It Occurs To Me:   Many memories in Bruckless graveyard

I had occasion last week to visit the St Joseph and St Conal graveyard last week, firstly to say a prayer at the grave of Aidan O’Donnell, and then at the grave of my first cousin, 12 year-old Christy Byrne, who was tragically killed with two others near Frosses on the way back from a Finn Harps match on St Patick’s Day 1971. 

One of his companions was 19-year old Charles Dawson, who is buried nearby too. Later, while saying a prayer at the grave of Garda John Murrin who was brutally murdered in Kilkenny in 1924, and for whom there was a moving commemoration on May 5, I met his grand-niece, Catherine O’Connell from Dublin. Before I left, I paused at the grave of the wonderful storyteller and singer Packie Manus Byrne, with whom I spent a delightful afternoon in Ardara many years ago. 

I happened to meet Manus Boyle, who was elected to the council for Fine Gael at the weekend, who very kindly helped me locate some of the graves, and I asked him how the canvas was going? “Ah grand, Frank” he said, to which I responded: “Things must be bad though, if you’re canvassing in here!” Had any tourists looked in over the wall and observed two grown men convulsed with laughter, they might have pondered at our quaint Irish grief rituals. Anyway, many thanks Manus, you’re a gentleman and congrats on getting in!

                                      Ming not ‘turfed’ out!

Undoubtedly, the big success in our local elections was the vote for the 100% Redress Party. How anybody can say it was a shock must have inhabited a very different political planet in the past decade. As I write, I’m watching out for the first count in Castlebar in the Midlands North-West European elections and intrigued by the fact that the length of the paper is delaying the count there. Michael Ring described it as toilet paper. A joke comes to mind but this is a family newspaper. Further east, Clare Daly and Mick Wallace seem to be in some bother which gives me a wee lift. Incidentally, I see where the Castlebar contest must be wrapped up tonight as there is a comedy gig in the Travellers Friend tomorrow…it won’t be half as funny as the long count. 

Luke 'Ming' Flanagan canvassing in Frosses

Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, Maria Walsh and Barry Cowen look good to take the first three seats and by the time you read this we may know the other two. I hope Ciaran Mullooly, formerly of RTÉ, comes through…he’s an unashamed rural champion of the middle ground, has been a great community worker for 30 years and was very impressive during the Tubridy/RTÉ scandal. On a personal level, he’s a genuinely nice guy. ‘Ming’ is a miracle man…I find it incomprehensible that he can top the poll, considering his career began with the turf cutting controversy and the legalisation of cannabis. As regards the latter, I nearly fell off my creel when he tweeted “I've grown two!” a while ago. “Dear God” says I, “not another beard or worse still, an extra pair of Rossie ‘liathróidí’”. No, as it turns out he was referring to two cannabis plants that he can grow and nurture legally in Brussels.

Flanagan has boasted that he grows the herb safely on his own balcony.

“I vape cannabis. I enjoy it most before I go for a run. I grow it on my balcony here in Brussels. This year I am growing strains called Pineapple Kush and Shogun. Zero money going to criminals. Plus I know exactly what I'm using. What could possibly be wrong with that?” He supplied photos…“This is the Shogun (sativa dominant) feminised plant,” he added. “It's a funny one. Over 6 foot tall. Over 4 foot wide. Spindly. Topped it in attempt to thicken it up. Made no difference. Just wants to reach for the sky. Can't water it enough. They've a mind of their own!” Ah yes, a plant with a mind of its own…they’ll get the vote shortly!

                                             Clucks and bellows!

I can bear witness to a very enjoyable and eminently sensible hen party recently…and before you ask…no! I wasn’t on it. The reason for mentioning it is that far too many hens and stags are reduced to repetitive, unimaginative vomitous exhibitions. I remember a sensible old guard remarking when Donegal first suffered from them some two or three decades ago that : 

“If the bride could see the shape of the groom on his stag and he could see her on her hen…both might rethink their journey down the aisle!” 

