Siobhan, Jean, Me – Glendalough – taken with the damn night flash – just as our laughing fit is about to hit
“As long as we’re headed An Lár ….” – Jean
“There’s a random bale of hay driver.” – Jean
Jean: “Can I put it in there?”
Me: “Tooo many books.”
“Narth.”
“Excuse me?”
Siobhan: “We want to go to County Mayo.”
Irish person, indifferently: “It’s just fields.”
Siobhan: “Are you gonna kiss the back of my head?”
Brian: “No. I’m gonna turn you around and kiss you on the lips.”
Brian, moaning: “Oh, the shame of the Irishman!” (talking about Portrait of the Artist)
Me: “Say something in Irish.”
Brian does.
Me: “What did you say?”
Brian: “You’re fuckin’ gorgeous.”
To get to Clonmacnoise follow signs to Ballynahoun and then take Paddy Kavanaugh’s bus service.
Me: “Member Glencar?”
Jean: “Was that where I saw a cow and thought it was a bear?”
Brian: “She’s probably got a boyfriend in Minnesota workin’ on a crop plantation, sayin, ‘This is all for Siobhan …’ ”
“You’re a sensitive little bastard.”
“Sensitive is the operative word.”
“Te – ha – co.” – Jean saying “Texaco”
Listed in the index of Let’s Go Ireland (otherwise known to us as “The Book”): “nuns drinking Guinness” – pg. 364
DJ, in thick thick brogue: “That was ‘Blue Moon’!”
Jean: “And I am a leprechaun.”
In Irish accent: “The secrets are in the Tarot!”
Jean: “We’re going up to Dung Angus.” Pause. “I am my mother’s daughter.”
Jean: “If anyone asks, tell them the bodhran is for my nephew.”
Jean: “Oh, look! There’s a horse stadium … or … whatever … a racetrack?” Horse stadium?
Sign at a truck stop: Open 7 am till Late
Glendalough in the dark. Jean, peering down from the road: “There’s a whole fuckin’ Glendalough village down there.”
“The fields are so green they almost look yellow!” I said (forgetting that I was wearing my hyper-day-glo yellow sunglasses)
Getting lost in a suburb of Dublin and in the space of 5 minutes we saw a 7th Day Adventist Church, a sign for the Irish Jewish Museum and a sign for a Quaker Meeting House. By the time that last one rolled around Jean exploded, “Quaker Meeting House???” It made her ANGRY.
Jean, dancing and twirling, singing, “Fat man in a little coat …”
Brian: “Oh, don’t get sentimental now.”
Jean: “What was his pen name? Boris Dolan?” We lost it. BORIS?
Jean kept saying “Tony Blair” in a crusty English accent. He was in Dublin for a day so we could not escape news of him. “Tony Blair.”
Driving through the Wicklow Gap, listening to The Corrs. Siobhan: “They all look like Snow White.” Their song is about the only song on the radio over here. “And we are so young now … so young … so young now …” – and Jean, underneath it, in tune, in rhythm, as though she were a backup singer: ‘Glendalough, Glendalough …’
“So. What’s Pete’s last name?”
“Power Equipment.”
Siobhan’s homestay: the little girl named her doll “Crystal Siobhan” (after the 2 homestay girls). She whipped the doll down the stairs. Siobhan expressed concern and the little girl said, “Oh, no, she likes it.”
When we got lost that night, Jean kept asking Siobhan which way to go. “Crystal-Siobhan – which way?”
Jean and I, walking in Dublin – heard a baby (about 3 years old) – in his stroller behind us – scream out, “HOLY JESUS.” Jean and I started laughing – we couldn’t help it – the father was like, “Sh!” (like: where did he learn that phrase from?) A man walking along with us was laughing a bit too, I made eye contact with him, and he said “Well, at least he’s sayin’ his prayers!”
Sinn Féin guy to Siobhan: “You won’t meet too many people like me over here. You have to understand: I’m a real Irishman. I’m an alcoholic.”
Talking to Brian and Tadhg from County Tipperary.
“We come from a county in the middle of Ireland that starts with a T.”
I guessed. “Tipperary.”
Brian was thrilled that I guessed it. “Yes!” We had just come from there that day – so we all talked about Tipperary – and Jean and I later told Brian that we wanted to go to mass while we were in Dublin – and where did he recommend – he was so pleased about that too. “You want to go to mass? Really?” He told us the church he went to.
Me: “I bought a china Celtic cross.”
Sean: “Oh, you’ve got to buy all that shite so you can show everyone at home – ‘Look! I’ve been to Ireland!'”
Me: “Exactly.”
Sean: Have you been to Newgrange?
Me: We went today.
Sean: How about the Aran Islands?
Me: Yeah, we’ve done that.
Sean: Have you done Glendalough? Or the rock of Cashel?
Me: We’re doing Rock of Cashel tomorrow.
Jean: We went to Clonmacnoise!
Sean: Is there anywhere you haven’t gone? Jesus!
Jean and I arriving in Dublin at 6 am. It was still dark. We waited for the shuttle bus to take us to the car lot. The first streaks of dawn appearing in the clear dawn sky, only a couple of clouds which showed up black in front of the dawn. The air was cold and wet. We stood on the sisdewalk, shivering, not really talking to each other – and occasionally either Jean or I would start giggling, out of nowhere, spontaneous bursts of laughter. Everything was funny. Then the bus arrived – driven by this Irish cutie with a Caesar haircut – he was to die for. Probably 18 years old. And I got in the back first – he was blasting club music – and Jean went to climb up in the back with me and she had this huge backpack on – little Jean with this tall backpack – which added about a foot of height to her – and she missed the step and slipped and fell. I burst into laughter, Jean started laughing – the Irish boy went to help Jean up and said, “Had some drinks on the plane, did you then?” Jean was still laughing, protesting, “No! No!” Then the drive to the car lot, with Erasure blaring in our ears through the dawn, and the 2 of us sat in the back, shaking with silent laughter. We could not stop. Jean reached down and pulled up the leg of her pants and in the glow of a streetlamp we could both see this huge gash on her leg, streaming blood. And this just made us laugh even harder.
Oh, and the way this kid gave us directions into Dublin when he dropped us off at the rent-a-car place: “Okay. You go down this road and then you take a left at the roundabout, and then you pick up the N11.” (By now we are totally familiar with all the motorways – an tlarthar – etc. – but we had no idea what “N11” was at that moment – or even what he had actually said.) It took us 3 tries for us to translate – “N11” – “Oh! N Eleven! Oh – okay – go on.” “And then you need to get onto O’Connell Street – that’s a big road in Dublin – and what you want to look for is the Stillorgan – ” (By now, the Stillorgan has taken on mythical status to us. I will never forget the Stillorgan. Jean and I cannot stop saying it.)
On bathroom wall, Dublin, 11/25:
In a garden of life we grow
And our beauty is in us to show
From the infanate eternal flow
“When you see a man recitin’ limericks, turn left. There’s a gate.”
The “riot steps” at UCD. Siobhan telling us about a friend of hers doing an imitation of people tripping and stumbling down those steps.
Guy we met: “My wife just had triplets. She doesn’t want to be seein’ my face for a while.”
Jean: “Listen, lady. Just give us 5 minutes so we can take a picture of Kevin’s Kitchen with the night flash.”
