At the Edge of Ireland (5 page)

With all the frenzied forelock-tugging of the metropolitan literatae and Habling-bling bloated reverential piety about Beckett mushing around the city, it was refreshing to read one critic who wrote that “the centenary celebrations are almost enough to put most off literature for life.” Nevertheless, a Beckettian spirit was definitely flowing through downtown Dublin that Easter week (you could hardly escape posters and banners of his tumultuously wrinkled and time-worn face), characterized by sequences of bizarre non sequiturs.

First came flurries of little girls frolicking by in neon pink, meticulously embroidered costumes and heavily made up, carrying skirt-shaped bags for all their inordinately expensive outfits. They were here for some important Irish step dancing contest (now thanks to
Riverdance
and clones, an international passion) and accompanied by proud and occasionally stressed-out parents who seemed far more nervous than their tiny, decked-up offspring.

And then came one of Ireland's oddest ball games. I'd seen Irish football before and rather liked its odd, rugby-soccer-basketball maneuvers and speedy flow. So different from the lumbering, tough guys' scrums and touchline tumbles of the traditional rugby games I used to be involved in. But I'd never seen a hurling match before and sat fixated by the TV in our room, which showed one of the fastest, most bizarre, and seemingly most dangerous games I've ever experienced. Harry Potter would love it. Fifteen men a side hurtled by and into one another in seemingly total Hogwartian disarray, flailing long
cáman
paddle-sticks on which they carried—yes, carried—a small white leather ball (
sliotar
)—although in the truly wild days when the game first emerged I heard it was often a human skull. And then, while running pell-mell, they tossed the ball off the tip of the stick and whacked it with all the force of a top-flight tennis player to another team player fifty yards or more down the field or, if they could, over the posts at the far end of the field to score points.

In minutes I was hooked. The constant frantic pace and ability of the players to avoid regular decapitation by swirling sticks and supersonic-speed
sliotars
amazed me and left me utterly exhausted by the end of the first half. As a result of watching the game, I fully understood the remark of an elderly gentleman in another of Dublin's fine Irish pubs, Ryan's, on Park Gate Street, when he chortled: “Ah well, this game and our other ancient village game of ‘road bowling' explains it all, d'y'see. You English play cricket, which is a waspocracy gentleman's game of patience and fair play, and we do the hurling, which is an ancient bogman's game of pure unrestrained, skull-crushing passion. No wonder we didn't get along with you lot for centuries!”

“Well—thanks for explaining that…”

“
Tá fáilte romhat
—you're very welcome, good sir!”

 

F
INALLY, WE DROVE SOUTH
out of Dublin, leaving behind the tortuously tangled one-way traffic systems; the glorious pure-Irish pubs, and the earthy redolence of fresh-poured pints of thick black stout; the pedestrianized people-powered streets full of music and mirth; the sudden passing vehemence of a tanked-up local calling the whole world “ya feckin' eejits”; the cultivated calm of the St. Steven's Green gardens; and all the big burly-pillared and porticoed neoclassical public buildings and the dainty, decorous streets of Georgian refinement.

And we were sad, despite the fact that we'd barely touched the place in our brief stay. As had so many others, our hearts had warmed immediately to the heart of Dublin. We could have done, however, without the endless outer eddies of suburban “semis” financed by the surging economic tsunamis of Ireland's “Celtic Tiger” affluence, with their pristine privet hedges and eye-blurring stamp of bland sameness and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses mundanity. And we also tried hard to ignore the bizarre, carnival-colored bungalow mania that seemed to characterize the outer-outer neighborhoods. The riotous riches of downtown Dublin remained with us as we curled on through the high Wicklow Mountains with the radio playing either endless recountings of the Easter Rising or “let's pretend we understand” discussions and diatribes about Beckett's intentionally ambiguous and obscure works that were apparently not meant to be “understood” but rather “un-understood” by the hoi polloi.

“We'll be back,” said Anne when we finally switched off the natter-chatter.

“I'm still there,” I said. And I meant it.

