Moving through the Donegal Fair
Donegal – not only a county in the Republic of Ireland, but also a picturesque town with a population somewhere between that of Tain and Dornoch.
My younger daughter’s father-in-law and I are strolling along the pier when he is hailed by two cheery coves of seagoing appearance standing on a floating mooring a few feet below us.
"Hello! How are you, Lynn!" This is a standard greeting in the west of Ireland, as opposed to a meaningful question after the state of one’s health. More akin to "Good morning" said in the passing: if you were to reply with anything other than a return "How are you?" then you would be thought quite odd.
"Hello boys!" (Lynn knows everyone, and everyone knows Lynn). "How are you!"
"Sure Lynn, did you know I was after losing the wife seven days ago?"
At this point my brother-in-law-squared (or whatever you call the relationship between the father of the bride and the father of the groom) was suddenly hesitant and paused in his swinging gait along the pier.
"Oh gosh no... sure I hadn’t heard..."
"Ah yes, just last week – I lost her to another man! Ha ha ha ha!"
("Sure, the old lady’s after dying!" is a classic you’ll hear at a funeral hereabouts. But I mustn’t make fun: Lord knows, our own use of English in the far north will appear similarly quirky to a stranger. I mean, it is precisely this variety that enriches our lives.)
And writing of enrichment and variety, I must mention Donegal’s food fair. This weekend gone, it was quite something.
"Dad, McGettigan the butcher’s sausages are to die for" (more dying) said my daughter midst the seriously big crowd in a large marquee beside the harbour. "I’ve got some for breakfast tomorrow."
Glancing over to the McGettigan stand I noticed a large photograph attached to the tent wall above and behind the stand. It was of Prince Charles making a typical Prince Charles happy face as he sampled a sausage while standing beside two positively beaming McGettigan brothers. To the right of the three of them was Camilla looking equally cheerful (and munching too).
Ever nosy, I enquired.
"Sure, himself was here in May! A great fellow altogether, and herself too!
"He was just great – and very welcome!"
From here Katie and I slowly progressed, via two pints of Donegal Blond, smoked salmon, Irish cheese, Irish ham, Irish whisky, to the point where we began to wonder where Lynn had got to: but before the wondering got in the way of more eating and drinking, a thought occurred to me.
It was this.
Only a few miles down the coast from Donegal town is the small village of Mullaghmore in County Sligo – and as any expert in Irish history knows, the name of this village casts a terrible shadow. For it was here that Lord Mountbatten (and his grandson and a local lad called Paul Maxwell) were killed in their boat by a terrorist bomb one August day in 1979. Lord Louis Mountbatten was Prince Charles’s great uncle and very much his mentor.
Make no mistake, by visiting Donegal town and several of its businesses last May, our future King made truly groundbreaking history.
For long enough the Republic of Ireland (part of the British Isles that broke away from the United Kingdom with much anger and bloodshed during the last century) was reckoned to be less than lukewarm when it came to the trappings of the United Kingdom and its Royal Family.
So Charles’s enthusiastic reception in the west of Ireland last May is a fascinating sign that times have indeed changed.
But think on this too. Last May, what can it have been like for Prince Charles to visit the part of Ireland where his much-loved great uncle met his terrible fate? A year previously he actually visited Mullaghmore itself and it cannot have been easy. It took a real spirit of forgiveness to make that journey to Ireland – and this generous attitude was in return recognised by the kindness and genuineness of his reception, both in Donegal and Mullaghmore the previous year.
"Lynn, where on earth have you been?"
"Oh I had a call about someone in trouble out in the bay. Engine stopped. So I went out to help. Sure, you two look as if you have been having a good time!"
So we had. And not without an instructive thought.
