The Irish View Of Co. Leitrim .....

   Fucking cracks me up, it does! I used to know an Irish bloke, on a forum, back then. One day, I told him I was coming over. " Ah, grand! " He said. " Where ye headed? "

   I told him Co. Leitrim. " Leitrim?! " He cried. " That place is fucking Medieval!!! "

  Thinking about it, there's really no where in england to compare with it. I mean, Dorset might meet with the classic " Ooh, arrrr! ". But, that's about it.

  Here though, Leitrim is the butt of about every Red Neck / Hill Billy sort of joke going! It's fantastically hilarious! Most especially because I doubt even a fraction of the fuckers perpetuating it have so much as driven through here!

  The best source for this sort of thing, I find, is the biggest Irish 'forum' out there. The megatropolis which is Boards.ie. Most especially the home of Hipsters; " After Hours ", on there.

  It all started, for me, when someone mentioned a leaflet, aimed at visiting students. A bucket list for Dublin. It said a not to be missed thing was some museums exhibition about " The Bog People "

  In next to no time, some cunt popped up saying; " Or, go to Leitrim and see the real thing! "  I almost asphyxiated myself with laughing! Fucking brilliant!

  And lately, being a bit bored and out of places to visit, I'm checking in on After Hours again. Fuckers are still at it!

  Recent thread about 'Urban Myths People Still Swear Are True'; Someone mentioned the: 

  " My cousin was at this house party and everyone was out of it and there was this one chick who was extremely wasted and was letting lads get up on her like it was going out of fashion.

 She was bent over as the chaps did their thing but didn't her very own brother end up getting in line and doing the deed, only for them to notice mid-relations. "

  Yep. That old one. But, within a couple of replies?

 " It's probably not a big deal in Leitrim." 

 LMFAO!!!

  This evening, I finally checked out another thread that caught my eye;

  " Someone sent me a short story by John Connolly call A dream of winter. It is creepy and very atmospheric well worth a read at this time of year.

Got me thinking about eerie places in Ireland.

I will start with Marsh's Library specificity if you were there in the fading light of a dark winter afternoon and on you own.

I am not talking about Ireland most haunted but more places that are eerie and atmospheric. "


  Again, within a few answers, some cunt's said:


  "  Hellfire Club in Dublin at dusk.

Loftus Hall at any time.

Roche Castle in Louth at night.

Leitrim. "


  I'm in fucking tears here!!! I fucking Love this stuff!





  

 

Something In The Air .....

  So; When I first got here, some years ago, I was still able to ride a push bike ~ really good one, as it happens ~ into town. Because, I guess, I was still 'young' and fit enough to make that trip then.

  Dunno. Heart seems to have lost faith in itself since then. In the space of a year more, I just got so fucking winded that even walking up the track was a clear and obvious risk to my health. I was gonna drop dead of a heart attack. Just a matter of when.

  But, no matter. I sold the bike to Pat, for £50. FFS. Bike worth £750, as I recall? Could've been a lot more. I forget, now.

 I worshipped that bike. Cleaned and cared for it like a man possessed. Handed it over to Pat simply because I had no further use for it. He was out of condition too.

  Said he'd ride it. I knew he'd never take care of it though. Never rode it more than twice either. I'll bet it's rotting away in his garage even as I type this. I'd like to buy it back. But, then what? Likely a shadow of what it was, by now. And I don't leave this place enough to need to ride anywhere.

  Anyway; So, there I was, riding into town on that bike. I've glanced up at the sky and seen it: Fucking Chinook 'chopper!  Ye know; Those fuck off big things. Like a green coach with rotors at each end? Army shit! 

I just knew it had to be full of soldiers, bristling with automatic weapons ~ those things are, aren't they? But, why swinging through the blue, summer skies above peaceful Co. Leitrim? Hold that thought .....

 I asked about this. Maybe in town. Maybe of the taxi driver, at some later point. Maybe of Dean O'. And I remember being told, with a shrug;

 " They're shadowing the bank deliveries. "

  When I, obviously, asked, " WTF?! ", it was equally breezily explained to me that; The chopper(s) were full of armed Army personnel. They were monitoring the van, on the ground, which brought the cash to the various banks!

