“How did he come here?
Who gave him the key?
Slipped it in his hand
So secretly
And who put the colour
Like lines on his face?
Brought him here
To a pagan place”
Mike Scott
On Wednesday I wandered around the Four Masters Park at the top of Eccles St. in Dublin. It’s not a big park so I wasn’t there long, but long enough to discover that the Celtic cross monument was organised by Sir William Wilde, Oscar’s Dad, and the father of two daughters by someone other than his wife, and who died a few days after each other following a fire at a friend’s house. They are interred in St.Molua’s church graveyard. I already knew all of that, except that William had paid for the cross. Whenever we go for a long run from Hollywood Lake we stop at the graveyard and say a wee prayer for the sisters. On one occasion when we did this, the Sunday Service finished as we were leaving the graveyard and the Minister came outside to say farewell to his parishioners and stared at us in our sweaty running gear. I think he thought we’d popped into his graveyard for a pee. Interestingly the Annals of the Four Masters is the oldest existing written record of Irish history, and the second place they name is Sliabh Beagh, a large hill, which we call a mountain, near Scotstown.
After my wee amble around the park I was heading back to the car and I popped into St.Joseph’s church on Berkeley St. I often pop into a church if I’m not in a rush…and generally speaking I’m never really in a rush. It was quiet, just a little old lady saying her prayers. She looked around when I entered and raised her finger to her forehead. I smiled back and tipped my finger off my forehead. There are always a few oratories and statues with altars dedicated to various saints in Catholic churches, but for a church of it’s size , St.Josephs fairly packed them in. There were two ‘Child of Prague’s , but placed at opposite corners. I was about to light a candle at one of the saints altars when I spotted a wooden cabinet containing larger candles which were a Euro each, compared to my three for 50 cents weaklings. I was putting my original candles back when the lady appeared at my elbow. She smiled and again pointed to her forehead. And I smiled back and tipped my forehead, thinking she must be foreign and that this was her custom.
I decided to light my mega candle at an altar with two little statues to Mexican saints. I’d never heard of them before , but they looked cute and unassuming, and no one had lit any candles at that altar. On the altar was a laminated sign which said :
NOTICE
Would you please refrain from standing up on the steps of the Shrines please.
Des Keogh. ( Sacristan )
There seemed to be a plaintive, or exasperated tone to the notice, which was laminated. I thought it was amusing so I took a photo of it. At the next shrine there was the same notice, also laminated, and as I passed down the right hand side of the church there appeared to be the same notice on every altar shrine. I had two thoughts. Firstly, why did they build steps into every shrine if they didn’t want people to use them, and secondly had someone bought Mr.Keogh a new laminator for Christmas ? He certainly seemed to be a very enthusiastic ambassador for lamination.
At the front, left of the main altar, I was going to light a candle at the shrine of the other Child of Prague, but there was a new laminated sign here saying :
FIRE DANGER
PLEASE DO NOT LIGHT CANDLES AT THIS SHRINE
So I didn’t.
And at the next shrine there was a small laminated sign saying ‘Do NOT pay for candles HERE’, so again I didn’t. I was going to take a photo of that sign as well but the head tipping old lady was at my elbow again. She smiled and was about to repeat this gesture when I stopped her.
“I’m sorry, but do you speak English ?”
“Of course I do !” she said indignantly, in a very Phibsboro accent.
“Sorry, I wasn’t familiar with your forelock tipping greeting, so I thought you were from abroad.”
“Forelock tipping ??? I was telling you to take off that woolly hat. You’re in a church !”
I put my hand up, and was surprised to indeed find a woolly beanie there. I took it off immediately.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”
“You’re OK.” She smiled. ”It’s freezing outside, easy to forget.”
She was walking away when I asked “Sorry, again, but do you know why you’re not allowed to pay for candles at that shrine ? It looks the same as all the rest ?”
“Oh that, Des lost the key for that one.”
