A young poet arrived at the door on election day, with a woman from Donegal known for her sweet singing voice, and an infant which she carried like an icon. I wondered were they canvassing but he said they were just wandering around looking for holly.
“You might as well come in,” I suggested, and they did; him and the singer and the infant, and I felt obliged to offer them food.
I had two stews in the fridge; one based on a Ballymaloe recipe, and the other being my own creation; involving mustard seeds, cumin and turmeric, which I call the Leitrim Curry.
Being a scholar of ancient Irish texts, the poet recited stories after we supped. In fact over the following few hours as he sat on the sofa with the singer by his side and the infant squashed between them, he recited many stories, and the woman sang sean-nós songs sweeter than a blackbird.
I actually tried a few bars of The Croppy Boy but it didn’t quite match the exquisite music of the woman from Donegal.
As the clock chimed midnight we were engrossed in the text of a story by Sean Eamon Maguire, the renowned seanachaí from Glangevlin who died almost 100 years ago.
It’s about a man who put a bee down the back of his wife’s blouse; a bad deed certainly although a wonderful opening, we all agreed, for any drama.
In the background an endless stream of politicians prattled away on the television but we kept the sound off so they wouldn’t bother us.
I was wondering when the three guests would leave, but in the end they opted for the spare bedroom and in the morning we tossed a few fish on the pan and enjoyed a sturdy breakfast before venturing out into the winter fog to find some more libation.
By 4am the wine bottles were empty and we could only wait for the red streaks of dawn to appear, drinking hot tea and speculating about Christmas
The Thatch Pub, not far from Carrick-on-Shannon, is such a wonderland of archaic furniture, candlelight and haunting music that I would give it my vote for best pub in the country and I was hoping that the lady and the poet would get a chance to dazzle the clientele with poems and songs. Unfortunately the bar was closed, it still being early morning, and we were sorely disappointed.
There was nothing to do but return to my own fireside and begin again to eat and drink, to talk and sing.
All through the dusk of that second evening we spoke of ghosts and the scent of grief that remains long after a loved one has died. We spoke of rituals to do with funerals and how we who live in modernity don’t appreciate the full mystery of death; that liminal moment when someone abandons the anxiety of impermanent being, and leaps into the being of unchanging eternity.
And the lady from Donegal stood up more than once in the middle of these ruminations and sang the blues, which often left us silent, with only the television screen flickering in our eyeballs as political gurus examined the entrails of the election to discern any signs of how we might be governed in the coming years.
By 4am the wine bottles were empty and we could only wait for the red streaks of dawn to appear, drinking hot tea and speculating about Christmas and what part of Kerry the three wise men came from.
We were so full of giddy life that we could hardly be put to bed at all. Although eventually we all fell into a great slumber in various corners of the house and rose in the morning to break the fast with eggs and bacon before stretching our legs on the road to the holy well of Beo-Aodh – lively Hugh.
From above the stone cowl that covers the well we plucked twigs of berried holly and divided them evenly between us. Then the poet and the singer and their infant headed back to Donegal. I turned my face towards the hills above Lough Allen, to the heat of the kitchen range, and the smiling faces of two cats.
A neighbour stopped me at my gate to chat about the election and what I thought of the result. But although I am committed to democracy as an art form, I was compelled to admit that the result of the election didn’t interest me in the slightest.