Category Archives: Travel

Rocking to Gibraltar

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Gibraltar is one of those quaint appendages that persist, jutting out from a murky past into the modern age. The UnionJack flies over it, denoting British ownership. Travel squibs proclaim red phone boxes, fish and chips and Bobbys on the beat as an abiding signature of the place. Only partly true. It is a British Overseas Territory. British, but weirdly so. Red, white and blue, but bathed in sunshine, a babel of Spanish and foreign patois, with monkees thrown in.

The Rock of Gibraltar is one of the Pillars of Hercules, the mythological portal to the Mediterranean Ocean, an implied northern tower anchoring an imagined bridge between Europe and Africa. It rises sheer from the sea to an impressive fourteen hundred feet with a land area of under three square miles and a twelve km coast. The population of thirty four thousand, the same as my hometown, Bray, is a mixture of British, Spanish, Portoguese, Maltese Italian and Jewish. English and Spanish are spoken, the local dialect Llanito being similar to Andalusian.

In the early eight century, Tariq Ibn Zayid began the Muslim conquest of Iberia by landing here, bestowing his name on the peninsula, Jabal Tariq. His army of Berbers and Arabs advanced over two thirds of Iberia, defeating the Visigoths and delivering Iberia to Islamic Rule for five hundred years. Juan Alonso de Guzman regained Spannish control in 1462 towards the end of the Reconquista. An Anglo Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession, and at the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, it was granted to the British crown. The Spanish have tried to reclaim it, most determinedly in the Great Siege during the American War of Independence, but the British held on. Well, they lost America, but you win some … It has been of considerable strategic value especially during the Napoleonic Wars and the Second World War.

La Linea de la Concepcion is on the Spanish frontier. A somewhat neglected sprawl. The bockety approach roads give some hint of the absence of territorial certainty hereabouts. We park here on the seafront, a short walk to the isthmus leading out to Gibraltar. Passing through Spanish and British border control with little ado, the visitor must first cross the airport runway at right angles to the isthmus. A photo opportunity straddling the runway’s central line is thought to verify the line between two jurisdictions; though of course both feet are on British ground. The modern outskirts are highrise and busy with traffic. Entrance to the Old City is discrete, through a narrow laneway and unimposing gateway.

We come into a lively square, the Lord Nelson pub at one end. Premises on Casemate’s Square proclaim an archetypal Britishness, beer and fish n chips abound. We stop for this, of course, and the battered cod and chips are very good indeed. The Main Street unrolls from the far corner though we miss it the first time and end up on Line Wall Road, a blank thoroughfare which as the name suggests runs atop the defensive walls. Irishtown runs parallel to the Main Street. The narrow pedestrianised street was once an area of disrepute, and it now houses the Central Police Station. Its Irishness probably derives from an Irish Regiment stationed here in the nineteenth century.

The old town of Gibraltar was largely constructed following the Great Siege. Givanni Boschetti, an Italian architect, arrived in 1783 and is responsible for much of the reconstructed city’s style, combining British and Mediterranean aspects. Visually it looks typically Mediterranean, a collage of souvenir and craftshops, high street outlets, with plenty of gelaterias , cafes and bars crowding the pavements.

We stop for ice cream in the shadow of the Catholic Cathedral of Santa Maria La Coronada. This was originally built in 1462. Also predating the British takeover, the Southport Gates, formerly the Africa Gate, is a three arched gateway built into the Charles V Wall, defending the southern end of the old town. John Mackintosh Square nearby has the Parliament House and City Hall. King’s Chapel and the Convent is now the Governor’s Residence. It was originally home to Franciscan Friars. The British Governor set up house in 1728, the building remodelled a century later.

We continue past the Courthouse, an old Spanish villa set back and fronted by an exuberant garden. It’s not far to the Cable Car that takes you to the top of the Rock. Admission can be either return journey or include a pass to the nature reserve occupying much of the uplands and a number of tourist attractions up there. We opt for the return as we don’t have enough time to devote to an extensive exploration. Ticket queue and wait occupies a half hour or so and the trip takes five minutes. At the top is a modernist cafe with stunning views from its terraces. Africa floats beyond, the other Pillar of Hercules almost within touching distance across the strait. A stunning panorama includes the city below, Gibraltar’s peak nearby and mainland Spain stretching off to Algeciras in the distance. Gulls and cormorants swirl above, and then there are the monkeys. 

The Rock’s colony of two hundred and fifty Barbary Macaques, are the only wild monkeys in Europe. Brought over from Africa by the Moors, they abide five centuries on. Well used to gawking tourists, they pose helpfully for shots, and the chance of food. They may not just wait for it either. As I posed for a photo before a seemingly disinterested simian, the chancer snuck up and grabbed at my backpack to the great consternation, or amusement more like, of onlookers. I won the tussle, persuading the rogue to desist. Note, visitors are supposed to wear their backpacks to the front. Note too, these are wild animals, though used to tourists they may become agitated where too many get too close. Stretching and yawning, impressive yawns by the way, are a caution. In case of confrontation, try speaking Simian. The phrase Aieeeee!, which means just about everything in their language, usually works, and comes naturally in such situations I can assure you.

Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees and people say we monkey around

But we’re too busy singing to put anybody down

… We’re just tryin’ to be friendly, come and watch us sing and play

We’re the young generation, and we’ve got something to say

Written by Bobby Hart and Tommy Boyce, this was the theme to the mid sixties tv series featuring what was originally a fictional band the Monkees. It featured on their eponymous debut album. Micky Dolenz sang vocals, but the other Monkees, Davy Jones, Mike Nesmth and Peter Tork didn’t feature. The foursome eventually wrestled control of their own material but when the series was cancelled ater two seasons their star began to wane. Perhaps. For people of my vintage they too abide. Our introduction to rock and roll, an original garage band in fact. Here’s to Monkeeing around!

