the Left/Right difference between the civil war parties?"

and 

"Why do you wimp out and say feck when you really mean fuck?"

Responses to the first came in the predictable shape of that ahhh you have to go back to the Treaty claptrap, which was of absolutely no use to me.

As a political animal I had to write about the politics of today’s nation, without going on about a treaty signed 70 years ago. I was left utterly clueless about what anybody was and nobody was not.

The other answer was short, precise, yet no more illustrative.

'Feck? Oh sure, yeh, y’see, feck is different.'

'Oh really. Don’t think so.'

'Yeh ’tis.'

'Well how is it, and why is it different, then?’

'It’s errrrr, ohhhhh, emmmm, hard to explain, like, dy’see.'

'Never. Go on, surprise me.'

I neither expected nor really wanted clarification anyway.  

Clarity’s for wimps.

30 years later I not only know the answer, but feel it too. In fact, I now know that I couldn't fully know the answer to feck until I felt it. 

Just now I was walking the beach. My lungs were raging painfully in protest at the freezing cold wind, forced upon them by my spirit, which demanded I make the most of low tide without a soul in sight.  

A few months from now this beach will never be empty. There will be camper vans in the upper car park for months on end, and many other humans who, much to my flagrant begrudgery, also have the right to enjoy the beach.

But right now there’s nobody; not a single soul on a Sunday morning.
Walking on, now with the wind at my back, I enjoy rare minutes of sunshine, as clouds rush and tumble across the sky.  

Apart from making sure to occupy and appreciate this natural bliss, I’m thinking about the What’sApp message I sent my brother earlier.

We were texting about pruning apple trees, and I said I’d be at it too, as soon as the feckin’ wind dropped.

Down on the beach I realise he’d probably think of it as a crude curse, a tiny blade less fierce than its Anglo-Saxon cousin.

But I now know what it is.

I felt it when I wrote it.
I feel feck ergo I understand feck. 

Yet like the Irish, I couldn’t necessarily explain it, exactly.

You’ve given me a signed stamped certificate saying I’m Irish, and a passport which confirms it, but the two reasons I can no longer say I’m English through and through have nothing to do with paperwork.

Conjoined with the feeling of feck is the Irish non-verbal verbal experience.

From the moment I arrived in Galway, I noticed how people sometimes offered agreement by sucking a sharp intake of breath onto the roof of their mouths, loud enough to be heard, yet too soft to be spelled.

I wrote about it in Double Vision, back in 2017, when I first spotted myself involuntarily doing the hissy thing, to show concord. Ireland had changed my breathing patterns.

Now I feel the feck.

Another level of assimilation. altogether, so it is now.

Behave Adley. Be respectful.

I’ll always be English, Jewish and proud of both, but now my Irish is engrained in body and mind.

 

 ©Charlie Adley

27.02.2022

My heroes are those who save lives!

 

Thanks to Allan Cavanagh at caricatures-ireland.com

Four years after 9/11, I was standing beside New York City’s ‘Ground Zero’, reading the hoardings hung on the wire fences around the site of the attack.

One of them declared: “In memory of all those great American Heroes.”

Turning to my friend, I observed

“It’s strange the way the word ‘hero’ is used these days.”

I was about to explain how they were innocent victims rather than heroes, but I never got the chance.

A hand grasped my shoulder. 

 

I was spun around to face a grey-haired man in an anorak and spectacles.

“Hey! Show some goddam respect!” he hissed at me.

Had I shouted I might have understood this man’s rage. But I'd whispered. The scene before my eyes had filled me with sadness, and my voice had dropped, as if we were in a church.

I was showing respect. I wanted to explain to this man what I meant, but I could see the pain behind his eyes; the loss; the anger; so I dipped my chin and simply said 

 

“Sorry!”

 

walking away with my tail between my legs.

 

Who knows who he loved in the Towers?

 

As much as my heart broke for all those lives lost and broken, my sadness spreads far wider, to the hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in Iraq who died, as a result of that attack. 

 

Members of the public killed for no good reason. 

 

The powers that be have long referred to civilian deaths during wartime as ‘collateral damage’.

It’s a hellish long way from ‘hero’ to ‘collateral damage’ but they are one and the same person.

Very sad.

Whenever particular wars flare up, foreign populations become especially agitated, seeing one ousted overpowered people as more important than others.

I cannot. I just see a human life, each as vital as all the others. 

 

Now, enveloped as we are in a new crisis in a very old war, my heart bleeds fiercely, as it always does when I contemplate such horrendous debacles.

There is no way to wage war tidily. Even the crisp technology of remote-controlled drone warfare kills innocent victims aplenty. 

Far from being disrespectful, I am honouring all the dead; their sacrifice. There are always so many innocent victims. 

Of course there are heroes. Incredible daring and courage is displayed on a regular basis. When it's employed to save lives rather than destroy them, it's particularly heroic.

