In a cluster of bright painted neat little terraced houses, enclosed by four streets nearly in the shape of a square, and centrally divided east west by a fifth, Cong is compact to say the least. And walking in any direction if you keep turning right or left, you’ll never get lost. It is populated by a decent sort of people, both by day and by night. Evidenced by not a single sight of the law, other than a tiny and pretty house situated in the main street. And would that every police station in the world could look so invitingly bijou and quaint. And why wouldn’t it all be, with so much benign for miles around and pleasing both to the soul and eye. For once upon a time, too, now long ago, some Anglo Irish were here. Who, before ‘our own’ took over, built and maintained much more than a little of what is architecturally attractive and still left standing in this land. Before the natives, in their struggle for freedom, burned, pillaged and knocked more than plenty of it down. Especially the ‘big house’. In which no grand piano, mirror or marble console table escaped reduction to smithereens. And where special elbow grease was administered to belting to kingdom come any Italian neo classical parcel gilt walnut and fruitwood marquetry commode. Ah but at the same time they did at least leave the walls of the premises looking natural enough in their demise. With mushrooms sprouting out of the ramparts, thistles growing from the windowsills and vines climbing up the stairwells. While cattle were put to graze on what was left of the rugs in the drawing room.
But all that now, be assured, is nearly safely past. Even the house wherein I write has been identified as a protected structure in order to preserve the heritage of the county. But to this day in this Catholic country, if ever you spy ahead on the road rhododendrons and towering old trees, you may bet your life that if no Anglo Irish Protestant still lurks there, one once did, once upon a time. And it is here at Cong where such a family turned three thousand five hundred acres into a garden paradise surrounding this little settlement. Cheek by jowl with the village streets of Cong are walls enclosing these tended wooded policies. That are entered upon through massively imposing entrance gates. And if you motor on the long winding narrow drive, climbing up and descending little hills between the mown lawns of a golf course, you will see suddenly ahead, framed against the lake, the spired and castellated grey sprawling edifice of Ashford Castle. This massive monument, hauntingly elevating from one of the most exotically beautiful settings in the world, owes its existence to the black beer originally brewed by Arthur Guinness which allowed for the amassing of the wealth necessary to create this place. Where with its ancient trees and battlemented gardens extending to the shores of Lough Corrib, it still sits surrounded on its moated island by the roaring rapids of the Cong River through which the salmon and trout darkly and silkily slide.
In these days and times and with more than your usual number of louts now loose across most nations and with peace and tranquillity at a premium, you could do no better than to enjoy the latter inside the sumptuous interior of this hotel. With every antique still intact across its soft carpeted, panelled reception rooms. Indeed the romantically modernized paintings look good in such setting and if you stay awhile and stare south west out of these windows you’ll memorably taste of that which is the exotic Ireland. With the sound of the river’s rapids and the chattering birds, early morning mists pass over the lake. Even through winter, there remains the feel of a subtropical sombre splendour. And by summer, under an evening pink aflood in the grey sky, swallows flash in the air and the water hens dive in the lough. And if there be a damp wind whining and whistling around the windows on a wild pelting day and the cloud is shrouded down over the mountains and the waves are white tipped in foam out on the waters, open up your heart to the rain. For it will seep in there anyway. But remember it’s a downpour which isn’t the kind that wets you. All the same, the natives advise, there’s no need to rush out into it if you’re already dry and warm.
Ah but come back to Cong, only a stone’s throw away out the back gate, and you’ll be seeing a new and completely different country now. For an architectural start you can ignore the noble ruins of the ancient abbey and turn instead to confront the exquisite cut stone elevations of Cong’s public convenience. With its mahogany stained and bright green handled door. With not one of its beige and tan tiles out of place but all aligned gleamingly spotless framing the white vitreous china toilet ware waiting to be used in its skylit interior. And it is why Cong is so charming. For there is hardly a sign of dereliction in sight. Even the ancient ruins are restored and tidily preserved. Its pubs, guest houses and little hotels are all neat, clean and chaste. There’s a small but dignified pharmacy. And in every little shop awaits a good natured proprietor willing to pleasantly please. Who if you asked to buy a medium sized elephant would not hesitate to ask you wait a second till he had a look out in his back yard to see if he had any left.
