Today Adam and Neil will be working and Ann is preparing to head off to Scotland later today. Joe Paul will be taking me around in the morning. Joe is Neily's brother and lives just up the road from Neil and Ann. He comes to collect me at the house and drops off another distant relative of mine at Lily's to open up the bar and tea room. A couple kittens have been out in the back patio for a couple days now. They're not sure what to do with them. If I had it my way they'd be living there permanently.
A couple of resident mouse traps.
We leave the bar and head up to Joe's house for tea and biscuits. After tea he's going to be showing me the family's old house as well as some other sights around the Inishowen Peninsula. We finish up and walk next door where the old house is.
Every night in Carndonagh it's been getting dark around 11:30pm, so I knew I was far north. But not this far north. I had walked into Santa's Village. Joe Paul used to run a piggery but got out of the business when the margins dwindled. The old piggery as well as the old house had been combined to form a grand winter attraction for kids and families. We walk through the place and there are decorations everywhere as well as pens and stables filled with hay where Joe Paul keeps goats and rabbits and other animals that he borrows from locals during the winter to entice visitors. In the largest room of the piggery sits Santa's Sleigh, a huge Christmas tree, rooms for kids to write letters for Santa and drop them in the post, and toy shops for playing. Joe Paul tells me he used to host big dances up here and points out the bar that still sits in the corner. They had to shut it down after the police raided them.
"Oooooo Jesus" he says when he tells me the story. Whenever Joe Paul really gets going he fires out "Ooooo Jesus" a few times.
It takes a while to walk through the place since Joe is not only telling me about all the stuff he has in the wintertime for kids, but also the important stuff. The history.
My family lived on that homestead for many years. (In the 18th century, my ancestor Paul "Newman" Doherty left the Isle of Doagh during a sandstorm and came to Ballyloskey, Carndonagh where the family is now.)
Again, I digress.
We get to the end of the tour and there's a fenced in area where the deer usually is when Santa's Village is open. It's out on the other side of the house at the moment. We're going to feed it.
We walk down to the house and put on huge rubber boots before going out since it's been so wet lately. Then we walk down to the field and there it is. In all it's glory. A big. fecking. raindeer.
Ooooh Jesus.
"Rudy!" Joe shouts at him.
It takes me a while to realize Rudy is short for Rudolph.
We head into the field and set the bucket down for Rudy to eat from and I pet him. And his antlers. Those big. fecking. antlers.
Rudy's wearing a muzzle and he's tethered to a stake in the ground with about 50yds of line. Plenty of room to roam. When Joe Paul first got Rudy from a breeder he had a real hard time getting him into the field.
"It should have been put on YouTube," he says. "The breeder dropped him off and the reindeer wouldn't want to go into my field."
"We couldn't catch him so I phoned the vet to ask how I should get him into the field."
The vet suggested a tranquilizer gun but you could only get one miles away. They went with Valium. 500 Valium.
"I cleaned up every single pharmacy for miles. Once I had 500 I mixed it into his feed and after he was doped up on the Valium three guys ran up and put a rope around one side of his antlers. Then another three guys roped the other side of the antlers. Four guys wrapped a rope around one of his hind legs."
So there they were, eleven Irishmen pulling and fighting a massive, drugged up reindeer while it staggers into trees and bushes trying to get him into the field. They finally got him into the big field with the high fences and all was grand that winter at Santa's Village.
Then September came and Joe Paul is driving up the road to his house and there's Rudy out walking the streets. He hopped the fences like they were nothing during mating season.
Joe Paul couldn't believe his eyes. Better round up the boys.
It took a week to catch Rudy again. They would finally corner him near the fence of a big field and then Rudy would bound over it like it wasn't there.
"We only needed 300 Valium this time to get him back."
So eventually the 11 boys roped ol' doped up Rudy and got him back in the field. Now he's tethered, just for good measure. The Valium gets expensive.
After petting, feeding, and taking pictures with Rudy we walk back up to the house and drive off to the bogside so I can 'foot turf,' they call it. Turf is decomposed plants, centuries old, that is dug up, dried, and burned during the winter to heat the houses in Ireland. It looks like dense, oily soil that dries to look like coal logs. (It's much cheaper to heat a house with than oil). We drive up the hill and park the car, but it's too wet for footin' turf so we just walk around a wee bit.
After, Joe drives me to see the Carndonagh cross (a 7th century stone cross) and mass rock (a place in the forest where the Catholics would come to pray and avoid Protestant persecution during the Penal times). Then, still wearing the big rainboots, we head up to the Carndonagh Cathedral.
