I’m in Micky Macs place. It’s been disturbed by party goers, doors open to the yard, a gentle sea breeze blowing through windows, cracked and broken. I once visited him here in his smokey room, walls blackened from the wood fire. I sat on a settle bed in a wollen blanket while he sat on that once pink arm chair with a once yellow cushion.
Even on the beach where he used to sit on summer evenings, he wore the whole kit; a long great coat, a flat cap and black boots. Surrounded by picnics and bathing families he stayed shyly at the edge, chatting to anyone who lingered.
His neighbour, used to wave down cars by standing in the middle of the road. A tousled head would peer through the window, asking mysterious questions;
“Have ye any cigarettes?”
“No we don’t smoke”
“Well have ye any kittens?”
They are both gone now as are most of the older generation of my own family. Flimsy remains of curtains and occasional memories all that’s left.
A way of life is dying out too. Small farms are being swallowed up and old walls, lanes and streams, absorbed into lawns for horses and feed for herds. No more cattle roaming freely along roadside verges, grazing the long acre.
At the top of the lane is another collapsing cottage. There’s an eery emptiness there, a tweed jacket on a hanger in the bedroom, a candle on the kitchen table. The next neighbours, three stoic older siblings, recently lost their fine thatched cottage in a horrible blaze that took all they had. Everything seems vulnerable.
My Dad used to talk about the old days around here and return in his mind to the lanes of Kilkenny where he grew up. He could still feel the hunger experienced through the War. He remembered feet crossing the footpath windows above his grandmother’s basement kitchen. The smell of laughing gas from his Father’s primitive dental surgery. I have some audio of him singing every word of Run Rabbit Run which he learned as a small boy. Precious mementos.
Today I step into Micky Macs little house, falling down and forlorn without him. My strange ambition to become even more eccentric isn’t any wonder, because for a lifetime I have studied the elders. I have loved them, admired their depth, questioned their mysteries, witnessed their fading. And I know that as they disappear I am an elder apprentice, creating my own mementos as I go.
PS To honour Micky Mac a plaque was erected by his friends right on the wall at Garrarus beach where he used to sit.
What an evocative post. Old characters like Mickey Mac are so few and far between these days it seems. How many of us will be as interesting as him when we are that age I wonder? Philippa xx
Philippa, thank you I agree t'would be great to be half as mysterious and interesting! X
Lovely empathetic treatment of the old house, you've really captured it's age and story.
On a curious note, I'm not quite sure why the seabird pic is included unless it bears a resemblance to Micky Mac when he wore his long great coat…
Thanks George. Well I think that was it exactly ……those cormorants are very like old gents staring out to sea……..
I left a comment at Vision and Verb and came here to see more pictures…lovely mementos
Thanks Donna, you are a treasure:~)
I was going to say 'beautiful and evocative post'. Then I noticed Wendy had used the same word so I decided not to. Then I realised if it is the word that came into both our minds, it's probably the right one.
Well evocative seems like a wonderful word to me Esther many thanks:~)
:))) waving … Beautiful story
Waving back :~)))))
Such a beautiful evocative story, I can feel the dampness of the walls and the smell the chimney smoke, knitted together with the sound of the waves rolling in
thank you for sharing
Thea x
Lovely words, thank you Thea:~)
Great post. Just in from an evening walk at Garrarus and, having read this post, I'm okay now that I have brought a trail of sand to the bed from which I write.
Thanks Jean, that trail of sand is a beautiful image, which I will sleep on tonight, many thanks……
Beautiful images Catherine, likewise your words. I keep having to scroll back up to look at that scrap of curtain closing on a lost world.
That's it exactly Annie…….a perfect phrase……
Loved this post. And "The Bealtaine Festival celebrating creativity as we age" is the first positive thought about ageing I had all day. Thanks for that.
That is really nice. Have very similar memories of some people I knew in Carlow where I grew up. Fergal
Your words paint such a picture that I feel I am there, and your photos are the finishing touch. Eccentricity is definitely a path I am pulled to travel along too! Thanks Catherine.
I love this post Catherine.
Hello Catherine
You tribute to men of character is beautiful. The honour of a plaque for Mickey Mac is fitting. Your images of lace are truly marvelous
Helen xx
Of all the blogs I have read this morning, this one moved me the most. Makes me ache for all the things that are changing, have changed. Not necessarily for the better. And I love your blog design, a perfect showcase for your photos.
i came here from the blog Graceful Simplicity.
your blog is magical in subject and photography. these two wonderful's together is compelling.
i will visit often.
thank you for sharing.
Late to this, Ca…
Wonderful, wonderful post. It's how it goes. I do worry that we are losing that respect for what went before. Town-dwellers come out to recolonise the country, and re-make it in their own image. Horse-paddocks, and the crumbling cottage behind.
Cultivate your eccentricity, and enjoy it.