 

A
ND
I
INDEED FELT
we were “still there” a little later that day when we paused on the quay in the pleasant riverside town of Wexford to while away an hour or so over lunch before continuing our drive to County Cork and the Beara Peninsula (a seven-hour drive we managed to stretch into a leisurely three-day backroading odyssey).

Hardly had we ordered a platter of “toasties” (those ubiquitous toasted ham and cheese sandwiches that are a staple of pubs everywhere here) than we became aware of a real Irish brouhaha at a nearby table. The subject (of course) was the Easter Rising again, and the pro-and-con arguments were so complex in the Beckettian sense that I was convinced we were back in one of those gloriously intimate and intense little pubs just outside Trinity College where feisty debates and furious beer-imbibing are the order of the day. Every day.

It quickly became apparent that the distinct lack of concerted conviction on the part of the public in support of the Rising still lingers on today. I tried to keep notes on the group's arguments, but they spoke far too fast (a frustrating national problem over here) and the dialect was far too thick (another problem). But I did find, the following day, parts of a Sunday
Times
editorial that seemed to strike a reasoned balance in all the blather and blarney:

Twenty-first Century Ireland is an independent, proud and prosperous republic, and the world's tenth wealthiest nation. Its economy is thriving, its culture is vibrant. Other societies now look to Ireland as an economic role model and covet its confidence and accomplishments. Irish people no longer need the dubious myths and shibboleths of the past to bolster their identity.
[By the sound and fury of the adjoining debate, one could seriously question such an optimistic statement.]
People who see the world today through a republican lens complain that it has taken far too long for the modern Irish state to acknowledge formally the undeniable courage and idealism of the men who led the insurrection on that fateful April morning in 1916.
[The debate at the nearby table continued: “It had officially been canceled, for God's sake! They couldn't get enough support,” claimed one of the men at the table. “It was only the crazies who kept going, and if the stupid Brits hadn't executed them in the stonebreaker's yard at Kilmainhan Jail and made martyrs of them, they'd all be long forgotten today!”]
Those who believe this bloody and divisive rebellion had a malign effect on modern Irish history meanwhile argue that the celebrations glorify political violence and send out dangerous signals to unrepentant advocates of the physical force tradition.
[At the table again: “We got the freedom we wanted, though!” shouted one of the group. “Only after massive slaughter and a bloody civil war that split the country down the middle for years,” said another. “As the great John Lennon said,” quipped a third man, “‘Time wounds all heels'—and the British heels certainly got their comeuppance!”]
Immigration is changing the complexion of our country and with so many diverse cultures now, the ancient quarrel between nationalists and unionists seems increasingly irrelevant, if not absurd. However, the 1916 Proclamation of Independence remains an impressive document and the citizens of 2006 are the first in Irish history fortunate enough to be free to appreciate all that was liberating and outward-looking about the Easter Rising, while rejecting all that was destructive and narrow-minded.

We hoped the editorial writer was correct. We had no desire to spend valuable pub time over the next year or so of our stay in the country listening to incessant replays of domestic Irish history, but only time would tell, and, indeed, the later release of Ken Loach's film
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
was indeed one more dramatic and bloody replay of that terrible divisive era. Only time would tell if this would be a major theme of our journey here or whether we could focus happily on the many other intriguing and true aspects of Irish life as it's lived today here in this utterly captivating little country.

I
DON'T THINK
I'
LL EVER DO
it again. At least if I do, I'm not sure I'll be around later to tell the tale. I suppose I escaped this time only because, first, it was relatively early in the evening and the little time-worn pub in the heart of Wexford barely contained a quorum of imbibers, and second, because I managed to turn my inane question into a lousy wimpish joke that generated enough dismissive sneers and sniggers to dispel, or at least divert, the threat of malicious mayhem. Of course it also got me labeled as a loopy “blow-in” tourist—harmless and certainly not worth correcting in the traditional Irish manner. Which can be a rather messy business, what with all that threatening verbosity followed by the bludgeoning, spurts of blood, splintered cartilage, purpling bruises, and facial lumps the consistency of extremely hard-boiled eggs.