  Like; Fuck!!! But, think about it; Leitrim is 'Cattle County'. It's as Country as it gets. Little roads, hedged in by hedges. Fucking miles of it. Cottages here and there. Fuck all much else, in between. Banks in High Streets. High street being about the sum total of even a medium sized 'town'.

 Fucked if I'd like to be driving round hidden lanes, shit loads of cash in the back. Been there. Done that. All went tits up and I'll never be right again! We didn't have a Chinook either!

 Fast forward a year. Dean O' and I are stop, starting our way through the next county. Longford. Ye'd recognise that place. Much like any other 'small town'. Dirty. Congested. People hurrying by without making eye contact. I fucking hate the place!

  And, suddenly, as we try to turn at the lights? There's some cunt with a fucking machine gun!!!  I shit ye not! Fucking guy's swanning down the middle of the road. Full combat gear. Cammo's. The fucking lot. Michael Ryan eat ye heart out: This boy's the Whole kiddie!

 As I struggle to contain the effects of my own past experience, and stay out of the foot well, none the less, I'm already jibbering at Dean O'.

  " Sure, it's the Army. " He airily informs me. " They'll be escorting the money to the bank ..... Don't be reaching for that fucking camera! Ye don't want to be photographing these boys, or we'll have questions to answer! "

  What? Like; 'Why did ye want to photograph soldiers, fully armed, on the streets of a small enough town, in Eire, amidst the bustle of shoppers going, un fazed, about their day to day business?'.

  Fucking right I did! Make a picture for this place, wouldn't it?  

  I mean; When did You last pop out to visit ye nearest gun shop, and run smack into a bunch of beefy, cammo clad guys, cradling fully automatic rifles, and consider it just part of the fucking scenery?!


 Just had to let that one out. Strange dychotomy; Rural idyl. More tractors than taxi's. Armed soldiers on the streets shadowed by Chinooks above.

 But; No fucker tries to get away with Armed Robbery over here! No sir!

A Long, Long Week ....!

  The Dogs erupted and I was immediately wide awake. Peering out through the blind, I saw Pat there. Instinctively, automatically, I counted the Dogs, barking and milling around me. All there, of course. As they had been all night. The night after a day in which none had gone AWOL.  I relaxed. No trouble then.

 Walking out, smiling at my friend and neighbour, I must've greeted him and asked " 'Sup, mate? ". Expecting some small enquiry. 

 What I never, in a million years, expected was; " That bloody horse of yours has stampeded my cattle! Chased them through fences! ". That was when my world ground to a halt.

  " Ye'll have to get rid of her! ", he stated. The meaning obvious; If I can't fucking control the thing, I have no business keeping her here. Here where I allow her to reach There. And quite possibly wreck another mans livelihood. Recompense for which would, in turn, destroy me.

  As we strode up the track, his next angry utterance was; " If any of my cattle abort because of this, I'll have to hold you responsible! " Obviously.
 
" The ground's too wet anyway, " He continued. " Keep them off the field now. " The field in point being His acre. The one he allowed me to pasture 'my horses', Rosie and Donks on, as a favour.

  Trudging along through Pat's fields, even as I tracked the big, round hoof marks across his grass, saw the horse shit and the broken electric gates, I was still partly in denial. How in hell could Rosie possibly have got into his land?!

  Well, no matter. Because, as I rounded a hedge, there she was. Standing like a big, black and white monument to the gut wrenching truth. Fuck.

  And there she stood. Never twitched a muscle as I came up to her and clipped on a lead. Came with me, good as gold as I started leading her back home. My head bowed in turmoil and trying to calculate through my confusion. This could end up costing me Everything.

  Once or twice, she spurted forward a step or two. I knew Pat was behind us. Slapping her behind. Anger flared in me. I wanted to turn on him. Scream that, " Oh, yeah! Fucking taking it out on her's gonna solve Every fucking thing. Isn't it?! "

 But, of course, my anger's always been slower to rouse and much faster to abate. Anyway, I felt so sick to my own guts and had almost wondered how Pat hadn't landed one on me yet, let alone just slapping my horse. I let it go.

