Frozen seaweed

Especially for John and Anna.

Dominican nuns singing Divine Office

A sound from the past to help Anna F. relax as she recovers from surgery. The sweet singing of Divine Office by Dominican nuns. Not exactly our Sisters Humbert and Dominico and Fidelis and Maoilosa and Lambert and Osanna and Petronella and Pauline and Cletic and Carolus and De Montfort and Patricia and Hyacinth and Antoinette and MacNesius and several others I will remember when I think a little bit longer about it.

For 7 years we were in the care of those good wise women. We were roused by lauds and matins when we slept in St Columba's dormitory as the nuns went down the spiral stairs behind the dorm, going in procession to the chapel. As we settled in the study hall after recreation, compline was sung overhead in the chapel. And then, if we stayed up after lights out for extra examination study in summer term, tenebrae echoed along the rosary corridor as we eventually headed to bed. A peaceful little world where we were happier than we knew.




The picture below shows the convent and school as it was 50 years ago. I've cropped the newer buildings. It has been my destiny to be a cliffhanger, it seems.

The New SurfMobile

A story about black and white and other politically incorrect matters

Once upon a time there was a little white van that delivered new curtains to new houses. Not any old new houses. Nice new Prod houses in nice Prod housing estates in Ballymena where they loyally paint the kerbs red white and blue and hang Israeli flags from lamp posts.

Sometimes the little white van ventured to scary Taig places out around Portglenone and Cullybackey where got up Taigs build new houses and hang new curtains on their new windows as well as hanging Palestinian flags from neighbouring Taig lamp posts. In those places the little white van tried bravely to look whiter than white so that nobody would say, "What's yon wee black van doing in Portglenone? Tell that driver he's lost. Harryville's back th'other way."

The little white van seldom strayed far from home and after 3 years she knew that she was still fresh and youthful with only 19600 miles on her clock because two van salesmen called Sammy and Billy said so and Prods don't lie, sure they don't?


Then one day a suspicious blue corsa came to the used van lot. It was suspicious because it had a white back number plate instead of yellow like a respectable Norn Arn vehicle.

"Oh no, not me," the the little white van said when a young woman got in and started her up. The young woman pointed the little white van right at the border that God drew around Norn Arn on the eighth day of creation, to keep good little vans safe inside, and set off.

The little white van held its breath through L'Derry and across the long scary bridge where she would have faked a breakdown only she was too scared to stop. After that there was no escape. They drove straight across the border, into Donegal, the Arsh Republican badlands.

For over an hour, everything was a blur. Snow covered mountains, lashing wind, hailstones and then, at last, an empty car park where the little white van could try to recover herself. "Where am I?" she wondered and tried hard to look really white so that nobody in the Arsh Republic would suspect her of being a wee black van from Ballymena. "I'll say I'm from Cullybackey, if anyone asks," she decided.

Just then a big handsome freezer van looked across the hedge and said, "Wow! You must be the new surfmobile!"

The little van looked left and right. "Surfmobile?"

"You're a cutie."

"Are you talking to me?"

"Who else?"

"What do you mean, surfmobile?"

"You're gonna be Fairy Poo's surfmobile. Didn't anybody tell you?"

"No." But it did make sense. Maybe it was true. There was the sea, right below the cliff, with big rolling waves crashing on the rocks. Surfmobile! Wow!

The big van grinned and said, "Hang loose, baby."

His grin gave the little white van butterflies in all her cylinders. Shyly she said, "Yeah, hang loose, van." Suddenly Ballymena seemed a million miles away.

