Tales of Adventure and Misadventure in the Irish Countryside
Moving from home in the suburbs of Dublin to a run-down Midlands cottage with a tribe of mice at the age of eighteen was an interesting experience
In 1978, my brother and I moved from Dublin to work at a printer in Mountmellick, Laois. We had learned that there was a cottage for rent off the main Portlaoise Road. It looked alright from the outside the dark autumn night that we viewed it. The field gate entrance bore the legend: “Beware of the dog.”
Time soon revealed the building’s many fallible characteristics. The property owners did not secure the toilet to the floor. There was no sink until we later one lying in the barn's corner. We had to boil water on the old Victorian cast-iron stove for doing the dishes in a plastic bowl.
Curtains got offered. I used Bord na Mona briquette ties to hang them over the Leprechaun-like widows. I hung an inside washing line above the cooker. There were mice inhabiting the chipboard ceiling. A purchased pair of kittens chewed their gristle under the table where I ate my meals: those unwelcome rodents were quickly ethnically cleansed. A grassy yard was at the front, and an abandoned, uncultivated small orchard at the rear.
A few days after moving in, I heard whimpering in the barn. In a dark corner, my bike light revealed a cowering, black and white shaggy haired dog. Even though, a bitch, I kept her, neutered her and named her ‘Daisy’. She would accompany me everywhere, walking to grocery shopping in Mountmellick, in up-lane fields and on nearby bogs. Afterwards, we would rest by the stove. I would read book reviews in the Weekend Irish Times, or listen to BBC World Service on my oversized transistor radio, or I’d two-finger tap out poems and letters on my vintage portable typewriter.
The straw thatch had badly decayed. The walls were permanently damp, so when it rained the lights came on automatically, such was the poor state of the electric wiring. I approached the farmer / land lady requesting that it get fixed. She offered me a gigantic piece of black, dirty plastic from her slurry pit instead, to cover the half-useful roof.
My eldest brother and I lugged it‘s awkward bulk up ladders. The wind sometimes blew under that sheet, almost lifting us off our feet as we laid it over the apex. As dusk descended, we strapped down the covering with heavy duty twine at a few points, anchored to rusty paint buckets filled with stones.
After that hard day’s work, we settled down to tea. That night, strong wind whipped and rain poured down. The next morning there was little evidence of all our vain labour, as surreal strips of shredded plastic flapped above.
One day, a year later, after a severe storm, a section of the plywood ceiling collapsed onto the floor. It was time to leave that Famine era farm cottage before the upper roof also caved in!
