belgianwaffle

Revolutionary


Posted in: Dublin, Family, Ireland, Mr. Waffle

When Mr. Waffle’s uncle K was a little boy he was taken by his father to see Dan Breen in hospital. They had been neighbours in Tipperary. Mr. Breen turned to young K and asked him what he would do, if he found an informer among his men. Young K was baffled by this and in the pause while he was collecting his thoughts, Mr. Breen sat up in the bed and said ferociously, “You’d plug him.” It made quite the impression on K, still a very peaceful soul.

If I don’t write this down here, who will ever know?

Anniversaries – November Thoughts


Posted in: Cork, Family, Ireland

My father would have been 100 last March 25. Last March felt like a bit of a milestone as well because it was 5 years post the first Covid lock down. My father died on Christmas Day 2020 and those last nine months were made even grimmer by Covid. I think the very old and young people in education got the worst of Covid but it was no picnic for those in the middle either. It was pretty dreadful and I find few things more annoying than people who say, “Actually, I had a good Covid.” If it’s you, please stop it, but as Covid memories mercifully recede, it is something I am hearing more frequently and I don’t like it. Look, maybe you did have a good Covid (unlikely in my view, but I’ll allow it) but you must know lots of people didn’t and sharing this experience of yours is unlikely to make them feel better about that time. Anyway, here’s a thing about my father, he cycled all his life until he was well into his 80s – when cycling was unpopular and no grown ups cycled, he cycled, and now, partly inspired by his singular devotion to the convenience of the bicycle, I cycle every day too and I often think of him as I freewheel along.

My sister sent me flowers on our mother’s anniversary – what a nice thing. I think of my mother most days and what I really miss is her advice. Teenage me would be surprised. Also, she thought I was brilliant and was always on my side. And she was hilarious and practical and clever and I miss her very much.

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Look, it’s almost the season (though I can 100% guarantee that picture was taken on Christmas Eve which was when our tree went up every year despite my pleas for an earlier date; as you can observe my pleas for a real tree were also in vain). And, speaking of practical, my mother made that dress I’m wearing though I am afraid I never liked it. Oh well.

Cultural Update


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland, Mr. Waffle, Princess, Reading etc.

I went to the French evening at the national gallery a couple of months ago. There was a French man who was particularly passionate about Caillebotte. I mean, I don’t mind him myself but I couldn’t muster the enthusiasm this man demonstrated particularly for the very underwhelming picture we have in the National Gallery in Dublin. But still, interesting overall.

On the same evening we went to what was billed as a duet if memory serves. The ubiquitous Olwen Fouéré (interesting back story) was onstage with a man whose name I have forgotten. She is quite a stiking presence but the material was underwhelming and when it ended with both participants walking down the aisle shouting loudly (part of the performance not a disagreement), I was delighted it was over. So was everyone else I’d say as there was only a solitary standing ovation in a city where this has become entirely standard.

I saw Dara Ó Briain’s stand up about finding his father which was one of the best things I’ve seen all year. Recommended.

Mr. Waffle and I went on a walking tour beginning at the tenement museum in Henrietta Street. We were the only people on the tour and, to be fair to the guide, he quickly realised we were the honours class and covered lots of new material of which we were not previously aware. Before retiring and beginning his new role of leading tourists around the place, the guide had, for many years, worked closely with former Irish president Paddy Hillery who told him this story. When he (Dr. Hillery) was Minister for Education (before ascending to the heights of the Presidency, obviously) he went up into a very rural part of Clare (where he was the local member of Parliament – TD). He went into the classroom of this small one teacher school and the young woman who was teaching there jumped up in alarm and then relaxed saying, “Oh, it’s yourself, Dr. Paddy, I thought it was the school inspector”.

I riposted with my own Paddy Hillery story, possibly apocryphal serving to demonstrate the expectations that the electorate have of their politicians. One Christmas day a man came round to Dr. Hillery’s house (he was a medical doctor) and banged anxiously on the door. Dr. Hillery by then the local TD rose from his Christmas dinner to see what was the matter. The man said, “You must come quickly, my wife is in labour.” “But why haven’t you gone to your own GP?” asked Dr. Hillery reaching for his coat. “Oh, I didn’t like to disturb him on Christmas day,” said the constituent.

I have a friend with whom I do cultural things. She got tickets for “An evening of Nature and Birdsong”. I went along but I did not expect to enjoy it. However, I did. Firstly, I discovered that they have quite the auditorium in the Royal Irish Academy of Music on Westland Row; and secondly I found the two young men who were speaking about nature hugely engaging. Especially the man from Cork, obviously but the young man from Northern Ireland was pretty good too. They were really interesting and I never thought I would find recorded birdsong quite so interesting.

Herself, Mr. Waffle and I visited Emo Court over the summer. It’s only just reopened and is worth a look. Amusingly, the last resident, a Major Cholmeley Harrison, acquired an extensive art collection and the attributions are…optimistic. “Is that really by [insert name of famous artist here]?” I asked in astonishment again and again and the OPW guide said each time “No, that’s just the label the Major put on it.” Dubious attributions notwithstanding it’s well worth visiting.

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We went to see The Naked Gun in the cinema with a selection of the children. Not culture, you say. Well, you might be right. A couple of years ago my new year’s resolution was to go to the cinema more often and it was great for a while but I have fallen off the wagon; this is a reminder that I need to get back in the saddle (do you like my mixed metaphor?). Oh the film? It was terrible.