London Memories -3

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City in Blue

There are a number of arbitrary hooks which snared me as regards London. I loved pictorial history books as a kid and these being Anglocentric featured much on the development of English culture and society, with London at its centre. The Tower of London, St Paul’s and the Thames were familiar to me, as illustrations of their place through history.

Pop music too, of course. In 1968 my soul spun upon hearing Last Night in Soho by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Dave Dee was sometimes known, ominously, as the singing policeman having once been a cadet in the Wiltshire Police; one of those boys in blue. Here, he’s one of the bad boys we love. It was my first single, and also, I’ve just read, Waterboy Mike Scott’s. Great minds, Mike, great minds.

You came into my life like rain upon a barren desert

Just one smile and I was born again

I felt sure it wasn’t too late

I’d find strength to make me go straight

I had love and threw it away

Why did they lead me astray

For last night in Soho

I let my life go

Last Night in Soho was written by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikely and released on the Fontana label, which used attractive deep blue graphics. The song is a cautionary tale, melodramatic but seductive. London is cinematically rendered, in a collage of crime and romance. How dangerous and attractive this place Soho sounded! I had a fondness for maps, and a London street guide was thumbed close to invisibility, as I traced my path through Soho and the wild West End.

As a football fan, the towers of Wembley loomed large in my youth. FA cup finals provided a rare chance to see a full televised match. My first featured West Ham and Preston North End. But I lost my heart to the boys in blue, Chelsea, although losing the final to Spurs in 1967. I had built many memories of London by the end of the twentieth century, physically stepping onto the streets of London, seeing the sights, the galleries, eating, drinking, going to the movies, music gigs and theatre shows. But it would be 2005 before I actually went to a Chelsea game. As a treat for my fiftieth birthday, M and Sons brought me to the Hotel Chelsea right in their home ground. Chelsea were turned a hundred years old then having been founded in 1905 to occupy Stamford Bridge, an athletics stadium in Fulham. That’s a different Stamford Bridge to the one up near York that hosted King Harold’s semi final victory over the Norwegians in 1066. Harold lost the final to the Normans at Hastings, led by William, since known as the Conqueror.

Chelsea FC were admitted immediately to the Football League, though it would take another fifty years to win it, which they did in the year of my birth, 1955. Another fifty years later at the end of November I saw them play at the Bridge, as defending League Champions, having triumphed again the season before. They played Wigan Athletic, John Terry scoring the only goal of the game. They would go on to win the Premiership that season.

Earlier, with M and the boys, I met star players Peter Bonetti and Bobby Tambling. Tambling was the Blues star striker of the sixties scoring over two hundred goals. Bonetti was their goalkeeper, known as The Cat. I fancied myself as a goalie in my youth, but was known as the Vampire, as I couldn’t deal with crosses. Bonetti had played in Chelsea’s first FA Cup winning team, in 1970, beating Leeds Utd in a glorious mudbath at Wembley. Kicking and a gouging in the mud the blood and the beer, as Johnny Cash ‘sang’.

The Fox and Pheasant is the oasis of choice, out in the beer garden oiling the tonsils for the afternoon ahead. I sank a few with my boys here on an Easter weekend before seeing Chelsea beating Arsenal two nothing with a brace by Didier Drogba, later marching down the Fulham Road singing Didier Drogba, la le la le la. The day after seeing Henry IV at the Globe, Davin and I attended the first game of the season to enjoy Chelsea beating West Brom 6 – 0. Drogba scored a hat trick. Visiting the Chelsea Museum, we got to lift the Premier League trophy and the FA Cup, the benefit of a double winning year. Been there, done that, even bought a souvenir teeshirt.

Woke up, it was a Chelsea Morning 

And the first thing that I heard

Was a song outside my window

And the traffic wrote the words

It came ringing up like Christmas Bells

Rapping up like pipes and drums

Chelsea!

Joni Mitchell’s song from 1969 is a song of joy. Oh, to feel like that of a morning! It appeared on her album Clouds.

You can head back east to the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea by Fulham Road or King’s Road nearer the River Thames. The crossing is bracketed by World’s End and Brompton Cemetery, which sound more cheerful on a matchday. Along the river I can stroll along Cheyne Walk and think at least something sounds like it’s named after me. Chelsea Bridge is further on. The current structure dates from 1937, replacing an earlier one originally known as Victoria Bridge. Like its predecessor it is a suspension bridge, though much wider, and while plain enough, pleasantly illuminated at night.

A landmark across Chelsea Bridge is the Battersea Power Station. This massive coal fired power station was designed by engineer Leonard Pearce with architects Giles Gilbert Scott and Theo Halliday. Construction began in 1929. It was paused during the Second World War; the complex ultimately completed in 1955. In the late seventies decommissioning began and the building became derelict for thirty years until redevelopment in 2012. Numerous bids included Chelsea’s plan to convert the station into a football stadium. But that didn’t fly. Frank Gehry and Norman Foster were amongst the leading architects redesigning the forty acre site along with restoring the original buiding on a project incorporating residential, retail, leisure and entertainment. The complex was opened in 2022.

Battersea Power Station is a combination of awe inspiring scale and art deco elegance. One of London’s most iconic buildings, it is also a cultural landmark in its evocation of both utopian and dystopian themes. Pink Floyd fans will know this from the cover of their 1977 album, Animals. The cover photo, by Hipgnosis, was not collaged or manipulated, no Photoshop back then. A giant inflatable pig was hoisted into place for the shoot. Unfortunately, the monster broke free, terrorising the population of West London and Heathrow Airport before landing in Kent. You can’t get more Orwellian than that.

