1998 - Round Ireland with a fridge by Tony Hawks, Prefers to remain anonymous Page B

were in Cavan, my destination for the day. I was feeling rather pleased with myself as we drew close to an area where Brendan knew there were guest houses. It was only five o’clock or so, but the next part of my journey, zipping in and out of Northern Ireland, could be the most hazardous, and I didn’t want to find myself wandering into a paramilitary training camp at dusk and asking directions to reasonably priced bed and breakfast accommodation. In a bleak residential road we stopped outside an unwelcoming hostelry, and I got out and began unloading. I was sorry to leave Brendan, it was like he’d been on my side when the others had been ganging up on me. And he had bought me an ice cream.
    I kicked off the playful goodbye stuff, ‘If ever I see you with a fridge by the side of the road in England, I’ll definitely stop for you.’
    ‘If ever you see me with a fridge by the side of the road in England, you will have just taken hallucinogenic drugs.’
    ‘Have a good journey back to Northern Ireland.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Have a good journey home.’
    ‘I’m not going home.’
    ‘Where are you going then?’
    ‘Donegal Town.’
    ‘What for?’
    ‘I’ve got some business there in the morning.’
    We’d got on so well with each other so quickly that we’d forgotten to do the Smalltalk establishing these kind of essential details. I felt it was worth pointing one out now.
    ‘Well, I’m headed for Donegal.’
    ‘Not Cavan?’
    ‘Cavan was only a stopping off point for Donegal.’
    ‘Right. Well, you’d better jump back in again.’
    And jump back in again I did, with some delight.
    §
    The day had been an exhausting maelstrom of emotions, but now as we drove through the breathtaking lakeside scenery of County Fermanagh, along the banks of the beautiful Lough Erne, I allowed myself to indulge in a new one—triumph. The sun even broke through for five minutes and the freshly doused countryside glistened much in the same way as I did, only with a touch less smugness. I proudly traced our progress on the map and pointed out the absurdity of Lower Lough Erne actually being above Upper Lough Erne. Brendan explained that according to my perspective as a North-South map reader it was above, but the physical reality was that it was nearer sea level and therefore most definitely the lower of the two Lough Ernes.
    Triumph was immediately usurped by shame. History had delivered enough cartographical colonial incompetence in this part of the world without my own ignorant contribution. We were, after all, in Northern Ireland. We only had to pass a police station with all its preposterous fortification to remind us of that.
    Soon we were in the capital of County Fermanagh, Enniskillen. Enniskillen. The name itself was enough to trigger TV memories of one of the all too frequent atrocities of the Troubles, but here before me was a real town, not a news story viewed from the comfort of England. I had grown up with Northern Ireland always in the headlines, but had built up an immunity to it, never really registering that the people there shopped in high streets like ours, used British Telecom phoneboxes and voted MPs into our government. I mean their government—well, whatever—therein lies the crux of the problem, methinks. The apparently peaceful border town of Belleek behind us, we slipped through one final deserted checkpoint and re-entered the Republic. I had been disorientated by a part of the United Kingdom that I couldn’t recognise or understand but now, as Donegal Town grew ever closer, once again I was filled with a sense of achievement. I know it was only the first day, but I’d covered a lot of miles, and proved to myself that I wasn’t attempting the impossible.
    In reaching Donegal Town I had arrived at a point which would be both the beginning and end of a circular tour of Donegal County, and which would therefore have the privilege, along with Dublin, of being the only place in Ireland which I would