“In the middle of the road of my life, Facebook, Twitter, Hollywood and the deadening of the North: the 30 years of IRA terrorism, We loved north Dublin as three fiddlers and a flautist I awoke in a dark wood where the effects of economic rationalism, there was still a kneecappings, hunger strikes, state-sponsored began their long night jamming session. They Western society where true things of value – murders and internment without trial – the the idea barely acknowledged our existence, so absorbed true way was wholly lost.” music, singing, dancing and storytelling – could deaths of thousands that had finally ended in that there were they in the pleasure and business of music, – Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy not be bought and sold. They flourished in their 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement. but at one stage the young fiddler turned to the own right. But it was the other story of Ireland we wanted was still a old fiddler and said, “Gerry, did I tell you about That was our hunch, we didn’t know for sure. to absorb into our mid-life bones – the one Western my guitarist friend from Tipperary with the Fifteen years ago, I’d lived in County Cork for about hope and imagination that American society white guitar case?” two man might find himself in the middle of his life – as two months with my wife and two daughters, president John F. Kennedy had referred to in where “No,” said the old fiddler. “You didn’t.” the Italian poet Dante did – lost in his metaphorical dark and on a cool, fogged-over morning we’d met a his historic address to the Oireachtas (Irish “Well, he absolutely loved his white guitar case forest, assailed by leopards and she-wolves, having no idea young man from the Ministry of Culture visiting Parliament) in June 1963, five months before his true things because it was strong and it kept his guitar in which way to turn, needing his “Virgil” to guide him home. a small island off the very southern tip of the assassination in Dallas, Texas. During that of value tune wherever he travelled.” for the Or he might find himself on the west coast of Ireland with country. This man had come to the island (popu- famous speech, he’d summoned the words of “Did he now?” said the old fiddler. – music, Ahis close friend from Australia, “Seamus”, drinking malt whiskey in the mid- lation 200) with one purpose in mind – to see Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in assess- “Yes, he did, but one day my friend was so dle of the day, looking for the craic, and spending inordinate amounts of whether the library had enough books and the ing the Irish character: “Other people see things singing, tanked that as we were crossing one of the time talking about sex, women, God and the offside rule in soccer. playground swings worked properly. and say, ‘Why?’ but I dream things that never dancing and [Dublin] bridges he suddenly said, ‘Oh, feck it’, That’s what Seamus and I did. We ignored the forest and headed straight “You know,” he declared passionately to us, his were and I say, ‘Why not?’ ” and threw the guitar case [with his guitar inside] for the mists and emerald valleys of Ireland, with one simple ambition in softened vowels and sharpened consonants sing- And that’s exactly what Seamus and I had said storytelling over the edge.” mind: delve deep into the subjects that interest us, but find the music. ing their own delightful melody, “as the minister to ourselves on the eve of Seamus’s 50th birthday. – could not “Is that right?” said the old fiddler. road Oh sure, we had other quests in mind. We wanted to explore the lunar says, ‘If you colonise the imagination you have “Why not?” Why not do a boys’ own tour of be bought “Yes, and we watched the white guitar case float Blame the music, or the whiskey, or the landscape of the Burren in north-west County Clare and walk to the top of nothing left.’ ” Ireland for 10 days? The wives were working, the and sold. down the river for a long time until it washed up leprechauns, but when David Leser the Atlantic-battered Cliffs of Moher, among the tallest cliffs in Europe. We Those words had stayed with me ever since, children were at school and, God knows, Seamus on the opposite bank and my friend looked at it and a friend organise a boys’ own tour wanted to take a ferry to the Aran Islands – Inisheer, Inishmaan, Inishmore partly because I knew I’d be waiting a long time needed a break. What better time to journey to for a while and then said, ‘Oh, feck it’, and ran – to see what it felt like being, as Irish poet Seamus Heaney once put it, to hear an Australian politician say something the land of scholars and saints, priests and poets, down and got it back.” of the Emerald Isle, they have the time “three stepping stones out of Europe”. similar, but also because they told you a good minstrels and troubadours than this? Seamus and I took that image of a white case of the middle of their lives. We wanted to drive the precipitous mountain passes and descend into the deal about a people who were (to borrow a floating down a gunmetal river into the west of deep ravines and green gorse-filled meadows of the famed west coast and, phrase from another famous Irish writer, William it certainly wasn’t going to be for the Ireland the next morning as we headed for the of course, visit towns like Doolin, Dingle and Killarney, as well as stumble Butler Yeats) “one of the great stocks of Europe food, judging from our first night in Dublin, small seaside village of Doolin, known far and across quaint villages we’d never heard of – places such as Lahinch, known … the people of Swift, the people of Emmet, the where the restaurant was called The Gruel and wide for its lively jig and reel sessions. for its surfing, or Lisdoonvarna, home to possibly the largest matchmaking people of Parnell”. the motto declared, “We gruel, you drool.” The On our way to Doolin we discovered Lisdoon­ festival in Europe. (And yes, we’ll come to that.) Both Seamus and I knew fragments of Ireland’s chicken was unrelated to anything we’d ever varna – as noted, the matchmaking capital of We wanted all this and more, but really what we wanted was the music. long, sad history, a history marred by centuries- encountered before. Europe, where every September up to 40,000 We both loved many of the Irish musicians like Van Morrison, U2, Sinéad old political and religious persecution, cata- On our second night in Dublin, we got the fla- people come in search of love. Most of them pin O’Connor, the Chieftains, Luka Bloom and the Corrs (well, okay, maybe not strophic famine, poverty and mass migration. vour of what was to come when we took our seats their hopes on Willie Daly, son of a matchmaker, the Corrs for their music!), and we loved the idea that in the face of We’d both investigated the so-called “Troubles” in the “listening area” of the Cobblestone pub in grandson of a matchmaker, and who today is

Green acres: sunset on Clare Island, off the west coast of Ireland.