London Memories -2

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City of Drama

Leaving London back in ’73, we made our winding way back to Holyhead via Stratford on Avon, hometown of the Bard, William Shakespeare. He was born there in 1564 and the town has become a mecca for Bardolators. Stratford is suitably picturesque, packed with tourists and Tudor style buildings. From our ad hoc camp by the river our trio wondered if we could swim across the Avon and bunk into the rere of the theatre for a show. A Midsummer’s Nights Dream, most likely. We visited Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, a sizeable thatched timber-framed building with a museum. Anne Hathaway was twenty six and with child when she married eighteen year old Will. Daughter Susanna was born six months later, and another year on Anne gave birth to twins Judith and Hamnet.

In his early twenties, Shakespeare moved to London and became part of the theatre scene. He acted and wrote with a group called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and in 1599 they established their hq at the Globe Theatre in Southwark. The first Globe burned down in 1613 during a performance of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII. A pyrotechnic flourish misfired, and sparks ignited the thatched roof. There were no injuries, other than a man whose breeches caught fire which helpful spectators extinguished with their tankards of ale. A rare occasion of a punter being obliged to buy a round for the people who had just drenched his crotch with beer. The theatre was rebuilt but the flame of drama was extinguished during the Civil War period from 1642. The Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. were against the brazen licentiousness of the world of theatre. The Globe was ultimately demolished. Although the Restoration saw the return of theatre, staging had changed to a more refined, and subdued form, indoors and viewed through the Proscenium Arch. Actresses, forbidden in Tudor and Jacobean days, were now allowed. Shaskespeare’s popularity was reignited and his plays revived. 

The modern version, Shakespeare’s Globe, was built in 1997, the culmination of a long campaign by Sam Wanamaker, American born actor and director for film and stage. It is located just over two hundred metres from where the original stood, and is a very realistic rendition of how the outdoor Elizabethan theatre would have looked. Daily tours explain its setting and heritage, and what you might have experienced back in the day; theatre in the round, outdoors with a rumbuxtious audience drawn from the broad social spectrum of city life. More rock gig or football crowd than the genteel theatre of today, with plenty of two way rapport; but there was poetry and message in the medium too. Drinking, smoking and heckling were not so much tolerated as encouraged. It was a daytime thing, and not well thought of by the great and the good. Though, of course, many from that sector did attend, and indeed sponsor the enterprise.

Best of all, book seats for a performance. On a family trip in 2010, we booked seats for Henry IV, Part 1. This features the notorious Falstaff, chief amongst the company of the young dissolute Hal, future king, here depicted as dedicated to life on the raz. Young Will perhaps drawing on  memories of his own misspent twentysomething back in the eighties. My son, Davin, was dubious of the joys of an afternoon of Shakespearean theatre. I impressed upon him that the following day, Saturday, we would go to Stamord Bridge to watch Chelsea trounce West Brom by six goals with Didier Drogba scoring a hat-trick; an astonishingly accurate prediction as it turned out. He got fully immersed in the experience. Most cheerful he was relaxing in the bar. afterwards, as he thought, less so on being informed that was merely the intermisssion.

London’s modern theatre district flourishes on the other side of the river. The West End denotes the main commercial centre of London. It stretches north of the river up to Regent Street to the west of the ancient walled city. The areas of Soho and Covent Garden are central to London nightlife, with Leicester Square and Picadilly Circus its focal points.

Leicester Square is the place to go for tickets for silver screen or show. Myself and M got tickets here for the fun dance show Top Hat ten years ago, front row seats which were quite startling. Cinema remains a a draw for us even though films are not so frequently banned in Ireland as before. Myself and M visited back in the mid seventies on our way to Greece, and took in an afternoon showing of the Life of Brian. Monty Python’s satire on zealotry and mass hysteria was set at the time of Christ and caused a muttering of modern zealots to chant: Down with that sort of thing! Still, we emerged into the afternoon sunlight happily singing always look on the bright side of life.

West End, of course, is synonymous with theatre. Alongside New York’s Broadway it is the main theatre zone of the English speaking world. There are about forty venues showing musicals, classic and modern theatre. Other, non commercial theatres, including the Globe, Covent Garden Opera House and the Old Vic feature classic repertoire and the work of contemporary and acclaimed modern playwrights.

The longest running show in West End history is The Mousetrap. Written by Agatha Christie it was first performed in 1952 and is now approaching thirty thousand performances. A whodonit with a twist, it’s a typical scenario for the author. Born Agatha Miller in 1890, by her death in 1976 she had published sixty six novels and over a dozen collections of short stories. Her most famous creation is the fastidious Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. The Mousetrap was originally a radio play called Three Blind Mice, and then a short story. The title had to be changed for the stage as another play called Three Blind Mice had been produced in the thirties by Emile Littler. The name the Mousetrap was taken from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it being Prince Hamlet’s smartarse reply to Polonius concerning the title of the play at court. Hamlet had hijacked the play to let off his own grenade. “The play’s the thing wherein to catch the conscience of the King,” he mused.

On a family visit in the Noughties we took in a performance at St Martin’s Theatre which has hosted the play since 1974. We four at home often enjoyed an elaborate murder mystery on the telly. Theatre, by its nature, brings you into the box itself. You are sharing atoms with these people. The famous twist is a major subversion of the mystery genre. I have often wondered since if anyone has ever thought of suspecting Poirot for causing the puzzles he so brilliantly solves. After all, he is a common thread throughout so many killings. The play was just the thing, so, to be followed by convivial food and drink.

St. Martin’s is on West Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue and close to the Seven Dials. This is an intersection of seven straight streets, giving the small plaza an incongruous centrality in the great scheme of things. From here, you can go anywhere. Eateries abound, though we took the quaint decision to go for a fish and chips nearby. Well, it was my fiftieth birthday, and the One and One is my favourite food. Why not have it here at the centre of Chipperdom? There was a bench outside and we watched the world go by. Nearby, Shaftesbury Avenue seethes with life. Across the street Soho embraces the divine vices. Musicians strum and dancers strut, and wining, dining and dancing pleasures galore stretch into the wee small hours. In all the darkness and joy, what better time to join the vamps and werewolves of London.

