The Clare Crest: Faithful to our Heritage
Ironically, the multi-millionaire, Mr. JJ McCabe, only spent €2,390 on the campaign trail. It was his fifth time going for office and he was eliminated after the 1st count with 239 votes. The 73-year-old McCabe told the media he didn’t want to ‘buy’ the election and that he would never run for office again. He said:
“I have lost nothing. It is the electorate who have lost a man of great ability and skill.”
Fair enough, maybe he has a point.
JJ on the campaign trail
Those in the know say that JJ’s actions made the gods laugh and they showered him with good karma: it seems gods don’t like clampers… The next caller to his house was a developer who wanted to buy his land. JJ said lovely hurling and asked for 20 million. He had bought the holding from Lord Inchiquin for £5,000 some years previously, when the aristocrat was stuck for cash. JJ settled for €18.8 million. It was the biggest land deal in Clare during the building boom and the developer was subsequently refused planning permission. The land will probably be Clare’s biggest NAMA asset. JJ bought a pad in the Algarve, and an estate in France that has a castle, a hotel and ten houses on the grounds.
Now that he didn’t become a councilor, Mr. McCabe spends more time on his estate in France, drops over to the Med when he needs a change of scene. From there he can read what the successful councilors are up to. If he tunes into the news from Ennis town council he’ll learn about the proposal to recruit ‘Urine Wardens’ to police the county town on weekends — a revenue generating scheme like parking tickets for pee-pee violators. He’ll probably conclude that he’s better off being far away from Clare politics and uncork a bottle of vintage plonk from his vineyard.
And if he’s keeping up with local religious affairs, he’ll see that the Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh (who he’d know from the hurling matches) has come out strongly against the recent apparition hysteria in Knock. According to Dublin ‘visionaries’ Joe Coleman and Keith Henderson, Our Lady will appear at Knock Shrine on December 5th next, at 3pm sharp. The bishop said,
“This sort of thing can bring religion into disrepute.”
While he would not normally discourage people from going to Knock, he thought they should stay away on that day. He continued,
“I would be unhappy about people dashing off to Knock just because the rumour goes out that there will be a vision. It has been proven time and time again that there is autosuggestion going on. For instance, like the moving statues — quite intelligent, normally sane people can believe they saw something. It’s like anything… if you look long enough at any object, you’re going to use your imagination and are liable to see something you hadn’t noticed before. If it is already suggested that this is a vision then you can in some way, unconsciously, convince yourself.”
Visionaries Coleman and Henderson
But like it or lump it, thousands will ignore Bishop Walsh and all the other bishops and follow the visionaries to Knock for the Apparition. Our Lady was scheduled to appear there at Halloween, and an estimated 15,000 people came for the event. Some claim they saw The Virgin, others reported seeing the sun change colour and dance in the sky. Skeptics wonder if the holy water was spiked. Others blame the recession for the ‘visions’. The Bishop said, “That view has been expressed before but I don’t know whether this happens in times of depression.”
Ok, Bishop…but what if she does appear…and gives out the winning numbers for the Lotto on Dec 5th? Should we still do the quick-pick or listen to Our Lady? We wouldn’t mind having a châteaux in the South of France and be able to drop in to JJ for an evening of craic in castle. It can be wet and dreary around Clare in the depth of winter, especially when prayer falls on deaf ears.
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A long white stretch limo was pulled at the curb outside the Pogues gig and it reminded us of The Bull and how he loved long shiny cars. We suddenly felt charitable and wondered if he should be rehabilitated rather than despised as a parasite. Then we had a brainwave: what if the Bull could drive the Pogues limo!! Maybe Shane would lend his Mexican Air Force cap to him…just while he’s behind the wheel. He could be cured. Cruising a half million miles up highways and down autobahns and boreens, the Kerryman would get plenty therapy from the lads. Plus, he’d still have a touch of the high life, he’d still be rubbing shoulders with stars and starlets…still be supping good grog, but not at the taxpayers expense. He could get really into it…maybe get promoted to roadie status.