72 Good Weekend October 23, 2010 October 23, 2010 Good Weekend 73 himself regarded as the “last matchmaker” of disastrously, the country’s debt has soared and After Saint Patrick arrived in the fifth century Ireland, although he hadn’t been very successful young people like Noel and Oonagh are dream- to drive the snakes away, the filiads took over with Barbara, the Polish receptionist at one of the ing once more of migrating to countries such as from the Druids as the sacred poets and bards of “matchmaking” hotels in town. the United States and Australia. this ancient Celtic land. They committed every- “He keeps trying to match me every year,” “People are desperate to leave,” Oonagh said thing to memory. They knew all the myths and Barbara told us, “but they’re all old Irish farmers, between sips of Guinness, the music building legends. They knew about the ancient warriors and, even though I love the countryside, I think around us – first, the flautist and the fiddler, then and the spirit folk who lived under the waters of that’s going too far. Besides, I think even the Irish the button accordion player, now the guitarist the lake. would agree they are not the best-looking people and the bodhrán player – all jamming in a space From the 17th century on, when Oliver in the world.” (It has to be said that Barbara was no bigger than a walk-in wardrobe. Cromwell and his successors made it almost ille- no Rose of Tralee, either!) “Yes, it’s small,” Noel agreed, nodding towards gal to be Catholic in Ireland, the role of education Unfortunately, Willie Daly wasn’t in town the the musicians’ playing area. “I’ve got a good in general – and stories and song in particular – day we arrived – for 11 months of the year he fiddler friend who wanted to play in pubs but assumed even greater importance, as Frank trains ponies on his farm in Ballingaddy – but we The jam: (above) musicians was so used to playing alone in his bedroom that McCourt was to describe in his international were able to glean a little of his character via word fight for space in a pub in whenever he played in a pub, he kept bumping best-seller Angela’s Ashes: “The English wouldn’t of mouth and from the book he wrote, The Last rural Ireland. into the other musicians. So he went home and let the Catholics have schools because they want- Matchmaker: The Heartwarming True Story of the put himself inside his closet and played there ed to keep the people ignorant,” he wrote, and so Man Who Brought Love to Ireland. until he got comfortable.” “the Catholic children met in hedge schools in We found that, as with many of the good peo- the depths of the country and learnt English, ple of this largely Gaelic-speaking region, Willie he irish have been telling stories Irish, Latin and Greek. was superstitious. He believed in fairies, ghosts, since ancient times. There are probably “The people loved learning. They loved stories leprechauns and screaming banshees. He blessed Tfew people in the world – certainly none and poetry even if none of this was any good for himself whenever he saw two magpies together. in the English-speaking world – who draw so getting a job. Men, women and children would He knew of secret love potions that would guar- heavily on the oral traditions of their ancient gather in ditches to hear those great masters and antee a person’s affections were returned. Ireland’s past as do the Irish. everyone wondered at how much a man could “I am a great believer in the magic of romance,” songs and Rebel stories. Stories for weddings. Stories for carry in his head.” he has said, “in that wonderful moment when, the eve of battle. Stories for the beginning of For 10 days Seamus and I wondered, too, at the often out of nowhere (or so it seems), the first stories reveal spring and the warming of a new home. Stories lyricism of the Irish as we dawdled our way from hint of love emerges. What keeps me busy match- a people’s that draw on the dreams of humankind. Stories Doolin to Dingle, then on to Killarney via the making is the hope of watching that magical enduring for strangers. Stories dressed in riddles. Ring of Kerry. In every village an accordion process happen yet one more time.” Winston Churchill once said, “We have always player, tin whistler and folk singer. In practically The following night, in Doolin’s famed capacity for found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be every pub a live-music session, and at the O’Connor’s pub, Seamus and I met Noel and celebration English.” Little wonder. They’ve been telling Irish Celtic T-shirt shop in Lahinch an aural encounter Oonagh, a young Irish couple possessed of the in the face stories and singing Irish songs for centuries. Sad with Shane MacGowan himself from the Irish love potion but disillusioned with the Ireland love songs. Happy war songs. Songs and stories band the Pogues. that has emerged from the “Celtic Tiger” boom of of extreme that reveal a people’s enduring capacity for cele- “What’s he singing?” I asked Josie behind the

