belgianwaffle

Ireland

An Gorta Mór


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Princess

Herself is learning about the famine in school. She had a great time doing a dramatisation where she got to play the lady from the big house increasing the rents of misfortunate tenants who had made improvements and then tossing them out. Another day, they made a coffin ship.

One night, she had a couple of questions for homework, the first of which was – “Why were the Irish so poor at the time of the Famine?” “Why were they so poor?” she asked me. “Well, lots of reasons: landholdings tended to be small as they were divided up between families; landlord and tenant law was unsatisfactory in a number of ways [insert digression on land league]; there were, of course, absentee landlords and unfair agents [digression here to cover Captain Boycott]; then remember that the Catholics had been disenfranchised for a long time and there was the legacy of the Act of Union in 1801 and the penal laws…” I began. “Does this go back to William of Orange and James II?” she asked. “Well, yes, even before that, I suppose it is the nature of history that it is informed and shaped by the past.” And so on.

I checked her homework later. In response to the question, “Why were the Irish so poor at the time of the Famine?” she had written: “Because the English were not very nice.”

Is it any wonder that her aunt has vetoed all talk of the Famine when she marries her English man in London at the weekend?

Heaven is a Place on Earth


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

I take the children to Cork for the weekend from time to time. During these weekends away from their father – who is all virtue – I tend to give up on the healthy eating/playing in the park regime which we try to achieve in Dublin. As a result their time in Cork is spent eating pizza, watching television and playing on the iPad and the x-box. It’s quite relaxing for me too but, of course, my enjoyment is undercut by a steady pulse of guilt, made no better by the following happy confidence from my youngest child when we last visited: “I love Cork because there aren’t so much [sic] rules.” “How do you mean Michael?” I asked. “When we started playing the x-box it was bright but now it is dark.”

Also, are you singing that Belinda Carlisle number?

Sweet Cork of Thee


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

With one thing and another, I have been in Cork quite a bit recently. Does where you are from become more loved when you move away? Cork is delightful in the Spring (though showery). The city centre is small but not too small. Last time I was there a busker was belting out Spancil Hill in front of the Crawford and the sun was shining and people were milling about and it was lively and familiar.

I was desperate to get out of Cork and see the world when I qualified. I left in 1993 and haven’t lived in Cork for any significant length of time since. When we came back to Ireland from Brussels, Mr. Waffle suggested that we might consider moving to Cork. I did consider it but it didn’t suit for a range of reasons (including that neither of us had a job there) and I was ambivalent about living in Cork again. It’s small and all my friends had left. If I go to Cork now, there is no one I know beyond my immediate family. So, my homesickness is artificial and I think living there would be difficult. When I had the chance, I turned it down. But yet, it is a lovely place and I miss it.

Eavesdropping


Posted in: Ireland, Travel

I was on the train from Limerick to Dublin last night and found myself distracted from my book by the conversation of four young men opposite.

Boy no.l: I am well-pleased with my skipping.
Boy no.2: You’re in the gym all the time alright.
Boy no.4: Diet is very important too.
No. 1: Absolutely, I ballooned in second year because I ate take away all year.
No. 2: I make a mean omelette actually.
No. 3: What do you put in it?
No. 2: I fry up onions… [insert your own description of how to make an omelette here].

[Is it all the images of male supermodels pressuring these young men to worry about their appearance?]

Pause

No. 1: UCC girls are really pretty. But they really know it.
No. 4: They don’t look after themselves like us though, they kind of let themselves go.
No. 3: Yeah, they’re all a bit over-weight. When do you ever see them in the gym?
No. 1: Trinity girls are well fit though. Of course they’re stuck up and all English.
No. 2: UCD girls are beautiful. And they are really natural and down to earth.

[Can I point out here that I was a UCC girl?]

Pause

No. 3: Have you ever seen Blood Diamonds?
Others: No.
No. 3: You have to see it, it’s one of the ten best films I’ve ever seen. It’s set in Sierra Leone.
No. 1 : Where is Sierra Leone?
No. 3 : In West Africa.

[Go Leonardo Di Caprio]

Pause

No. 3: I went to look at a flat and it had an outside toilet.
No. 1: No way, I don’t believe it.
No. 3: Really, I couldn’t stop laughing, it was like something out of the 1980s.

[As someone who lived through the 1980s, I longed to reassure them that despite all our problems, we did have indoor plumbing.]

I’m practising to be the next Maeve Binchy.

Austerity, What Austerity?


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Work on the new house is progressing. Mr. Waffle went to give them a cheque the other day and pronounced himself pleased. The electrics will be finished off when our electrician comes back from his skiing holiday in Val Thorens.

Births, Marriages, Deaths


Posted in: Cork, Ireland

I was in Cork recently for my mother’s birthday. I was collected from the station and promptly sent to mass with my mother for a local priest’s month’s mind.

I hadn’t even known that Fr. C was dead. At the mass (cast of thousands, well 10 priests on the altar) there was a long and interesting sermon about his life which in no respect chimed with what I knew of him. Until I was 11, every evening in term time, my parents would eat with Fr. C while my siblings and I were fed elsewhere. My parents therefore knew him very well and they were fond of him. I only met him occasionally and, as this was the 1970s when adults were not obliged to show interest in children unless they actually were interested (possibly a better system than that which currently applies where everyone has to be fascinated by children all the time), he paid me no great attention.

I was a bit surprised when he turned up on the altar at my wedding to concelebrate the mass with my father’s cousin (who was the priest we had asked to come). On the day, Mr. Waffle raised his eyebrow – who was that – and I shrugged whispering, “Family friend, rather dour.” And then Fr. C christened all my children for me. He was as gruff as ever and I can’t say that I ever had a conversation of any length with him but I came to expect his lined, frowning face at important religious rites. I was surprised to hear the priest at the month’s mind refer to him jovially as Canon Mike and a “charismatic priest”. I can tell you, he was never Canon Mike to me and the charisma, if any, was in trace quantities as far as I was concerned.

Still, I do feel that perhaps, from his now lofty perch in heaven (gruff, but holy, you know) he may just, unexpectedly, keep an eye out for my family here. I stopped and said a quick prayer at his grave on Sunday, just in case.