And Mabel and her husband, coming here, would ooh and ahh at the reassuring evidence of modern civilization amid the natural native beauty. All within the sound of the nearby salmon rivers even pouring subterranean underground and flowing every side of the town in which fishermen fish and upon which the glistening white swans go. Their breasts bucking the swift current, their orange beaks dipping deep underwater to chew on the river bed. And what else is this small beguiling capital of Cong good for. And I’ll tell you. It’s perfect to travel from. To go westwards to the Atlantic ocean of Killary harbour, on one of the most astonishing of roads that traverse this boggy loneliness and the stupendous silences that hang over these landscapes. And not to worry if an occasional road sign with a destination in Irish is unreadable. For these are frequently bare handedly torn in half by the natives as a demonstration to the passing traveller of the strength of the local inhabitants. This is a long established custom widespread throughout Ireland’s rural parts. And you’d be right if you thought the might evidenced by such act was formidable, for indeed such signs are of cast iron a quarter inch thick.
But sign or no sign, there’s usually nowhere else to go on such roads but to continue west. And on this byway to Leenaun you’ll look down upon Lough Corrib with its flat black and silver waters sprawling through the hills. And further along this valley you’ll come to Joyce’s River and see the flash of the sun in the distance on swan’s wings. The gleaming yellow of the coconut scented gorse. Sheep grazing the patches of grass. The stone walls so carefully stacked as if teetering, criss crossing the sparse meadows and some dividing land through the heather and boulders to the very tops of the mountains. And here stop awhile. You won’t know where you are till you get there and by God you’re not there yet. But in the sweetly moist green air, high on a hill an old lady stands to look from her doorway under its golden thatch. This small rapid river of bog water tumbles by. Baby trout lurk in the brown tinted pools. Lichen’s timeless grey patches stain the outcroppings of granite stone. A single shiny beer can is near. And Cong is back there gently nourished by its waters. And where its glamour is still glowing. While the west’s awake. And remember, the Irish always believe the lies they’re telling. You own a genuine Stradivarius now. And the hush you hear while you play hands you back your own soul.
1986
PART 3
What a Sport
Georgian Cricket or Whither Goes Those Wickets
And here doth be assembled as pleasant as flowers these Georgian people in their finery, glasses to their lips, bats to hand in this sunshine joy. Upon this parkland meadow with its hay bundled in big round mounds, and cordoned by these ancient trees of beech and oak. These people undaunted who never give up the battle against the relentless philistine vandal. And who daily endeavour to keep safe a moment longer the jewels of life. Someone must preserve the architecture. Someone must cherish the porcelain, paintings and marquetry. And care about the trees, flowers and butterflies. Someone must love enough again in this unloving land. To keep the air sweet, the waters pure and the grasses their natural green.
On this pale golden day I drove out anciently rusti
ng gates that squeak open early morn in these midland hills to head east across the lonely Bog of Allen towards Dublin. Stopping first to play a game of De Alfonce Tennis in the summer perfume of a rose bowered court secluded in the trees. My opponent came by helicopter, rotor blades roaring in over the fields, with the Wicklow hills purple grey in the distant mist. The great motor bird’s spinning wing, hovering it down to land on this country house lawn. And Laura stepped out, purple bloused and in white linen slacks, her black hair blowing down from a yellow silk band tied around her head. Pearls at her throat and a Côte d’Azure tan on her splendid slender exquisite feet. The laughter still there on her mouth, just as it was when I last heard it cheering me up when together we went to the Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon.
‘Ah, J.P., you poor old recluse. So nice to see you out of your prison loose once more.’
And in my reluctance to go out and confront the world, it was essential in doing so and nice, too, to have along this beautiful and blissfully solvent companion. Who said she’d come with me to a Georgian cricket encounter anytime but only after we’d played a De Alfonce Tennis match. And so losing balls under shrubs and run ragged on court, I succumbed as usual to her shrieks of laughter as she again and again left me lax in my tracks with her top spin whip lashed passing shots. Wrong footing and leaving me, as she had already left so many men, devastated. And now there she was, in the midst of all this green of Ireland, looking resplendently apple gleaming fresh following an ice cold dip in a not altogether sparklingly clean pool.
