unironedman

Well, as Gary said earlier (and I paraphrase somewhat), that’s the evening’s entertainment sorted! As it turned out, he is as impatient as I am, and sat down and watched our film this afternoon, and has given it five stars. Now, I didn’t ask if that was out of ten. Nor would I point out that there may be some bias in this review, given that Gary supplied half the footage from the day itself, and was instrumental in the whole thing going ahead…

But, as I am prone to, I am ‘going ahead’ myself. So let me recap.

On the 19th July, Gary and I had a small adventure. You can read about it here. I had hoped to take on the Western Way out in Mayo, but then for shits and giggles, I threw myself off my roof and ended up in hospital with a few broken bones. All bets were off for a while, but as I got back on my feet in both the metaphorical and literal sense, I figured a wee adventure might be just the tonic to redress the balance.

And so, I only had to mention the sniff of the idea to Gary and he was on board quicker than a Barbary corsair. (That’s not really a saying. I might have made it up. As Sam Goldwyn once famously quipped: “Let’s have some new clichés!”).

You can get a potted overview of the Slieve Bloom Way here. It’s a looped walk of over 70kms, and can be found in the midlands of Ireland. Most folk think of the midlands as being flat and somewhat boggy, but the Slieve Blooms are a mountain range between counties Laois and Offaly, and are rather splendid in their own way. They don’t have the cachet of the Connemara ranges, or the peaks around Killarney, but they have their own charm and loads of history. They are not particularly a ‘destination’ attraction, and that is being somewhat addressed by the tourist board in their rebranding of the regions.

As I see it, the less popular these places are, the more us folk can enjoy them without the hordes descending. A snob? Moi? Never! But I’ve seen the queues to ascend the likes of Scafell Pike in the Lake District, and, well… no thanks! On the day we were on the Way, we really didn’t cross paths with any other hikers until we met the busy loops at Capard and Glen Barrow, and even then, you are only talking a small handful. We mostly had the place to ourselves. Admittedly, we set off very early on a Friday morning. But it did take us all day. Over 77kms in total, and about 16 hours, including a lot of stoppages.

Anyway! It’s launch day! The red carpet has been rolled out. The premiere is on, and you are all invited!

HERE IS THE LINK!

Make sure to change your settings so you can watch it in HD, or at least, the highest setting your computer and browser will allow. Stick it in full screen mode. Go on. Spoil yourself!

After that, well, just make a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy! They are fun to do. The actual adventures themselves are obviously good craic, and even though I have made something of a rod for myself, I have enjoyed putting these little films together, as you are required to not just edit all the footage together into something vaguely watchable, but also write some form of a script, record it, and then add some homemade music and graphics.

On this particular day out, my normally dependable GoPro bombed out around a third of the way, so I was lucky I had been taking some footage with the iPhone, as had Gary, so we had enough in the tank to paper over the cracks. Which is a mixed metaphor that feels somewhat apt under the circumstances. The glitch was a software one that rendered all the clips I had taken unusable. I did try a few software remedies to save the footage, but nothing worked, alas. Suffice to say, the bulk of the film has been shot on our iPhones. Where it suffers a little is the on-location audio, but for that, I make no real apologies. This is a form of eco-meets-gonzo film-making, so don’t expect awesome drone footage.

Thanks once more to Gary O’Daly, who loves the madness as much as I do, and has already proposed a possible adventure for next year. I just need to stay in the gym, and stay off my roof…

But, to quote the other Gary, ‘you don’t really care about that. You just want show tunes! Curtains up…’