The cathedral is a massive stone church, built in the '40s, that sits high upon a hill overlooking the town. Inside, an old Irish woman is vacuuming the church and stops to talk to us.
Sorry for slopping mud through the church while you're cleaning...
She tells us a wee bit about the church. She told us that before the building started, the parish priest had to go ask for the bishop's permission to use dynamite to blow up the rock on the hill to make way for the church's future foundation. The bishop said it would be fine. The priest said, "That's grand of you. Ive got it out in the car." The bishop told him to get the hell away from his church with it.
Eventually we head back to the house and have lunch. During lunch, Peter shows up. He's another relative and he'll be taking me to the Isle of Doagh to see the old reconstructed famine village. It's very touristy, but it explains a lot of Ireland's history.
During the tour of the famine village, the proprietor runs around from scene to scene ahead of the group and uses different props to help him with his story. He's a crafty fellow. He talks about the Irish wake tradition after a person dies and I don't know whether to believe half of what he's saying. Some of the things he's saying are just too funny, and he's so serious that I want to bust out laughing. But I hold back. After all, this is no laughing matter.
Eventually the tour ends and I'm dropped off at The Arch Bar in Carndonagh at 9pm to meet Adam for a few pints. It's much emptier tonight and Adam's boy Duffy that was with us down at Lily's on Sunday is behind the bar. The Guinness is just as good as it was Sunday. After a pint we head over to The Persian Bar next door for another. Patty Paul and Joe Paul walk in while we're there, so we pick up a wee following before heading to the small bar across the street that's run by the town undertaker.
It's quiet when we walk in, but it only takes us a minute to get the place going. The Pauls know everyone in the bar, and everyone in the bar knows I tried to walk from Sligo to Bundoran.
Ooooh Jesus.
After an hour or so, John Paul meets us at the bar. We've got almost all the boys with us for pints and the bar staff is great. They let me get behind the bar and I take photographs pouring a pint.
By now it's closing time and I'm dead tired from the undertaker's pints. We thank them and leave, but Adam and I have one more stop. We walk back up to The Arch and Adam knocks on the side door. Duffy rolls it open then closes it behind us. We'll have a wee pint while he closes up. After we're all done we head back to the house in a taxi and feast on late-nite lasagna that Ann had made for us before leaving for Scotland.
I'm leaving early in the morning for Paris. I'm too tired to do anything though. I'll pack my bag tomorrow.
A couple of resident mouse traps.
We leave the bar and head up to Joe's house for tea and biscuits. After tea he's going to be showing me the family's old house as well as some other sights around the Inishowen Peninsula. We finish up and walk next door where the old house is.
Every night in Carndonagh it's been getting dark around 11:30pm, so I knew I was far north. But not this far north. I had walked into Santa's Village. Joe Paul used to run a piggery but got out of the business when the margins dwindled. The old piggery as well as the old house had been combined to form a grand winter attraction for kids and families. We walk through the place and there are decorations everywhere as well as pens and stables filled with hay where Joe Paul keeps goats and rabbits and other animals that he borrows from locals during the winter to entice visitors. In the largest room of the piggery sits Santa's Sleigh, a huge Christmas tree, rooms for kids to write letters for Santa and drop them in the post, and toy shops for playing. Joe Paul tells me he used to host big dances up here and points out the bar that still sits in the corner. They had to shut it down after the police raided them.
"Oooooo Jesus" he says when he tells me the story. Whenever Joe Paul really gets going he fires out "Ooooo Jesus" a few times.
It takes a while to walk through the place since Joe is not only telling me about all the stuff he has in the wintertime for kids, but also the important stuff. The history.
My family lived on that homestead for many years. (In the 18th century, my ancestor Paul "Newman" Doherty left the Isle of Doagh during a sandstorm and came to Ballyloskey, Carndonagh where the family is now.)
Again, I digress.
We get to the end of the tour and there's a fenced in area where the deer usually is when Santa's Village is open. It's out on the other side of the house at the moment. We're going to feed it.
We walk down to the house and put on huge rubber boots before going out since it's been so wet lately. Then we walk down to the field and there it is. In all it's glory. A big. fecking. raindeer.
Ooooh Jesus.
"Rudy!" Joe shouts at him.
It takes me a while to realize Rudy is short for Rudolph.
We head into the field and set the bucket down for Rudy to eat from and I pet him. And his antlers. Those big. fecking. antlers.