Many moons ago, in another church I had a chat with a priest about another key. I was 17 and a Novitiate in the Holy Ghosts. I missed Eileen very much and had almost made up my mind that this life wasn’t for me. The nice priest in charge of us, Fr.Boyle, gave me a book to read called ‘The Keys Of The Kingdom’ written by A.J.Cronin. It was very well written and told the engaging story of a young man who thought he was in love with someone, but joined the priesthood. By the time he decided to leave, the girl had met someone else, had a child, and died, so he stayed. His priesthood life was spent fighting against authority and stupid rules. He ended up back in his home parish , and brought up the young boy his first love had left behind.
Fr.Boyle asked me what I thought. He obviously saw some positive meaning for celibacy in its pages, I told him the guy should never have left her in the first place, and really should have been a Methodist. He gave me something else to read. This was a pamphlet , not as well written but with a very simple message, ‘Celibacy IS THE KEY to the Kingdom’.
It made no sense.
I left.
“Paul ! Have you got the car key ?”
“No !”
“Where did you leave them ?”
“They’re in the car.”
“Why the heck are they in the car ?”
“So I know where they are.”
At this point my Soulmate usually uses some form of very, very un-Soulmate-like language and storms out of the house.
Keys aren’t important.
Physical keys, that is.
The key to my life forgives me for leaving the car keys in the car…repeatedly.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is for you , All Of My Heart
P.P.S This is an audio of an old blog
P.P.S And this is the worky blog
Very Clever Chaps
There is a long history of very innovative people from Monaghan. One of the originals was Robert McMorron, a 19th century entrepreneur who owned an ironworks in Emyvale. He was a very clever chap altogether, and inspired us at one point to …. well, we will get to that…
The Impressionist paintings by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Cezanne and Van Gogh were all made possible by the invention of the collapsible metal paint tube which was invented by John Goffe Rand
who came from Bedford, New Hampshire. However he was in Monaghan when he came up with the idea.
John Goffe Rand had travelled from America to London in 1834 to seek his fortune as a portrait painter. He met with moderate success and as with so many things in life one contact led to another. He painted the portrait of Thomas Telford who also commissioned him to deliver it. This led him to travel to Ireland with it as a parting gift to Telford’s former apprentice William Dargan. Dargan was busy lacerating County Monaghan’s little hills as he finished the Ulster Canal and started planning the railway for the Dundalk-Enniskillen line.
Rand took the Original Monaghan Coach from Dublin to Monaghan and by chance sat beside Robert McMorron who was returning home having conducted business in Dublin on behalf of his iron works. The McMorron iron works was located in Emyvale and it’s main products were farm implements, he used iron and steel , spades were 30p, shovels were 15p and pitchforks were 8p.
Robert and John chatted on the journey which took 12 hours with regular stops to change horses and allow the passengers to stretch their legs. Between one of these stops Robert took out a small basket which contained a snack which he generously shared with his new American friend. He unwrapped a batch loaf , sliced it and offered a slice to John. As John was about to bite into bread Robert took a metal tube from his pocket asking :
“Wouldn’t you like some butter with your bread ?”
John looked at the tube and politely declined, but he was transfixed as he saw Robert unscrew the top and gently squeeze out a coil of soft butter on to his own slice, put the top back on, place it back in his pocket before spreading the butter evenly , licking his lips as he did. He raised the bread to take a bite and only then noticed his new friend staring at him.
“What ?”
“What is that miracle tube ?”
“Oh that ? That just keeps the butter nice and soft in my pocket”.
“Can I have a look at it ?”
Robert handed the tube to John who took it gently in his hand, turning it slowly as if it were as delicate as a bee’s wing. He opened the cap and ever so gently squeezed so that a tiny little little blob appeared at the top. He scooped it off with the top of his finger and stared at it intently with a sense of awe and wonder.
“Don’t you have butter in America ?” Robert interrupted his contemplation.
John smiled, before replying “We do indeed, but I’ve never seen a device like this for transporting it, where did it come from ?”
