Fictional Tuesday
The smell of rain permeated the air, but then it always did in Ireland. The villagers laughed and said that you have to prepare for all four seasons on any given day but in my experience it was mostly just spring. Rains and mists varied in intensity, but the temperature was moderated by the Atlantic to a steady 50 to 70 degrees.
The tourists flocked for the Aran sweaters and Waterford Factory but I begged off to experience spring in all her myriad manifestations. I found an obscure bookstore/pub, an unusual combination in Ireland where reading and blarney are rarely mixed. There in the Yeats section lay his latest biographer’s effort. I shook the faerie dust from it and began to read.
Soon aft a ne’er-do-well arrived appearing flummoxed and breathing threats.
“Fenian Bastards!” he yelled to no one in particular.
“Unrepentant Fenian Bastards!” he yelled for emphasis.
He could tell by my tennis shoes, the blasted neon sign saying “tourist”, that I was American. But nevertheless I asked him where the unrepented Fenians were.
“What’s the Yank doing here?” he said to no one in particular.
I quoted Yeats by way of response:
“Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!”
& then we sang:
"An seanchrácamas, sparán folamh,
Nó baois an lae, aiféala oíche!"
“Aye, you'll be an Irishmen yet!”
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