  Then I was alone with her. Still on Pat's ground. Noticing the torn away coil of wire that was one of his electric gates. Damage done. By my horse. But, those gates cost mere pounds. What could an aborted calf cost me?!

  I asked Hugh Logan, my Slaughterman / Butcher friend that same question, hours later. He thought about it for a moment. " £500? £700. Depends ..... " He said. Casually informing me of the sentence for a Capital Crime in Cattle County.

 He also offered that such a cow might take up to three days to actually get round to aborting. That I should just forget about it. That, should any decide to do so, I'd " Just have to make some arrangement with Pat' ". Like, what? Give me time to sell my fucking cottage?!

 And it all started there. That day. One of the worst weeks of my life. I brought a new gate back from town. Pat' wasn't there, so I handed it to Mary. I was still too strung out to even register or read the look on his wifes face. God knows what mine must've looked like. Drawn? Gray? I expect so.


 Mid week I was in Hugh's shop again. Had I seen Pat? No. I'd been hoping to run into him, on the track. Find out what was what. But, I hadn't met him yet. At least nor had he come to my place, counting out how many calves I owed.

  Hugh pursed his lips at this. To his way of thinking, Pat's way of thinking would be more like, " Lovely; The guys horse causes me untold potential damage. And where is he? No turning up to enquire. Just stays away down in his own spot. "

  But, I know better how we function. I only go to Pat's home on otherwise unavoidable business. We just meet on the track. We don't bother each other. That's why I'd been pacing around my own corner for days now. Enduring nightmares by night. Palpitations by day. Quietly, and privately, becoming nervously unravelled.

  Then, this evening, as I fed the horses ~ tied to their stalls, behind closed, locked and barricaded gates. Under High Security which I won't rest till I've made higher ~ I heard Pat's Quad. More than that, I heard it up by my front gate. Here we go ......

  Feeling suddenly exhausted, I walked up through my compound and looked over the gate. To see Pat's head moving along behind the hedge of his top field. He was on his quad, doing something in there.

  I went out and stood by the gate to that field. Waited as he returned on his circuit and dismounted. As he approached I croaked out, in a hollow voice; " Alright, Pat'? How'd ye cattle make out? "

 I was ready for anything. So I thought. Resigned to it. But, I wasn't ready for this:  " Hullo, Ditch. Naah, they're fine. Look; I'm sorry I went off at ye like that, last week ..... " Eh ....?!

  The rest is forgotten history. Pat apologised. I, flabbergasted, obviously Insisted that I was the one yet still apologising and so humbling myself in shit loads of contriteness. Pat' just waved it all aside.

 Next thing ye know, all I can think of to say, looking up at the sunny, blue sky, is; " Fucking gorgeous day, isn't it? " And, squinting into the sun himself, he dropped it: " T'is a grand day. Why don't ye let ye horses out on the field ....? "

 I blustered that they were in that pen and going to fucking well stay there till I'd sorted out how to contain Pegasus!

 " Oh, " he says, as if it's just a matter as inconsequential as how to how to lace a shoe, " Why don't ye just run an electric tape down along the bottom, where she got out? "
 And so I'm forgiven. Tutored in Stockmanship, by a man born to it. 'Shit Happens' ~ Forget it.


 And this is why, just about every day since I came here, I've harboured this tingling buzz of hope that maybe, if I'm really, really lucky? I may, today, find myself able to do one of these people a service. 

 To somehow take another small chip off the enormous and ongoing debt of pure kindness and forgiveness they've shown me, ever since I blundered into their lives and began blindly thrashing around, trying to master the art of living in Co. Leitrim.

  I fucking Love this place ~ and her people.

" Saint Paddy's Day " In Eire ..... O M F G!!!

Jesus fucking wept, people! Four years I've been here. And this was the first time I actually ventured forth into town on St. Patrick's Day, and stuck around to be part of what ever was to go on.

Fuck! What an experience!!!

