unironedman

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain.

‘In my life’
Lennon and McCartney

It is St. Patrick’s Day as I type this. Do I like this most Irish of festivals that has seen our proud nation’s profile (and our very green standard) raised at many points all around the globe? Do I fuck. Apologies after the fact for the crudity. Once Patrick became shortened to ‘Patty’, all hope was lost. The parade is a stateside invention courtesy of Irish ex-pats (you said what? ed) abroad, serving in the British army, and the first recorded parade would appear to have been in New York in 1762.

We had the decency when I were a lad to wrap up all the shenanigans in one (always cold, wet and blustery) March day, but now the damn thing has to go on for a whole week, thanks to the poor green, white and golden goose getting its neck wrung by the marketing guys and gals at Bord Fáilte. It’s a boon for the hospitality industry here, and it kicks off the tourist season in style (along with rip-off hotel prices and green inflatable hammers; as we all know, St. Patrick’s weapon of choice was his trusty plastic hammer for batin’ the pagans around the head).

I suppose one mustn’t grumble. It’s an amazing coup as a promotional tool for the country, and it gets us into the White House each year, with our bowl of shamrock. Needless to say, this year, all eyes were on our Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, to see how he’d handle Trumpty Dumpty. The general sense was that all was well in that department, but then, Micky Martin wouldn’t be one to front up to anyone these days.

So why does the whole world want to be Irish for a day (or even a week)? I suppose the truth is most don’t know or care about it, but we do seem to have emigrated to every conceivable country on the planet, and we brought our Irishness with us. And that’s to be treasured and celebrated when we are talking about music, language and culture. But if you want to be truly Irish these days, you need to come to Dublin and try and get a job (assuming you’re not working as a CEO in the tech industry) that pays the bills and find somewhere to live that doesn’t rob half your salary at very least.

Other countries, like the UK and Denmark, have citizenship tests. Coming to the UK? Okay. Where is Alton Towers and how much is a ride on the Corkscrew? And since Brexit, how many perches in a rood? Can I eat the swans in Hyde Park? Can you say ‘it’s rough passing through Loughborough, though’. That sort of thing. Nothing of the sort here! We could ask you to read Peig but you’d run screaming. No, ours is a trial of wits, strength and above all, endurance. Before your life savings run out, you must find a job AND accommodation, then find a crèche for your kids that doesn’t take the other half of your salary, and the third part of the Great Trial (Irish scholars know intuitively that Brehon Law always offers up its wisdom in three parts) is to spend over two years on a hospital waiting list to treat a medical ailment that may well end up killing you in the meantime.

Céad míle fáilte, everbody!

Okay, now that I’ve channelled my inner Flann O’Brien, I feel I can move on with the more traditional blog, if that’s okay with you, dear reader.

The week passed without too much incident. Work was grand, even if I had to do six days thanks to my decision to take Saturday off to watch the rugby with my brother. I did have a few ‘moments’; the first was when I spotted Jim strolling across the yard. Jim comes in Monday to Friday, and repairs the ride-on mowers. It’s his only job, and he avoids the shop like the plague. Wise man. He is past retirement age but will probably have to be dragged out of the workshop. He’s good craic and has been very helpful to me since I started. He worked in Tara Mines most of his life, so whilst his soft, drawn-out Meath brogue might fool you, he’s harder than a toughened steel 32mm SDS drill bit (which we sell, of course; on the Diager stand to the right of the counter…). Well, Jim reminded me of a character my Dad had recounted whilst working on a big job. This man was a caretaker for a large construction firm, and his nickname was ‘The Ghost’ due to his habit of appearing without warning. I think his primary purpose was to catch lads having a smoke or an unsanctioned tea break.

So, in a split second, I found myself saying ‘I must tell Dad about that…’ which was the first sucker punch, and then a few days later, on my way back from delivering a mower to a house in Dublin, I found myself staring up at the Dublin Mountains, with Three Rock directly in front of me, and the tears started welling up. Funny how that all works. I am literally surrounded by his handiwork every day of my life, but these moments catch you off-guard. Seamus Heaney nailed it in Postscript. But then, Seamus nailed it every time.

I assure you I am still running. For now, the weekly challenges from Gary via Garmin Connect seem to have abated, but I don’t want to poke the bear! This week, I managed two reasonable 10k runs in the park on Tuesday and Thursday, and then yesterday, with lots to do around the house and Saoirse away in Belfast, I figured my body deserved a treat, so I pared back my long run to a half-marathon. Yes. You know you’re going a bit doolally when you think a half-marathon is a ‘short’ long run, but that’s where we are, dearest reader.

A couple of weeks ago, a mate had sent me a text that read ‘Your old gate lodge is gone’. I hadn’t paid too much attention to it. I was well aware of the works going on up at our old house. We had lived in an old gate lodge for ten years from 1996 to 2006. It was part of the Guinness-owned Leixlip Castle estate, so the Hon. Desmond Guinness was our landlord. Good times, indeed, and many stories from that decade abound. Another day.

Even back then, surveyors had come out to measure the land for development, so we always knew one day there would be a reckoning. Not long after we left, the field opposite was turned into a new housing estate, and then more recently, they tackled our old haunt. First to go was part of the old stone wall at the front, for access. A new road was ploughed through the garden, and the apple orchard I had helped to plant was all uprooted and flattened. But the house still stood, perhaps protected by a preservation order.

