SOUNDS FISHY
Daughters, aged eight and six, leap
onto our earlobes at 6:30am singing a rap-like duet about chickens which they make up as they go along. Head hurts, but Ireland won rugby match. Vague memories of loud crash during night which awoke dog who awoke girls who awoke me and Ally, and of long and fruitless conversations at 4am.
Stumble downstairs to find saucepan and book have inexplicably fallen from shelf. Who could have done that? Too high for the dog who looks at me, longing to tell, but obviously she can’t. Hope we don’t have a poltergeist. Vaguely note that fallen book is called Cod.
Drop girls into school and head to Mount Wolseley pool for quick swim. Onwards to office on Market Square in Tullow; everyone in town itching to know, will The Tank be punished for punching the Frenchman?
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I share offices with my fellow scribe and brother-in-law Tom Sykes. He is in the north-facing room and I find him clad in full-length black maxi puffer coat. Conversely my room radiates with gorgeous October sunshine. I remove my shades and pretend to shiver in deference to Tom’s chattering teeth.
His Eskimo look reminds me I am taking 11 Icelanders on a tour of Dublin on Wednesday. Everything has been weirdly Icelandic of late. I explain to Tom that after Brian Boru’s victory at Clontarf there was a mass exodus of Vikings to Iceland, complete with their Irish wives, slaves, concubines, foster children and penchant for epic literary sagas. He says: “Coffee?”
ONE—MATCH BAN
I call up my father who was in the Royal Navy and once told me about serving in the First Cod War when Britain deployed ships to lay claim to the waters off Iceland. The war ended with victory to Iceland when someone’s net was cut and a trawler rammed. Dad tells me he was rooting for the Icelanders all along. Way later, back home, girls asleep, I run a bath and pick up Cod which is, of course, all about Iceland.
Next morning I work from home, researching a piece on John Devoy, Irish rebel, whose statue is to be unveiled in Naas. Ally is in the kitchen, writing a novel. She used to work in an office with loads of other people who talked as they worked so she likes to chat as she writes. I’ve always worked in an office on my own. My replies are non-committal and I start accidentally writing down what she is saying.
Later I give a talk for the Old Athlone Society at the officers’ mess in Custume Barracks. I deliver a 60-minute ramble about the Easter Rising, including lesser-known tales about its remarkable cast. At the bar afterwards I converse with an army veteran who turns out to be Paul O’Connell’s uncle. As we talk, word leaks in that Seán O’Brien has been banned for the Argentina game. Stern nods, deep breaths, same again.
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I sleep pillowed within the Prince of Wales hotel in downtown Athlone.
YOU’VE GOT MAIL
The joy of having an office in Tullow is no rush hour. My morning drive from Athlone into Dublin is discombobulating but I reach the Gresham hotel in fine time and I am soon walking back out the door with 11 Icelandic business bods. They are a fun-loving crew, mainly involved in construction and engineering, although the spirited blonde is heiress to an ice-cream empire. We stroll together for a couple of hours through the docklands and I say nice things about Vikings.
At the GPO I offer a potted explanation of what the Rising was all about. “Why would you start a revolution by going to the post office?” asks one Icelander. I am about to attempt an answer when another replies, “He has said already — because it was planned by poets and writers.” He slaps my back and there is widespread laughter. I think I get it.
As we take our leave, the Queen of Icelandic Ice Cream rewards me with a Home Spa set, replete with algae lotions, silica mud masks and such like, which I triumphantly present to Ally upon my return.
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On Thursday, the girls mosh to Thin Lizzy as I drive them into school. Into office and scratch head thinking of clever things to say at tonight’s launch of my book, at Glasnevin Museum. Make mistake of opening inbox: articles to write, books to finish, tours to organise, talks to compose. I start replying; the hours whistle by. It’s time to go.
Easter Dawn: The 1916 Rising (Mercier Press €29.99)by Turtle Bunbury is out now