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand

Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain

He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook’s

Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London

Ah-hoo

Ah-hoo, werewolves of London

Ah-hoo

Werewolves of London was written by Warren Zevon, Waddy Wachtel and Leroy Marinell. It is included on Zevon’s third album, Excitable Boy, from 1978 and was its lead single. Fleetwood Mac provide the rhythm section, in case you wonder why it’s so good. Phil Everly suggested the idea to Zevon having seen the 1930s film Werewolf of London. Lee Ho Fook’s was London’s best known Chinese Restaurant, located on Gerrard Street in Chinatown, at the south end of Soho. The name itself suggests the sort of ribaldry that chimes with the suggestive comedy of the song’s lyrics. The restaurant closed in 2008. Zevon died in 2003, but the music lives on.

London Memories

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Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH

London is my most visited foreign city, a favourite place of mine for over fifty years. I haven’t posted much on it; only an account of a trip up the Thames to Greenwich that I can think of. So, time to put that right. Here’s the first in a compendium of memories of this great city.

The first I saw of London was in the summer of 1973. I was only seventeen and with a couple of friends crowded into a Renault 6 set off on an epic voyage to the neighbouring island. There was a Rock festival at London’s Alexandra Palace, with Ten Years After and Wishbone Ash headlining. Ten Years After were one of my favourites in those days. The late sixties and early seventies gave us Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and many more. Dublin was not a major stop on the global concert circus. Other than Ireland’s own, Taste, Lizzy and Horslips, it was slim pickings, though the Doors and Zep did play Dublin’s National Stadium around that time. So, when Ally Pally came up it was the perfect option to tap into the Rock zeitgeist.

The car ferry left from Dun Laoghaire, a four hour crossing to Holyhead in Wales. From there it was a long drive to London, meandering through Wales before passing by Birmingham. We overnighted near Leicester. Looking for a bite to eat, we asked a passing Bobby, as you do, for his recommendations. It was an amusing scene. My two friends were six four, and the policeman might just have equalled minimum height requirements. He recommended a nearby Indian, alien to lads from Dublin, but establishing a lifelong favourite. Who needs halucinatory drugs when you can have a mindbending vindaloo. My companions notable altitude caused panic beyond the forces of law and order. Indeed, febrile hippies, amongst whom we parked overnight, imagined the long arm of the law had found them in the hazy light of morning. Tom and Vin wore their hair short, whereas my flowing locks and mustachios helped ease the situation somewhat. Or maybe I was just the undercover guy.

Another time, another place. Three Men in a Car, me with my boys, Oran and Davin, US 2007.

We parked at Potter’s Bar on London’s outskirts, and then stayed with Vin’s cousin Evelyn near Ealing. Our explorations of the great city were limited. We took a jaunt into the centre to pose in Picadilly Circus and swan around Leicester Square. It was decided to take in a film, ideally something along the lines of those banned back home. We got into the x-rated Heavy Traffic. The American film was a mixture of animation and live action, centering on a cartoonist, name of Michael Corleone, navigating the dingier side of New York. As much scabrous and surreal as salacious, it was, I suppose, a hazy premonition for the graphic artist within me. And it was unlikely such a film would ever go on general release in Ireland. Of course, Heavy Trafic is best followed with a plate of spaghetti Bolognese.

Picadilly, some years later.

We also took a saunter along Ealing Broadway. Ealing is famous for its film studios, the oldest in the world. Home to the Ealing comedies, natch, while the surrounding area has featured in scenes from Doctor Who and Monty Python. Ealing was something of an Alma Mater to Rock Music too. The Ealing Club had been a jazz venue until Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated played the basement in 1962, The band included drummer Charlie Watts, Brian Jones and pianist Ian Stewart with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards amongst the audience. Thus the Rolling Stones were gathered. In January 63 they played their first gig with the classic line up including Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts. The Who, Mannred Mann, Eric Burdon and Rod Stewart were also amongst the club’s alumnii. It was a short, but impressive, solar flare; the club closing in 1966.

Alexandra Palace lies further north, about five miles out of town near Muswell Hill. Alexandra Palace was conceived by architect and designer Owen Jones, who planned a Crystal Palace style glass building. It was built instead to the design of John Johnson and Alfred Meeson. From inception in 1873 it has been a people’s palace, built to provide leisure and entertainment for the great unwashed. And there would have been few that weekend more unwashed than ourselves. You could almost hear us hum. Fortunately, our stay in Ealing gave us a chance to clean up.

Instead of People’s Palace, it was named for Alexandra of Denmark,the Princess of Wales, and future Queen from 1901 to 1910. Her husband, Albert Edward, would become Edward VII. Speaking of; there’s a fair few streets named after him in my hometown, Bray: King Edward Road, Albert Walk amongst them. English tenor, John Sims Reeves sang to a crowd of a hundred thousand at the opening on 24th May 1873. Sixteen days later it all burnt down. it was rebuilt and reopened on Mayday 1875. The Palace became home to the first decades of television. BBC’s television service broadcast from there between1935 and 1955, with a break for the war. It burned down again in 1980, but phoenix like, rose from the ashes once more. And yes, Wishbone Ash did play Phoenix at their gig. 

The London Music Festival of August 1973 was an annual event and we had a two day ticket. The complex was alive with freaks and hairies like myself, and my two bodyguards. Fumble were playing some ear shattering rock and roll in the bar, while everywhere a strangely Catholic tang of incense hung in the air. I was sufficiently exalted to welcome my heroes to the stage on the second night.

Barclay James Harvest were supporting and very good they were too. But my pulse was racing for the arrival of guitar hero Alvin Lee and his band. Ten Years After came from Nottingham. Alvin Lee, born Graham Barnes in 1944, with Leo Lyons on base, were known for a while as Ivan Jay and the Jaybirds. The name Ten Years After came in 1966, referring to Elvis Presley’s breakthrough year. They were renowned as a live band, their set from Woodstock, playing I’m Going Home, was a highlight of the film. And evermore. I had all the band’s albums. My favourite was A Space in Time from 1971, more complex and introspective than their other albums. It includes one of their few commercial hits, I’d Love to Change the World.