I’m not saying that all killing is bad. Give me a gun and I’d shoot a Nazi stormtrooper, no problem.

My heroes, however, tend to be those who dare to save their troops. Give me Shackleton over Scott every day. 

 

Scott was an amazing man, brave and honourable to the core. Yet in the same way that the English celebrate Dunkirk as a victory, they worship a man who came second and perished with his comrades.

Shackleton’s expedition failed spectacularly, yet he didn’t lose a single man. I have read his own account of the Endurance expedition, the ensuing landing on Elephant Island, the incredible journey in the James Caird and the epic crossing of South Georgia. 

 

These were tough men, hard and steely in a way so far beyond our sofas, iPads and cappuccinos, I suspect it no longer exists.

Despite his strong ambition and a desire for glory, Shackleton made every decision based upon his greatest chance of keeping everyone alive.

 

That’s my kind of hero.

 

Together we pray now, for Shalom peace. 

©Charlie Adley

24.02.2022

In memory of Jon Lewin.

In memory of Jon Lewin, on what would have been his 62nd birthday. From Double Vision in October 2006. 

A couple of weeks ago I received in the post a package which reaffirmed my faith in human nature.  

Although it only contained a simple T-shirt, I was surprised, delighted and almost emotionally overwrought.

Back in September I was sponsored to participate in the Galway Hospice’s Memorial Walk, a splendid and very successful event which raises much-needed funds for the most worthy of causes. 

Each walker wore a T-shirt on which was printed the name of a person in whose memory they walked that day. 

I chose to walk in memory of Jon Lewin, a life-long friend who died of a brain tumour a few short years ago. 

Upon arriving at Claddagh Hall I was given a package containing the T-shirt I had ordered, and went off to the Gents to put it on. 

At the back of my mind, a wee small irritating voice had been nagging me for days, wondering if they would have spelled his name right. And lo, as soon as I saw the shirt out of its wrapping, there was the name a certain John Lewin. 

And then I cried. 

Clearly, I didn’t cry because they had spelled his name wrong. There are many things that might upset me in this world, as regular readers know only too well, but an excellent institution such as the Galway Hospice awarding hundreds of walkers free T-shirts in a thoughtful tribute to lost loved ones could never be a cause for complaint. 

No, I was mourning, and it hit me like a Tsunami. I had written about Jon in this colyoom the week before, when I related our nightmare teenage holiday in Greece, so his memory was fresh in my brainbox, and I felt his presence with me on that day. 

‘Stop being an idiot, Adley!’ I told myself, and put on the T-shirt, but each time I looked at the name, John with an ‘h’, I had a ridiculous and irrational emotional reaction.

This geezer’s name on my shirt was not Jon’s, but what did it matter? 

This day, this walk, this fund-raising event was not about me and my pedantic neurotic needs. 

Somewhat foolishly, I decided to mention what had happened to the organisers, making sure to stress that it really was not a problem to me in the slightest, but that maybe in future, what with there being all manner of new nationalities and names arriving to live in Ireland, attention to detail might help avoid people getting upset. 

I hated myself for saying anything, because however I emphasised that I was fine with it, that it wasn’t about me but potential walkers of the future, the more the friendly hospice professionals apologised. 

Maybe, through their depth of experience, they could see more in my eyes than they let on. 

I was certainly unaware of how emotionally messed up I was.
Stepping outside the Claddagh Hall, I stood by the dock and watched all the wonderful walkers turning up in their T-shirts. 

Nobody seemed to be alone, and even though I would normally loathe to have company on a walk, I felt strangely lonely and, once again sad. 

Looking at all the Irish names on all the others’ T-shirts, I suddenly had a bit of a panic. Oh no, I should be walking for my little four year-old friend from Mayo who died recently. 

How could I forget her?
How could I not think to put her name on my T-shirt? 

And who is this person whose name is on my T-shirt? It’s not Jon.
And why do I feel so nervous?

Why do I feel so scared of being a part of this crowded walk?
And why and why and why ... 

Jon was a very beautiful and calm man, and as if he stood at that very moment by my side, I heard his gentle whisper in my ear. 

‘Stop being a prat, Charlie! Get yourself out of here, and walk somewhere else. This is not for you today. You’re too much of a mess.’ 

With the rain starting to fall, I ran away, jumped into my car and drove far away from the crowds. I felt horrible, hopeless, guilty as charged, and could not, for some reason, stop crying. 

Eventually I parked at the beach in Furbo, and proceeded to walk long and alone: stumbling over rocks; squidging wet-booted through flooded fields, and finally sitting, breathing, restoring my mental order on a boulder covered with clams. 

I walked for all those who had sponsored me. I walked for the Galway Hospice. 

I walked for Jon, and I walked for my 4 year-old friend. 

