Sea Voices

FinsburyParkCarrots

1: Tommy

I was his chauffeur, you know. I used to drive him around. He was staying up at the Mulranny Hotel, the hotel with all the windows, looking out over the bay to Croagh Patrick. He'd flown in by helicopter. And he owned Dorinish Island, just near here. The island was uninhabited but he thought it could give him peace of mind if he built a house. He said he knew he had ancestors around here, and that put him in great humour. He told me that when he grew up in Liverpool he was raised by his aunt and often dreamed of knowing where he came from. And he loved it in Mayo. But he had his head screwed on, he wasn't this weirdo hippy type, though he had the name of course. Not to my mind. So when I was driving him around he would ask me things about the tides and erosion and getting back on the mainland from where he was. He was interested in the whole place. He'd been out before then, and that's how I met him the first time. He had this big psychedelic caravan out on the island to stay in, and he'd put it on a raft and he'd go out on the sea with it. He was in Ballycroy too, he was. Both times, I think. In fact, he went up to where your father's farm is, and then down to the shore in Fahy, down on the shingle and rocks. And at that time there was more of Grainuaile's castle than there is now, not just the gable and a bit of wall. And he was filming the whole thing on his cine camera. He loved it. And he was walking around the place in his cap and his wellies. One night they say he was in Cleary's singing rebel songs and someone taped it, but it wasn't Cleary's, it was in Newport, I think, if I remember rightly. He went everywhere with me. Here's a photo of him up at my house. A great man he was, down to earth and proud of his heritage. And the last I heard, several years later, he was renewing planning permission on the house and hoping to come back to visit and maybe stay. I had a postcard from him not long before, before he was shot. I think Yoko sold the island a couple of years after that.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Well you know it's said. Aye it is. That I know well. The tide will come. High tide. In the spring. Aye, that's what was said. It will come one night. Them currents is always shifting. Full moon and a high tide. In the spring, and the currents shifting. And all the Doons, all those dwelling on the black ford will be swept away. It says that. No warning, nothing.
It's in the prophecies. And the prophecies is locked away in the Church, in fact the Church of Rome. There was a man going out the sandybanks, he was driving the cows into the sea to wash them, I heard. one cow turned around and spoke to him. Looked him in the eye and prophecied World War Two and the bomb and all things that are locked away. Prophecied even things about my own family. And these prophecies are known and every one has come true to date. I had a house down by yours beyond, down on the bog road by the turn, over across there towards Fahy. Of course you could see my house across the field there. Mine is the one with no roof now, I still have the land there but I might sell. It's alright for grazing and such. But I hear them prophecies and you know, the sea takes away a good bit of the land every year. You can see when the tide's out there are tree stumps there. Your grandfather cut those trees. The tide's washed that much away since. You should be thinking of moving. I have a house in Claggan. Rhododendron and orchids growing along the roads, it's beautiful with the sun blazing in the spring and the honey bees big and yellow and making shadows on the grass. Come to Claggan boy. Doona's for the sea.

Ali

4 stars.

jamit

Beautiful, more please

but are what exactly are you trying to say about hippies?!? lol. Hey, I happen to like weird.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Thanks! Glad you liked it. Ah well, the views expressed in this thread are those of the author's characters and not necessarily of the author!