At the Edge of Ireland (21 page)

“And then comes your reverse immigration…”

“Wha'?! Ah! Right. See what y'mean. The Celtic Tiger an' all that. And a brain drain in the opposite direction with our well-trained young'uns comin' on back from Europe and the USA. Isn't that jus' peachy…and along with 'em come all the bloody tourists and blow-ins—busloads of Irish and wannabe Irish, all looking for roots on Grandpa O'Connor's little farm out there on the boglands and puttin' on the brogue and actin' up more Irish in the pubs than the Irish themselves…”

“And proud of it!”

“Ah, well, yeah yeah. I think so. Although we got a bit of a reputation in Europe for money-grubbin'—and grabbin'—y'know the expression ‘Rip-off Republic,' right? We got more handouts from the EU than any of the other needy countries…until a new batch of really poor places like the Baltic States and Poland came in…”

“Didn't the Irish government try to veto them being allowed to join the EU?”

A hesitant pause and then: “Er…right…well, that was indeed not exactly our finest hour. We were scared the tap might be turned off for us a bit too sudden-like, y'see.”

“And was it?”

“Well…yes and no…We did okay, really. And by that time the ball was really rolling over here…and it still is. Sometimes—with the crazy property prices in Dublin and just about everywhere you look—you wonder if there's a great bubble about to burst. But until it does, I guess we'll go on spendin' and drinkin' and singin' and laughin'. Just so long as we don't overdose ourselves with too many newfangled dot-com geeks, metrosexuals, femocrats, Eurotrash, brainiacs, starchitects, and dummy-dweebs. After all, this is still Ireland and we still love livin' the good old Irish life while we can.”

“Celebratin' the
craic
forever!”

“Indeed!” he shouted (in one last shower of nose drips).

And so I eventually left this courtly and ponderous character whose lightness of soul and deep frivolity kept him bobbing serenely on great waves of culture, charm…and charismatic check!

“Farewell Patrick, and thanks for all the insights.”

“Ach—I'm hardly started, but I suppose you blow-ins have to be indoctrinated slowly.”

“And indoctrination by you hardly hurts at all…”

W
HAT AN AMAZING DAY THIS WAS
supposed to be in Castletownbere and on nearby Bere Island.

It was May Day, and I'd been promised all kinds of great events for the Festival of Bealtaine. It would be hard to fit all the exciting diversions into a single day, I was told. Although regrettably, there was nothing of a truly pagan nature to look forward to. Still, plenty of other diversions were in store, so everyone insisted.

And, in fact, it was remarkably easy to accomplish my tight schedule, because in the end I accomplished absolutely nothing of my original itinerary.

First, I was to meet an elderly gentleman of great learned veracity—“a sumptuous repository of all that is historical and hysterical about Bere Island,” or so I'd been informed by one of my most reliable informants. Unfortunately, he called to say that, because of a “mighty matter in the way of family affairs, d' y' understand?” he'd be leaving the island about the same time I'd planned to arrive following the fifteen-minute ferry ride across from Castletownbere. Maybe we could wave at each other, he suggested humorously, but that was about all that was possible for the time being.

But I still had plans to go to Bere Island anyway to attend a resident production of one of John B. Keane's “magnificent masterworks”—
Slive
—(according to another one of my informants). Admittedly I'd never heard of the play and, until a few days previously, was not even familiar with this much-beloved Kerryman-author. Which I hate to admit, because his reputation has the ring of righteousness and ruthless justice and anyone who admits to an ignorance of his fine literary works is likely to diminish rapidly in stature in the eyes of the locals. But as I am an honest fellow and always welcome a bit of stature-diminishment due to my overindulgent gastronomic and other tendencies—I indicated a willingness to be informed. And informed I was. Endlessly and enthusiastically.

And so, primed and pumped on the splendidly outspoken Mr. Keane and his career as both pub owner and prolific writer, I was there early to catch the ferry to Bere Island at the dock across from the church and the Supervalue supermarket. I settled down by the harbor wall and waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour had passed, there was still no sign of the ferry. Admittedly it was a small craft, particularly in comparison to the enormous hulls and super-structures of the Spanish fishing trawlers in the harbor that day, and although it was barely capable of carrying more than a couple of vehicles at a time, you couldn't really miss its cheery red paint job and its sprightly chug across the harbor. Finally I strolled across to our little supermarket and asked one of the cashiers what had happened to the boat.

“Oh, I think now they've changed the times…”

“Where are you going on the island?” asked another cashier.

“To see
Slive
—you know, John B. Keane's play.”

She gave me an odd look. “Who?” (Ah, so I wasn't the only one here with a significant gap in my Irish Trivial Pursuit talents.)

“You'll maybe need the other ferry—up the peninsula a mile or so.”

“I didn't know there was another ferry.”

“Ah yes, well, that's to be expected. Many don't. It's more recent, y'see.”

“So I should take that one, then?”

Trawlers at Castletownbere

“Yes, I'm thinking that would be best for you…”

“Well, thanks—you've saved me a wasted—”

“Except it'll not be running today…”

“Oh—and why's that?”

“I suppose because it's a public holiday,” said the cashier, obviously perplexed by the stupidity of my question.

“But wouldn't that be the perfect time to be running a ferry?”

“Ah, yes indeed, you could be right there.”

That's one of those wonderfully typical ways the Irish have of ending a discussion that seems destined to go nowhere. A pleasant acknowledgment of the pointlessness of trying to derive sense out of a senseless situation. Sounds a bit like something out of
Waiting for Godot
. Beckett would have loved such nonsensical dialogues.

