Going Back To The Old Country?

The above title was told to me this week by a man who I have known since my infant school days. He's not a friend as such, just someone who went to the same school as me. This is why I was a little baffled by this comment. Does he think that our home town of Huddersfield is a country? Or is he one of the many people that I speak to, who adopt their parents' place of birth as their country? I'm afraid the latter is true of this man. He thinks and talks as if he is a native of Connemara in southern Ireland, he has the Connemara walk, which is part 'Gangsta' and part New York pimp. And he constantly referred to the British as 'They'!

He, like me, has Irish ancestry, but then,who doesn't? If you were to travel into the deepest Borneo jungle and encounter a yet unknown tribe, there would be one little guy with bright ginger hair sitting there in the tribal hut. When I was younger, it wasn't very cool to claim that you were part Irish, as the IRA was bombing the hell out of Northern Ireland and mainland Britain. Strangely, in Southern Ireland, where my Mother comes from, they knew little about it. But now it's cool to claim Irish ancestry. My Grandfather, who was born in County Clare in 1896 and lived to the ripe old age of 96, fought alongside Michael Collins for independence: we have the photos and the stories to prove it.

The thing about the older generation of Irish men was that they were fantastic story-tellers. The stories they told you were probably untrue, but they were so good, you wanted to believe them. My Grandfather would tell of his daring encounters during that time, and he made it all sound like a boys' own story book. I'm sure that he might have encountered an off-duty soldier posting a letter but when the story was re- told to us many years later he would regale the whole room with stories of how he beat off a whole platoon of 'Black and Tans', armed with nothing more than a broken bottle and a rusty penknife. The closing line would always be where some grateful 'Colleen' would ask him to stay and tell him just how brave he was, to which he would reply, “Sure I did what any man would have done in the circumstances. But now I must be off, before they come looking for me, as it will be dangerous for you, for me to stay." Then he would ride off into the sunset on his push bike. I don't care how much truth was in those stories - not much, I would guess - but I still want to believe them, as he was known as 'Big Paddy' and was quite a brawler in his time. 

When my father returned to Ireland, married to my mother, my grandfather took him to a local bar, which was full of  'regulars' who didn't care much for the English. My father told me that Granddad slammed his fist onto a table and the bar fell silent. He then announced to the whole pub, “This is Peter Walsh from England. He's my son-in-law. Does anyone have a problem with that?” the whole room, as one, announced that they indeed had no problem with that. Then the room burst back into life again. My father said he was so scared at what had just happened that he felt a little tortoise head appear in the seat of his pants!

Ireland has changed out of all recognition since my many summer holidays there as a small child. My mother was born and bred in Galway, which, as a child, I remember was a dull backwater, but now has grown into a vibrant seaside city. I would walk from my grandparents' house at one side of the city to my aunt's house at the other side on Sunday mornings when I was a child, and I would be lucky to see two people. Try that now in Galway and the city centre is full to bursting! I hadn't visited Galway for many years: the last time I went back to see my family there was in 2007 and I didn't recognise the place. I couldn't even find my way to where my uncle now lives, which is my grandparents' house. But I do love the old Ireland, which is fast disappearing.

In the late nineties, my wife, my son and I visited Clare to see one of my aunts, who lived in the family home. There are two cottages where all my mother's paternal line lived for generations. One of the cottages was no more than one room. I had a distant relative who still lived in it when I was a child. The room had a table a fire and an old iron bed - that was it! Stone floor, thatched roof and a big, old home-made door. My grandfather, eight siblings and both my great grandparents lived in this house. How they did it, I will never know!

When we arrived, my aunt, who lived in a refurbished three-bedroomed cottage across the road from the other house, was in Galway working. She had left us a key out and told us to make ourselves at home, as she would be back the following day. We did indeed make ourselves at home, and that evening we walked up to the tiny village near my aunt's house. The village was a handful of houses, a small shop, and a couple of bars. We trotted into one of the bars and I ordered a drink. The landlady of they bar gave me a huge smile on hearing my English accent and duly served us. Later she came over to where we were sitting, and like most of the country folk in Ireland was very friendly and incredibly inquisitive about us. After the small talk about where we were from and how our journey had been she asked, “And where would it be that you're staying? Is it in the old holiday cottages over the way?”

I told her that we were actually staying with my aunt, to which she asked, “And what would they be calling your aunt then?”