a few years ago. Property prices have collapsed hardship. bration in the face of extreme hardship. counter of the T-shirt shop, as the Pogues’ song PREVIOUS PAGES AND THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES Fairytale of New York blared from the stereo. Seamus and I doing the same. In a Doolin pub en days came and went in a blur of Josie blushed, paused, and then broke into over successive Jamesons we agreed that sex was ring forts and castles, wild coastline, song herself: eternally fascinating and ingeniously constructed, Twhiskey and song, and on the way back that a work-life balance was essential but that a to Dublin airport, our taxi driver told us about You scumbag, you maggot career in mid-life required strategising more a friend of his who had gone to Lindoosvarna You cheap lousy faggot carefully than ever, that getting older was almost 10 years ago and for whom Willie Daly had found Happy Christmas your arse certainly a future of declining fortunes, and that a wife. “Oh, yes, they’re still happily married,” I pray God it’s our last. if one couldn’t find God, one could at least un- he said. derstand another great mystery of the universe – We expressed our delight to the taxi driver In Dingle, we were soaked to the bones with the offside rule in soccer. about all the music we’d heard since landing in more music – from the two flautists playing Bach On the beach at Inch, where they filmed the his country and we asked him if he, too, hap- in the ceramic shop on our first morning, to the 1970 movie Ryan’s Daughter, we talked more pened to be a musician. Cork blues/soul band playing in the town square about God (still no answers there) and about “Oh, no,” he said, “but when I go away I like to that afternoon, to the symphony orchestra’s “greatness” and what it was that qualified a per- do karaoke.” performance that evening of The Brendan Voyage, The craic: (above) the son for such a title. What do you sing? we asked. a musical re-enactment – and musical meeting author during his travels We agreed that Nelson Mandela, because of his “Oh, I do Frank Sinatra’s My Way, but you have between symphony orchestra and uilleann around Ireland. capacity to forgive, was truly great and that Kevin to warm up for that to get the high note.” pipes – of the sixth-century solo voyage of an Rudd probably wasn’t. We agreed that John What’s been your best karaoke moment? Irish monk. Lennon was great, but so, too, Paul McCartney, “I think doing Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock in Malta.” The next day, in the Celtic and Prehistoric although McCartney suffered in the public im- Did the place go off? Museum on the Dingle Peninsula, the manager, This then agination from not having died. “Oh, it did, yes.” Harris Moore, revealed himself as not just a led us to the We argued about whether Bob Hawke was We asked him whether he was still reliving museum guide but a guitar, harp, mandolin, greater than Paul Keating – Seamus said yes, I the moment. mandocello and hammered dulcimer player. unexpected said no – but then somehow we digressed to the “That I am, yes.” Moore was also a singer-songwriter who’d just pleasures subject of children and marriage and what it was And who else do you like performing? penned a song called Where the Feck Is Dingle?, of poetry that made some marriages stick and others fall “Well, I love doing Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman,” and as we headed out the door his rhyming apart. (Keeping alive a desire – if not for sex, then he said, and as we were lifting our bags from the couplets followed: and what just for the same dream – seemed crucial to both car, Seamus, the taxi driver and I suddenly began it was in of us.) a three-part harmony of Pretty Woman right Flew into Kerry, got myself a car rental mid-life that This then led us to the unexpected pleasures there in the Dublin airport car park. Within half an hour I was going frickin’ mental of poetry and what it was in mid-life that George Bernard Shaw wrote that Ireland was Twenty-four miles and I ain’t seen a sign brought one brought one alive: travel, music, good conversa- like “no other place under heaven”. “No man,” he of Dingle alive: travel, tion, our children. wrote, “can touch its sod or breathe its air with- Dingle, where the feck is Dingle? music, good We were in happy agreement on all that. The out becoming better or worse.” conversation lurched and drifted. We were on the Seamus and I touched its sod, breathed its air, nearly everyone we met during our 10 days conversation, beach at Inch. and in the middle of our lives we came away in Ireland wanted to talk (or sing) and it got our children. We felt entitled to take a mile. richer for it.