And tucked away in this grand land are all sorts of surprises. As was this hotel. In its shady situation in the near Dublin countryside. Strangely secret rooms full of couches and settees, plates and bric a brac covering the walls. Laura and I repaired for midmorn tea which included a glass or two of restorative champagne. A graciously attentive gentleman pouring the chilled wine from its moisture coated green bottle. A wood fire smouldering in the grate as is frequently needed in this land even in the midtime of summer. And before departing towards our Georgian cricket, Laura back into the sky, and me proceeding old fashionedly on the road, Laura poured the last of her champagne into mine and leaned to whisper against my ear.
‘I’m so glad you’ve stopped gathering dust, J.P., and are getting out more in the world, even if it is only to play with an antique wicket, ball and bat. You’re not really all that bad at conversation you know, and believe it or not you’re actually even funny at times. And if you would only allow people to get to know you, they would like you. Loneliness can be, if you let it become, the most dire of all pain.’
Buoyed up this bit from down in the dumps and visions of dying in the gutter somewhere unnice, I thought what the hell, let’s thumb a nose at rejection and the shyness bred thereby and even if everyone is out to use you, why not step out into the world. I drove along the Maynooth to Dublin road making an abrupt turning up the wide cobblestoned drive to my host’s house, Leixlip Castle. Welcomed by genial Patsy, the butler, and led by an obliging Eileen, the housekeeper, I climbed the scrubbed wooden stairs ascending to this ancient attic to try on my costume. Fitting on one military coat after another but each one too tight across the shoulders and certain to hamper even my American styled half arsed swipe of a cricket bat. But a naval lieutenant’s jacket combined with a red waistcoat at last didn’t altogether stop me breathing and at least would allow me to appear in the swing of things. And driving a mile or two over the narrow winding country roads, through this county of Kildare, where recent rumour has it that between the ancien riche and the nouveau riche a hotbed of socially sexual intercourse has vividly erupted. Even to the point of someone spotted sporting liturgically purple lingerie. However, keeping a wary eye out, I arrive morally unscathed among the gathering of eminently respectable guests assembling on the pebbles fronting this great edifice Castletown House. And oh my God, the haughty particularity in the splendour of this setting. Vowels echoing, the glory of the clothing and the glamour of the people everywhere to behold.
Sited within its ancient meadow lands and worlds away from the now honky tonk tawdry town of Dublin, this massive Georgian mansion of grey ashlar stone faces its windows like many gleaming black eyes out over aprons of lawns and sentinels of yew trees. Inside behind its walls proceeds a lovingly meticulous restoration which for all these past eighteen years has kept this house still standing. As have remained a few other Anglo Irish edifices which were too damp for the nationalistically inclined native ever to burn down. But now all within this great structure, with its slates pushed back into place, dead leaves removed from roof gutters, cures injected into the dry rot, the crumbling joist ends repaired, new and restored wallpapers and fabrics adorning afresh its fine rooms, all continues preserved. And all faithfully seen to be done by its various diligent guardians, many of whom will wield a cricket bat and cut upon a ball this day.
And miraculous, too, that after sodden weeks and months of smouldering skies and rain drops that by persistence break the back, at long last the seldom sun beams warm. Arrays of bottles from champagne to Armagnac and from gin to bourbon are uncovered in the back boots of cars. The costumed figures raise their drinks sparkling in the sunshine. I overhear further gossip that an English vicar’s daughter had run amok among the neighbouring counties, bedding both husbands and wives and proclaiming she was looking for multiple orgasms. And one sadly realized that this once sacred isle of saints and scholars had caught up finally with the concupiscence of the rest of the world. Albeit I took chaste solace from the unblemished folk gathered here from both the Irish North and the Irish South. And was relieved to be reminded that my redeemer still liveth.
Meanwhile one’s heart quickens, all loneliness flees. For this was the trooping of the Georgian colour so to speak. As a pipe and drum band stands assembled playing on the wide steps of Castletown. Behind them, framed in the front doorway, in his swallow tailed green footman’s coat, his hair waving in the breeze, his blue eyes blazing out over the parklands, his attentions focusing on the contentment of his guests, stands the estimable founder and original host of all this, the very Honourable and the very Hospitable Desmond Guinness. His ears pricking up as he enquired did that recent roar deceive him or did he really hear a helicopter land beyond the trees. And someone said he did and Desmond delightedly smiled and said.
