Summertime Meanderings

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Cormac MacConnell - The West's Awake

Summertime Meanderings

June 21, 2007

By Cormac MacConnell

I’M on my summertime meanderings again because June is such a finite thing of gilded beauty here in Ireland, and we rush towards Bonfire Night on the 22nd and then, already, the days begin to shorten. You should not waste any of them. The Dutch Nation and her friends are on a painting holiday in the South of France and also visiting the Black Madonna, so I meander along the domestic front as is my wont at this time of year.

Thursday night brings me for the first time ever to Lena’s Pub in the village of Feakle because Thursday nights have been the musical nights in Lena’s for the past 34 years, never one being missed according to Gerry Shortt, who took over the pub 11 years ago but maintained the tradition.

And Lena herself, with a head of short silvery hair and a lovely gentle presence, she is almost always there still. I mention the venue and the night specifically for those of you who might be wandering through Clare this summer looking for music and song on a Thursday night. Don’t miss it.

It gets harder and harder to get these authentic Gaelic nights in authentic pubs. And this one is very good indeed.

The chief musician of the many playing away behind candles in the corner is the box player Seamus Bugler. You don’t quite realize how good Seamus is until he briefly leaves the seisiun for a while and his distinctively nuanced musical element is gone for five minutes while he is talking to friends at the bar.

He doesn’t blow the corner away with volume or showmanship, but when he goes back into the flow of music again you can see that he is the one that provides the soul, ever so gently. That is ever so interesting to see and hear.

Every so often the music ceases for a while and a singer’s corner is opened, the call for the song rippling through the company, male and female, young and old, Seamus acting as the MC. Nobody refuses, all sing at the drop of a hat, including mine host Gerry himself, the silence for the singers is total respect, and there at her table with her friends, Lena’s lips mouth the words of the old ballads that have been ringing under this roof for nearly 40 years.

It’s as good as it gets, and remember I told you about it at the start of the summer.

The next night I’m in Salthill in Galway in the beer garden of the refurbished Cottage Bar with two of my three sons. We are drinking long tall glasses of German beer which the Cottage specializes in. It’s good to be seated around a table under a fat moon with grown sons and, later, their friends.

It’s not a singing pub. My sons tell me that it is a new place which is gaining a reputation for supplying deli-style food and wine for the new Galwegians just now.

I remember it when it was very traditional indeed, nearly all male, older men with wise mouths between tweed cap and the lips of their glasses. Now I observe Irish lads with beautiful blonde girlfriends from Eastern Europe, or African or Polish partners. Another sign of this new Ireland.

Behind the beer garden timber fence there tall whispering trees. They are situated on lands owned by the Bishop of Galway. And the frontal areas of those lands was given over by the bishop to provide a fully-serviced site for some of our traditional travelers.

This is extremely prime property. I see the bustle of the travelers’ settlement as I’m coming in. My sons tell me that the travelers, despite all the earlier misgivings of the settled community around, have integrated very well indeed.

I stay with Dara and his lovely Aine that night (or what is left of it when we finish with the German beers!) Aine is from the Donegal Gaeltacht and almost all of their conversations are in Gaelic.

They are shortly to move into their own home away out in the Connemara Gaeltacht, at Knock, and in order to buy it at all, they tell me, they had to prove they could speak good Irish. This is one of the provisions imposed by the authorities like Galway County Council to protect the integrity of the Gaeltacht down the mutating years ahead. On balance that is a very good idea.

The next night, with all three sons, Scobie having returned from Spain, we are at Cuan and Niamh’s home overlooking Galway Bay just beyond Spiddal. There is a barbecue and, sipping Mexican beer this time, we watch a vixen and her three red-tailed cubs disporting themselves on a hillside 150 yards away, knowing we are watching them but also knowing they are safe.

Behind the hill there are boats drawing their wakes across the Bay, in front of Black Head, a sight I have mentioned to ye many times over the years. My granddaughter Orla is toddling through the garden, and the bump which I say firmly will be her sister, is being borne elegantly about the place by Niamh.

It’s peaceful and serene all around that that night, with all three sons. We occupy an outside table on the pavement in Spiddal and drink good solid pints of Guinness. Gaelic is being spoken all around us, the mother tongue in its own place, a velvet evening.

We get to bed under Cuan’s roof sometime in the morning. The sea can be heard muttering contentedly in its throat.

I’m back home this Sunday evening sitting here at the table meeting my deadlines. The terrier Friday is fed and I have a stew simmering on the hob.

I’ll go somewhere tonight as well, but I don’t know where yet. That’s the way to live a June in my view.

Don’t forget about those Thursday nights in Lena’s . . .

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