(To be continued)

A lot of weather in march

Rain showers approaching Magho, where my current writing is set. Just dropping in. I've been so off blog thanks to losing my reliable internet server at the end of Jan and having to go with line dropping eircomfree ever since, neglecting my friends, losing emails and unable to download my own website that I learned to do last week at moonfruit.com.
Meanwhile, fairypoo is off in Finland, ski-trekking when she's not riding in a reindeer drawn sleigh over the snow. She didn't have to go all the way to Finland to find snow. We're having some this weekend too.
As school bus driver, John Joe, always said, there's a lot of weather in March

The Dark Daughter

Tuesday 12th February 2008
Press Release
Donegal Premiere for The Dark Daughter

The Dark Daughter a moving account of the life of Finola O Donnell, mother of Red Hugh and matriarch of one of the most powerful families in Irish political history, runs at An Grianan, Letterkenny on Friday 15 February and The Balor, Ballybofey on Saturday 16 February at 8pm.












‘A pernicious woman who usurped the place of her husband and performed the part of a man’, is how one English administrator in Ireland described Finola Iníon Dubh Uí Dómhnall, the mother of Donegal Chieftain Red Hugh O’Donnell.



Despite approaching death, she is still capable of taking revenge against an enemy. Yet, as Finola Iníon Dubh dwells on her life’s actions, she finds herself wondering if the price was too high; was it wrong to place chieftainship of Donegal and Clan before the needs of the heart?



The Dark Daughter is a new work written by Donegal playwright Soinbhe Lally. Donegal actor, writer and Maura Logue makes a welcome return to the stage with a compelling performance of the remarkable Finola Uí Dómhnall who ruthlessly held the Donegal Chieftainship for her son Red Hugh.

Directed by Eavan King, the cast features actors from Donegal and Derry including Maura Logue (Marrakesh, Love and the Title), Christian Carbin (The O’Neill, Skull in Connemara) Sorcha Shanahan (Philadelphia Here I Come, Faith Healer), Declan Birney (The Worthless Soldier, Ay Carmela) and James Lecky (12 Angry Men, War of the Worlds).

The Dark Daughter embarks on a regional tour this week kindly supported by Donegal County Council and the Abbey Arts Centre, Ballyshannon. Dates are Wednesday 13 February 2008, 8pm: The Playhouse, Derry, Friday 15 February 2008, 8pm: An Grianan, Letterkenny, Saturday 16 February 2008, 8pm: Balor Theatre, Ballybofey. Tickets available from all box offices.

[Sybil says to Fairypoo, C U & P in the Balor, Sat nite. Green Van girl comin' too.]

Pedro notes the O'Donnell connection

Niall Garve is a character of your most recent play about members of the O’Neill clan but he is also important for another reason: Niall’s elder brother was Hugh of Ramelton, whose son John was an officer in the Spanish army. This John, apart from taking the dangerous decision of fighting for Phillip II, fathered Hugh Baldearg O’Donnell, known in Spain as Count O’Donnell (that is an example of successful integration of immigrants – the second generation was already a member of the local nobility!). A later descendant of this Count O’Donnell was Leopoldo O’Donnell, 1st Duke of Tetouan, Count of Lucena. Leopoldo O’Donnell was Prime Minister of Spain on three different occasions. He briefly left power to lead the war in North Africa and conquered Tetouan. When he was back to Madrid, a victory parade was planned for the general and his troops, who camped just outside Madrid in a temporary site prepared for it. The parade never happened and the temporary camp, as so many things in Spain, was converted into a permanent one when merchants settled around the army looking for business. But Madrid’s neighbourhood of Tetuan was not General O’Donnell’s only contribution to Madrid’s map. A wide and long street is named after him: Calle del General O’Donnell. It is important to remember this street for later.