Jon aspired to be a real rock’n’roll person, always cutting his own personal swathe, and I truly felt that he understood and appreciated why I had done a runner from the Walk. 

I never wasted a moment wondering if any of my sponsors would begrudge their donations to the hospice on the grounds that I had walked the coastline a few miles further west. 

And I had walked for myself, taking time now to lie at face-level with a river, mesmerised by the beauty of the babbling flow, as I regained control of my emotions, and accepted that evidently I had seriously needed to grieve. I threw a wobbly, cried a bucket and walked alone.  

What better organisation to be the catalyst for such an emotional outpouring than the Galway Hospice?

But what of the package in the mail? 

Yes - you guessed it! 

Reaffirming my faith in the future of our species, and going way beyond any hopes, expectations, even idle daydreams, Fiona at the Galway Hospice saw fit to print a T-shirt with Jon’s name on it, and send it to me, with an apology and a thank you note. 

At this stage, all I want to say is no, please, let me thank you, for bowling me over and showing so much love and care that I am, once again, quite emotional. 

Oh and thanks to the Universe for sending us people like that!

 

©Charlie Adley

11.10.2006

...and we all fall over for Ireland!

 Thanks as always to Allan Cavanagh of https://www.caricatures-ireland.com/

 

An excerpt from Double Vision in the Tribune back in 1993, describing my first Paddy's Day in Ireland.
 

As I awake I’m shivering from head to toe, and a twinge of cramp is rising from my left ankle up to my calf muscles.

Lifting my leg to ease the pain, I realise that I am not in my own bed. I am somewhere else. Somewhere with a much smaller bed.  

Moving forward I fall off this strange bed and hit the floor, buttocks first. Letting out a moan, my head bangs against something metallic. 

Hmm, metallic and hot. I hope it’s a stove, ‘cos if it’s not, then wherever this is, it’s burning down.  

No, if it was burning down there’d be flames and light and heat. Yes, light and heat. That is all I’m capable of thinking, so I lie down and congratulate myself on my Holmesian deduction.  

The pain in my head comes not solely from being banged against metallic objects. This pain demands that I remember the recent past. It is a pain that begs the questions:

‘How much did I have?’
‘Where am I?’ and
‘How did I get here?’  

First things first. I reach into my jeans pocket and find several lighters of the disposable kind. So I was stealing lighters again. Six lighters in my pocket. Must have been a hell of a night.
 

I flick one on and realise that I’m in a caravan.
 On a nearby table is a candle, which I light, and a peat briquette, which I throw into the stove, before collapsing back onto the bed, exhausted.

My watch tells me it’s 03:30 am on the night of March 19th.


“Okay mate,” I say out loud to myself, “start at the beginning.”


Claddagh Quay on Paddy’s Day, the bands are setting off, the kiddies looking sweet as cherry pie in their outfits. The parade moves and I follow it a while, because I’ve decided that it’s way too early to go to a pub.


Wrestling with the crowds in Eyre Square I watch children playing in the soap-filled fountain, and then some Gardai push through the hordes, and I tuck in behind them, making the most of the wonderful space that parts for them as they move.


All of a sudden I’m outside an Tobar, and amazingly there’s a barstool free, and Whispering Blue serving.


Pints of the black stuff seem to appear in front of me from all directions, and then I have that dangerous cavernous feeling inside me; the kind of cavern that gets flooded at high tide.


After that it all gets a little hazy, but I can remember seeing the Far Canals gig at Vagabonds, and a Vauxhall Cavalier stopping for my raised thumb at Merlin Park.


I can remember seeing a lot of people falling over; falling down in the street; falling onto the dance floor. Must be an ancient St. Patrick’s Day tradition.

“So you’re awake!”

A soft warm female voice rises from under the bed sheets. 
Oh bliss. I know where I am. I’m in my lovely friend’s caravan in a field in Doolin.

“Have I behaved myself?”

“Oh yes, you have been the perfect gentleman, apart from arriving in the middle of the night yesterday.”


“Oh sorry.”


“No, it was lovely to see you, but be careful when you try to stand. You were falling down a lot!”

Oh was I? Seems like I’m becoming more Irish all the time.

Time to say goodbye to Double Vision!

After 27 years (and breaks for emigration and economic collapse) the time has come to say goodbye to Double Vision.
 
It has been a pleasure and a privilege to engage, amuse, annoy and confuse you - my colyoomistas -  over the decades. 

Now for reasons personal, professional and political I’m moving on to ventures new.
 
You will still regularly be subjected to my scribblings, opinions and blathering nonsense, in a fresh style and fashion that will be revealed as soon as I fully recover from this pesky pneumonia.
 
In the meantime, I’d like to thank the inestimable Allan Cavanagh of Caricatures Ireland for all his excellent illustrations and you, my readers, for your loyalty and taste.
 
Don’t watch this space - look out for a new one, coming soon…