![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/sc0006c76a.jpg\" "\\"sc0006c76a\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nHer son hung around with us, too, validating his mother. \u201cYeah, that\u2019s right \u2026 then you go through the Tunnel \u2026 right \u2026\u201d Earlier that week, a couple of Americans driving on the wrong side of the road had crashed into a Minister of Parliament’s car. The Americans were badly hurt. Everyone we spoke to during our trip referenced “the Americans who crashed into the Minister of Parliament”, and the lady at the gas station was the first. <\/p>\n
We stood by the gas pumps, as she drew her map, all of us chatting up a storm: and how did we find it driving on the other side of the road, then, and where had we been and what were our plans \u2026 We also chatted quite a bit about what she called \u201cthe hairy roundabout\u201d which would be coming up ahead of us. She gave us profuse warnings about \u201cthe hairy roundabout\u201d, which we needed to go through to get to Kinsale. It was south of Cork, and apparently hundreds and hundreds of cars have crashed there, and she made it sound like hellatious chaos: We had to get ourselves into a certain lane, otherwise we would get stuck in the roundabout forever, etc.<\/p>\n
As we stood around the car, and she walked us through the directions, another car drove up. She glanced up and waved. Informed us, \u201cThat\u2019s my husband.\u201d Then another car pulled up to one of the other pumps, she waved to the driver of THAT car, and informed us, \u201cIf I weren\u2019t married to my husband, I\u2019d be married to him<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n And one by one, all of these various people \u2013 her son, her husband, and the guy she\u2019d be married to if she wasn\u2019t married to her husband, joined our little coterie.<\/p>\n Our ring-leader woman would introduce us to every new arrival: \u201cThese 2 American girls are trying to get to Kinsale \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Every new arrival informed us of the \u201cAmericans crashing into the Minister of Parliament\u201d. And every new arrival put the fear of God into us about \u201cthe hairy roundabout\u201d.<\/p>\n More suggestions came in, adding, clarifying, until we had the most specific set of directions EVER GIVEN for a mere 20 mile drive. She even gave us emotional <\/em>directions for \u201cthe hairy roundabout\u201d:<\/p>\n \u201cJust stay calm \u2026 stay calm \u2026 get yourselves in the right lane, and stay calm \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Allison and I drove off waving hail and farewell to all of our new-found friends. At the gas station in Cork.<\/p>\n After making our way successfully through the \u201chairy roundabout\u201d (and yes, it did require that we stay calm, that shit was SCARY), we started to see signs, finally, for Kinsale. Our destination. We had time constraints: Jimmy needed to go somewhere at 7, and so we needed to reach the B&B before then. I assumed he was meeting friends for pints, or whatever, but this ended up NOT being the case, and in light of what he actually needed to do, I am tremendously glad that we made it there in time.<\/p>\n Allison drove us to Kinsale, after we left our new best friends at the gas station in Cork. The road was a two-way road, and yet \u2026 by US standards, the road was only big enough to be a one-way road. Thankfully, everyone still pretty much drives teeny cars over there, an SUV on this road would be an utter disaster. The headlights shrieked up at us through the dark, the road was winding, it was night-time \u2026 we were a bit stressed.<\/p>\n But then, at last, Kinsale. I could smell the salt air when I rolled down the window, so I knew we were very close. We still needed to find our way to Jimmy\u2019s B&B, but from our street map of Kinsale the Town, it seemed like a pretty wee place, not too difficult to navigate.<\/p>\n It was now 6:50.<\/p>\n We immediately found ourselves in the middle of town, which \u2026 I mean, we had heard about the quaintness and the beauty of Kinsale \u2026 but the reports of its beauty were under-played. It is one of the sweetest prettiest places I have ever seen. However, we could not ogle the sights, or the harbor, because we had to find Jimmy. Time was running out.<\/p>\n Randomly, we took a left-hand turn, and as we both glanced to our right, we saw an odd sight. We saw a line of people stretching down the sidewalk. There had to be hundreds of people (not an exaggeration) clustered along the street, all standing in line. But for what?<\/p>\n Allison wondered, \u201cIs that a night-club or something?\u201d<\/p>\n But \u2026 it was only 6:51? A line into a nightclub at 6:51? In Kinsale?<\/p>\n We left that mystery behind us, drove around for a bit, on streets that were teeny, lined with shops, sudden curves, sudden hills, all adorable, but confusing, and no street signs.<\/p>\n At last, we asked a couple of people for directions. True to form, they gave us AWESOME directions that led us directly to Jimmy\u2019s door. They knew Jimmy. Of course they did.