Rudy's wearing a muzzle and he's tethered to a stake in the ground with about 50yds of line. Plenty of room to roam. When Joe Paul first got Rudy from a breeder he had a real hard time getting him into the field.
"It should have been put on YouTube," he says. "The breeder dropped him off and the reindeer wouldn't want to go into my field."
"We couldn't catch him so I phoned the vet to ask how I should get him into the field."
The vet suggested a tranquilizer gun but you could only get one miles away. They went with Valium. 500 Valium.
"I cleaned up every single pharmacy for miles. Once I had 500 I mixed it into his feed and after he was doped up on the Valium three guys ran up and put a rope around one side of his antlers. Then another three guys roped the other side of the antlers. Four guys wrapped a rope around one of his hind legs."
So there they were, eleven Irishmen pulling and fighting a massive, drugged up reindeer while it staggers into trees and bushes trying to get him into the field. They finally got him into the big field with the high fences and all was grand that winter at Santa's Village.
Then September came and Joe Paul is driving up the road to his house and there's Rudy out walking the streets. He hopped the fences like they were nothing during mating season.
Joe Paul couldn't believe his eyes. Better round up the boys.
It took a week to catch Rudy again. They would finally corner him near the fence of a big field and then Rudy would bound over it like it wasn't there.
"We only needed 300 Valium this time to get him back."
So eventually the 11 boys roped ol' doped up Rudy and got him back in the field. Now he's tethered, just for good measure. The Valium gets expensive.
After petting, feeding, and taking pictures with Rudy we walk back up to the house and drive off to the bogside so I can 'foot turf,' they call it. Turf is decomposed plants, centuries old, that is dug up, dried, and burned during the winter to heat the houses in Ireland. It looks like dense, oily soil that dries to look like coal logs. (It's much cheaper to heat a house with than oil). We drive up the hill and park the car, but it's too wet for footin' turf so we just walk around a wee bit.
After, Joe drives me to see the Carndonagh cross (a 7th century stone cross) and mass rock (a place in the forest where the Catholics would come to pray and avoid Protestant persecution during the Penal times). Then, still wearing the big rainboots, we head up to the Carndonagh Cathedral.
The cathedral is a massive stone church, built in the '40s, that sits high upon a hill overlooking the town. Inside, an old Irish woman is vacuuming the church and stops to talk to us.
Sorry for slopping mud through the church while you're cleaning...
She tells us a wee bit about the church. She told us that before the building started, the parish priest had to go ask for the bishop's permission to use dynamite to blow up the rock on the hill to make way for the church's future foundation. The bishop said it would be fine. The priest said, "That's grand of you. Ive got it out in the car." The bishop told him to get the hell away from his church with it.
Eventually we head back to the house and have lunch. During lunch, Peter shows up. He's another relative and he'll be taking me to the Isle of Doagh to see the old reconstructed famine village. It's very touristy, but it explains a lot of Ireland's history.
During the tour of the famine village, the proprietor runs around from scene to scene ahead of the group and uses different props to help him with his story. He's a crafty fellow. He talks about the Irish wake tradition after a person dies and I don't know whether to believe half of what he's saying. Some of the things he's saying are just too funny, and he's so serious that I want to bust out laughing. But I hold back. After all, this is no laughing matter.
Eventually the tour ends and I'm dropped off at The Arch Bar in Carndonagh at 9pm to meet Adam for a few pints. It's much emptier tonight and Adam's boy Duffy that was with us down at Lily's on Sunday is behind the bar. The Guinness is just as good as it was Sunday. After a pint we head over to The Persian Bar next door for another. Patty Paul and Joe Paul walk in while we're there, so we pick up a wee following before heading to the small bar across the street that's run by the town undertaker.
It's quiet when we walk in, but it only takes us a minute to get the place going. The Pauls know everyone in the bar, and everyone in the bar knows I tried to walk from Sligo to Bundoran.
Ooooh Jesus.
After an hour or so, John Paul meets us at the bar. We've got almost all the boys with us for pints and the bar staff is great. They let me get behind the bar and I take photographs pouring a pint.
By now it's closing time and I'm dead tired from the undertaker's pints. We thank them and leave, but Adam and I have one more stop. We walk back up to The Arch and Adam knocks on the side door. Duffy rolls it open then closes it behind us. We'll have a wee pint while he closes up. After we're all done we head back to the house in a taxi and feast on late-nite lasagna that Ann had made for us before leaving for Scotland.
I'm leaving early in the morning for Paris. I'm too tired to do anything though. I'll pack my bag tomorrow.
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