A Bolt from the Blue

In 1997 I rented a house in Ballyconeeley, Galway from Lord Guinness. A haunted unheatable cottage in the bogs. Plenty of rooms and Dad came over to visit. He rented a car at Shannon Airport and somehow made it to the house. The man had a wicked sense of direction. I put him in the guesthouse with an electric heater. The next day, my friend, Todd Shikegane, Dad, and I set off on a road trip. One destination was Nana's village. Dad knew the name. He wasn't so sure about the actual location. We stopped at the church and the parish priest said, "Ah, yes, I know Timmy Walsh. He lives in a cottage across the stream. A local musician with a taste for whiskey."

The last sentence wasn't a compliment.  I stopped at the town grocer for a bottle of Paddy. A coming-home gift from strangers.

His direction coincided with Dad's remembering his visit here with our mother back in the 1960s. We crossed a shallow stream to find ourselves before a primeval windowless stone house. I parked the car and we got out. A long-haired man emerged from the cottage. A bit scruffy, but not many reasons to get dressed up in the early morning in County Mayo.

"And who you might be?"

"My grandmother, Nana Walsh, lived in this cottage before she emigrated in the Year of the Crow." No one in our family had been able to discern the year. I had guessed it to be at the turn of the century. The cottage hadn't seen any improvement since then other than a tin roof had replaced the thatch.

"You're not here about the cottage." Those that stayed behind the Migration called visitors like ourselves 'a bolt from the blue,' according to the drinkers at Keough's Pub in Ballyconeeley.

"Not at all." 

"Well, why you come?" He was suspicious, as are many bachelors in rural Ireland. Mostly first sons, since everyone else left for the cities or America or the UK to find a new life. There were no women left for the first sons. All they possessed was the land and whiskey.

"To see where I came from and give you a bottle of Paddy."

I handed him the liter and he smiled.

"I'll get glasses."

He didn't invite us inside. He brought out a tray with the Paddy tucked under his arm. We had a drink and my father said, "Here's to Nana Walsh. A good woman."

Clink and down the hatch. A nod, good-bye, a handshake, and we left, heading north. We had a lot of miles to go.