McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland (38 page)

It’s a couple of miles’ drive to an isolated hamlet called the Néale. In a field, guarded by frisky horses, I find the Gods of the Néale—an ancient stone carved with a man, an animal, a reptile and an inscription no one has been able to decipher. In a field a couple of hundred yards away is a large stone pyramid, grey as today’s sky, built as a folly in the nineteenth century. Across the road sits an overgrown graveyard of Celtic crosses and an impossibly romantic ruined church. By a fork in the road, the Long Stone is reputed to mark the grave of Lu of the Long Hand, son of the king of the de Danaan, who was killed at the Battle of Moytura. For a winning side, they really don’t seem to have done terribly well.

But a dreadful thing has happened to the Long Stone. On the wall of a ruined building by which it stands is a vivid, yellow, freshly-painted sign advertising accommodation and ‘tourist facilities’ just down the road. Paint has been splashed all over the stone as well, and they haven’t bothered to wipe it off. I suppose it’s not quite a case of tourism killing the goose that laid the golden egg, but covering it with yellow gloss is almost as bad.

Rural Ireland wakes up late now all that small-farm egg collecting and milking by hand is a thing of the past. It’s mid-morning, and I still haven’t seen a soul, but suddenly I hear voices in the distance. A little way up the road a woman cyclist is approaching, pursued by a man in football kit. A local hurler, or Gaelic footballer, training for the big match, I suppose. But then they stop and he poses, panting, near the stone. I notice it’s a hired bike. She takes out a camera, snaps him, and whoosh, he’s off like a greyhound from a trap back in the direction they came from. They haven’t said a word to each other, or me. It’s like a silent comedy, only not funny. She studiously ignores me as she packs the camera away, so I say, ‘Hello.’

She smiles to placate me, but clearly wants to be gone. He’s already 200 yards away.

‘Hi.’

She remounts the bike but I have to know.

‘So…where are you from?’

‘From Germany. Excuse me.’

She gives me a quick blast of Balor’s evil eye and then she’s off in pursuit.

The Tuatha de Danaan may have won the day at Moytura, but they in turn were defeated by the invading Celts. When they knew the game was up, it’s said they used their magical powers to turn themselves into the little people of Irish legend, and flee underground. The area around Cong is honeycombed with the caves and underground passages into which they disappeared. On the way back to the village I stop again near the stone circle at a place called Nymphsfield. Over the centuries, groups of faerie children and tiny men and women have been sighted here, dancing and generally enjoying the craic in the moonlight—the de Danaan, celebrating their famous victory over the Fir Bolg, or so the story goes. It’s a delightful thought; there’s definitely a mysterious and haunting, if not haunted, atmosphere about this whole area that is quite captivating.

I’m beginning to feel foolish for letting a few ruthless room-renters spoil my visit. In future I’ll try to remember a room’s just somewhere to sleep, and it really doesn’t matter. The place is the thing. And as soon as I focus on these positive thoughts it’s as if I hear voices. Hang on, I really can hear voices. Faint, sure enough, but there all right. The phantom spirits of Nymphsfield? The long-dead Tuatha de Danaan of Moytura? What’s that they’re saying?

‘
Vier Minuten zwanzig…fünf und zwanzig…dreissig. Komm! Schnell, schnell…
’

The grimacing runner and his cyclist girlfriend thunder past, in pursuit of Ireland’s carefree imperfection. I head for the car, and Westport.

Rather than take the direct road north, I decide to veer west through Joyce Country again, and back into Connemara. The sky has cleared, and the wonderful flat valleys, tussocky grass and wild mountainsides look good enough to be in a movie; which they are, as I realise when I stumble across a feature film crew on a back lane just outside Leenane. A mechanic is lying under a vintage Jag while a sound technician adjusts his boom mic. By the way, if you ever see a film crew working, don’t go up to the sound guy, point at the boom, and make furry animal jokes. He’ll probably smile and pretend no one’s said it before, but one day one of these guys is going to snap and massacre someone.

Leenane is a beautiful village ringed by mountains at the end of Killary Harbour. They made a movie here a few years ago too called
The Field
. Now there’s a coffee shop called The Field Coffee Shop, so there’s a danger the place could get Conged. As I leave town, I find myself wondering what archaeologists will make of it all in a couple of thousand years’ time. Will they find evidence amongst the stone ruins of Cong that the legends are true: that people did indeed travel from all over the world to worship, for reasons now lost deep within the mists of time, at the shrine of
The Quiet Man
?

The journey from Leenane to Louisburgh is one of the most dramatic stretches of road in the country. After passing through wild foothills as you skirt the north side of Killary Harbour, by the time you reach Delphi you are surrounded by some of the most spectacular mountains in Connemara. Heading north through the mountain pass that runs along the eastern edge of Doo Lough there’s a stone monument at the side of the road. I pull the Tank over on to worryingly boggy ground and walk back to read the inscription. ‘To commemorate the Hungry Poor who walked here in 1849 and walk the Third World today,’ it says. And suddenly, I know where I am.

It was through this valley that more than 150 famine victims walked in the depths of that winter. In Westport they had been refused sustenance at the poorhouse until they had registered with the Poor Commissioners, who were fourteen miles away at Delphi House. In ferocious conditions they walked to Delphi, only to find that the commissioners were having dinner and would not see them. Dozens died in the snow in this beautiful but desolate place in the shadow of Ireland’s holy mountain, Croagh Patrick.

The Reek, as the mountain is also known, dominates the skyline as you approach Louisburgh and Westport. It’s a clear day now and I can get a good look at it; but there’s no sign of a great big light on top just yet. Maybe Gerry’s had problems with the digger. They can be very temperamental bits of machinery.