Everywhere is freaks and hairies

Dykes and fairies, tell me, where is sanity?

Tax the rich, feed the poor

‘Til there are no rich no more.

I’d love to change the world

But I don’t know what to do

So I’ll leave it up to you

The lyrics are probably not authorial, Lee and his fanbase would have identiied as ‘freaks and hairies’. The fast paced verse mimics the sloganeering of public discourse, the laid back chorus is more personal, and if anything, rejects the notion of rock star as the go-to person to free the world from its state of chassis. 

Marcus Bonfanti at Ronnie Scott’s, 2010.

Another time, London circa 2010, we booked a table at Ronnie Scott’s for a blues night. Ronnie Scott’s, the famed Jazz and Blues venue was founded in a Soho basement in 1959 by Scott and Pete King, both saxaphonists. In 1965 it moved to its current larger premises on Frith Street, Soho. Scott died in 1996 but the soul plays on. Jimi Hendrix’s last gig was here in 1970, so what better place for Pilgrimage. Yes, another Wishbone Ash reference.

The party comprised myself and M, with our younger son Davin, a budding rock guitarist himself, and the same age I had been on my first London visit. With suitable flourish I led us across the road, past the queue and through the doors to the sacred sanctum of Jazz and Blues. Amongst the players that night was Marcus Bonfanti, a fine guitarist. Myself and Davin went to the desk at the break and bought his cd. What Good Am I to You. After Alvin Lee died in 2013, Bonfanti joined a new line up of Ten Years After.

Night Music at the Harbour Bar

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Bray’s Harbour Bar is a favourite watering hole, and I have posted on it before. Drinking Outside the Harbour Bar was painted in the bright sunshine of a summer’s evening. Here, we are huddled inside the original bar in early November. There’s a music session, with three hombres giving it yards. Ballads and folk in the bar, with rock off in the back lounge. I’m in the snug, in between, swaying from one to the other.

This was originally the Harbourmaster’s cottage when built in 1831. The harbour itself was only a small dock then, the full harbour arriving in the 1890s. The bar has been licensed since the 1860s or so. The O’Toole Bros ran the show until ten years ago when the Duggan family added it to their fleet. Throughout its century and a half, it has kept its traditional vibe; seafarin’, rough hewn, crammed with bric a brac and all the ancient, and tyro, mariners adrift on the sea of life. It’s cosy in winter, with the log fires lit and the mellow glow of lights in the timbered shadows. And the music starts to play.

Tonight, I might get loaded

On a bottle of wine, on a bottle of wine,

Gonna feel alright, gonna feel alright,

Yeah, I feel alright!

I Got Loaded is a song for the good times. Listen to Los Lobos howling. Spanish for ‘the wolves’, the band formed in East LA in the mid seventies. Their second album, How Will the Wolf Survive, appeared in 1984 and includes this track. It was written by Camille Bob, and was first released in 1965 by his band L’il Bob and the Lollipops.

Galway by Train

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At Heuston Station I flash my ticket for the guard. Where to? Galway, I say. Ceannt? Ah, there’s no call for that now.

The journey from Dublin to Galway takes about two and a half hours. Passing through the midlands via Athlone, we cross the Shannon into the West, heading on to Galway by way of Ballinasloe and Athenry. Galway Ceannt is under renovation. Trains are operating normally, but otherwise it is a building site. I have a pint at O’Connell’s on Eyre Square, from where it’s just a ten minute walk to my BnB on College Road.

Galway was founded by Norman adventurer Richard de Burgh in the early thirteenth century. It is known as the City of the Tribes. The Tribes in question were not the Wilde Irishe, but Norman merchant families who rose to prominence from the thirteenth century on. Blake, French, Browne, Bodkin, Deane, Font, Joyce, Lynch, Martin, Morris and Skerrit are Norman French in origin. D’Arcy, though it looks French, was an affected spelling of an Irish clan, O Dorchaidhe, dressed up as posh. Kirwan were another tribe of Gaelic ancestry. Their power waned after Cromwell took the city in the seventeenth century; from whence the term tribes was applied, disparagingly, at first.

I learned all of this at the Galway City museum, by the Spanish Arch on the quayside. It’s an excellent museum outlining the colourful history of the city, its people and its many idiosyncrasies. It is flooded with light, and upstairs there are panoramic views across the city and bay. A large Galway Hooker dominates the central atrium, and is a constant reminder that you are in a city floating on water. There’s an account of the Claddagh, a history of the Claddagh Ring and a section on the Independence and Civil War era.

Entrance is free. In the lobby is the Padraic O Conaire statue. This originally stood, or sat, in Eyre Square. Decapitated at the Millennium, it is stored here for safekeeping. A bronze replica now presides over the square. An author and journalist, O Conaire wrote mostly in Irish. He was a figure in the Gaelic League in London before the Great War and then back in Ireland. He was only forty six when he died in 1928, although somehow the statue always seems of an older man to me. His story, M’asal Beag Dubh, concerns a chancer looking for big bucks for his shiftless donkey. It inspired an ornate hoax by Irish journalist Declan Varley. In satirising the soccer transfer market he created Masal Bugduv, a Moldovan prodigy who attracted outrageous bids from top premiership clubs. One imagines the mythical youth telling the bidders, it will take a few dollars more to shift Masal Bugduv.

The award winning building was designed by OPW architects, Ciaran O’Connor and Ger Harvey. It’s a bright, three story L-shaped building, forming an attractive, varied plaza with the Arch and Comerford House. Comerford House, a late eighteenth century residence, housed the original city museum from 1976 until the new building thirty years later. The Spanish Arch itself is notoriously underwhelming. There are two arches; the outer one closed, the inner being the Spanish Arch itself. Overall, this is an extension of the city walls built along the old fish market in 1584. The quayside was then extended to form the Long Walk, and the arches were added to give access from the city to the new quays. Originally Eyre’s Arch, it was later named the Spanish Arch to  note the extensive contact between Galway and Spain in medieval times.