Robert smiled proudly, swallowed the last of his bread and explained that sometimes in the ironworks the steel shavings naturally curled making a little cone and they used them as little cups. It hadn’t been a huge stretch to make a seal for the cone and they discovered that it would keep liquids and soft materials from drying out. Then they made them out of tin so that you could squeeze the last of the butter out.
“Magnificent ! Can I get some of these tubes from you ?”
“I thought you didn’t like butter ?” Robert replied.
“Butter ? No I would like them for my paint ! I have to carry the damn stuff in pig’s bladders at the moment, these will allow me to take more colours with me. This will change everything !”
They shook hands, laughing. John envisioned great works of art and a fortune, Robert thought his new friend was simply mad.
John Goffe Rand introduced the collapsible tube to the art world and immediately made the use and transport of paint much easier. This led to a dramatic increase in the number of landscape and ‘outdoor’ paintings. Monet in particular credited Robert’s tube with allowing him to discover ‘the true colour of the atmosphere’.
Impressionism – Monaghan’s gift to the world.
Back when we thought we too were very clever chaps altogether we decided to import some workwear. And in our infinite wisdom we decided to import workwear trousers as well as jackets and hoodies. The lovely thing about buying and selling upper body garments is that you only have to buy 5 sizes, namely , Small, Medium, Large, XLarge , and XXLarge. But with trousers you’re into quantum physics levels of calculation of what you need as you have 3 leg lengths and 10 waist sizes, so to stock a single work trouser in a single colour you were actually buying 30 different items. And then you have to cope with various manufacturers medley of measurements which don’t match yours. But , as I said, we thought we were very clever altogether, and instead of importing trousers which were better value and more reasonably priced than established brands like Snickers , or Carhartt, we decided to go for premium , advanced tech fabrics as well.
We imported a trouser that looked fantastic and felt fantastic as soon as you tried them on. We went for a narrower , tapered fit in the leg, years before the established brands did, and to cap it all off we had them made in an advanced tech fabric that was water repellant. If you spilt water on them, it simply beaded and bounced off or ran off the fabric like mercury. This was revolutionary, as the only other trousers that offered the same properties were plastic feeling pull ups or over trousers.
We sold a lot of them in advance based on us demonstrating how brilliant they were at trade shows and open days by giving away water pistols and inviting people to squirt water on them and watch it magically repel it.
We sold so many in advance that before we’d even taken delivery of the first order , we placed a much larger second order.
Faint hearts never won fair maidens…
But fair maidens perhaps should be asked whether they want to be won in the first place, and in our case fair maidens should most definitely have been asked how many wash cycles these magic trousers would get through before they started to lose their magical water bending properties.
If we had asked, the answer would have been…one !
When the first delivery arrived I excitedly gave a pair to a friend of mine, Rodney, who worked in a recycling business. He wore them for a week and marvelled at how comfy they were , and how brilliant they were in the rain. He even asked fellas in his canteen at lunchtime to spill water on his trousers so they could see the magic for themselves. Several of them bought the trousers that very day.
Over the weekend his long suffering partner washed them, and at the 11 o’clock break he bumped into his boss who had been on holidays the week before and started saying that he should be buying these trousers for all the staff.
“What’s so great about them ? They look ordinary enough.” His boss said dismissively.
“Well, they’re very comfortable, but more importantly they’re waterproof, so you don’t have to buy pullups as well !”
“Are you sure ? They don’t look very substantial to me.”
“Oh yeah, they’re brilliant. I’ve been showing the lads all last week.” And then standing in his best Superman pose, hand on hips, he said “Throw your coffee over them.”
“What ???”
“Seriously, I was doing it all last week, go on !”
His boss looked at him intently and then said ‘OK’ before he threw half a cup of coffee over Rodney’s lower half.
“JESUS !” Rodney shrieked as the hot coffee soaked him through our no longer magically water repellant trousers.
After that we thought we’d best leave workwear design to the actual very clever chaps in Snickers and Carhartt.
