“And the people on the ground cried, “When does it start?”
And the wild God says, “It starts with a heart, with a heart, with a heart, with a heart”
And the people on the ground cried, “When does it end?”
And the wild God says, “Well, it depends, but it mostly never ends”
Warren Ellis / Nicholas Cave
A phone call from a stranger leads to a meeting which involves a chat, and then a flurry of catch ups over coffee, and before you know where you are, you’re preparing for a visit from the judges for the Pride of Place awards out in Rossmore Park, of a Tuesday.
That’s the short version.
Someone nominated The Drumlin Giants and Rossmore Park for a Pride of Place award. The Pride of Place awards have been running here in Ireland since 2003 and is basically an annual competition to find , or showcase, cultural or community activities conducted by volunteer groups that either demonstrate or contribute to , their pride of their place. More or less. I think.
A luverly lady , Leona, from the Community Development section of Monaghan County Council rang to say that we’d been nominated for the Creative Community award in the Pride of Place awards. And when I say ‘we’ , I mean the Friends of Rossmore Park, which is the group that comes up with the Giants, The Haunting, the free cinema , boat races, Easter Egg hunts, storytelling, and waterfights. It does have a proper organised structure, but I mostly think of it as a state of mind.
After saying ‘Yes’ to let our nomination go forward, we faced our toughest task….a 160 word description of The Friends of Rossmore Park.
For those of you interested, it has already taken 380 words to get to this point in explaining how the process started, and I haven’t submitted anything at this point, so you can understand my frustration at trying to condense 7 years of glorious mayhem into 160 words.
This is what I wrote :
The Friends of Rossmore Park
Our group is made up of local creatives with a love of community events and a love and appreciation for Rossmore Park. Our Drumlin Giants project has involved the creation of 11 wooden sculptures creating a 5k trail.
“Why Giants ?” you ask.
The world didn’t need another fairy garden !
Each Giant relates to their position in the Park, and their story incorporates local legend, folk tale and actual characters from local history, for instance Banba’s story, our reclining Giant at the entrance to the Park, features Benny Callan, from Corduff, who’s name is on the Apollo 11 landing pod which remains on the moon.
When we are making each Giant we visit local schools and involve them in story and art competitions, and sometimes give them pieces to decorate to add to the finished Giants. We host Giant themed treasure hunts, water fights and river races annually, all for free.
Why ?
Why not !
And yes, Ok, that is 162 words…Bite me !
That was in May.
And then we waited.
We were told that we’d been ‘accepted’ in June and had a meeting out in the Park with the aforementioned luverly lady Leona from the council, who told Brenda, Laura, Dannan and myself what the judges visit would entail, what they would be looking for , and what we were and weren’t allowed do. That was on June 23rd.
We then made two mistakes.
Firstly we allowed Dannan to take note of everything. (Dannan is six months old, and , to be honest, his grasp of English leaves a lot to be desired.)
And secondly….. we didn’t do anything else.
That’s not strictly true. We did organise another event, unconnected to the Pride of Place awards, in conjunction with Creative Monaghan. We decided to have a free event in the Park for kids where we would get them to decorate wee wooden birds and sign them and we would later attach them to Druid, our giant Starling. And we’d also give out free ice cream and slushies to all those taking part. Brenda organised the Men’s Shed to make the birds, Tom from the CoffeeDoc organised extra staff, and supplies, Colm from the council sorted out extra picnic benches and we settled on August 5th.
That date was very important…because I kept telling everyone that the judges were coming to do the judging on August 4th. I’d asked Rossmore Golf Club to lend us a couple of golf buggies to take the judges around the Park on to see the Giants, and I’d asked as many members of the Friends of Rossmore committee to meet the judges out in the Park on August 4th.
It was pointed out to me that August 4th was an odd day for the judges’ visit, as it’s a bank holiday here in Ireland, but I argued that it was definitely that date , because we were having the art/slushie/ice cream event on the 5th.