But I thought I would perhaps wander that way yesterday and see what was going on. It is indeed gone. Totally. In its place are the foundations for a new home. It’s not on the same footprint, and from what Tamsyn was able to glean from planning permissions online, it would appear that the developers have well overstepped the mark here. Rather than make repairs, they have chosen to demolish the entire structure, including the extension that we had cajoled Desmond into building for us when Tamsyn came along and we needed an extra bedroom. And, of course, the mini shanty town of lean-to sheds I had constructed out the back – they are all gone too. No harm, to be fair; the house was badly-built with no insulation or damp-proofing. The plumbing was a shambles. But of course, it had charm, and we have a lot of happy memories tied up there.

(And now that it’s gone, I will start to unearth these, more and more. Here are two simple ones: our landlord was a decent skin, and if I asked him for something, he would usually sort it out, often with his wife Penny haranguing him mercilessly to get it sorted! I had convinced him to get a patio at the front, and suggested if he funded the slabs, I would lay them myself. He agreed but was horrified at the thought of cheap concrete on his property, so I was dispatched to an up-market salvage yard where I was instructed to buy a dozen, square yard Indian sandstone slabs at fifty pounds each, this being in a time before the Euro. Six-hundred quid for a patio that I could have put in for less than a hundred was quite the thing! I wonder did anyone salvage them once more, or where they just bulldozed into a skip?

The other one was when Dallan was a nipper and we were trying to part him from his soother. This was proving difficult, so we drew up a treasure map together, and buried his dodie in a little box in the lawn with the promise that if he ever needed it, we would know exactly where it was.)

It was all a bit gloomy. I took a few pictures and sent them on to the family Whatsapp group, then pushed on towards Barnhall and my first destination, which was Castletown Demesne. I had a vague sense of the route ahead, which was enough to suggest that I may need to add a few diversions to get some distance in. So once through the entrance gates, I turned right into the woods, which gave me my first magical moment as a large Buzzard was negotiating its own route through the canopy. Once out into the open again, as I passed the house, an equally impressive Raven flew overhead, croaking in a way that only Ravens can croak.

I double-backed on myself to add some miles, passing along the impressive ha-ha ditch. I was reminded of this event from a previous time. Then it was along by the river, and back down the main avenue. I was loathe to take the old driveway exit out onto the motorway as it is now all fenced off due to the ongoing dispute, but that was the route I had planned, so I went that way and managed to pass over the gate without incident. (Mark Twain’s ‘some of the worst things in my life never happened’ might apply here).

Then it was over the M4 motorway junction and left through Kilmacredock before crossing the railway line and back onto the canal. Do you look each way when you cross the rail tracks? Even if you’ve just seen the train pass and the barriers lift? I do. I appreciate trains aren’t able to sneak up on you like ninja assassins, but I still look. Call me crazy. I don’t mind.

Now my running brain and the small part of it that tries to do calculations on the fly were pressed into service. I had about 12k under the belt. I needed another 9 at least. For some some inexplicable reason, the pace had been lifting a little for the last few kilometres. I was adopting the approach that if I ignored it, I might be able to sustain it, whilst assuming that at some point, it would plummet like a stone once the legs copped on to what the brain was avoiding. Writing cheques you cannot cash is another way of putting it.

(incidentally, some songs are great to run to. The Walk of Life by Dire Straits, for example, will have you clipping along at 5:20 pace, if you keep up with the jaunty beat).

Well, rather than slow down, the canal towpath seemed to encourage me to speed up. With about 5k to go, I was making more calculations. Then four to go. Then three. If I had 1:45 on the watch, what would I need to do to get a sub-two hour half? Could I throw in another three 5 minute kilometres? Then don’t forget that sneaky bit at the end, even if it is only 100 metres. (And to really be a tiresome bore (!), this is against a background that most of my long runs are about 6:10 pace). My route wasn’t going to allow me to run straight home; with two from the entrance to the park to my door, I would need to throw in another kilometre somewhere. But my brain wasn’t keeping up with my legs, it would seem. I went from ‘no, you can’t do it’ to ‘maybe you can’ to ‘shut up! you’ll never do it with that attitude!’ to ‘fuck it, I think I’ve made a balls of the calculations…’

Quite the inner monologue as I pushed for home. No doubt casual park strollers had no idea of the rapidly whirring swan’s legs of my mind as I serenely floated by. My watch beeped once more and this time I paid attention to the figures on the screen. Hang on a minute… that says 1:45… I thought we had done that five minutes ago… which was when I realised that rather than being up against the clock, I was actually ahead of myself. Literally.

I coasted home in 1:54.37. So I even had those five minutes to spare, with the last four kilometres all done under 5 minutes per k, and each one progressively faster; the last one being 4:39. They say hunger is the best sauce. Turns out panic is the best incentive to run faster. Garmin tells me the last time I ran a faster half was with Gary back in September of 2021; a far more evenly-paced training run that kept to a 5 minute per k pace throughout and didn’t require me to break my neck at any point.

And I felt pretty good after it too. All of which suggests that there might just be something to this training lark after all.

Have a nice long weekend, whatever you’re up to. And if you haven’t been granted this bonus holiday, you clearly haven’t seen the green-tinted light. Have a word with your government. Ireland needs you. But you need Ireland more 😉