<\/p>\n The B&B was right next to a massive Catholic church, and we parked in the church parking lot. It was 7:01. I could see a man standing in the golden glow of lamplight coming out of the open door of the B&B. \u201cThat\u2019s Jimmy!\u201d I cried. There was a wintry breath in the air, the bite of the nearby water. There was a sharp feeling in the atmosphere, different from the wild windy energy of the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough from where we had just come, where I had made out in the middle of the night in the medieval Glendalough graveyard with Peter, the Dublin journalist, for mouth-bruising HOURS, as the wind careened down upon us through the Wicklow Gap, high and shrieking. <\/p>\n The moon over Kinsale was high, and waxing. Soaring above the church.<\/p>\n Allison and I left our bags in the car and ran up the steps of the B&B, apologizing to Jimmy. \u201cWe are so sorry \u2013 we truly thought we would be here at 7!\u201d<\/p>\n Jimmy, of course, was lovely, kind, understanding. \u201cI know how it is \u2026 time when you\u2019re traveling and all that \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n He said to us, \u201cThere\u2019s a funeral next door tonight at 7 \u2026 A local guy died, so I\u2019m going to go over to go to the funeral, and I\u2019ll be back in about half an hour\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Good Lord, I felt like an ass. I had assumed he was maybe going out with friends. Instead, he had to go to a funeral. Jesus.<\/p>\n I said, \u201cGod, I am so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, no problem, Sheila, no problem \u2026 You\u2019re fine parked where you are. Why don\u2019t you bring your bags in now, so that you won\u2019t have to walk through the procession \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t sure what he was talking about, but Allison and I went back to our car, shivering in the night-cold, to grab our bags.<\/p>\n And then came the procession.<\/p>\n The \u201cprocession\u201d was the huge crowd of people we had seen in the center of town.<\/p>\n We found out later that what happened was: they all gathered at the funeral home, down on Market Street, and then walked, as a group (and we are talking about 300 people) up to the church.<\/p>\n Allison and I didn\u2019t feel right walking through the funeral procession with our bags, so we stood back, in the shadows, and just watched.<\/p>\n It was cold enough to see everyone\u2019s breaths. The hearse had led the way, and then stopped outside the church. The procession, which filled the street in front of the B&B, and then curved away out of sight and down the hill, stood quietly, stamping in the cold, hands in pockets, clouds of frosty breath in the air. There were old people, little children, there were couples holding hands, there were teenagers with their parents. Everyone was there.<\/p>\n The coffin was lifted out of the hearse, and the pall-bearers lifted it up over their heads, so that it appeared to float through the air, and then they walked it up the long ramp into the lit-up brick church.<\/p>\n The procession didn\u2019t move. Neither did we.<\/p>\n We had come across a private moment. The private moment of this small community. The inner life of the small town revealed to us, outsiders. A rarity indeed. We didn\u2019t want to intrude, or break it up, or ignore it. We just watched.<\/p>\n When the gleaming coffin had floated its way into the church, the procession started to move. And that\u2019s when we really saw how many people there were. The line just kept coming from around the corner, as everyone walked up the steps and into the church for the funeral. More people just kept coming, silently, respectfully, maybe you would hear the chatter of a child here and there, but for the most part \u2026 silence.<\/p>\n Obviously a well-loved man. Jimmy told me all about him later. He was only 62, he was a musician, and played with a number of local bands. He hadn\u2019t even been sick, but apparently he fell down over the summer, and X-rays revealed that he was riddled with cancer. Nothing to be done at that point, really \u2026 and he died in November. Sad.<\/p>\n Allison and I kept coming back to that procession, over the rest of our journey. \u201cMember the funeral in Kinsale?\u201d We felt that we had witnessed something very special, very private. I felt honored to be there, but also a little bit like \u2026 it wasn\u2019t something for us to witness. All we could do was stand back, and not intrude. <\/p>\n It was a town mourning its dead, with throngs and throngs and throngs of quiet chilly people coming up the hill, around the corner, up the hill, around the corner, up the hill, into the church \u2026 in an endless flood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We were headed for Kinsale. We were very close, only 20 or so miles away. We knew our way to Cork, and after that, all we knew was: we needed to head almost directly south. And there would be Kinsale. … Continue reading