I checked back with Dannan and he gurgled 4 times, so I was right.
But it transpired that not only is Dannan’s note taking sub par, so is his memory.
On July 23rd at 10.44am the Irish National Seismic Network’s data centre in Dublin recorded a ‘seismic event’ measuring 1.0 on the Richter Scale which they attributed to a quarry blast in north County Monaghan, but it was actually me falling off my balance board after finding out that the free ice cream/art/slushie event and the judges visit were in fact both on August 5th.
“You have a balance board ?”
No….I have two balance boards , and up until three weeks ago they’d both been resting together at the side of my wardrobe. My Soulmate had got them for me two Christmases ago, and she had laughed so much when I tried using them that day, that I couldn’t face using them again…until three weeks ago…when I fell off.
From this point forward everything is a bit of a blur.
Brenda and I worked on the presentation that we had to give to the judges. When I ‘work’ on things, my ‘work’ consists of throwing out lots of unconnected and yet, in my head, brilliant ideas, and then leaving it to people like Brenda to make them coherent. Brenda made them coherent by dropping most of them and making the presentation from scratch
I ordered Drumlin Giant and Drumlin Giant map signs from Universal Graphics. They asked it I had ‘print ready artwork’…and I said what I sent you is what I’ve got.
I went in and spoke to Ingrid in Diamond Imaging about printing some photos of different hauntings, events, school visits, and the construction of the Giants. She told me to just email her photos as I came across them and she’d print them out. I spent every spare hour over that weekend reminiscing and sending her photos as I scrolled through 8 years of memories.
She messaged me on the Monday.
“Are you selecting what you want from these ?”
“No, they’re the ones I want printed.”
“Do you know how many you sent ?”
“No.”
“268 !”
“Hmmm…print away.”
Brenda thought that it would be a good idea to put up some of the Haunting props at the walled garden in the Park in order to give the judges a flavour of that event. So we corralled Sean and Rory into collecting props in town and installing them. We also got David from Coillte out on a Bank Holiday weekend Sunday to open barriers for us. And , while carrying a large wooden zombie out of Sean’s van I managed to whack myself in the face with it and busted my upper lip.
Tom gave us the room/shed at the CoffeeDoc to the left as you look at it to use on the day to show the judges the presentation, and to decorate with the 268 8×10 glossy photographs.
Hundreds of markers were sourced and tumblers from Tidy Towns were borrowed to use to hold the markers.
And then we paused everything.
A few days before the judging/art/ice cream/slushie event we heard that Sinead O’Reilly’s mother had passed away and that the funeral would take place on the Tuesday morning. Sinead, along with John Nutley and The Hannon, founded the Friends of Rossmore in the first place, and she was all of our initial spark for everything that we’ve subsequently done.
I went to the wake on the Monday and gave Sinead a hug.
In the olden days whenever we’d all be flying around in a tizzy getting things ready for the Haunting/Sports Day/Treasure Hunt she, at some point, hiding the fact that she was more stressed than any of us, would say “Relax, it’ll be grand.”
I went home and had a cup of tea.
On Tuesday morning Leona, the luverly lady from the council sent me a text message :
“Paul, I will text you when we are leaving Carrickroe with the judges. Best wishes for today. Hope the sun comes out.”
I immediately texted back :
“What ??? Is that today ???”
I hadn’t fully retracted my thumb from the send button before my phone rang.
It was Leona.
“OF COURSE IT’S TODAY !!!! Tell me you’re joking ?!? “
“I’m joking.”
“Don’t do that ! I’ve had 2 hours sleep.”
“Sorry”
I had breakfast and then casually mentioned to my Soulmate that I was borrowing our good TV for the day to show the presentation out in the Park. She took it well.
I carefully wrapped the TV in a duvet and placed it on the back seat. I packed a change of clothes, some deodorant, and a towel…and left them on my bed, and headed off for the day.