Ye've all been there, of course. (So ye think!) Holed up in some pub, in england. Surrounded by 'Plastic Paddy's' who, on that one night of the entire fucking year, suddenly remember they had a Great, Great, Great Grandma who once passed an Irishman in the street. So, now they drink a pint of ice cold, piss water Guinness, brewed under licence, and get all " Oh Danny Boy ". FFS.

Forget It! I've just experienced The Real Thing. As Real as it fucking gets! Right here the local town which has taken me to it's bosom. Surrounded by the people I now see as friends. No; More like one huge, extended Family! And mad as a box of frogs, just about every one of them! Bless 'em!

" Chris " and I rolled into town late. But, not so late that we missed even the very beginning of the Parade. (" Chris " is what I'll call a certain girl, for now. I call her that half the time anyway. Because she so reminds me of the real Chris. The one I keep scrambling her up with, in my head).

This 'Chris' is a house guest of mine just now. That's another story. Here's my side of how our " St. Paddy's Day " went off, last Wednesday .....

The two streets of Town were lined with people. All the expectable bunting and Tricolour flags were in evidence. As we stepped out of the cab and crossed the road, I remember catching the eye of one of the lovely guys who runs the newly opened Kebab House ~ we like the odd kebab too, ye know! ~ and muttering, " Madness! ". He smiled and nodded in understanding. Fuck knows what He was about to make of it all

Into Jim's. Pints ordered. Tasted. Left. Back outside; They were warming up for the Parade! And the Marching Band were right outside. Drums, Bagpipes, Tartan. They looked Good! And, minutes later, it all went off.

First came the local Military. Probably no more than a dozen. But these were our soldiers! People of our town. Sworn to take up arms and offer to lay down their lives in defence of us, or any one else they were sent out to look after. And many wore Medals! These people had heard the call and answered! (I'm almost in fucking tears here! I'm SO proud of these people!)

This may sound like shit, to you. Maybe ye've seen the massed ranks of some military unit from somewhere, marching along with a band at their head. Faceless. Just " The Army ". " Soldiers ".

But, when ye see that young girl ye've so often seen in the butchers, buying some dinner. Now, here she is; Face set. Eyes dead ahead. Arms straight and Marching past ye in uniform like that ....? Make a lump of granite swell and choke up!

Then the Marching Band. Drums. Pipes. Absolutely Fucking Perfect! The local Fire Fighting Service ~ Hero's to a man. And just about every fucker around who had a service, association or a pride and joy to show us followed.

Everything from some mad fuckers wearing horribly real masks of our ..... (What you'd call) 'Prime Minister'. And some mad bastard made up just like our recently departed ~ and extremely recognisable ~ 'Defence Minister'. And, it goes without saying, Elvis was there too! (I honestly thought Chris was going to pee herself laughing over Elvis! Fuck knows who that was. But, he Was hysterical! LOL!)

Dear little children ~ one being told, " Look! There's Ditch! Wave and say hullo! " as they passed. (I diagnosed and caught the mouse that had been plaguing that family. A pregnant female looking to nest. No trouble since. They seem to think I'm some local hero now!)

Guys I've known and drunk with for years, now rolling by on their perfectly restored, vintage tractors. I swear to god; Some fucker even swept by in a DeLorean! Doors open like some fucking space craft! Guy had it to show? He showed it in the Paddy's Parade. Small town, 'medieval' Co. Leitrim.

I could go on (and on. And On!) about the general Stout Fest that followed. Barely twelve hours of non stop Guinness guzzling, for us late coming oldies. Some probably started earlier and lasted longer. I know some youngsters did. I was talking to one this afternoon. And, god, did I empathise! Poor kid wished he was dead! LMFAO!

That was Tess's older lad. I've been vaguely aware of Tess for some time now. An occasional 'Face' in Jim's. Seemingly well in with a couple of the older guys I count as acceptable and accepting drinking company. I'd never really so much as given her a second glance. Or listened to a word she was saying.

Jesus H. Christ! Did all that change, on the night of St. Paddy's Day!

To be continued ....?