We just had a Mass today commemorating Prof. Kelly in the College Chapel that was well attended, after about two months have passed since his death. It's been about a month now since we had our Easter break and our trip to Ballycastle for a few days, and to Rathlin for one of the days. It was a good time we spent there, even though it was an early Easter and not really into the season yet. Peter, Liam and I went to the pub on the first night and almost ruined the rest of the trip by getting too drunk that one night. But it was a good night! Even though there weren't really many out, we met a lovely guy as he sat in holy isolation watching the football. As he had a beard and hippyish clothes on, and the match was France vs England I tried a 'Vous etes francais?', to which he replied in English, 'no I'm Italian'! A real eurolingual moment. And that broke the ice, and he soon became part of our melée. He was taking a holiday without his fiancée as she had just started a new job and couldn't come! He turned out to be a bit of a globe-trotter, and his next adventure is going to be a visit to Mongolia. It happened he was also going over to Rathlin Island the next day, an island where a tiny community of eighty people live, so we agreed to meet at the boat at ten in the morning and go together.
However, we had not planned on the inevitable effects of the guinness that we proceeded to consume. Like all Italians, he had to be pressed to accept the normal Irish hospitality as we got him to drink up. But our hospitality was to come back to bite our sorry asses - as the americans might say! (What do you think, Emily?) For we had three great ulster fries to eat the next morning, which were a cause more of fear than delight, given that they were to be quickly followed by a trip on the cutting-up ocean. Peter had a regular date with the toilet, Liam held his forehead and I smiled through my headache, contemplating in my mind's eye the joyous absurdity, not to say stupidity, of life's rich pageant. The boat trip was enough to knock the philosophical out of me, leaving only the bileousness of regret. I held my stomach in a somewhat pitiful gesture of supplication to Neptune to relent and make still the storm. It was seemed no longer within my power to commune with the birds.
On Rathlin we began our day of communion, however. The stomach was restored to its rightful place and heaven was once more steady above our heads. We went to look for the visitors centre, which was very well signposted, only when you went where the signs told you to go, there was nothing there. Apparently, it consisted of some boat or other than was only used in season, which was not yet. But some of the other ten tourists who had come over on the same boat were able to tell us that the woman in the only shop on the island told them that the man in the only pub on the island was the person to drive a bus around the island. When would the bus go? Oh if you go there and ask him, he might take us. So in to the pub we went at ten thirty in the morning, hoping that the smell of alcohol would not awaken in me unwanted emotion and viscous bodily fluids. Eventually we found the man who was being asked the same thing by other tourists. He said that the bus would go at about a quarter to one! But then realising that all the people who would take the bus were actually all standing around him at the same time, he thought that it was a good enough time for the bus tour to start. And off we went on what would affectionately be called the tractor.
We drove up to the bird sanctuary, to get to which we had to drive along a cliff road. Almost at the very top there was a break in the metal fence just at a corner of the cliffroad (more like a path), looking for all the world like there was a bus shaped hole in the fence. Our driver spoke about the rocks below us, making up comic legends about them as he went along in good Irish tradition. At one stage he looked back at us to do this, as if to emphasis a point, during which action he verved close to this hole in the fence. He turned around again just in time, hastily putting us back on course. By now my fists were fusing with the metal bars on top of the seat in front of me, and I came close to prayer. But eventually we were there, only to be told there weren't any puffins there this early in the season. But the volunteer for the RSPB was interested to hear that we had seen two already down near the harbour. Apparently the mating season for them is from May to July, especially June, so I might return again then. (Mental note - suggest the adoption of a human mating season to the government, much like the arrangements for British Summer Time.) But we did get to see a multitude of Kitiwakes. We could also see Scottish islands from our vantage point, and even the snowtop of a Scottish mountain, when we used the proffered binoculars. (Liam used these for profligate purposes that we'll not go into here, let's just say it was a different kind of bird-watching, of the Ballycastle variety!)
(continued soon)
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