A Dee Tour 3

Eventually we ended our stroll down memory lane, and kept heading west on more hedgy roads through County Kerry, or the Kingdom of Kerry, as locals like to call it.

We didn't see any hedge hogs, but the hedges themselves were hogs, they were everywhere.

Eventually we made it to our little home for the next few nights, in Finuge, a one cow village not too far from the west coast, and the wild North Atlantic Ocean.

Our cute home. Nice innit.

This light was on 24 hours. There's no switch to turn it off, it always remains on, to represent the unceasing presence of God, (an all-loving and supposedly all-knowing God who really should get up to speed on the impacts of needless electricity consumption). Often there's a statue of Jesus or Mary or some other Catholic bigwig by the light, but our host removed it, as he rents this place as a b'n'b, and he implied that some people may be bit weirded out by that sort of thing.

Local wildlife, none of which we saw. We did see a couple of foxes in Brighton though, of all places.

As we were in Ireland we had to respect the local culture, so we went to have a beer straight away, at the pub next door.

The pub is basically the only thing that exists in Finuge, besides a few houses, and the pub was empty, save for a couple of locals who looked as if they'd been superglued to the furniture.

Later Gerry and Monica generously shouted us an extremely deelicious meal in Listowel, a really interesting and colourful town a few clicks up the road.

One of the local churches.

The Listowel Arms dining room was quite full with local diners, and the front bar packed with footy watchers, all hoping England would be defeated in its semi final Euro match against the Netherlands. It wasn't. England made the final (and lost it, to Spain).

We left the horses in here

The restaurant was actually very swish, and our combined meals would've cost Gerry and Monica a small fortune, bless their leprechaunical hearts.

The moon views out the back were stunning.

Listowel is famous because one of Ireland's great writers, John B. Keane, lived there for many years. Keane, a playwright, novelist and essayist, wrote many of his works from his room upstairs at one of the local pubs, where he and his wife were publicans, back in the 50s and 60s.

Keane wrote great works such as "The Field," "Sive," and "The Man From Clare."

Manu extracting poetry from John B's fingers.

Keane's pub still exists, and is now called the John B. Keane, in his honour. These days it's run by his extremely hospitable, hilarious and totally quirky son, Bobby Keane.

The front bar of the John B. Keane. This picture is a scene from his play, "Sive." Set in rural Ireland, it's the story of a young teenage girl who is forced by her parents to marry a rich and lecherous old village man. But rather than subject herself to such torture, she decides to take her own life, by drowning herself in a pond.

The story of the play was told to me by a man tottering on a stool at the bar, when I asked him what the picture on the bar was all about. It took him about 15 minutes to tell me what I just told you in 15 seconds.

The pub is full of photos and memorabilia and all sorts of interesting things.

Later in the night an old man suddenly broke into poetry, a poem he'd written on the occasion of his granddaughter's engagement. The pub fell completely quiet as he spoke. It was a super tragic tale, made more so by the fact that the reciter had Parkinson's disease, which for me, a non-Irish English speaker, made the tale extremely difficult to understand. My brain nearly exploded. Later on, the same man told a tale about someone who had the shits.

Rather unhygienic

Bobby Keane, holding a couple of full bottles of Guinness

Bobby Keane, accompanied by a couple of fans

Bobby told us there was to be an event there the following night, we all told him we'd be there.

Trying to find the car. Monica was our responsible driver.

Cute Listowel

Deelicious

The next morn we chilled, and had a long scrumptious brekky, (generously provided by Monica and Gerry, surprise surprise). But, in fact, our bellies later regretted it, as we'd been invited to a huge Dee family lunch gathering up the road at Ballylongford. Gerry had warned us not to eat too much, but we'd ignored him.

There's lots of Ballys around here by the way, Ballylongford, Ballybunion, Ballyeagh, bally means "place," or "settlement" In Irish.

The long long lunch turned out to be a wonderful Dee gathering, the family are all so interesting, there were so many nostalgic and riveting conversations about all sorts of relatives, I felt like I was one of them too by the end of it.

I spent a lot of time talking to one of Michael's distant cousins, Gerald, who'd spent a number of years living and travelling in China, and was full of stories of his adventures.

Our host Nora knew there were some vegetarians coming, and thoughtfully provided us with a huge quantity of vegetarian fish. Vegetarian in the sense that it wasn't red meat. She was the most amazing host ever, continuously serving her guests with a never ending procession of amazing foods, wines, cakes, coffees, teas, biscuits, and all manner of other delicacies.

More Dees than a vagabond's report card.

For a tiny country, Irish hospitality is absolutely massive. We were in awe of the Deegeneration's kindness to us all.

And now I know what it feels like to be a pig.

Michael couldn't get up for four days

Later that night we returned to John B's.

Wish Bewdy woz 'ere

The night in the pub was a cracker, a celebration of music, spoken word, and comedy. Bobby was in top form, telling countless stories about his old man, and how much he was loved by his friends. There were 10,000 people at John B's funeral. Quite a testament innit.

Micky MacConnell, a famous Irish singer/songwriter, performed for us all. One of his songs, "Only Our Rivers Run Free," is really big in Ireland, everyone knows it. He chatted to us later in the night, telling us super interesting tales of his life as a journalist, songwriter and musician, and his really difficult childhood in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

There were other well known poets and singers performing during the night. They all had the audience's total respect. No one spoke a word when they performed. Just like it should be.

Later in the night it was open mic, and Manu and I did a rendition of Waltzing Matilda, and then sang "Starry Starry Night," a famous song about Vincent Van Gogh. The punters really look like they're enjoying it, don't they.

We left the pub feeling all warm and fuzzy - warm after such heartfelt performances by the artists, the super vibrant conversations, and the joy of Manu and I singing together to a very appreciative audience - and fuzzy after a night of drinking Guinness like the Irish.

I tell ya, Irish pubs are all they're cracked up to be.

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Go to Part 4