As Claire went gallivanting off across the continent with her mother I stayed in Ireland with the O’Dwyers, who I like to term my foster family. I was barely at their house for 24 hours after the fashion show when Kathleen and I took the bus back down to Cork and the Fenton-Leogues to see Gillian play in the Cork Opera house. She was performing with her university on the Gamelan, an Indonesian instrument and the only one in Ireland. It was a very interesting performance, some traditional Indonesian pieces played as well as traditional Irish music, which was a strange but enlightening combination on these exotic instruments.
My days in Clonmel were mostly a chance for me to soak up a family atmosphere and remember this sweet little town. Jeanette left for Australia to see her mum not long after I got back and so my days were mostly spent with 15 year old Moya who was on school holidays. Kathleen got a job which started the week I got there and which she hates, but she is working to get to New York so she will take what work she can get. Martin would be out working for the day and pop back in for lunch in the sun and a chat. Moya and I were right little home bodies, we cleaned and cooked and walked into town to get cake in a cafe. We were also in charge of a pair of lambs over the Easter week. Two soft bleating bundles that needed feeding five times a day and who kept us entertained.
I did not spend the whole of my time in the house. Some of our activities included going to a hurling match, learning to ride a quad bike on Martin’s cousin’s farm, playing a bit of touch football with old friends, movie nights at Ais and Oisin’s, watching Kathleen practice and then perform The Passion for Easter mass, dinner by the river a few times, a trip with Aunt Mary to Carric-on-suir and then up the mountains to Mahon Falls, we had a BBQ on Easter Sunday with lots of friends and then went out on the town in Clonmel.
On my last day Kat, Moya and I climbed the mountain behind the town up to holy cross. It was an incredible climb that left us puffing, sweating and sore but the sense of accomplishment was great. Little did we know that although the hardest part was behind us, there was still a long way to go. We had lunch at the cross, known to me as ‘Ma phuka beag’ (thats how I would like to spell it) or ‘my little ghost’. We were aiming for Cary’s castle, a site which had been mentioned to me many times whilst I stayed in Clonmel but which I had never made it to. I found out why. It is a long way away. Kathleen was pretty sure she could get us there, and she did. It was 3 or more hours of walking over mountains, scaring sheep from our path, skirting pine forests, climbing fences and waving at cows, not getting stung by nettles and asking the only 2 people we passed if we were still going the right way. We were, and the castle was worth it. I’m a castle fan anyway but this one was beautiful, hidden and secretive, it still had a standing tower and stairs to a passage inside the walls. People were camping inside the ruins and with the river running nearby it was truly idyllic. My imagination ran wild with pictures of all the things that could have happened here in this private, protected area over the years.
That night was my last in Clonmel and possibly my last chance of seeing Kathleen in a long time as she plans to be in New York for 3 years so I was a little distressed, there were tears and hugs and in the morning when she said the final goodbye to me on her way to work I had pretty much worked it out of my system. On the bus down to Cork later in the day I just plugged my music into my ears and smiled out the window as Ireland went past all green and rounded, speckled with sunlight, fields of Canola seemed like spilt yellow paint on the landscape and I was in a general good mood when we got into the city. I met up with Graeme who I knew in school and we went for a drink until Emmet and Gil came to pick me up and I went back for yet another night with the ever hospitable Fenton-Leogues. Liz took me to the airport early in the morning and I arrived back in Hatfield at midday to a clean room, an excited Claire and lunch. I couldn’t have planned my Easter break to be any better than it was.
