McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland by Pete McCarthy Page B
Authors: Pete McCarthy
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Cork city, where large joints of meat are carved on industrial slicers by homely women in white overalls, many of them with a full complement of fingers—I found corroboration of my memories.
Framed on the wall is a copy of the Cork Examiner , dated Thursday, 23 October 1952. On the front page is an advert:
DIRECT SERVICES—PASSENGERS, GOODS, LIVESTOCK CORK TO LIVERPOOL SATURDAYS, LIVERPOOL—CORK THURSDAYS CITY OF CORK STEAMPACKET CO (1936) LTD TELEGRAMS ‘PACKET’, CORK
I was about to say that those childhood crossings are like looking back on a different era of travel, but of course it was a different era of travel. Pre-1960, you only went on holiday in another country if you had money, or relatives to stay with.
We had the relatives.
Down in the village, I visit the graveyard in the grounds of the not over-pretty modern church. I find my grandfather, buried with Great-Aunt Hannah and Uncle Jack. His surname is spelled ‘MacCarthy’, with an extra ‘a’; like many names here, it’s a translation from the Irish, so the ‘a’ is optional, and may appear and disappear with the generations.
A man is tidying up a grave nearby, his car parked next to him with the doors open and the Spice Girls blaring out. I’d been hoping for a spot of transcendental graveside ancestral contact, perhaps a piercing insight into why I should feel I belong out here. Instead, the DJ has just started a phone-in about cat-flaps.
For old times’ sake, I go inside the church for a bit of a mooch, and anyway, it’s much uglier outside than in. And almost straight away, there on the notice-board, I see it, half A4 size, held up by two old-fashioned drawing-pins. You don’t see them as much as you used to, do you?
Then, in small print at the bottom:
ALSO 1 DAY RETREATS WHICH DO NOT REQUIRE FASTING OR WALKING BARE-FOOTED.
Purgatory?
Walking barefooted?
This could be just the job: a high-octane blend of fundamentalist Catholic flagellation and Celtic New Age whimsy, with no food. If anything can give me an insight into my sensation of metaphysical Irishness, this might be it. And even if it doesn’t, at ₤20, three days’ accommodation and a boat trip comes in cheaper than two plates of noodles, once you’ve added the tax.
I jot down the phone number, and head for the phone box in the village. After twenty, or perhaps even twenty-five rings, the phone is answered by someone who sounds like a priest with grazed knees. I ask him how much barefoot work is involved, and whether it’s very rocky out there.
‘Ah, now don’t you worry about that. We have ladies of seventy, and young boys of fifteen.’
An unpleasant image wells up, which I suppress immediately. But then there’s the bad news. ‘Retreats don’t begin until the first of June.’ As he puts the phone down, I fancy I hear his scar tissue creak.
It’s only March. My sado-masochistic epiphany will have to wait.
In the meantime, I’ll go and visit the dole-scrounging, pot-pushing, soap-dodging, poteen-guzzling New Agers in their caravans on the wild side of Dunmanway.
Chapter Four
Wild Mountain
‘And is it true that English people are fearing you will meet many Germans when you are making holidays?’
My questioner is a German who is making holidays. We’ve had breakfast, and now we’re sitting in the lounge. He has just finished playing the accordion, accompanied by his son on trumpet. He’s holding a leather-bound pad in which he’s taking notes.
‘And what are you usually calling us? The Hun? Fritz? Or Krauts?’
Gunter is a professional musician from Bavaria, over here on holiday with his family. In spare moments he’s working on a song he’s planning to perform in London later in the year. So, instead of having breakfast in the farmhouse where my mother grew up, as I’d been hoping, I’m in a feng-shuied bungalow acting as English Language Consultant on a satirical piece called ‘Please be nice to the Germans’. In Ireland, the unexpected
Framed on the wall is a copy of the Cork Examiner , dated Thursday, 23 October 1952. On the front page is an advert:
DIRECT SERVICES—PASSENGERS, GOODS, LIVESTOCK CORK TO LIVERPOOL SATURDAYS, LIVERPOOL—CORK THURSDAYS CITY OF CORK STEAMPACKET CO (1936) LTD TELEGRAMS ‘PACKET’, CORK
I was about to say that those childhood crossings are like looking back on a different era of travel, but of course it was a different era of travel. Pre-1960, you only went on holiday in another country if you had money, or relatives to stay with.
We had the relatives.
Down in the village, I visit the graveyard in the grounds of the not over-pretty modern church. I find my grandfather, buried with Great-Aunt Hannah and Uncle Jack. His surname is spelled ‘MacCarthy’, with an extra ‘a’; like many names here, it’s a translation from the Irish, so the ‘a’ is optional, and may appear and disappear with the generations.
A man is tidying up a grave nearby, his car parked next to him with the doors open and the Spice Girls blaring out. I’d been hoping for a spot of transcendental graveside ancestral contact, perhaps a piercing insight into why I should feel I belong out here. Instead, the DJ has just started a phone-in about cat-flaps.
For old times’ sake, I go inside the church for a bit of a mooch, and anyway, it’s much uglier outside than in. And almost straight away, there on the notice-board, I see it, half A4 size, held up by two old-fashioned drawing-pins. You don’t see them as much as you used to, do you?
Then, in small print at the bottom:
ALSO 1 DAY RETREATS WHICH DO NOT REQUIRE FASTING OR WALKING BARE-FOOTED.
Purgatory?
Walking barefooted?
This could be just the job: a high-octane blend of fundamentalist Catholic flagellation and Celtic New Age whimsy, with no food. If anything can give me an insight into my sensation of metaphysical Irishness, this might be it. And even if it doesn’t, at ₤20, three days’ accommodation and a boat trip comes in cheaper than two plates of noodles, once you’ve added the tax.
I jot down the phone number, and head for the phone box in the village. After twenty, or perhaps even twenty-five rings, the phone is answered by someone who sounds like a priest with grazed knees. I ask him how much barefoot work is involved, and whether it’s very rocky out there.
‘Ah, now don’t you worry about that. We have ladies of seventy, and young boys of fifteen.’
An unpleasant image wells up, which I suppress immediately. But then there’s the bad news. ‘Retreats don’t begin until the first of June.’ As he puts the phone down, I fancy I hear his scar tissue creak.
It’s only March. My sado-masochistic epiphany will have to wait.
In the meantime, I’ll go and visit the dole-scrounging, pot-pushing, soap-dodging, poteen-guzzling New Agers in their caravans on the wild side of Dunmanway.
Chapter Four
Wild Mountain
‘And is it true that English people are fearing you will meet many Germans when you are making holidays?’
My questioner is a German who is making holidays. We’ve had breakfast, and now we’re sitting in the lounge. He has just finished playing the accordion, accompanied by his son on trumpet. He’s holding a leather-bound pad in which he’s taking notes.
‘And what are you usually calling us? The Hun? Fritz? Or Krauts?’
Gunter is a professional musician from Bavaria, over here on holiday with his family. In spare moments he’s working on a song he’s planning to perform in London later in the year. So, instead of having breakfast in the farmhouse where my mother grew up, as I’d been hoping, I’m in a feng-shuied bungalow acting as English Language Consultant on a satirical piece called ‘Please be nice to the Germans’. In Ireland, the unexpected
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