Leopoldo’s contribution to my story does not end there. A’liberal’ revolt started in Spain, led by Rafael del Riego López, known simply as Riego. This man proclaimed the Spanish Constitution of 1812 in Cadiz, of short life but great importance in Spanish history. Riego tried to rebel part of Andalusia against the King, who sent General O’Donnell to stop him. It is said that when O’Donnell’s army met Riego’s, the General ‘was not in the mood’ to confront Riego, that he did not fancy doing it. This lead to the interesting (and surely happy for the soldiers) situation that both armies manoeuvred at sight of each other but no one of them actually attacked. Riego’s rebel army did not like his lack of decision in the battlefield and deserted but after other significant events, the King embraced the Constitution and Riego arrived victorious to Madrid. Riego was all success and became Field Marshall and Military Governor of Galicia. He is very well received with a party in a certain café in Madrid, known as ‘La Fontana de Oro’ (The Golden Fountain), where the liberals met to discuss political issues while smoking Cuban cigars. This remarkable café must have had something strange in the coffee they served because revolutionaries have always gathered there. The seed of the Madrid raising against Napoleon’s troops on the 2nd May 1808 (whose glory and tragedy were masterly shown by Goya in his paintings: “The Second of May” and “The Third of May – all available at the Prado Museum) came from regulars to La Fontana de Oro. This café is known in Spanish literature because Benito Pérez Galdós wrote ‘La Fontana de Oro’, which I have not read because I do not like Benito’s work, despite of being one of our greatest writers. At some point in the recent past, Fontana’s owner committed the atrocity (but financial success) of changing the decoration of the cafe. It could have been much worse (as it happened to the Villarrosa Theatre, which is now a nightclub with sleazy clientele) so it is now an Irish pub. It has everything that is supposed to be in an Irish pub but that you never find in a real one: an Irish flag, a dummy of St. Patricks (whose extended right hand and finger are a great coat hanger for your coats when the place is crowded in Winter), framed timetables of ferries from Spain to Ireland, etc. It is sad that such an important place in Spanish history becomes an example of foreign culture rather than Spanish.

I was born on Christmas day. I probably insisted on seeing the light (the Spanish term for giving birth is ‘dar a luz’: ‘to give to light’) because of the smell of lunch for my mother says I was always hungry when I was a child. Unlike today, so many children were born in Spain at that time, that there were hospitals exclusively dedicated to births. They were called ‘maternidades’: maternities. I was born in the same maternity as my brother did a year and a half before and my sister did eight years after me. I think it has unfortunately been closed and does not exist anymore. This maternity was in O’Donnell street. Some 20 years later I became (by pure accident) a regular at La Fontana de Oro. After being there every weekend I noticed a framed text titled ‘Riego’s Hymn’. Not knowing very much of recent Spanish history but having my brother a degree in History, I asked him while having a (bad) pint of Guinness (more likely a glass of rum and coke, known in Spain with the revolutionary name of ‘cubalibre’ – Cuba Libre – or Free Cuba. Fontana’s revolutionary influence?) and so I learnt about Riego and that he was the author of the 1812 Constitution I had studied. Something that strikes you when you go to Fontana (apart from the sleaziness of the place late at night) is the number of portraits decorating the place. ‘Who are these geezers?’ is a question everybody has asked at least once when going there. All portraits have a name: Palafox, Lacy, Riego, Espartero, O’Donnell… They are all prominent figures of XIX century’s Spanish politics (mainly liberals). I bet no one ever thought how much history one can learn while having a drink in a smoky pub… Time went by and nothing significant happened until the night I met an Irish girl in Fontana. It was not difficult to meet Irish people in there. Its location right in the centre of Madrid makes it a favourite for foreigners but the interesting part is that this girl came from Donegal. The same Donegal where the O’Donnells came from! I did not know that at the time but surely General O’Donnell’s portrait had a smile while he saw us chatting under his nose that night in La Fontana de Oro. Several weekends later a ‘date’ took place and I met Anna in another Irish Pub: “O’Neill’s”. This pub had the name of the clan Niall Garve fought against. The same Niall Garve that started this story! After O’Neill’s we went to meet some of her friends, who happened to be in another Irish pub! This one was “O’Connell St.”. Of course, I did not know yet how many times I was going to walk with Anna along that very same street years later… I wonder how many times General O’Donnell’s portrait saw us in Fontana. I still remember when Anna showed me where Donegal is in a map of Ireland in the walls of Fontana’s lower floor.

Destiny? Mere coincidence? In any case, it seems I have always been linked with Donegal in one or another way!

Salt streaked window pane

No, my windows aren't dirty. Those streaks are salt, compliments of today's big north-westerly.
How's the surf at Malahide?