 I remember reading a stag forum back in June 2019 in which it said: “I was on Arranmore island for one at the weekend there. No activities… just three days of solid drinking. Rebel band in the bar from 1pm on Sunday. Best stag I was ever on. Paying for it big time.  Going to Galway for my own but have been hearing a lot of the bars aren’t too stag friendly. Any truth to that?” At the time, I thought: “Arranmore deserves better than that!” One of my own vivid memories of a hen night was some twenty years ago in Letterkenny when a very drunken group from mid-Ulster staggered up the main street in their precarious high heels and ridiculously cloned outfits, and not content with drinking in public, threw their empty plastic glasses on the street and at the door and windows of businesses.

A friend who lives near Carrick-on-Shannon told me years ago that he’s abandoned his local pub for a pint as it was “infested” with stags and hens at weekends. When journalist Claire Gorman went back to Carrick almost ten years ago, she was shocked and her headline in the Indo read: “Welcome to Carrick-on-Shannon, the town that makes Magaluf seem civilised.”

Claire and friend went to a club where they “... witnessed a man falling face-first onto the pavement across the road from us. Inside we discovered a sea of pink feathers, sailor outfits and check shirts which we battled to navigate through without being trampled on. The bouncers do their best to cope with the rows and the overindulgence in alcohol, but it's a job you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. The real mayhem is outside on the streets which make Magaluf seem peaceful and civilised. The men, who are presumably your average, decent blokes on a normal day, seem to turn into animals in mating season after the fall of darkness. They also seem to lose all control over their bladders as they relieve themselves in the doorways of homes and businesses.”

Meanwhile, in Spain, the town of Platja d’Aro in Costa Brava, has banned inflatable penis costumes and sex dolls from stag and hen night celebrations, with fines of up to €1,500. The new bylaw specifically bans people from appearing “on the public thoroughfare without clothing or only in their underwear or with clothing or accessories representing human genitals or with dolls or other accessories of a sexual nature”. Considering the “dickheads” I’ve witnessed her over the years here, we should do the same. 

                           Trump and Hitler

Henk de Berg is a professor of German at the University of Sheffield. I’m currently reading his  ‘Trump and Hitler: A Comparative Study in Lying.’ In it he says,  “Our picture of Donald Trump is likewise one-dimensional. Even some of the people who opted to work for him considered their boss something of a political nincompoop. The 2019 book A Warning, written by ‘a senior Trump administration official’, provides perhaps the fullest collection of anti-Trump tropes. According to the anonymous author, the president was (in alphabetical order): ‘all over the place, baby-like, clueless, con-fused, crazy, distracted, easily swayed, erratic, forgetful, gullible, haphaz- ard, ignorant, impatient, impulsive, inattentive, incurious, inept, intellectually lazy, irascible, naïve, undisciplined, unfocused, uninformed, unstable, and vain’.”

De Berg adds: “ As far as I can tell, the American president had no firm convictions whatsoever. Nor does he appear to have been a committed racist, although as I will argue throughout this book…he systematically played to white nationalist sentiments. In other respects, however, the two men were surprisingly alike. Above all, both understood the power of politics as spectacle, and both (Trump and Hitler)  worked hard to create a persona adapted to their respective propaganda shows.”

As regards Trump’s ‘convictions’, let’s hope Supreme Justice Juan Merchan has the courage of his!               

                                                A laugh in Clonmany

I haven’t attended the Clonmany Festival for some time but it has been a rip-roaring success for over 60 years. Recently in Belfast, I had a great chat with ‘Gerry’, who worked as a barman during one festival in the early noughties, while he was staying with a publican friend. Seamus Moore (whose ‘hits’ include Me Galluses and me Gansy, The PieBald Ass, Fluthered on the Moon, Having A Bit Tonite and The Transit Van) was one of the stars and ‘Gerry’ was intrigued to see Seamus pull up in Clonmany Square in a van with ‘Moore the Hoor’ emblazoned on its side. To top it all, the second van read ‘On Tour with Moore the Hoor’!