And what, you may well ask, was this question that could have brought about such a potentially traumatic and painful termination to an otherwise very pleasant evening?

All I did…honestly, this is the whole thing in all its naïve simplicity…I asked the barman—“Is it possible that you have a bottle of Sam Smith's Ale…or better still, a Newcastle Brown?”

Now, I asked this, not for any troublemaking reason or devious intent, but merely because I was, despite my growing enjoyment of the ubiquitous Guinness, longing for a good old pint of British ale, preferably one brewed in or near my home county of Yorkshire or certainly somewhere in the north of England.

There was a sudden somber silence. You could have heard the legendary pin drop, although a sharpening of ax blades might have been more to the point.

“Wha'…wha's that yer askin' fer?” asked the barman, preceded by a sly malicious wink to the cluster of arm-flexing, Guinnesschugging giants by the counter.

“Er…just, ah, a bottle of Sam Smith's? Pale Ale will be fine—or a Newcastle Brown…Even a Worthington would be okay if…”

More silence. Of the sinister, sniggery kind. And then: “So—that's the way then, is it? Guinness is not good enough f'ya, then? Is that it? Or Smithwick's or Harp. Or Murphy's. Or Beamish. In fact, it seems t'me like nothin' made in our beautiful country will suffice? Is that right? Y'll just be lookin' exclusively f'yer English piss-water, it seems. Puttin' our poor lads at the breweries here out o' the business while y' be asking fer yer own imported rubbish instead…”

“Look…listen…if you don't have any, it doesn't—”

“Don't have any?! As if I'd let anythin' with a name like Sam Smith's or Newcastle or Worthington get into my cellar while my lovely barrels o' the black stuff rest there waitin' t'be appreciated by them's as knows their beer an' their stout…”

I began to suspect that I was becoming the butt of some stupid insider joke or the recipient of a silly little hazing ritual for blow-ins with a hankering for the great British ales. Or maybe it was my accent. Very obviously British. Sort of middle–working class with overtones of grammar school. But definitely not that upper-crust tone, all clipped, authoritative, and dictatorial—the one that conjurers up days of Empire, Rule Britannia, Churchillian bombast, and Prince Charles's speeches. “You're not being serious…,” I suggested with a kind of “that's enough now—just pour me a pint” nonchalance.

A nonchalance that was not reciprocated. “So, what's it t'be then?” The barman had an unpleasant habit of stroking the under-side of his chin with his finger, sliding it about like a short but deadly knife.

“Well, I guess if there's no Newcastle in the house…I suppose a Murphy's stout will have to do.”

“We don't sell Murphy's.”

“Beamish then?”

“We don't sell Beamish.”

“Smithwick's Bitter?”

“Out.”

“Harp Lager?”

“Out.”

“Look—why don't I just try the place across the road…”

“One more guess. Y'get one more,” said the barman with a menacing leer that suggested no contradiction.

“Okay—right. Fine. I'll take a pint of your Guinness, then.”

Utter transformation!

“Well! Yessir! O'course, sir!” He smiled his best “at your service” customer smile. “A pint o' Guinness it is, then, and a fine choice, sir, if I and my colleagues here might say so. It'll just take a couple o' minutes. T'get the top right. 'S'not Guinness without its proper head, y'understand.”

“Yes, I know. I'm quite familiar with Guinness by now.”

“Well—are ya, now? I wouldna known that from what it was y' were askin' for a minute or two ago…maybe y'were just havin' a little confusion of the mind…”

And that's when I should have left. But he was already pulling the pint and the black stuff was pouring in with its surges of infinitesimally tiny brown bubbles and that creamy head building. And it looked as good as all the ads you see on television, particularly the one shot in sepia colors with a young guy mesmerized by the gradually rising nectar of his stout and a bead of anticipatory sweat easing slowly down his forehead to the tip of his nose as the glass gradually fills…