June 29th 1974
Cape Clear Island, County Cork, Ireland
Ah, but despite the decline, this ancient fortress has not yet revealed the rich history which the surrounding geology jealously watched being formed. Still, still midst the coastal rock plants, standing there ever so still you can sense worlds that have gone, a pirate called O'Driscoll, on those eroding stairs of stone, his footsteps padding, a tankard of stolen Spanish wine in his right fist. He stops on the parapet., hacking his throat clear. He looks out through the dark night to the ocean and his eyes stumble upon the distant lights of two of his wooden ships returning from the Americas.
On that very same horizon, two centuries later it is the blue and white spinnaker of a French yacht which reveals itself to the island.
But what if that, that man of the sea with lice in his scalp and food detritus in his ragged beard could see his proud castle as it is today. Perhaps standing with me in the soft clifftop grasses, his shell of hardness and vulgarity might fracture and at last words would rise up from his buried heart, "I didn't know. I didn't know".
And we would walk along the clifftop, watching mewling seabirds glide to their ledges and he would stare at it all, leaning over the edge, seeking his reflection in the waves below... and having failed to find it renounce his days of plunder and piracy, finally seeing like me a world of waiting and wondering - not rushing to fulfil a fool's dreams."
⦿
own with a rucksack on my back and a few pounds in my pocket. I used
a little notebook as my journal and rediscovered it earlier this week.
I turned eighteen in August, 1974 and finally at the end of next month will make my first trip to Ireland. About time!
ReplyDeleteWell - that is something good to look forward to Margaret. I hope you have a great time.
DeleteAh! You were such a romantic!
ReplyDeleteSuch an incredibly rugged coastline!
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting find and story.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had gone exploring at that age,
ReplyDeleteI found all of my old writing and was going to throw it out but just couldn't. I like this bit of writing.
ReplyDeleteI've never been to Ireland - but this reminds me of having visited the ruins of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall - and actually in June, 1974!
ReplyDeleteHow great to find your old journal. These seem like the musings of an idealistic young man who envisions that even a hardened pirate has humanity deep down. Hey, we were all young once.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see an ancient ruin like this one, I wonder who were the men who hauled the heavy stones? And where did they get the stone to build with? And how did they get to the building site? And did they have wives and children and dogs? I suppose the pirate O'Driscoll could answer all those questions.... was he the one who paid the bill? Or does it date from before that time?
ReplyDeleteWell written. However, it is inadvisable to stand too close to pirates near the edge of a cliff.
ReplyDeleteWill Jay
I agree with Travel. I wish I had been brave enough to travel more when I was young.
ReplyDeleteO'Driscoll is me real name, Sir. Malachi O'Driscoll.
ReplyDeleteBut I never went to Sea. That we me brother Rory.
Rory was shipwrecked off the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa.
The Slave Coast, they call it. Rory died in the Bight of Benin.
Glasgow, Scotland, on a Saturday night. That's the Bight of Benin, Sir.
As for me, I toiled sixty year as a Rag and Bone Man in the city of Cork.
Haggerty was me Partner. I trusted that man like a Brother.
He ran off with me Wife & Horse & Best Suit. Vicuna Wool, that suit was.
What a great find! Thank you for sharing this excerpt with us. Will we get to read more from your 20-year-old self?
ReplyDeleteI started school at 1974, as nearly every six-year-old in Germany does to this day.