Continuing the unexpurgated diaries from Ballina in the late 1960s
Monday, October 31st, 1966
I see that Castlebar is upset by Cathal O'Shannon's recent Newsbeat report on the town. "Castlebar resents ass cart image," the Western People tells us. Many scenic shots of the town were centred around an ass and cart, piglets and other rural emblems.
This was "a typical sneering Dublin approach", according to one of the local councillors, who had no fault to find with the shots of the bonhams as this was "a natural thing on market day", but saw "no balance" between these shots and the progressive side of the town, such as the Mall, new schools, factories and the swimming pool.
Whatever about the swimming pool, which has certainly put Ballina in its place, the councillor has the wrong end of the stick. He should be proud that piglets are running free through the streets of Castlebar.
They are a potent symbol of the rural-urban unity that must certainly be our aim if this nation is ever to break free of the paralysis that grips its entrails. Surely Castlebar, from which the British bully was routed so famously (if briefly) by the great Gen Humbert, can rise above a so-called sneer by our capital city, which itself must fall far short of great metropolises such as London, Paris and New York.
I will say nothing of the philosophical foolishness of attempting to find "balance" in any human endeavour, never mind a one-horse (or one-ass) town like Castlebar.
Tuesday, November 1st.
Still recovering (as I am) from last weekend in Dublin, I doubt at this stage if I could cope with the fabled nightlife of London, Paris or New York.
I stayed with Noeleen in her tiny flat off Grove Road in Rathmines, where for the first time I met her flat-mates Mary and Geraldine, who hail respectively from Roscommon and Leitrim. With Mayo, these are of course the most impoverished counties in Ireland, so the three young women have something in common.
Geraldine, a large and hearty girl in a short skirt, is a trainee nurse at the Mater Hospital, and she introduces herself as being from "Mullinavallybeag, two miles out the road beyond Cloonfad. Arrah you must know it Michael".
"Oddly enough," I reply, "I don't." The irony is lost on her. I have forgotten that if you live west of the Shannon you are presumed to know every godforsaken village, its inhabitants and its history.
Mary, a not unattractive creature with short blonde hair, meanwhile inspects me as if I were some new garment presented for her appreciation, and one which does not match up to her expectations. "Is it the county library you're working in then?" she asks. I explain that my place of employment is not the Castlebar headquarters but the Ballina outpost. "Ah sure some day maybe," she replies consolingly.
This girl, I understand from Noeleen, is on grade two of the clerical level in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. That is the next to lowest grade and yet she feels able to patronise me. I must master the art of the instant put-down. Otherwise I will leave myself open to a life of humiliation by junior civil service clerks and the like.
However, I soon forget the slur when I see the huge feed of very tasty if unusual food which Geraldine slaps up in front of us in foil containers an hour later. When I ask politely who has prepared this fabulous repast, Mary says: "Probably the Emperor of China himself." The three young women nearly fall off their chairs laughing. The Emperor of China, it turns out, is their local Chinese "takeaway".
This is the sort of sophisticated food outlet which shows up the poverty of Ballina cuisine (though I have heard a rumour that a Chinese restaurant is soon to grace the town). But though Mary certainly puts away her share of rice, sweet-and-sour pork, garlic bread and fried chicken, she says all "this foreign muck" is highly over-rated and "you'd be better off with a good feed of ham and spuds". In Cloonfad, presumably.
At any rate we wash all this down with two enormous bottles of a superb white wine (French, I believe) called "Hirondelle", though I have to drink mine from a green plastic tooth-mug, there being only three pint glasses in the flat.
I am already beginning to feel a heady sense of sophistication and elegant living here in Dublin. The Beatles are screaming "Please Please Me" on Noeleen's record-player (His Master's Voice, a present from Jerome), we have a six-pack of Phoenix each for the party to which we are invited later on, and as Geraldine points out loudly, a little giddy on her feet, "the night is young".
My memories of the excellent party must wait for another day; one in which I will hopefully be able to move without alcohol-induced pain racking my every muscle.
bglacken@irish-times.ie