First message received wasn’t great. Even though the golf club had reserved two buggies for us, both on the Monday, which was the date I’d originally said I needed them for, and today, the transporter we needed to get them to us, whom I’d similarly told I needed on the Monday, couldn’t now do it today. The INSN may have registered another ‘quarry explosion’ at that very moment. And then I thought “We were driving around in Sean’s van , I’ll just use the car.”
Sings and bunting were arrayed around the entrance to the Park. Tom helped me install the TV in the reserved room. We dressed the area beside the CoffeeDoc with more bunting and signs. We coned off parking spaces for the judges, Brenda arrived out before the funeral to deliver the wooden birds from the Men’s Shed, the photos from Ingrid and checked that the presentation worked from her laptop to the tv, and then she headed off.
I collected Sarah, Jake’s partner, and Drumlin Giants tote bags and sweatshirts for the judges, and then we returned to the Park where Sarah started hanging up all of the photos. John was adding more bunting around the venue. Annamarie McCleary arrived. I’d asked her to pop out to mention to the judges about the school visits we’d made to the Gael Scoil and the projects that the kids had subsequently done. She’d said yes so I said that as she was going out anyway would she help out with the art event for the day. And Annamarie being Annamarie also said yes.
We were is full flow , hanging up photos , running through the presentation, hanging even more bunting, putting hundreds of markers in dozens of pots, and started handing out birds to eager kids who were queueing up to paint, decorate and eat ice cream, when the judges arrived.
We were introduced to each other by Leona, the luverly lady from the Council, who glared at me, possibly still holding a slight grudge about this morning’s text. And them we took them away from the ice cream frenzy and showed them our presentation.
I brought the ‘funny’ and Sean, Brenda , and John answered all the serious questions.
Then we went back out and embraced the chaos.
Ciaran Murphy had popped along and told the judges about our involvement of his RISE class in the making and installation of our giant squirrel Medb-Michael. Michael Brown, after whom the squirrel is named, was on hand to talk about the help we give him with seeds and general encouragement of the red squirrel population in the Park, and a couple of fine young men from the Men’s Shed were there to talk about their involvement in every Haunting and event we’ve done out in the Park.
Then Sean and I got to spend about an hour with Terry and Eddie , the judges, driving around the Park and stopping at each of the Giants and telling them about the site it was located in, the idea behind it, and the story. ( In the P.P.S is the story of Banba, which seems to be the most popular based on schools feedback).
I’ve been judged before, and can honestly say that I do not like it. No, I do not like it one bit. But Terry and Eddie, Sean and I had a great time. It was a casual chat, or certainly felt like it.
And then we were back in the Park.
We all had a coffee together, Laura, John, Sean, Brenda and I from the Friends of Rossmore , with Terry and Eddie from Pride of Place, and Leona, the luverly lady from the council. At one point Sean mentioned the bust lip I’d gotten while setting up and Leona immediately said “Karma” and then continued to drink her coffee…with a smile on her face.
We said goodbye to the judges, and a slightly happier Leona, and then we started to put everything away.
Regardless of how the competition goes, we now have 150 new wee birds , decorated and signed, to add to our Druid, and 283 kids had an ice cream and a slushie out in the sunshine in Rossmore Park.
Pride is looked at in many different ways, a deadly sin, a virtue, an identity, vainglory, or magnanimity. My favourite though , is the oldest, it comes from the Latin word ‘prodesse’ , which simply means “be of use”.
Toodles,
Paul
P.S. This is for Sinead, John, and The Hannon, without whom none of this would have happened. It’s by last year’s winners of the ‘Creative Community’ award, The Kabin’s ‘Spark’.
P.P.S. This is the story of a Drumlin Giant and the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Banba
Banba was the queen of all the Giants, she protected the other giants and everyone that came to the Park. One night in 1926 as she lay asleep at the front gates she could hear a gentle sobbing. It was a young orphan boy, Benny Callan, who’d run away from his grandparents home in Corduff. He was an orphan and sometimes things just got too much for him. He was resting against what he thought was a mound of earth and a pile of sticks, he couldn’t see that it was Banba resting and her hair. Banba gently folded her cloak around him and he felt safe and fell into a deep sleep. In his dream he told Banba that he felt suffocated on the small farm in Corduff. She told him to look up at the moon. It was a full moon.
