I’m closing in on catching up with the posts. It’s difficult when you get behind and each day is full of memorable events. We arrived in Clare later in the afternoon, I’m still gauging time of day from the amount of light, thinking as I would at home. That’s a mistake as there is still twilight at 11:00pm this far North.
We arrived at our rental home, a nice spacious place, chose our rooms and put our things in them. We grabbed a quick bite to eat, got our instruments in the car and drove to Lisdoonvarna to see what was happening at The Roadside Tavern. We have great affection for The Roadside. We’ve played some great sessions there with Paul Dooley, Terry Bingham, Christy Barry and Seamus Hynes. The publican Billy Archibald asked if he could sit in with his bodhran which felt very validating. Our impulse to get to this establishment could be viewed similarly to fish returning to the spawning site. The first thing I did was walk up to the bar and ask if Billy Baldwin was there. The young man looked a little puzzled and then said “oh you mean Billy Archibald”, “oh yeah, that’s him” I fumble. I’m OK with names but I have to use them to really remember them. “Billy retired a few years back but he shows up with his bodhran when music’s going on.”We find out there’s an open session Thursday night, Christy Barry with Colin Nea Unfortunately not much was going on this night. A guitarist and fiddler playing quiet songs, we know better than to crash something like that.
So, into the car and down to Ennistymon. The home we rented is really close to both towns so really easy to toggle between both locations. We were looking for Cooley House, the sign of another memorable session. We arrive in Ennistymon, spot Cooley House, Bridget parks in front and we step in. The proprietor, Joan, is still there. She looks a little older, but she’s there and it’s good to see her. We remind her of our previous visits and she remembers us. We order pints which she brings over and we proceed to catch up. She survived Covid and shares that she actually enjoyed the time off, coming in to work was difficult, the government slowly added opening hours and eventually she got back to normal. There was no session tonight but she encouraged us to get our instruments and play. She said she wasn’t doing regular sessions because she can’t get staff on those busy nights. Musicians are coming in but it’s nothing official. The pub was nice and quiet and we thought we’d settle in for a few quiet tunes but within a few minutes of starting more people came in and soon it was a steady stream and within 30 minutes Cooley’s House was hopping. The customers seemed to like the music, a couple of young French men were particularly engaged and bought us half pints of Murphy’s. A party at a table next to us were nodding along, people leaving nodded recognition as they left. I remarked to Joan “see what we did to your nice quiet establishment.” We packed up to return to the house.
We are still relying on GPS to get us to our location. We’re in the countryside so it’s dark. James tells Bridget to take the next left and we head up this small road. The GPS shows a right turn that’s supposed to get us there, it’s even smaller. Soon we’re bouncing around on a rapidly narrowing boreen, the grass in the center is getting taller and the tree limbs are hanging into the lane. We’re nervously joking as we’re beginning to see boggy ground through the windshield. This road might lead somewhere, if you’re driving a 4 wheel drive, but not in our rental car. Bridget slows down and we urge her to keep the speed, we’re afraid we may get stuck. We finally see a spot wide enough, in front of an old abandoned cottage to turn around. I get out and guide her through the turn, jump in and we make our way back out to the road. Morgan mutters about finding a paper map the next day, our faith in GPS is shaken. We finally get back to the house pour some whisky and play more tunes.