Mr. Waffle and I went back to Henrietta street for a tea time talk about the local school which we really enjoyed. There were lots of older (and some younger) people there who had attended the school and they really added to the event. I also got hold of this map of Dublin which is really interesting and I share here as an act of public service. See the way the birth place of Edmund Burke is down there on Arran Quay? Well, his mother was a Nagle and she was a cousin of Nano Nagle who was the founder of the Presentation order and the school we were looking at was a Presentation school just up the road attached to which was a very early Presentation convent (I think maybe the second one after Cork where HQ was, though I’m not sure). I do wonder was Burke baptised as persistent rumour has it? I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Wikipedia tells me his sister was brought up and remained a Roman Catholic. Doubtless much ink has been spilt on this question.

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We went to see a comedian called Holly Hughes in the Dublin Fringe Festival on how she became Karen. Like the curate’s egg, good in places.

We saw David Sedaris in the cavernous Bord Gáis energy theatre. We saw him a while ago in the National Concert Hall and that was hilarious but that was a small venue which allowed banter with the audience and where he wasn’t overwhelmed by the size of the stage. The huge venue was full (normally does West End block busters on their Irish tour) so the fans are out there and he is very funny but a reading, even a very funny reading, just didn’t work in this venue. Disappointing.

We saw a new play based on Oedipus Rex “The Boy” at the Abbey theatre. I’m honestly still not the better of it. That is a very harrowing play. What the ancient Greeks thought when they were seeing it for the first time, I can only imagine (possibly that Sophocles should be locked up). I thought it was a really great production. Incidentally, featured Olwen Fouéré in a supporting role. Highly recommended.

We went to a talk on Great Irish Wives which was an interview with the author of a book of the same name. Mildly interesting.

I went to the Picasso exhibition in the National Gallery. I don’t like Picasso much but, despite myself, I was impressed by his extraordinary vigour, right into his 90s. Apparently when he died he left 45,000 different pieces of art in his various studios and, obviously, that doesn’t include the stuff he sold to fund his lavish lifestyle. His personal life left a lot to be desired in my view. He left a slew of disappointed (all younger, often much younger) women in his wake. Our guide told us that he loved animals and once won a goat which he brought home and had living in the house along with his partner and two small children. This was too much for madame who got rid of the goat and there was a huge row. Apparently, his new partner when she was moved in gave him a present of a goat.

Old goat.

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Any cultural news from your end?

Notions


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

Many of my friends have children finishing school and there is much talk of what they might do.

My friend overheard this conversation between two of her daughters.

Older daughter: Do you know what you want to do in college?

Younger daughter: I’m kind of interested in psychology but you know what she [my friend, her beloved mother] would say – navel gazing!

Truly being a mother is it’s own particular kind of exhausting.

Dispatches from a Bygone Age


Posted in: Cork, Dublin, Family, Ireland

I was at a barbecue over the summer (lashing rain) and over a burnt sausage the conversation turned to the word char. Some of the group had never heard of the word as referring to a char lady (etymology is from chore in case you’re curious).

By way of providing some background one friend told us that when she was a little girl in the 1970s she was sent to the Protestant brownies as her mother (a family planning doctor) had fallen out with the Catholic hierarchy. I know it’s different in other countries and even Northern Ireland but in the south Protestants are firmly upper middle class.* My friend was talking about the woman who minded them when her mother went out to work and one of the other 6 year olds said, “You have a maid?” Before she could answer a third six year old cut in and said witheringly “She has a char.”

When told this anecdote another friend explained to me that her grandmother had a maid and a “woman for the rough” the latter being a daily visitor but the former live in and above cleaning floors and the like.

A man about ten years older than me who I met at a party told me that when he went to visit his cousins in Cork, they left their shoes outside the door overnight to be polished.

Due to my father’s job, until I was 12 or so we lived in a large house with lovely Cissie who lived in and whom I adored (though I do remember my mother saying that you could always tell when she was in a bad mood as she you would hear her throwing the cutlery into the drawer with force something I may have brought with me into adult life). She did lots of things but she certainly didn’t polish our shoes every day. Among her many virtues was that she always bought me a comic when she came back from her day off (I think my parents thought comics were slightly pernicious so they never got me any). I digress.

It all seems from a very, very different world but still lots of people have help at home it just looks a bit different, more diffuse and generally more dependent on immigrant labour. I suppose things are better?

*When I was an apprentice solicitor in the early 90s, I had quite an annoying though sometimes charming fellow apprentice who used to say wistfully, that if he had any children he would perhaps bring them up Protestant. He would, at the drop of a hat, tell anyone who cared to listen that he had three Protestant grandparents; however due to the operation of ne temere (there’s a lot on Wikipedia at the link but basically it meant in an Irish context that the children of a mixed marriage – i.e. one between a Catholic and a Protestant- should be brought up Catholic), he was a Catholic. Now, who among us can say what is in another’s heart but I would be pretty surprised if his desire to convert was related to a full assessment of the theological merits of the question.

Updated to add: Good podcast on detectives and “the servant problem, if you are so inclined: https://www.shedunnitshow.com/theservantproblem/

Thought for the Day


Posted in: Reading etc.

At the start of October we had a reading from the book of the Prophet Habakkuk at mass. Haven’t heard of him? Me neither. I found this reading almost startlingly apposite for current times.

How long, Lord, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to cry ‘Oppression!’ in your ear and you will not save. Why do you set injustice before me, why do you look on where there is tyranny? Outrage and violence, this is all I see, all is contention, and discord flourishes. Then the Lord answered and said, “Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read, since this vision is for its own time only: eager for its own fulfillment, it does not deceive; if it comes slowly, wait, for come it will, without fail. See how he flags, he whose soul is not at rights, but the upright man will live by his faithfulness.“

I suppose it shows there is nothing new under the sun. I thought it might be the source for what Charlie Brown says to Lucy but apparently that’s Isaiah.

Well, this is a bit gloomy, I fear, but this is what you get, if you post every day in November of all months. Hold tight for cheerier content next week (we all hope).