Sitting in Jack Monday’s coffee house at Thomond
bridge in Limerick. After a great weekend in a building site in Limerick and in
the Burren in Clare, it’s time for some paperwork – Bank holiday or not. The
rest of the family is still asleep in the building site or walking the river so
I left cornflakes and orange juice amongst the mattresses and left to be
civilized on my own…..
Just to give you the running update, I
“ran” the three bridges in Limerick yesterday and today and even though I still
walked large parts, I ran more than half and when I ran I actually moved
forward rather than backwards and am profoundly grateful to have done the
miserable “first time running in two years” wobbles in the privacy of my own
back roads rather than on the ever so sophisticated river walk in Limerick
city.
Much as I love living in the countryside
with the amazing fields of rapeseed all around us, I do love the city as well.
The building site is right in the city centre, across from John’s castle and is
suffering the first wave of gentrification which is lovely to see. After a long
day in IKEA thinking kitchen worktops and presses, we arrived on Saturday
evening with a trailer full of goodies, unloaded, spread the mattresses and
admired the building works in progress. Unpacking the amazing Caesar salad from
Glasrai and Goodies in Gowran ( the good traveler comes prepared!!), we sat
down for dinner – the good traveler also brought some Costellos from home and
planned the weekend. In the city, you don’t even have to figure out when mass
is on Easter night, you just leave the house when the bells are ringing. So
come quarter to nine, we were literally called out and joined St Munchins parish
for Easter night and as luck would have it, joined one of the best Easter night
ceremonies I have ever been at. A lovely choir, an honest and meaningful
ceremony that adapted the old and infused with new. Admittingly I was probably
not fully awake after the old testament readings in the dark but when the
Gloria was sung, when the lights sprang on and the bells rang, I jumped to
attention and did believe that he truly is risen and that we might still have a
chance in this church, which I stubbornly refuse to give up on.
Easter Sunday saw us in the Burren, which
was home for 5 wonderful years. Once a year at least I have to see Mullaghmore
and walk the Cregg road at the foot of the mountain. Once a year we try and get
everyone together in this place. It is a place where I come for the big
decisions in my life or if I need peace I cannot find anywhere else. If
landscape holds magic as the late John O Donohue so often said, it holds it
there and seeing the children that used to play there when they were children,
when I had to help them over the walls and butter their breads for the picnic –
seeing them nearly 15 years later still falling into the water, still messing,
still pushing each other, still not happy until everyone is wet has a certain
bit of magic as well – especially when they turn around to me to say “careful
Mama”, as time slowly turns the tables and I sincerely hope I have another 15
years until they actually have to help me over that wall.