Oh, Bambie! You were only the last leg of my 33-1 treble bet
Last Saturday, I had a few euro on a nice treble at 33-1. I know they say a fool and his money are soon parted, but lads, in all fairness that was a great ‘price’ I was quoted!
It was one of those weekends when you’d be proud of place and community and county too. The sun shone all week - I nearly had the hay cut (though tis only next Sunday we play Tipp!), but the Met Office correctly forecast ‘a change’ so I left it standing.
The place was a hive of activity in the lead-up to the weekend. What, with a wedding in the church on Friday and First Communion on Saturday, the power washers, sweeping and paint brushes and garden forks and hoes were all busy. There’s a great powerful feeling when people pull together for a common purpose.
Now, our Church and the surrounding grounds are always well kept, but the extra community effort was the icing on the cake in terms of perfection.
The sun blazed for the happy couple on Friday, it was such a joyous and unrushed ceremony, enjoyed and meaningful for all who attended.
Amazing the way Covid changed our society? One thing that blossomed was the proliferation of mobile food and catering wagons, trailers, horseboxes and custom-built units. In olden times, half an hour after the Mass was over the crowd would be gone to the hotel or some hostelry. Last Friday the happy throng were still drinking tea, coffee, mochas, lattes, cappuccinos and flat whites an hour after the final hymn in the church.
We were in Ballymaloe in a few hours and stayed in East Cork until the early hours of Saturday. We had to come home for a hurling tournament - and of course for the morning and evening milking of the cows!
It was during the afternoon, in a moment of semi-translucent tranquillity, that the idea of ‘the bet’ came to me.
Day Two of the matrimonial celebrations saw us heading for Ballycotton on Saturday evening, which meant I’d not be going to the Banks Of Our Own Lovely Lee to see the Cork hurlers beat Limerick.
No, I’m not psychic or anything like that, but now and then my hurling hunches come to fruition.
We ended up looking at the picture of some basement division English soccer game with the Páirc Uí Chaoimh commentary coming over the airwaves!
We saw the last quarter, what excitement, joy and sheer release of passion - it’s not that I don’t like Limerick or anything like that but five All-Irelands in the last six years should be enough for anyone!
A week previously, the Ballyduff Drama Group had staged Jez Butterworth’s play The Ferryman in the All Ireland Final in Athlone. I had a ticket for Athlone, but what do they say about the ‘best aid plans of mice and men’!
I had seen the brilliant production four times this year, and was confident they’d win and capture the prestigious National Title for the second time in three years. They did, and I can tell ye, I was on a high when we got the result from John McCormack’s town!
Two down, and one to go on my treble bet!
It all rested now on the Eurovision in Malmo and how Macrompian Bambie Thug would get on!
In fairness, I’d promised a drink for ‘the house’ if my dream came true and the 33-1 became a reality.
Chances were, of course, if I’d hit the jackpot, I’d have ‘gone to town’ with the bookies on Sunday at Bartlemy Races.
The point-to-point races here date back to the late 1800s. Just last week, I looked at the Bartlemy Racecard for Tuesday, February 10, 1903 - 15 of the family names on the Committee back then are still to be found on the 2024 version - that’s tradition.
I’ve little or no knowledge of horses, bloodstock or racing, but our local race meeting is part of what we are and we take great pride in it year after year.
As I left out the cows after milking after the last race, I noticed four people on the roadside with phones and cameras, all excitedly interested in the cows. Now, I have no Italian and they had very little English, but between the jigs and the reels we communicated and I learned they were staying locally for the weekend - over from Italy to celebrate the 18th birthday of a family member studying in Cork.
They were fascinated by the cows -then again, the same could be said for the cows - they’d never met Italians before!
I tried slowly by sign language, gesture and a bit of ‘parliano Italiano’ to give them the history of the place from the Holy Well, to Napoleon buying his horse Marengo here, the Races and the Parish name. I invited them into the milking parlour to see the last of the cows being milked and they drank the cold milk from the bulk tank. Such a happy, laughing group I never met.
As they walked off down the road to the School Cross, all I could think of and sing was
I was thinking, after finishing the cows and after the Centenaro family had gone - could I translate Santa Lucia into Irish, put a bit of Gaelic ornamentation on it and enter it myself in next year’s National Song Contest.
One thing is certain, I wouldn’t be 33-1 if I got to the final!
We’ve an invitation now to visit our new friends in Venice any time we’re over that way!
After a hectic weekend, Monday was a quiet enough day, with only a civic reception in County Hall in the afternoon. The East Cork GAA Board was formed in 1924, so we’ve a lot of special activities on this year the mark the centenary. I went to my first Board meeting in Midleton in 1972, and have made so many life-long friends through the GAA.
Do ye know, I must admit I’d never heard of the Postgraduate Higher Diploma in Television and Media Production until last Tuesday.
Funded by Udaras na Gaeltachta and run by the South East Technological University (formerly Carlow and Waterford ITs), it’s a course for those with a gra for film and TV production in all it’s facets. I was invited by a friend to attend at Dungarvan Cinema on Tuesday.
Having only recently seen the film adaptation of John McGahern’s That They May Face the Rising Sun, an absolutely brilliant production, what I saw on Tuesday was equally stunning. Eight graduates of the course wrote, produced and filmed their own work. They all had a great emphasis on Gaeilge, which I love, with subtitles.
The film on Mary Rice Kent (mother of executed 1916 leader Thomas) left me in floods of tears. A documentary on Padraig O Mileada, who wrote Sliabh Geal gCua na Feile, was brilliant - they all were.
I was on a high leaving Dungarvan, came back to a camogie match, went home to milk the cows, and then took a birthday card to my 93-year-old uncle... then home once more to write these few words.
Pressure? Yerra no, sure pressure is for tyres!
Life is good, life is for living - this very day in 1981, wasn’t I the lucky man when Mary said ‘Yes’ to me?
App?