As the Pogues ploughed through their greatest songs in San Francisco, and Mac weaved this way and that, the idea of The Bull being part of the scene became more clear. The band might even give him a cameo part — take a bit of weight from Spider by having the Bull bang the tin beer tray against his head. And I know this is pushing it a bit, but maybe The Bull could play a bit of bodhran? On say, ‘The Irish Rover’? Would the lads let him join in the chorus? What about ‘Dirty Old Town’? Can’t you just see him on stage, belting out the refrain, sweet Cahersiveen etched on his face? Would he ever get to lash out ‘The Boys of Barr na Sráide’? His very own party piece…
Stories from Ireland is a podcast I’ve set up and I’ll be posting spoken word every few weeks. Limbo, the current story, is about going to school in Ireland + it’s 16 minutes long. First published in my collection of short fiction, The West, it was broadcast by the BBC as a play for voices + is included in the anthology Fiction in the Classroom. 
Can you imagine? Nobody in their right mind would say a thing like that. Sure they wouldn’t? But he did. So they arrested him, and rightly so. He was locked up for days. The Guards came here to the door at three in the morning to tell me. I thought he was dead when I heard the knock. They let him out on bail, I can’t remember what it was but it was a lot of money at the time, several thousand pounds anyway. And then he had to go to court up there which was a different kettle of fish than going before one of his cronies down here. Oh it was in the papers and all. The judge called him a disrespectful thug who shoudn’t drink. He gave him a big lecture and a huge fine and would have put him in jail were it not for pressure from the Taoiseach. He knew the Taoiseach from the rugby, you see, and the Ard Fheises. Connections again. But of course he hated the publicity the case brought him. It was even on the radio about him. I said nothing to him. What was the point? I’d said it all already and he never listened to me anyway.
The next day I closed the butcher shop, why should I slave and he having a good time? And I always wanted to have a shoe shop so I got Tommy Hynes the builder to come in and change everything, take out the big cold room and the display cases and all that kind of thing. My brother has a fine shoe shop in Kilkenny and he supplied me with stock to get it started. I should have done it years before, but you don’t think of the obvious sometimes, sure you don’t? 
He’ll never stop drinking now. Do you think he will? I don’t, he’s too old to stop, he’s 72. I’m 69. I probably should have left him years ago, when I was younger. But women didn’t do that then, now they’re gone at the drop of a hat. It’s true for me. You read about them every day in the papers. Would you like a cigarette? You don’t smoke? Sorry. I like the odd one myself. He smokes all the time, smoking and drinking. 
He’ll outlive me. I know that. He’s strong. One night he came back and I was in bed. I didn’t hear him coming in. He went to the bathroom and fell into the bath, on his back. And I had clothes steeping in the bath in bleach. And he fell asleep with water up to his ears. Never woke up until I found him in the morning. I screamed when I saw him. I though he was dead. You would, wouldn’t you, when you’d see someone like that lying in the bath of water like a corpse. He effed me out of it. That’s what he did. And the bleach had whitened the hair at the back of his head. But out of spite, I didn’t tell him. And he was going around like a fool for days…like a Frisian bull, black and white. It was good enough for him. 
Sadly, he received no response and we were beginning to think that all was lost as time went by. Our mind was on other things — hay, visitors, gigs, slugs in the garden. Then, out of the blue, as is the way with cosmic events, we received an email from America that perked us up. A fan of the blog relayed vital information to us: Biddy’s bottle was in the US! This fan — we’ll call her Ms. M — sent us the url of an eBay page which has the following heading: 
There’s colonies in Killarney of course and all sorts of leprechaun paraphernalia for sale. I was especially taken by the Talk to a Leprechaun business cards on notice boards around the town. And of course Killarney is a natural stop for the leprechaun inspired green Paddy Wagon tour busses. There something going on at Ladies View on the Kenmare road as well.
