Continuing the extracts from the Ballina diaries of the late 1960s . . .
Monday, September 29th, 1966: Though rather jumbled, the memories of Jimmy and Sean∅n's party in Galway will stay with me for a long time. I must say it went off well, starting and ending at no particular time that I can remember. There must have been over 100 people there at one stage, packed into their two dingy basement rooms.
The noise was incredible. Jimmy is a big Bob Dylan fan and I too approve of the artist's courageous battle against the banalities of American life, though it was a bit incongruous to hear those raucous lines like "How does it feel, to be on your own . . ." when one could hardly move for the throng of people. I was a bit surprised that Maureen was not there but did not bring up the subject with her supposed boyfriend, Sean∅n. Since she betrayed me, Maureen means nothing to me any longer.
"Quite a successful soiree, don't you think?" said Sean∅n to me early on in the evening. I can only presume this was a joke. Soiree indeed. You would think the fellow was hosting the New Year's Eve hunt ball in the Downhill instead of the drunken (and very enjoyable) free-for-all that was actually in progress.
Meanwhile P.J. spent the whole night deep in animated conversation with some sloe-eyed creature from Connemara, who despite being on the plump side was by no means bad-looking, and he took off with her and a six-pack of Phoenix at about 3 o'clock in the morning. No one has seen him since.
May Dame Fortune smile on him: P.J. has had little more success with women than I have had myself, and this dark mysterious creature from the remote lawless western shores of our benighted country might at last be the one to appreciate his many talents.
Actually, P.J. isn't all that talented, because if he was he surely wouldn't be working as a butcher's messenger for the last two years. But nobody can say he doesn't try hard - he just hasn't got the breaks yet. (There may not be that many breaks in the Ballina meat trade).
No doubt I will learn in good time how he has fared.
Tuesday, September 30th: Before retiring last night, I took a walk around town. At 9 o'clock, there was a queue of about 80 people waiting patiently if noisily in O'Rahilly Street for the bus to take them to Pontoon, where Brendan Bowyer was due to take the stage with the Royal Showband. In the meantime, they were being entertained by Martin O, surely the most cheerful town drunk in all of Ireland, who was regaling them loudly with Galway Bay.
In my opinion Martin O is no worse a singer than Brendan Bowyer, a plump-cheeked, curly-haired crooner who reduces his many female fans in dance halls around the country to a mass of heaving lustful jelly. Slow-sung ballads are his forte, and he has been ludicrously described as Ireland's answer to Elvis Presley.
I myself feel it would have been better had the question never been asked.
The ballroom at Pontoon is one of the great architectural gems of Co Mayo, its very own Taj Mahal. I am jesting, of course.
The Pontoon monument to rural lust looks in reality as if an enormous brick cowshed, weighing perhaps a couple of tons, was dropped from a great height, with the shattered remains then hastily reassembled at night by blind hominoids from the Pleistocene era with a mental age of 31/2 (and poor bricklaying skills).
Needless to add, this "ballroom" is also situated in an area of tremendous scenic beauty.
All of this was clearly of no consequence to the happy revellers queued up at the bus stop, no doubt looking forward to dancing the hugely embarrassing Hucklebuck ("wriggle like a snake, wobble like a duck") in this grim building, and drinking cheap sherry between dances on the balcony.
I don't mean they actually dance on the balcony, though I would not put that past some of them. Two of those present, I noted - Barney O'Hora and his long-time girlfriend Nora Butler - are occasional visitors to the library. My curiousity is piqued: I would like to know what people who are so easily "entertained" in our county's dance-halls actually read.
Sometimes I think psychology might be my forte, and perhaps should be my long-term career goal. I have certainly enough human material to study in Ballina.
By the way, I am pleased to have been able to use the word "piqued". Working in a library has some advantages.
(to be continued)
bglacken@irish-times.ie