However, I recognise that I'm not the only person on this planet to suffer. Too many have, and still are. Yet, all of us do our best to keep going. Here, in our little village of Eyeries, we've been in full lockdown since just after Christmas. By my count, this is our third spell of enforced isolation since the virus was detected in Ireland, in February of 2020. Not that I disagree with government policy. I fully support any efforts or methods to quash COVID. I don't want anyone else to suffer the way Liam's family are suffering. Not that my hopes will have much of an effect on the matter.
But still - we do our best to count our blessings. Lockdown in rural Ireland is somewhat second nature to most living here because we're well used to being isolated. After all, Beara Peninsula is situated in one of the most isolated corners of our little country. Yet still, and like everyone else, we miss so many aspects of normal life that we took for granted: family and friends; shopping and holidaying; Mass and singing; concerts and sporting matches.
As for me: I must admit that I very much miss my local pub and the fast friends I've made there. I miss their laughter...
Thar' be Ghosts
Until I moved to Eyeries, I never understood the significance of Ireland's rural pubs, nor the importance they play for smaller villages and remoter outposts. In our village we have two establishments, both located just up the road from where I live: Causkey's Bar (six doors up the wee hill from my front door) and O'Shea's Pub (a short swing left and down the hill). Both are nestled on the main street. Both act as something of a village magnet and part-time therapy centre.
Right now, both are locked as airtight as unopened Guinness Barrels due to the virus. God only knows when they'll reopen. We all miss them, terribly.
You see, none of us walk into our local pub with the expressed intention of getting pissed as a newt. While that happens occasionally, we show up mainly for a chat and a smile. It's part of our nature as human beings to seek like-minded company, after-all. In rural Ireland, and due to the isolated nature of our geography, it's even more important. So we'll march through the pub doors, some to O'Shea's, me to Causkey's because it's that much closer. (And the standing joke is: if I have one too many, all I have to do is walk out the door and roll down the hill to my home.)
For me, Sunday in the early afternoon has always been my favourite time for a visit. Our publican Jay and her son Kenneth know their patrons by sight and by habit. They'll have our favored tipple brewing without our needing to ask for it. In my case, it's always a pint of Guinness. And while I'm waiting for my pint of black to settle, I'll prop my elbows on the bar and turn to the next fella, most often Frank, who will usually start off with a comment on the weather or the state of his business. More lads will wander in - George and Joe, Geroid and Mike - some just back from Mass (like me), or up from the fields having fed the cattle and sheep, or in from a fishing trip. We'll sit on tall stools, having a chin-wag as Jay and Kenneth navigate full pints between strong arms and yapping mouths, plonking our drinks on to the counter without spilling a drop.
As the minutes roll on, more local folk stroll in. Families with their children will assume their positions at the low tables near the far picture window where the kids will have an orange squash while their parents will sneak in a drink or three. Some will wander to the pool table for a game of billiards while others throw darts at the scarred dartboard. Jay's husband, Donal, put that up a few years back. But Donal left us almost three years ago, God bless him, yet as I sip my pint I'm convinced I can hear his laughter and see his eyes sparkle as he leans across the bar toward us to share the jokes he told so well.
Kenneth will turn on both televisions - one hanging near the bar, the other next to the far window I've already mentioned - both tuned in to catch the Sunday Game. It might be a GAA game of football or hurley. Or perhaps a Rugby match (Ireland v England is always a favourite). Or we'll eye the English and European teams playing soccer, weaving the ball between bulging defensive legs as they seek a win. Whatever is playing, we'll sit on our stools clasping our pints as we lean toward the televised images, cheering when something goes right, but giving out shite when things go against our chosen team. Along the way, we'll put up a hand and Jay, who seems to have been waiting for the signal, hands us our next pint already poured because she had seen the state of our empty glasses and sensed we were in need.
I tend to sit at the top of the long, narrow bar, at the very end near the front door. I do it because of the view: I can gaze down the length of the establishment to the wide picture window. It faces to the west, and through the glass I can make out Coulagh Bay, with the small islet of Eyeries near the shore, the larger island of Inishfarnard in the near distance, and the whale-like form of Scariff Island in the distance. Beyond that is the wide Atlantic, and then a far horizon which stretches as flat as a Midwestern corn field. I love it when the weather grows tough. The Bay dances with whitewater chop, curling monsters crashing high against the nearby coastline. If the tide is right, seas build white over a small snag maybe a half-mile off the coast, and someone will suggest we grab a surfboard to try our luck. The comment is made in jest because we all have some idea of the injuries we would suffer, being hurled against the jagged rocks below our village. Whenever I gaze at the Bay in a storm, I figure it's God's television broadcasting nature's fury, and I count my lucky stars.
But whether we're looking out at a storm or up at a match, the visitors to Causkey's Bar are in constant discussion. We'll talk about the game, of course, or the size of the sea swells. We'll comment on recent government policies, invariably berating our politicians for the fools we know they are. We'll talk of cars and tractors, fish catches and animal prices. We'll ask after each other's wives and partners, children and grandchildren, and as we all grow older, will enquire about the latest medical procedures some of us have endured. And all the time as we engage with each other, the pub fills with laughter.
Someday
Those times of good humour are now almost a year ago. Today, as I walk up the wee hill and pass Causkey's, I see the closed, locked door and the curtains pulled at the front window. I'll think of the lads I know, and how some of them are now dead, along with Liam, due to the virus. I'll think of Jay and Kenneth and Donal, and their dog Rocky who always greeted me as I took my stool, leaping up for a pat and to lick my hands. I'll think of Jaime Dixon, another good friend, who also passed from COVID only a month ago.
I'll look across the empty street and remember the throngs of tourists who show up every year to join us in our Summer Family Festival, and how they'd buy locally-made scarves and belts, jewelry and bread, sheltering beneath the awnings set up against the rain as they searched for their wallets. I remember the kids dashing down the main street, their laughter bouncing off the outside walls of our homes, and how later in the day, we'd all pile into the pubs to watch local musicians play a Ceili and join together in a dance.
But now the road is empty but for the rain that streams down the culvert, and an occasional dog that pads silently in the grey mist of February, and I realize that my memories are as intangible as ghosts.
As I glance one more time at my local bar, its door barred against an invisible threat, I think of how good we had it, and how a rural pub acts as a salve for lonely people living on an isolated peninsula. As I turn from Causkey's toward my home, I swear I can hear muffled laughter echo from inside, and for a moment I'm filled with sadness. Then I shake myself, and stride quickly through the rain, and talk myself again into optimism.
We'll get through this, of course. That's what human beings do. We adapt and we survive. Some day, I'll sit at the bar with my mates. On a future summer's afternoon, tourists will again fill the streets and the kids will laugh as they dash down the hill. But I know that, like me, many pray for an ending to this emergency before the ghosts of our memories, and the hope they give, vanish like mist swept before the wind.
Like you, we pray for a new dawn.
