The Belfast Girl on Galway Bay. Anne Doughty
the ten o’clock bus to Lisdoonvarna throbbed its way northwards, my spirits rose so sharply I found it almost impossible to sit still. Brilliant light spilled across the rich green fields, whitewashed cottages dazzled against the brilliant sky and whenever we stopped, people in Sunday clothes climbed up the steep steps, greeted the driver by name and settled down to chat with the other passengers.
How incredibly different my train journey from Dublin to Limerick. Under the overcast sky of a rain-sodden evening, we steamed westwards, stopping at innumerable shabby stations with hardly a soul in sight. I caught glimpses of straggling villages and empty twisting lanes, weaving their way between deserted fields. The further we went, the more I felt the heart of Ireland a lonely place. It was so full of a sad desolation that I longed for the familiar busy streets of the red brick city I had left two hundred miles away.
Through the dirt-streaked windows of the rattling bus, I took in every detail of a landscape that delighted me. Flourishing fuchsia hedges, bright with red tassels, leaned over tumbled stone walls. Cats dozed on sunny windowsills. A dog lay asleep in the middle of the road, so that the bus driver had to sound his horn, slow down, and wait until he moved. In the untidy farmyards, littered with bits of old machinery, empty barrels and bales of straw, hens scratched in the dust clucking to themselves, while beyond, in the long lush grass of the large fields, cattle grazed. They looked as if they came straight out of the box which held the model farm I played with at primary school.
Some hillsides were decorated with sheep, scattered like polka dots on a billowing skirt. There were stretches of bog seamed with stony paths, the new, late-summer grass splashed a vivid green against the dark, regular peat stacks and the purple swathes of heather. I imagined myself making a film to show to my family on a long winter’s evening but this country had been excluded from their list. An unapproved country, like an unapproved road, I thought suddenly as we stopped in Ennistymon, in a wide street full of small shops liberally interspersed with public houses.
An hour later, in the Square in Lisdoonvarna, it was my turn to weave my way through the crowd of people waiting to meet the bus. A short distance beyond the rusting vans, the ancient taxi and the ponies and traps by the bus stop, abandoned rather than parked, I spotted a row of summer seats under the windows of a large hotel. They were all unoccupied, so I went and sat down. It was such a relief to have a seat that didn’t shake and vibrate every time the driver changed gear.
It was now after one o’clock. As I watched, the bus disappeared in a cloud of fumes, followed at intervals by the other vehicles. In a few moments the Square was completely deserted. I looked around me. Directly opposite was a war memorial, set within a solidly built stone enclosure. The walls were hooped with railings and pierced with silver-painted gates, hung between solid pillars. Each sturdy pillar was capped by a large, flat flagstone, white with bird droppings. Within the enclosure, grass grew untidily around young trees and shrubs already touched with the tints of autumn. Dockens pushed their rusty spikes through the locked gates and dropped their seeds among the sweet papers and ice-cream wrappers drifted against the wall.
Except for the clatter of cutlery in the hotel behind me and the running commentary of the sparrows bathing in the dust nearby, all was quiet. Nothing moved except a worn-looking ginger dog of no specific breed. He trotted purposefully across the red and cream frontage of the Greyhound Bar, lifted his leg against a stand of beachballs outside the shop next door, and disappeared into the open doorway of a house with large, staring sash windows. A faded notice propped against an enormous dark-leaved plant in the downstairs window said ‘Bed and Breakfast’.
‘What do I do now?’ I asked myself.
Just at that moment, the ancient taxi I’d seen collecting passengers from the bus came back into the Square. To my surprise, the driver went round the completely deserted space twice before stopping his vehicle almost in front of me. He got out awkwardly, a tall, angular man in a battered soft hat, looked around him furtively and began to move towards me.
I concentrated on the buildings straight ahead of me, a cream and green guest-house called ‘Inisfail’, a medical hall, a bar, a grocer’s, and a road leading out of town, signposted ‘Cliffs of Moher’ and ‘Public Conveniences’. The bar and the grocer’s were part of a much larger building that occupied almost all one side of the Square and extended along the road towards the cliffs and conveniences as well. Against the cream and brown of its walls and woodwork, ‘Delargy’s Hotel’ stood out in large, black letters.
‘Good day, miss. It’s a fine day after all for your visit.’
He was standing before me, touching his hand to the shapeless item of headgear he’d pushed back on his shiny, pink forehead. The sleeves and legs of his crumpled brown suit were too short for his build and his hands and feet projected as if they were trying to get out. In contrast, the fullness of his trousers had been gathered up with a leather belt and his jacket hung in folds like a short cloak.
‘Ye’ll be waitin’ for the car from the hotel, miss. Shure, bad luck till them, they’ve kept you waitin’,’ he said indignantly.
I shook my head. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I’m not staying at a hotel.’
‘Ah no . . . no . . . yer not.’
He nodded wisely to himself as if the fact that I was not staying at a hotel was plain to be seen. He had merely managed to overlook it. He sat himself down at the far end of my summer seat and for some minutes we studied the stonework of the war memorial in front of us as if the manner of its construction were a matter of some importance to us both.
He turned and smiled again. His eyes were a light, watery blue, his teeth irregular and stained with tobacco.
‘Have yer friends been delayed d’ye think? Maybe they’ve had a pumpture,’ he suggested.
He seemed quite delighted with himself for having seen the solution to my problem and he waited hopefully for my reply. It had already dawned on me that I wasn’t going to go on sitting here in peace if I didn’t give him some account of myself.
I knew from experience that country people have a habit of curiosity based on self-preservation. Strangers create unease until they have been labelled and placed. And he couldn’t place me. In his world people who travel on buses and have suitcases are to be met. I had a suitcase, I had travelled on a bus, but I had not been met. I glanced at him as he pushed his hat back further and scratched his head.
‘I’m just having a rest before my lunch,’ I said, hoping to put him out of his misery. ‘I’m going on to Lisnasharragh this afternoon,’ I explained easily.
‘Ah yes, Lisnasharragh.’
Again, he nodded wisely, but the way he pronounced the name produced instant panic. He’d said it as if he had never heard of it before.
‘Ye’ll be having a holiday there, I suppose?’ he said brightly.
I was slow to reply for I was already wondering what on earth I was going to do if Lisnasharragh had disappeared. It had been there in 1929 all right. On the most recent map I’d been able to get hold of, the houses referred to in the 1929 study I’d found were clearly shown, but that didn’t mean they were inhabited now in 1960. Lisnasharragh might be one more village where everyone had died, moved away, or emigrated to America. There had been no way of finding out before I left Belfast.
‘No, I’m not on holiday,’ I began at last ‘I’m going to Lisnasharragh to do a study of the area,’ I explained patiently.
All I wanted was for him to go away and leave me in peace to think what I was going to do about this new problem.
‘Are ye, bedad?’
His small eyes blinked rapidly and he leaned forward to peer at me more closely.
‘And yer going to write about it all, I suppose, eh?’
He laughed good-humouredly as if he had made a little joke at my expense.
‘Well. . . yes . . . I suppose I am,’ I admitted reluctantly.
He leapt to his feet so quickly