Belfast

The cover of the current issue of Ireland's Own caught my eye.

Donncha with mike in hand reminded me of a trip to Belfast on the toy train at the height of the troubles. If I remember correctly Donncha had either organised it or was part of the organising group. The idea was to bring toys up to Belfast from the south for the children of internees in the north. We were also to provide some entertainment for the kids and to this end a number of "celebrities" had signed up for the trip. When it came to the crunch that morning in Connolly Station it turned out a fair few of them had funked it.

The kids were assembled in the Ardoyne Hall and I distinguished myself by knocking over a fully lit Christmas tree as I went out on stage. The kids thought that was great. I told them I was going to sing a song and they could clap or tap their feet along with it. This was greeted by a thunderous roar of stamping feet which it took the stewards a good few minute to quieten down. Then I canvassed animal names for Old McDonald had a Farm and was totally mystified by the response of one of the youngsters. The animal in question finally turned out to be a cow but the unaccustomedly strong Belfast accent made it sound like a totally new species.

Anyway, the song was sung and the toys were distributed and the southerners returned safely home.

My first visit to Belfast was passing through in the 1950s when we went on holidays to nearby Bangor. I particularly remember three things from that holiday in Bangor. Much to our surprise, disgust and fear, our landlord turned out wearing a sash in the Orange parade on the twalfth of July. Post WWII rationing was still in force in the north and we got what we thought was our chocolate coupons for the first week of our fortnight's stay. We were very surprised and disappointed when we went back for our second week's coupons to find we had already consumed our full fortnight's ration. And, finally, I remember cutting the ads off the town map which was available for free at the Pickie Pool, opposite our lodgings, and selling copies in the street for a penny each. Happy Days.

My third time in Belfast was with the Irish language folk group Tŷ Bach when we made an LP, Téanam Ort, in Billy McBurney's recording studio. It should be worth a few bucks now as a vinyl rarity.

Little did I think then that I would later return on business as co-chair of the EU Peace Programme Monitoring Committee. I don't know if it's apocryphal, but the rumour was that the original name for the programme was Special Northern Ireland Programme for Economic Recovery but that some wide awake acronymist nipped that one in the bud (SNIPER).

And my last time in Belfast was last year to attend Craig Murray's talk on the Falls Road during Féile an Phobail.

But back to Donncha. The occasion of the extensive article by Gerry Breen in Ireland's Eye was the publication last September by Three Sisters Press of Donncha's new book Donncha's World - The Roads, the Stories, and the Wireless, in conversation with Declan Lyons. .

Good to see he's still on the go. The only man I know who could talk the hind legs off a leprechaun.

Update: Sadly Donncha died on 4/9/2021. RIP

When out walking the other day I remembered another Donncha story.

Donncha's wife taught in a boy's primary school in Ballybrack, where I used to live. At some stage Donncha asked me if I would do a presentation for the class on the history of Ballybrack as he knew I had a talk on that subject.

I said OK but nothing specific was arranged at that stage. Imagine my surprise when, one morning out of the blue, I got an emergency call from Donncha in my work in town. Donncha had told his wife I'd do the presentation and she had set a date. But nobody told me and he apologetically explained that I had been billed for that very morning.

Fortunately I was able to leave work and rush out to Ballybrack school, but I had nothing prepared. So I decided to tell them about the French invasion of Killiney Bay that never was. But in the telling I conjured up the most gorey images I could think of out of what might have been.

Apparently it went down a bomb with the lads. Job Oxo.

Top o' the Mornin'

She may never have existed, but then neither did he.

While the City Council are attempting to give the city a bit of character with some excellent street sculpture around the place, this cretin is trying to turn it into a Hollywood set.

And he's holding out his hand for money for just standing there and ruining the view.

[Before I'm attacked by the s/he brigade, I am doing the ladies a favour by assuming that it's not one of the fair sex inside that thing.]

Pray God and pass the blood-pressure tablets.

It's OK to shoot Leprechauns

[See 2019 update below]
The other evening Sky News reported that the EU had declared the Irish Leprechauns of the Cooley Peninsula, in Co. Louth, a protected species. No more shooting those Leprechauns at the end of the rainbow in order to make off with their pot of gold.

Now we all know that Sky News is one of the most reliable channels in the world when it comes to facts. In this case they reported Co. Louth as being in Northern Ireland. This would certainly be news to the Boundary Commission (wound up in 1925) and it would be even more breaking news to the Irish Government which had, since 1922, expected the territory of Northern Ireland to diminish rather than increase as a result of the same Boundary Commission's findings.

The story appears to have originated from the Carlingford Leprechaun site where the designation by the EU of Leprechauns for heritage conservation was announced on 14 December 2009. It seems to have got recent traction in the run up to the National Leprechaun Hunt on 28 March 2010 (last Sunday). And it was picked up by various news media and even the NDP/EU funded Carlingford Heritage Centre, though their phrasing is a little more subtle.

The Leprechaun site carries a reproduction of a letter from the EU EEA confirming the original designation. I have queried the letter with the EU EEA and am assured that it is a forgery and that there is no designation of the Little People.

So, get out your blunderbuss, rally the relations, bring in the tourists, and off you go hunting the Leprechaun.

Because, you see, it's still OK TO SHOOT LEPRECHAUNS.

(PS: note the date. I'm posting early to warn my family in Australia, where it's already tomorrow, lest they fall for this silly story.)


[Update 30/01/2018: When originally posted, all the links above worked. Since then the Carlingford website, not to mention CNN's, has gone through many non-backwards-compatible mutations. The only trace on the site of the original material is a link to booking for the hunt, the latest version of which seems to be for the 2017 event.

Meanwhile, the whole thing has transferred to to a new bespoke site where there is no longer any mention of the EU jape.]