Michael Harding: It may surprise you that I took a passport to fly from Donegal to Dublin

I checked into a hotel in Dublin before heading off to do a sound check with the Blizzards, at the Academy in Middle Abbey Street, where they were launching their new album later that evening.

The reason I was involved in the sound check was simple; last year the Blizzards asked me if they could record my voice as background for one of their songs. I agreed. And then when the time came to launch the album they invited me to be on stage with them.

I used to sing along with their song Trust me, I’m a Doctor in the Pajero, years ago when I was driving the daughter to school, just to keep calm if the traffic in Mullingar was snarled up. I never thought I’d end up on stage with them, especially not since I qualified for a bus pass.

In the hotel foyer two American couples were discussing airline flights, boarding passes and Covid-19. I produced a face mask, attached it to my ears, and stood at reception. A woman behind the desk requested identification. I produced a passport which I had with me because I travelled from Donegal by plane that morning.

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It may surprise some people that I took a passport to Dublin, even though I was only coming from Donegal; but that's the price we pay for airport security, I suppose. It's the return journey from Dublin to Donegal that causes the bother; because there's only one security queue, whether you're going to Boston or Bundoran.

Receptionist

Anyway, I produced the document for the receptionist and she scrutinised it. The photograph was taken last year when the passport came up for renewal. I was recovering from serious illness at the time, and I have to admit that I’ve seen better-looking corpses. So whether or not the receptionist managed to identify the slightest resemblance between me and the photograph I can’t say; but eventually she handed me the key to a room.

I had no bottled water in my luggage, and that bothered me. Three years ago I had a heart attack in a hotel, and I’m no longer comfortable with the central heating in some establishments. I worry I might dehydrate in the night. So I always bring a bottle of sparkling water with me.

At home in the hills above Lough Allen I sleep with the window open, and even on summer nights the breeze from the lake and the rustle of trees cools me down.

Dublin hotels are a different kettle of fish. I close the windows because young people on the street below are usually enjoying life at such a level of intensity and sexual frenzy that they keep me awake. The squeals of a young person at full tilt on a stag or hen night in Temple Bar would keep David Attenborough awake.

I leaped from the bed in a panic, got out the door, ran down the wrong stairs, and ended up in a kitchen

But if I close the windows the central heating sucks moisture from the air and the lungs in my ribcage feel like two very large and dried prunes. And if I turn up the fan to get more air I feel like I’m lying under the wing of an aircraft with the engine running.

I flap like a whale and don’t sleep so I go out walking at the crack of dawn; negotiating my way around streets stained with cigarette butts, empty beer bottles and vomit, where young men are stretched in sleeping bags like dead seals on the pavement.

Sparkling water

So despite the sound check at 4pm, I went out to find my sparkling water and when I returned with a two-litre bottle under my oxter the receptionist eyed me with what I thought was unwarranted curiosity.

To be fair the room was splendid, and the bed was as extensive as a little bouncy castle. So, like Goldilocks, I lay down for a moment and fell instantly asleep. Until a text from the venue landed at 5pm; Where the f**k are you?

I leaped from the bed in a panic, got out the door, ran down the wrong stairs, and ended up in a kitchen. Then I burst through the foyer where a cluster of English men were waiting on a taxi and I almost knocked one of them over as I scurried through. They might even have heard me mutter those fabled words: Excuse me, I’m a doctor!

But they were not to know that I had an appointment with destiny, and no traffic could bar my way; I was gigging with the Blizzards.