It was too late anyhow now for the play on Bere Island, even if I'd had a chance of getting there, which apparently I didn't. So I wandered back home with every intention of resuming a now-unraveling schedule later on in the evening after a cup of tea and a brief rest.

And thus later on in the evening I'm down at the Beara Bay Hotel to enjoy what I'd been told was to be an evening of Beatles music—a “greatest hits” spectacular, presumably by one of those mop-top impersonator groups that keep popping up all over the globe. Like Elvis impersonators, only usually worse. But—bear in mind—this is the Beara, and anything in the way of live entertainment is a must on my—and everyone else's—list.

However, just as with the play, this was another “not to be” event on this increasingly noneventful day.

“Eh, well, he'll not be here. Unfortunately,” said the man at the desk outside the concert room (otherwise known during the week as Skipper's Bar).

“How do you mean, ‘he'? I thought it was a ‘they.' Y' know, the whole Beatles band. All four of 'em.”

“Oh-no-no. Just the one fella. With a lot of nifty synthesizer stuff. Got quite a range. Give him a glass slide tube and a resonator guitar and he'll out-blues the great bluesman himself—Robert Johnson. Not bad with Hawaiian slack key guitar too. Pretty neat act…”

“But we won't be having his nifty act tonight, then?”

“No, no-no-no. We won't. Regrettably he's stuck somewhere between Waterford and Cork. Something wrong with his truck.”

“Well, that's a shame, then.”

“Yes, yes. 'Tis, 'tis.”

“Well—so I guess that just leaves the old set dancing at Twomey's.” (I was intending to enjoy them both, but one would have to suffice now.)

“Ah, well, no.”

“Sorry?”

“No, that's not on, either. It's been canceled because of our show.”

“You mean the show you're not going to have now because the Beatle man is stuck between Waterford and Cork.”

“Yeah, that just about sums it up nicely.”

“So there's nothing going on tonight, then? Anywhere?”

“Yeah…guess so—well, except for our show…”

“You just said your show was canceled…”

“Oh, no-no-no—I'm talking about the other show. The late show. At eleven-thirty
P.M.
Euro-Centerfolds
. Very…what you might call…exotic.”

I don't think I've ever heard of anything on the Beara being described as “exotic,” with the possible exception of those tumultuously tropical Garinish Gardens at Glengarriff, and the sumptuous Derreen Garden at Lauragh…but I soon got the point as he grinned a lascivious grin and indicated a lurid poster at the side of the door. In prose and photos that left little to the imagination, it advertised a late evening of sensual delights featuring extraordinarily large-chested ladies dressed in leather belts and thongs and little else, prancing across the stage with whips and other pernicious instruments of sadomasochistic application and a sign saying
YOUR EVERY PLEASURE GUARANTEED.
And all this in our little Castletownbere!

Well, maybe I was wrong then about the lack of pagan festivities for Bealtaine. Apparently here they all were for the delight and titillation of the tanked-up, testosterone-crazed youths and not-so-youths of my normally quiet—or relatively so—little town.

“So—you think you'll be coming then?” asked the hotel barman, still smirking lasciviously.

“Well…”

“Should be an even bigger show than last night…,” said the man with a widening sneer.

“Last night?! What the heck did I miss last night?!”

“
You
! Well,
you
missed nothing. But the ladies had a great time. All these guys—Chippendale types, y'know—big bodies, bulging muscles out to here…They put on a real great bling-bling bada-bing show…”

“Full Monty
stuff, eh?”

“Oh, yeah.
Full Monty
…and beyond. Let's just say, a very, very good time was had by one and all—kinda harmless high school debaucher level, y'know. But tonight should be even better…I mean, you only get this kind of show once a year, y' know…on crazy May Day…”

Well, I'd hoped for a belt of Bealtaine, although I was thinking of something a little more ancient and ritualistic with more sublimated libidinal energies, maybe up on the high flanks of Hungry Hill among the old standing stones and neolithic circles. Instead we get simulated in flagrante delicto sex orgies down by the docks in celebration of fertility and fecundity, and tantalizing
Flashdance
acrobatics all fired up in an alcohol-fueled blitzkrieg of ribald voyeurism.

Ah well…when in Castletownbere I guess you just zig and zag with the prevailing zeitgeist….

And as I said, even though I accomplished absolutely none of my intentions, it was nevertheless a most revealing May Day in every sense of the word.

I
FEEL HEIGHTENED BY HEALERS.
Once I allowed the old cynical nay-saying morass of my brain-biases to fall away, I began to enjoy and value the company of some remarkable individuals on Beara.

Why so many healers, clairvoyants, philosophers, facilitators, and practitioners in the holistic arts have gathered here on the tip end of this relatively unknown peninsula is a fascinating question.

“It must be all our crystal,” said Donogh O'Kelly, a local journalist. “There's massive veins of quartzite crystal running the length of the land here. Y' see it spurting out in great shiny white ribbons along the cliffs and coves and particularly around the Allihies copper mines. And—well, when you've got crystal, you've got some mighty powerful forces floating about, wouldn't y' say?”

“I'm not sure…,” I replied hesitantly. “I've always felt a bit of a
Twilight Zone
aura around crystal enthusiasts and the like. I'm suspicious of canned hokum, I guess, and sudsy platitudes.”

“Sure, sure, 'tis normal y'are. Many feel the same. And doubtless there'll always be cranks and shylocks around offering wonderful fake crystal cures…at a cost, of course. But…well, you'll have to make your own mind up. Most of our healers and alternative medicine people here seem pretty genuine to me…and modest. It's hard to get any of them to claim anything except being like some kind of channel for self-healing…y'know, a link or something to unfamiliar powers you already possess but don't use. But maybe I'm biased. I like most of 'em…and maybe you will too, when y' get to meet them.”