A couple of town castles of the period remain in the city centre. At the foot of Quay Street, Blake’s Castle looks out on the Corrib. Built in 1470 it is a typical medieval tower house. For a time it was used as the city jail, later a grainstore, and then a coffee house. The Blakes descended from Richard Caddell, Sheriff of Galway in 1300. His nickname, Negar, for his dark complexion, was Black in English, from which the Blake name derives.

Lynch’s Castle, further on, is another fine remnant of medieval Galway. A four storey Gothic tower from the late fifteenth century, its facade is adorned with ornate stone carvings. It is now a bank. Lynch’s window is nearby, outside St Nicholas Collegiate Church. And thereby hangs a tale, if you pardon the pun. The window commemorates James Lynch Fitzstephen, Galway mayor in 1493. One version has it that Walter his son admitted to killing a Spanish merchant called Gomez in a dispute over the favours of a girl. Failing to find a hangman willing to carry out the sentence, the Mayor carried it out himself from the upstairs window of his own residence. Three and a half centuries later, the window was installed here as a memorial to stern justice showing neither fear nor favour. The word Lynch since became synonymous with ad hoc hanging, though this doesn’t quite tally with the story. 

The church dates back to 1320 and is dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of seafarers. Christopher Columbus is said to have attended mass here in 1477. Whether or no he also called into the Quays Bar, I always do. It traces its history back to the 13th century when it was a banqueting hall. Upstair is the Music Hall, dominated by a raised stage with a piped organ backdrop. On a seat outside sits a bronze statue known as the Galway Girl. The young woman wears traditional Irish garb so is not the same girl of the famed song. Or songs.

I took a stroll down the old Long Walk

Of the day I-ay-I-ay

I met a little girl and we stopped to talk

On a grand soft day I-ay

Written by American Country Rock musician, Steve Earle, the version by Mundy (Edmond Enright) and Sharon Shannon in 2006 became one of the best selling singles of all time in Ireland. In fact, the Galway Girl is Joyce Redmond, from Howth in Dublin, who plays bodhran on Earle’s original version on his 2000 album, Transcendental Blues.

And I ask you friends, whats a fella to do?

Because her hair was black and her eyes were blue

And I knew right then, I’d be takin a whirl

Down the Salthill Prom with a Galway Girl.

In Ed Sheeran’s song, from his 2017 album +, the Galway Girl is met in Dublin where she plays a fiddle on Grafton Street. Sheeran before his fame had busked the streets of Galway. Across the street is another famed pub, Tigh Neachtain’s, with its traditional interior and terrace seating to front and side. The junction forms a small plaza for a succession of buskers to entertain. Good busking is a notable feature of Galway’s Latin Quarter and the area is thronged with a happy promenade of local and visitor from morning till night.

The fast flowing Corrib marks the edge of the medieval city. It pours down from Lough Corrib, just 6K inland. Besides the powerful main channel, there are other branches winding through the west of the city. Crossing the Wolfe Tone Bridge, the Claddagh and Salthill are off to your left. Further upstream there’s a tangle of riverside walks leading to the open surrounds of the Cathedral and University.

Galway Cathedral, or Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas as it’s officially known, was designed by John J. Robinson. Work began in 1958 and it was completed in 1965. Grimly imposing, the massive structure of limestone blocks attempts to evoke a more ancient age. Its central dome, rising to 145 feet, is its most attractive feature. Within, the bare blocks make for a Stygian atmosphere, encouraging prayers of escape. There is a Marian shrine to the side, and I light a candle there.

Galway University, across from the Cathedral, was founded in 1845. Its original, signature building, the Quadrangle, is a replica of Christ Church College, Oxford in the Tudor Gothic style. The campus expanded in the seventies, with a modern complex designed by Scott Tallon Walker and is growing still. It now has twenty thousand students, almost a quarter of the city’s population. Entering the campus there’s a cluster of building’s from Galway’s industrial past including a disused distillery. A branch of the Corrib here has moorings for river craft and there’s a lively bar along the bank.

The cloisters are strangely deserted but then the rain is falling and this is something of an island in time. The student population is a vibrant force in the pervasive exuberance of Galway. Also, Irish culture is more pronounced here than in other cities, we are way out West, after all. But, while careful to cultivate and preserve the ancient, even invent it, Galway is also modern and receptive; a true melting pot of cultural heritage, ideas and expression. The perfect place to find your tribe, or form a new one.

Lovers on a Train to Cork

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The Dublin to Cork train leaves Dublin Heuston every hour on the hour. The journey takes two and a half hours via Portlaoise, Thurles, Limerick Junction and Mallow. I took it last year, celebrating my recent elevation to the free Travel Pass. We barrel through west and south Leinster before leaving County Laois past Portlaoise and crossing into Munster

To the south east the mountains of Slievenamon mark the moutainy territory beyond Ireland’s Central Plain. Slievenamon itself rises 2,365 feet above the floor of County Tipperary. The name is from the Gaeilic for Mountain of the Women. Legend is that Fionn Mac Cumhail, mighty warrior and fierce popular with the women, decreed his pursuers should race to the top of the mountain in order to claim God’s gift, as it were. Grainne won, at least as far as Fionn was concerned. She herself might have preferred a leisurely stroll, or cable car ride, and she eloped with more youthful hero Diarmuid during the marriage feast.

The Pursuit of Diarmaid and Grainne is the epic love tale depicting Fionn’s pursuit of the young lovers. I read it in the Gaelic, Toraiocht Diarmuid agus Grainne, for my Leaving Cert fifty years before. I spent a lot of time looking out windows then, too. 