“Patsy Brady” I replied. The woman smiled, then walked away from the table, only to return minutes later. She grabbed hold of my hand and opened my fingers and placed something into my palm. With all the charm and grace she could muster she smiled sweetly, then said, “I think I might have over charged you a little for the drinks!” and there in my hand was the difference.

The next day, my aunt came back from Galway with my cousin: it was lovely to see them both. My aunt asked what we had done the previous evening and I told her we had gone for a drink in the bar up in the village the first thing my aunt asked was, “How much did she charge you for the drinks?” I told her I think it was the going rate, to save any fall outs.

The one thing that Irish are famed for is their ability to drink. I'm Irish/Italian, so I have double the ability. My wife is quite a lightweight when it comes to drinking. The following evening, we again went up to the village for a few drinks. This depends on your interpretation of 'a few'. It was a wonderful night. The board outside the bar advertised a night of 'The Craic' I thought this was a local band, until I realised it was the Irish spelling for what we would pronounce as 'The Crack' which means having a laugh and joke.

There was a middle-aged woman there, who must have been a stunner in her time, but it seemed that life had caught up with her. For her, fashion finished in 1964. She had a beehive hairstyle, a short skirt, and tan tights. Her hair was peroxide blonde. She had a serious eye shadow problem, as she had painted her eye lids bright green, but it didn't seem to stop at her eye brows and continued up to her forehead. All the men of a certain age seemed to fancy her, but though she was strangely pretty in a curious sort of way, she was now quite portly and was showing signs of disrepair. She constantly put sixties music on an old record player then danced around the room as if she was fifteen once again.

Men would try to dance with her, but she would scorn them. I got the distinct impression by the way that the men were behaving that once she had consumed enough drink she became very vulnerable and they were all out to capitalise on this. My aunt would sniff at her and snort, “Silly old whore” which saddened me. But, as I have written about before, I have a 'weirdo' magnet on my person somewhere that attracts people like this woman. She kept on beckoning me over to dance ,which I kept on declining, but my wife and my cousin found this funny and encouraged her to ask me again and tried to pressure me into dancing with her. I finally gave in and danced with this woman, I think it was dancing, but it could have been foreplay, the way she touched me. My wife found this extremely funny, but she wouldn't have laughed so loud had the woman been twenty years younger.

The night went well, and all had a good time. My wife was so drunk at the end of the night we found her asleep in a wheelbarrow at the back of my aunt's house. The next morning when we woke up, all, except my wife were in good spirits. My aunt realised that she had no bread and asked if I would walk up to the shop in the village and buy some, she added, “And buy some rolls and I'll make us all a bacon sandwich.”

My son and I walked up into the village, stopping to look at the local graveyard to see any family connections that might be in there. The family name is 'Sexton' and I have a sneaky feeling that up until a hundred years ago my family, like the aristocracy, was quite inbred, because the graveyard was full of Sextons!

We entered the shop and I was quite surprised to see my dancing partner from the night before working there, and she was no worse for the amount of alcohol she had consumed the night before. She gave me a big friendly smile and an unnerving masonic-type wink.

“What can I do for you today?” she asked, with a mischievous grin on her face.

“Could I have a loaf of bread and five rolls please?” I replied, trying not to look scared . She bent below the counter to get the rolls, then stopped and her head slowly reappeared she smiled at me and asked, “I was just thinking, would you like sex?”

My hairline receded half an inch at this question. I tried to smile, but I could feel that my top lip had gone above my gum line and looked like a snarling dog! My mouth had gone instantly dry. The fact that my twelve-year-old son had just run from the shop to find his mother to tell her that daddy was about to start copulating in the local shop with the fat woman didn't help.

I replied in a feeble little pathetic voice, “No thanks, just the rolls." She looked at me with some confusion, then said, “What the feck are you talking about?”

“I just want the rolls.”

“I know you want the fecking rolls, but if you have sex, I can do it cheaper for you!”

I was just about to tell her I would rather pay for the bread when it dawned on me that she was just talking numbers, one, two, three, four, five, sex, seven... I managed to stammer that five would be quite ample as there were only five of us and my wife was quite ill from the night before and probably wouldn't want one, never mind sex!

I loved my time there, but it has now all changed the locals have moved on somewhere, I don't know where. The village is now full of city types and, strangely, quite a lot of Germans. It's always sad when part of your life disappears, but I suppose it's inevitable that things change. So for me I can never go back to 'the old country', because, for me, it no longer exists!