“God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world."
- Ed McMahon
It being St. Pat's Day, I guess we should speak of Ireland. There's an obscure Irish movie called Calvary. I call it my favorite movie of all time. Nobody I've ever met has seen it. Sometimes I recommend it but it has to be to the appropriate people. It's a challenging film and it's not everybody's cup of tea. I get that.
The movie had such an impact on me I told Kendra that I needed to go to County Sligo, Ireland and walk the earth where it was filmed. Kendra being the great sport she is, was all in. We flew into Dublin, rented a car and drove over to the northwest coast. There's not much up there but sheep.
The movie stars Brendan Gleason. He's one of Ireland's most revered actors. You might not know the name but I'll bet you'd recognize him from films like Braveheart, The Banshees of Inisherin, Harry Potter, In Bruges and dozens of others. The British actress, Kelly Reilly, is also in it. You'd likely know her as Beth from Yellowstone. She had an impressive resume way before that show, though. She's grand.
If you're not much into conversation, Ireland might not be the best place for you. The Irish, they like to talk. We got in the cab at the Dublin airport to head to the rental car place. On the way there, our driver, a chatty fellow, asks where we're from and the nature of our visit. We're going over west, we tell him to see where Calvary was filmed and that we're big fans of many Irish actors. “Oh, ya, like who?” he said. We list off some, Colin Farrell, Chris O'Dowd, Saoirse Ronan…"Colin Farrell" he says, "I see him at the pub quite often near where I live." That's interesting, we say, nobody bothers him? “No, in Ireland we don't do that so much. We're happy for their success but we don't want them knowing it.”
“Okay, and Brenden Gleason” we say, “We love him.”
“Oh”, says the cabbie, "he was my history teacher in high school."
“Seriously, bet that was cool.”
“Not really. He was kind of a hard ass.”
Kendra and I get our rental and drive across the the country to the town of Sligo and points around there. This was during the time when, for a lark, I was getting a haircut wherever I traveled. Why would I do that? To get a story, I guess. I've gotten haircuts in Colorado Springs, Co and Boise, ID. I got one at a death metal themed barber shop in downtown Portland, ME. I got another in Damariscotta, Maine. That woman made me look like Jack Nicholson after his lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. After that one Kendra said, “Let's go buy you a hat.” I got one from a woman named Sonya in Reykjavik, Iceland. She spoke maybe five words of English. She knew I was American, apparently, and somehow she got across to me that she wondered where in America I was from. “Memphis”. I said, “You know…Elvis.” She smiled and nodded knowingly, spun the chair around slowly to show me the only thing hanging on the wall in her tiny cubicle…Elvis.
And so in Sligo, I thought I'd better have a haircut. I believe it was Colm's (his name) first week out of barber school, if they even have such a thing in Ireland. It seemed like he was unfamiliar with some of the tools he was trying out on me. The end result was a bit of an accidental sideways job. It was not unlike some I've seen on hipsters but not what I was going for. I don't think it was what he was going for either, it just happened. I hope he's improved or taken up another line of work.
Everything else on the west coast of Ireland was, as the Irish say, great craic. That was our second trip to the country and we've loved everything about it. We have not been to Northern Ireland yet, but it's on the list. It's where my mother's people are from, Derry, or Londonderry, depending on what flag you fly. I feel the need to walk the earth there too.
The Celtic music, tis a beautiful sound.