This is a painting of two young lovers lounging on the train as it passes the famed mountain. I tried to be discreet in taking the reference photograph, but typically was spotted. The man, ever on guard, has raised his eyes from his mobile device and is looking at me daggers. She is oblivious. In a way it is a meditation on modern love, neither sweet nothings nor spooning intruding on the current obsession with the smartphone. Still, there is an obvious sense of comfort amongst the duo; striking a tableau worthy of Venus and Mars. The two are well cast in their roles, Mars worryingly so. And I am old with wandering, through hollow lands and hilly lands.

The mountain and the moment passes. I can play with the lover scenario in my head. Are they heroes? Are they pursued? Will they change at Limerick junction, or accompany me to Cork, and all other matters arising? Such questions should stall, allowing myth to arise.

The acrylic painting is, as usual, a labour of love. The subjects classically beautiful and statuesque. An intriguing still life is briefly grouped on the table. Beyond, the world whips by at dizzying speed.We are suspended in a fragile bubble in the vast explosion of life.

Well, pistons keep on churnin’

And the wheels go ’round and ’round

And the steel rails lie cold and hard 

On the mountains they go down

Without love

Where would you be right now

Without love, oh -oh.

Long Train Running by the Doobie Brothers from their 1973 album The Captain and Me. Tom Johnston wrote it, providing vocals, harmonica solo and the distinctive rhythm guitar backing. I first heard the song after my Leaving Cert that year, covered by Irish band Rodeo at Kevin Street Tech. About that time I figured why the American Band didn’t actually feature siblings with the surname Doobie. 

Lido Beach Bar, Elviria

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Part of my purpose, and pleasure, in visiting Andalusia, is to paint it. Sometimes we make sketches, though mostly photography forms the record of places we visit. My Spanish paintings contrast with my Irish paintings. Climate is a decisive factor. Spain is hot and demands a hot palette. Ireland is wet and wild, its palette cool. Every place is different. Every day is different.

In taking photos I usually exclude ourselves. There are times when a tourist snap is required. I no longer corral innocent bystanders. It happens, but mostly volunteers. Some years back I recall waylaying a handsome young couple swanning into the Casino in Monte Carlo. I indicated the camera, gestured to the debonair male. Of course, he said, and promptly posed for us. His companion put things right. A mysterious lady in Lisbon is another fond faux pas. Reluctantly she took off her gloves on what she clearly regarded as a cold day. It was mid teens; but she obliged with a warm smile. Selfies are an obvious solution, but they don’t really work for me. There’s something awkward about doing them and I usually get it wrong, with my nostrils and ears featuring too prominently. So, M and I have evolved a habit of catching ourselves in reflective surfaces. These mirrored images have the extra advantage of being pleasantly anonymous. 

This method is seen at its best on this recent shot taken on Elviria Beach near Marbella. Our favourite bar is on the beach and a regular stop for our pre dinner drink. The Lido Bar also serves food during the day. Sitting out on deck, the beach sweeps away south towards Gibraltar funneling the Mediterranean into the Atlantic. Africa lies just over the horizon. 

Painting this picture, I was struck by the shifting points of view within the tableau. We were photographing ourselves photographing ourselves. The observer, and author of the painting, is observed. It’s a self portrait, a still life and a landscape. The reflection itself is a double image due to the glazing. This gives a liveliness, a kind of shaky quality too. We are a blur against the immense physicality of the Med. There, but not there. A snapshot in time. Then gone.

Lido missed the boat that day, he left the shack

But that was all he missed, and he ain’t comin’ back

At a tombstone bar in a juke joint car, he made a stop

Just long enough to grab a handle off the top

Written by Boz Scaggs and David Paich, Lido Shuffle featured on the album Silk Degrees in 1976. Sing along!

Lido, whoa, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh

He said, “One more job oughta get it

One last shot ‘fore we quit it

One more for the road”

And now for a pint.

Approaching Bray Station

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The Dart has been taking commuters, daytrippers and various wanderers around the Bay for forty years. Dart is a clever acronym for Dublin Area Rapid Transit. It runs from Malahide or Howth in the north to Greystones in the south. The last two stops are outside of County Dublin. Reaching the Dargle River we are in County Wicklow. The town of Bray has been established here since the Norman invasion, building on earlier Gaelic settlements. 

This view is taken from the window of a southbound Dart, about to cross the bridge over the Dargle. I am returning from Dublin city where it has been raining, but now the sun’s coming out and Bray rises steaming out of the gloom. The Sugarloaf Mountains appear on the horizon, and the land is marked by the tower of the Catholic Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, and the spire of Christchurch (CofI). Bray Daly Station is my stop. Opened in 1854, the line was quickly extended to Greystones and runs parallel to the seafront behind the hotels and houses lining the Esplanade which was newly established then. 

This painting is acrylic on canvas and has been accepted by the Signal Open Art Exhibition of 2024. I am delighted to be chosen and looking forward to seeing all the other works on show. The exhibition runs from Tuesday 6th August until Sunday 18th August. Should be fun. Give it a dekko!

Every time it rains

You’re here in my head

Like the sun coming out

I just know that something good is going to happen

I don’t know when

But just saying it could even make it happen

Cloudbusting by Kate Bush is guaranteed to lift the heart, without reneging on past sadness. It is on her 1985 album Hounds of Love.

Yeah eh yeah, Yay-yo!

Trip to Tipperary

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It’s a long way to Tipperary, they say, but the roads are good. We left Bray late morning, arranging to hook up with our travelling companions in Cahir. The simplest route from Bray is to take the M50 through south Dublin, turn southwest along the M7 then veer on to the M8 down to Cahir. It’s a distance of two hundred kilometres which Google reckons can be done in two hours. But what’s the rush? 