There’s a woman hitching on a lonely stretch of road. I presume she’s an Irish student, because she looks like one. She turns out to be a Canadian sculptor from the Yukon, but how was I expected to know that? She’s heading for Castlebar, Mayo’s county town, which is just seven or eight miles on from Westport. I ask her what takes her there.

‘I’m going to the library to listen to a writer.’

‘Anyone I might know?’

‘Er, the guy who wrote that book? About Ireland? I can’t remember his name.’

We spend a while going through all the books about Ireland, until finally we hit on
Angela’s Ashes
.

‘Frank McCourt? In Castlebar library? Are you sure?’

‘I guess so. Look. I have a flier.’

A handwritten photocopy announces that the Pulitzer Prize-winning author will indeed be in Castlebar at six this evening, and now so will I. I’ve only read the first half of the book, because I keep losing it, but at least I’ve read it twice. If we’re tested on it, I’ll just have to bluff like I did at school. At least McCourt won’t hit me with a leather strap if he catches me out.

The library’s packed with every McCourt fan in Mayo, all clutching copies of the book. I feel vulnerable and conspicuous without one, like the guy in
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
, hoping the others won’t realise he’s the only one who hasn’t been taken over by aliens. As anticipation builds, there’s an announcement. ‘Mr McCourt will be twenty minutes late as he’s been delayed in a hostelry in Leenane while coming from Galway the pretty way.’

He’s eventually introduced by the librarian, who then does a curious thing. Instead of relinquishing the podium to McCourt and letting him have the space to himself, he sits on a stool right next to him throughout the performance, like Garfunkel during a very long Paul Simon solo spot. He even interrupts at one point to get the audience to sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ to McCourt’s evident embarrassment. Maybe it isn’t his birthday.

He’s dressed in a blue jacket and red shirt, and looks considerably younger than his sixty-nine years. Half a century in New York has done little to alter his Irish accent. Yet some people emigrate to America or Australia or wherever it may be, and within eighteen months have taken on the local accent so totally they sound as if they’ve never been anywhere else in their lives. It must be a conscious act of will, indicating whether you wish to be absorbed, or stand apart in honour of your roots.

‘God provided me with a miserable childhood and the words to describe it,’ says McCourt. He talks about the librarian at the Carnegie Library in Limerick when he was a child. ‘She wanted to be between us and the books, in case we might touch them or read them. She looked like an Iroquois Indian with syphilis.’

After he’s read from the book, he takes questions. Someone asks him about the title. What does it mean? ‘Angela was my mother and when she died we cremated her, so—
Angela’s Ashes
.’

‘But critics are saying the ashes are the fire she stared into, or the cigarettes she smoked, or the sons from whom she rises like a phoenix…’

‘These days they’re giving exams on my book that I would fail myself.’

I’m plucking up courage to ask something, but I’m scared he’ll catch me out. After all, he’s a teacher. He’ll know instinctively that I haven’t read it all. What the hell. I put my hand up. But what if he asks me about the second half? It’s too late now. So I ask him, where does he feel he belongs? He has no hesitation.

‘New York.’

And so I’m just going to ask this wise man, this Pulitzer Prize winner, this Prince of the Diaspora, whether he thinks it’s possible truly to belong in a land where you’ve never actually lived, when suddenly the librarian’s on his feet, to point out Frank’s wife, and get a round of applause for her. Or for Frank, for having such a nice wife. It’s not clear which.

So I don’t get to ask him.

Afterwards, I’m walking to the Tank when I pass a bar called P. McCarthy. Actually, I don’t pass it. I stand outside, look at it, then go in. The barman tells me the P stands for Pete. I’ve never actually met anyone called Pete McCarthy before. Perhaps we’ll look just like each other and form a lifelong friendship. I ask if he’s around.

‘Ah no, he sold the place on a couple of years ago. I’ve no idea where he is now.’

There’s a little Chinese restaurant across the street. It looks a bit seedy, but it’s an awfully long time since I’ve had any Singapore noodles, so I decide to take a chance. It’s a tiny place with about eight tables. I sit in the window, so that if Frank McCourt walks past I can bang on the glass and ask him whether I belong.

A family of fat bastards from Manchester are eating sweet and sour pork and chips at the next table. Like Tweedledee in Killarney, they’re washing it down with Diet Coke, in the hope that they’ll look like Kate Moss by morning. There’s a Chinese lady in charge, but my order’s taken by a morose local girl in platform-soled sneakers who seems ill at ease with the whole concept of Chineseness. She looks at me as if I’m a headcase when I ask for chopsticks. At the next table, huge quantities of chicken curry, chop suey, rice and extra chips have now arrived, and the children—two ovoid blimps with bright red sweet and sour chins—are woofing it down with serving spoons, racing against the clock and the adults in a gastronomic equivalent of
Supermarket Sweep
.

I’m waiting for the food to arrive, sipping excellent jasmine tea, when three blokes come in and order a takeaway. One of them turns round and sees me.

‘Hiya, how are ya doing?’

He’s at the other end of the room, not that far away, but I can’t work out quite who he is. It’s hard to know what to do in these situations, isn’t it? I give him a big smile, and wave.

‘Hiya.’

He’s walking over now, with a big smile himself, and his hand stretched out in greeting. He’s in his thirties, arty-looking, with longish hair and a brown suede jacket. Where do I know him from? Have I worked with him? Or is he someone I’ve met on this trip? This kind of thing happens all the time these days. Sometimes I can be talking to someone for five minutes before realising who they are. I reckon my brain may have been adversely affected by other people’s mobile phones.