“Can you see it ?”
“See what ?”
“Your name, there , on the moon.”
“My name ?”
“Yes, Benny Callan. Your name will be written on the moon forever. Anytime you feel afraid, or small, look up and remember this night and that I have seen your name there. You are meant for great things, I promise. Take a piece of my hair and keep it with you. It will remind you of this night and this promise.”
He was woken the next morning by the Rossmore gatekeeper and returned home.
Two years later, in 1928, Benny left Corduff on a horse and trap for Ballybay where he caught the steam train to Derry. There he boarded the Anchor Line ship for New York. He worked as a farmhand and studied engineering at night and eventually graduated and got a job in the revolutionary new industry of aeronautics. He excelled and was at the cutting edge of new technology eventually ending up at Grumann Aerospace. Benny became foreman under lead engineer Tom Kelly working on a top secret project, the design and manufacture of the Apollo 11 lunar landing module ,known as the Eagle.
Benny’s core responsibility was the emergency manual landing controls, which, if you think about it is a thankless task. You’re dedicating a large part of your life and career to something that you, and everyone else hopes will never be used.
On the afternoon of July 20th 1969 Benny Callan from Monaghan found himself with the Grumann team in the Kennedy Space Centre in a room adjacent to Apollo 11 mission control. As the time approached 3pm they listened intently to the live feed as their baby, the Eagle, made it’s final approach to Tranquillity Bay.
Through the radio cackle, with 10 minutes left until the planned landing they hear Neil Armstrong say “Our position checks downrange show us to be a little long”. There were sharp intakes of breath, they were going to miss their landing target. And then there was silence, the signal was lost. It comes back, relief, but then they hear the dreaded words “1202 programme Alarm” , this meant that there was a guidance failure, they will have to switch to manual control.
All eyes turned to Benny Callan from Monaghan. He was staring at the screen, a small smile on his face,his hands in his pockets. He seemed calm. This gave the others confidence.
“1201 alarm !” more trouble. With 4 minutes to go Neil Armstrong realizes they are going to land on a dangerous crater and takes the Eagle out of autopilot mode and takes control. Benny Callan from Monaghan’s designed control. Armstrong must now manually guide the lunar module down. In the Kennedy Space Centre , Dean Krantz, the mission controller mutes the engineers microphones so the astronauts can’t hear how worried they all are here back on Earth. In the adjacent room everyone is staring at Benny Cullen. Benny is standing now, a small smile on his face, still staring at the screen , his hands in his pockets. Everyone remains calm.
The Eagle is travelling too fast. Everyone knows it. No one is saying anything.
“60 seconds.”
Everyone holds their breath. Sixty seconds of fuel is not enough to them to land safely.
“30 seconds”.
Silence. In the adjacent room everyone looks to Benny Callan. As before he simply stands there, a small smile on his face, staring at the screen, his hands in his pockets.
And then the radio link crackles into life :
“Houston…Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
There is uproar ! Everyone is cheering, hugging each other. Everyone except Benny Callan. When they turn to look he has fallen to his knees, tears are streaming down his face. As they rush over to see if he’s OK he takes his hands from his pockets and opens them to reveal what look like tiny twigs, Banba’s hair. He looks at them then looks up and smiles, saying “ Jaysus lads, that was close.”
Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon, closely followed by Buzz Aldrin a few minutes later. They spent 3 and a half hours walking on the moon’s surface, taking pictures and moon rock samples.
Twenty one hours after landing on the moon the top part of the Eagle lifted off and rejoined the Apollo 11 craft, piloted by Michael Collins, orbiting the moon before they then returned to Earth.
The base of the Eagle lunar landing module is still on the moon and on it is a plaque with the names of the Grumann engineers who built and one of those is Benny Callan.
