belgianwaffle

Ireland

And We Like Sheep


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Reading etc.

Mr. Waffle and I went to Handel’s Messiah in the local church last night. It was completely sold out – the organ restoration fund thanks you – and all very nice but it is long. A good 3 hours including the interval. It took a lot out of me but at least I had thought to bring a cushion and I imagine I was quite a bit more comfortable than the local bigwigs who graced the performance with their presence but had not had the forethought to bring their own cushions.

Today is my beloved grandmother’s birthday. She was born in 1897 and died in 1984. I always think of her in November.

That’s all I’ve got for today. More tomorrow when I am feeling stronger.

Partying


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Last weekend, Mr. Waffle and I were invited to not one but two parties on Saturday night. As the venues were nearby, we managed to get to both.

Yesterday we were invited to two 50th birthday parties at opposite ends of Dublin so I went to my friend’s party and Mr. Waffle went to his friend’s party. I realised on the way in that it’s the first time in years that I have been to a non-work event on my own. However, the house was heaving with friends and acquaintances so all was well. The birthday girl’s parents – who are in great shape – were there. A group of us were reminiscing with her father about how we all went to visit them on Achill island in our early 20s. Of course, we felt we were all grown up but, I realised talking to her father, a lovely man, how he and her mother must have basically thought we were children. An impression not dispelled by me reminding my friend how she had been able to do cartwheels on the sand, a feat of which none of us is now capable, sadly.

I suppose 50th birthdays are a time for reminiscing. I recalled my friend coming out to Brussels to help me plan for my 30th birthday and guiding my faltering footsteps to a local DIY shop saying firmly, “What you need is a good toolbox.” Good advice and still useful after all these years. Frankly, I doubt that the fancy candles I have given her will be at all as welcome in the long run.

I suppose that’s it on the party front for the next 12 months now. Sigh.

Awkward


Posted in: Cork, Ireland, Siblings

My brother: There was an event in the golf club last night for members who died during the year and I went along.

Me: That was nice, was there anyone you knew there?

Him: Yes, lots of people and they said nice things about Mum. Do you remember her friend, M from up the road?

Me: Yes, she died at almost the same time as Mum.

Him: Well her son was there as well and I was talking to him.

Me: Oh I don’t know the sons at all, they were all a good bit older than us.

Him: Did you tell me one of them died?

Me: No, I never heard that.

Him: Well, somebody told me that.

Me: I’m sure I’d have heard. I don’t think any of them died.

Him: Well, yes, I know that now.

Ní Bheidh a Leithéidí Arís Ann


Posted in: Ireland, Middle Child, Princess, Twins, Youngest Child

The principal of our children’s primary school retired at the beginning of September. There was a big party for him and parents of past pupils were invited to attend so we went along. It was a lovely evening and I was impressed by how all the teachers remembered us and asked after the children. We said to the principal how happy the children had been in primary school and what a great operation he ran and he said, “Oh yes, even herself though she was in one of the most difficult classes we ever had in the school.” This was news to us but she got on fine anyhow, I suppose.

The former principal is from the Kerry Gaeltacht (his mother was a great friend of Peig Sayer’s – of course she was) and he went to secondary in St Brendan’s in Killarney. The principal of the children’s secondary school was at the retirement gig also having retired himself this summer. He went to St. Brendan’s as well, in fact the primary principal was a prefect when he started there. All of the clever boys in the Gaeltacht got scholarships to go to secondary school in St. Brendan’s (this was before free second level education was introduced in 1967). A former colleague of mine went there also and he described to me how, the boys from the Gaeltacht never spoke Irish to each other in school (even though the school taught Irish and was very supportive of Irish) but only started speaking Irish to each other again on the bus home at the end of term. There is something very poignant about this.

The new principals of the primary and the secondary school are both fluent Irish speakers but both of them learnt their Irish in school. There are fewer and fewer native speakers and it’s not quite the same, is it?

Assumptions About Names


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

I met herself for lunch in town near Trinity today. While she was waiting for me she overheard four students talking.

Student 1: They could have slipped in something about Roman Catholicism and none of us would have noticed except Aoife.

Student 2 (presumably Aoife) indignantly: Hey, I’m a Protestant too.

Funeral Season Continues


Posted in: Ireland, Travel

I was up in Belfast last week for the funeral of the mother of a good friend of mine. Mr. Waffle persuaded me that it would be better to take the train than the car and in many ways it was (no parking problems, environmentally sounder, less tiring etc.). It did mean, however, that I was dependent on a Belfast taxi man to get me from the station to the church for 10 am.

A perfectly correctly behaved cyclist went past us and the taxi driver said, “I hate those bloody cyclists; they keep weaving in and out and disobeying the rules of the road.” Could I let it go? I could not. We had a robust exchange of views on the way to the church. In fact we parked outside the church and I could see the hearse being unloaded and still he wouldn’t let me go. I was forced to concede that perhaps we could all learn something in the hopes of getting out before the coffin was carried into the church.

The funeral itself was a nice one. A lovely church (St. Patrick’s, Donegall Street); nice music and readings; and the parish priest knew the dead lady well and is a close friend of her son’s so gave a really good homily pointing out that she had been baptised in the very same church in 1930 and gone there all her life. The priest was also careful to welcome people of all faiths and none which we never bother with in the South. The fact that the deceased had brought up six children through the Troubles was also touched on. My friend does have some slightly hair-raising stories like when he was a little boy, he ran to get his ball from under a car and everyone started roaring at him and a soldier ran over and grabbed him – there was a bomb, apparently, or at least, a bomb scare.

I then went for a brief wander about Belfast before heading home on the train. It struck me as pretty depressed (although I suppose nowhere is at its best on a rainy Tuesday in November) and a lot less busy than Dublin or even Cork, and quite pricey too. I don’t quite know why that should be – is it the Brexit uncertainty, the absence of an Assembly, the collapse of industry or just maybe November rain? Poor Belfast.