We’re staying near Bansha, on the N24 along the railway line heading for Tipperary town and Limerick beyond. Bansha is familiar to us from olden days and the area is always worth visiting for its heritage and wonderful scenery. We booked three days in Aherlow Cottage, a three bedroom self catering accommodation adjacent to a farm. All mod cons, and many older ones, with a traditional hearth and a private garden flanked by trees and a river.

Bansha itself is a pleasant village. Nellie’s Bar on Main Street is the place to go, packed when we arrive on a Sunday when crowds gathered to watch the football. Hurling is more the sport of choice about here. Tipperary are the third most successful team in the country, with twenty eight titles, behind Kilkenny and Cork though, like everyone else, trailing in Limerick’s wake right now. Tipp were last All Ireland hurling champions in 2019. Throughout the week the pub’s quiet; plenty of space and time to dwell over a pint or two, and study the photographs and clippings on the wall of the bar.

The Glen of Aherlow has a number of marked trails amidst a panorama of wonderful scenery. To the south the Galty Mountains rear into a blue sky and Slievenamuck shelter the valley to the north. The Galty Mountains rise to over three thousand feet and are the highest inland range in Ireland with Galtymore the highest peak outside of Kerry. Slievenamuck means mountain of the pig in Gaelic, referring to a notorious wild boar who once haunted the slopes. He’s long gone and, if you’ll pardon the pun, the place is just as interesting in his absence. The Slievenamuck range features loop walks of varying degrees of difficulty.

We took the trail from the statue of Christ the King heading uphill through Bansha Woods with fabulous panoramic views across the county rewarding us at the summit. Tipperary town is visible in the middle distance. We make downhill through rushing streams and forest paths. It’s well marked and you won’t go astray. There’s a picnic area near the statue where you can enjoy the scenery in a more leisurely fashion

The main town hereabouts is Cahir on the River Suir. The town has a population of three and a half thousand people. Most of it is built on the south bank of the river, centered on a main square. Such squares are a feature of Protestant plantations in Elizabethan and Jacobean Ireland. Quakers established themselves in Ireland in the mid seventeenth century. Cahir and Clonmel became their main centres in south Tipperary where they were prominent in milling and other businesses. Cahir and Clonmel were the first towns in Ireland to be linked by Charles Bianconi’s coach service in 1815. Up till then, the journey could take six hours or more by river. With the coach it could be done in two hours, though Google might claim even less. Charles Bianconi was born in Italy, near Lake Como, in 1786, and moved to Ireland when he was sixteen, fleeing Napoleon’s invasion. He worked in Dublin as an engraver before moving to Clonmel where he set up his transport business. 

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The most spectacular feature of Cahir is its castle. Cahir Castle is built on a small island in the river. It was first built in the mid twelfth century by the King of Thomond (North Munster) Conor O’Brien. This dynasty was established by Brian Boru, of Battle of Clontarf fame. This was the original stone fort, An Cathair, which gave the town its name. The Butlers of Ormond (East Munster) took over when in1375 James Butler was granted the castle estate as reward for his loyalty to Edward III. Munster, Ireland’s southern province, was then divided into three earldoms Ormond, Thomond and Desmond (South Munster). The new Castle had formidable walls rising sheer from the river, with a towering central keep all guarded by an array of sturdy towers. It was considered impregnable but in the three day siege of 1599 during the Nine Years War the Castle was taken by Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex.and his ally Christopher St Lawrence, Lord Howth. This is the same Howth who, as a boy was kidnapped by pirate queen Grace O’Malley. Eventually released, he grew up to become a renowned warrior, albeit with anger management issues.

Since the death of the last Lord Cahir in the 1960s, the Castle has been the property of the Irish State. Entrance is €5 and there are guided tours. It is free to walk the Inch Field public park which embraces the castle on three sides. In modern times the Castle is much in demand for period productions in the film and tv business. Famous films are noted on a plaque outside. Amongst the roll call are John Boorman’s Excalibur from 1981, TV drama The Tudors and most recently The Last Duel in 2020. The Last Duel was directed by Ridley Scott and based on a nonfiction work by Eric Jager. Matt Damon is producer, co-writer and took the main lead of Jean de Carrouges fighter of the last Judicial Duel in France in the fourteenth century. Filming was delayed with the outbreak of covid and Damon found himself marooned in Dalkey, south of Dublin. The bould Matt didn’t mind, going for swims and coffee and hobnobbing with the locals. What’s not to like about being marooned in Dalkey, rubbing shoulders with Bono, Enya and Van Morrison? 

A 2 km riverside walk will take you to the Swiss Cottage. This early nineteenth century ornamental cottage is attributed to John Nash, the Regency architect who also designed the Cahir Parish church in 1817. Thatched and deliberately asymmetrical, it is a fabulous mimicry of what it was assumed an Alpine cottage might be. Such follies were for entertaining guests, who dressed, or even undressed, in rustic gear to let it all hang out, as it were. Downstairs there’s a music room to one side and beyond the central staircase the Dufour Room, named for its startling French Dufour wallpaper. This original wallpaper makes a fantastical backdrop, depicting a pleasure ground surrounding the Bosphorus. There’s an excellent guided tour to bring you around the interior which costs just €5, €4 seniors. Here we learned, amongst other things, Richard Butler’s own story which is itself outrageously romantic. He was an obscure teenager with only distant family connections until an unlikely string of aristocratic deaths meant the Cahir lordship became his inheritance. Grasping relatives abducted him to the continent but the plot was foiled by Arabella Jefferys. She rescued Richard and brought him to her home at Blarney Castle in County Cork, where he came of age and married her daughter, Emily in 1793. It was this happy loving couple that commissioned the Swiss Cottage.

Say you don’t need no diamond rings

And I’ll be satisfied

Tell me that you want the kind of things

That money just can’t buy

I don’t care too much for money

Money can’t buy me love

Ow!

Can’t Buy Me Love is a Lennon McCartney song from the Beatles album, A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. McCartney wrote the song in Paris and later mused if the ’t might be omitted.