‘Oh good.’
I didn’t tell him it was Laura, the shyest of all shy people. But who was in the habit of telephoning me at midnight when she wasn’t telephoning me at dawn, to merely laugh and say, ‘Galvanize yourself into action, J.P., and roll out for some frivolity, you curmudgeonly old grouch!’ But now today, tippling before the match, it was tons of frivolity just as it was time for lunch. And never was anything so good. Like lasciviousness, many a culinary delight has at long last reached these shores. Even the cuisine of the Chinese and Japanese has come. And as we trickled into the great ancient tall ceilinged kitchen with tables groaning with victuals, wine flowing, I thought that nothing anywhere doth be as generously delicious as that still served by the Irish Anglo Irish, and the few of them left, God bless and keep always safe from harm. Since dawn that morning, Penny, Desmond’s pretty wife, had prepared a magic potion of horseradish sauce, which upon one’s lips I could already feel it curing all ills. And clearly everybody else’s, as a piper played and singer sang and all were having a glorious and golden fine old time. When a sentimental tear dropped from my weaker eye, Laura wiped it away and said.
‘Ah apropos of nothing at all, J.P., don’t you think the space over one’s head in one’s house is the elegance under which one lives. And that is why some of us prefer to make a roof of the sky.’
And that’s where we went. Following behind this little group in all their own many hued colours. Wandering across these meadows waving golden ragwort and the purple flowers of thistles. How then do you have the best time of your life. Ah, all you do is sit, wait and watch and play cricket while sipping a cool wine of Sancerre between the overs.
And I wholeheartedly entered into the fun. Never having held a cricket bat before in my life. Or known that in the eighteenth century version of the game two wickets stand and there are four balls in the overs instead of six. Plus the Georgian bat weighs seven and a half pounds and takes some strength to wield. And not surprising someone was overheard to say that the indomitable Desmond, behind a hay bale, was lying down for a bit.
Appropriate in the distance, in this county of Kildare, music, ‘Ain’t Misbehaving’, requested by Laura, who had now in her purple shirt fled from her picture being taken. Just as clapping and flattery came louder from the sideline supporters. The bloodstock breeders, Julian Lloyd and David Grenfell, were at bat. Big hitters both, showing their form. And Julian, also a world ranking De Alfonce player, cut a thirties figure in his golf outfit of silk shirt, checked trousers, cream cap and buckskin shoes. As he and Grenfell raised a storm, elegantly slamming run after run in every direction far afield amid the thistle and ragwort. And as I came hopelessly to bat, to soon be put out by a catch in the deep, Charles Lysaght, the umpire in his judge’s wig, was kindly biased enough to shout bravo as I sliced one accidentally aloft over the heads of the slips. And earned a run. And one wished all judges and umpires could, like Lysaght, look so welcomingly benign and be so encouragingly kind to the unskilled amateur.
Ah but don’t go away. Listen to me just these seconds longer. All any of us simply and solvently want to do is to go on living in this world. And I’ll tell you now about life in this nearly bankrupt Ireland, of which my own long dead father used to say, ‘They haven’t got a pot to piss in.’ Poor it may be but it at least remains an intimate country. Where someone you’ve recently libelled is suddenly only two feet away trying to grasp hands around your throat to throttle you. But here today, peace and pleasure reigns. Joined under the larks rising singing in the air. These of the Ulster squirearchy, and their southern counterparts, accompanied by their long gowned beautiful ladies under their wide brimmed hats, ensure that posterity will rejoice. For there still are and shall doth be these Georgians who love this old land and the houses they save from decay. And by the way. The South of Ireland won. By a run and a wicket. And not yet gone in her helicopter, I looked for Laura. And found her inside Castletown House. Seated in the gloomy shuttered dark of a big old room. Where a fire smouldered and a few flames licked atop a stack of grey ash. And in the loneliness she warned me of, she was like a votive light in that summer sombre chamber.