Paul Malpas

In the summer of 1967 I went on my first proper touring holiday of Ireland without staying with family or friends.  Myself and two other lads in a car belonging to one of them, drove off the boat in Dublin and we travelled down through Kildare, Carlow and Kilkenny, without feeling we were in Ireland, but it suddenly changed when we hit Waterford and eventually stopped in Tramore, a delightfully clean sea-side town on the south coast.  We arranged digs in a neat B&B and set off to explore the town, where we learnt that there was a festival on that weekend.  Now it was our first taste of festivals and we did not realise that the bars all had extensions to their normal opening times.

We set off that evening at about 6.00pm  visiting different alcoholic establishments.  The loudspeakers strung from buildings were trumpeting out the new hit song of Johnny McEvoy’s, Irish Soldier Laddie, as he was the star of the festival that night.  The next thing I remembered was waking up the following morning and lifting my head up and I painfully became aware that the pillow that I had been sleeping on, came up with my head.  It was stuck to the side of my face.  Dried blood from various wounds had created a very powerful and agonising bond.  After much struggling and plentiful flows of blood, I managed to extricate myself from the pillow case, but to this day I do not know how I received the wounds and my companions were not able to shed any light on the matter either, or in fact whether we had seen Johnny McEvoy, although we did remember buying tickets.  We learnt the hard way and after nine hours steady drinking we should have realised that we should have paced ourselves better.

Over the next few days we slowly motored down through Cork and Kerry taking things very easily and eventually recovered our equilibrium and my good looks.  I remember during this time having a memorable breakfast in Bandon, in West Cork, that really set me on the road to recovery.  We made a burst through Limerick and Clare and hit Galway early and found digs on Father Griffin Road at 13s 6d per night, although we were put back a little when the two old ladies who ran the place asked us whether we drank.  We assured them that our habits were moderate and what really swung it for us was the fact that my grandfather came from Ballinamore Bridge, only a few miles from their homeplace of Newbridge in East Galway.

We went out for a few pints that afternoon and the two boys decided they were going to have an early night, but I as usual, a glutton for punishment, went out again and hit the town man-fashion.  I remember listening to some great singing in one bar and probably stayed for one drink too many, but I returned to the digs, as I thought, in a reasonable state and I was fumbling with the strange key at the doorstep, when the door opened followed by anguished gasps from the two old ladies.  As I passed them, I bade them goodnight and made my way upstairs to the room where the other two were fast asleep.  As I was undressing there was a knock at the door and a strangulated voice cried out “if you are going to vomit, please vomit in the lavatory”.  I went to bed wondering what all the fuss was about.

The lads slept through it all and the next day at breakfast the two ladies informed us that their brother had died during the night in Newbridge and that they were going back home to supervise the funeral and that they were going to have to shut up the Galway house for a while.  We said nothing but that we were sorry for their trouble and  packed our bags and went down the road to Salthill where we found digs for 10s 6d a night, a saving of two shillings on the Galway digs and where there was a Red Barrel festival on and this beer was half price that night.  An ill wind as they say.

We had a great week in Salthill, meeting some priests from Manchester we knew on the golf course, who took us for lunch to a hotel in Spiddal.  My first experience of the Gaeltech and relaxed priests, they could not half knock it back.

WE eventually arrived back in Dublin to find a strike had effected the B & I boats, but we were told that if we made our way to Belfast, a place could be had on the overnight boat to Liverpool.  So up through Drogheda, Dundalk, Newry and Banbridge we scuttled and into Belfast, where we eventually boarded the boat.  The end of this journey was quite an experience for us after sampling the delights of Ireland.  There was a general air of menace about the place.  Pavements were painted red, white and blue and there was paintings of King Billy on his big white horse on several gable ends.  Sectarianism seemed to be rife and this was  a few years before the civil rights people started to protest and with good cause it seemed to me.  It was obvious bloodshed was just round the corner and we were glad to be out of the place.  It was 32 years before I went back to Belfast and it appeared no different, again I was glad to reach the Donegal border.