The Galapagos Iguana

A great weekend was had by all in Kilkee last weekend, at the annual gathering of currachs, hosted so kindly by the Dixie and Kilkee Currach Club. On our arrival, the Atlantic waves could be heard crashing across the plateau of Liscannor grey slabs and into the pollock pools where so many go each morning go to swim. The colours of the rainbow stemming from the escaping mist grew deeper and clearer as a rogue cloud blackened on it approach from the Atlantic. Before we could take cover, a deluge of water came tumbling over the town. we scurried into the Stella Maris where we stayed for the night. A well-established hotel in the town square, where an artist successfully captured all its caricature by blending the craftmanship with gorgeous colour and natural light as if they had been influenced by the canvas of colour we had just experienced on our arrival.  The next day calm had returned to the skies and the sudden outbursts thrown about in the form of morning greets and along the road as we walked to the harbour was overwhelming not to mention a warm and much needed surprise. Anyway, we walked and talked all the way to the very ridge of the great expanse of flat stones, to the edge of the rolling ways that gushed and sucked all the energy around you. And just as we thought we had gone as far as one could go, a fear (man) shot past us in a pair of shorts and a peaked cap carrying a plastic bag as he went. The ground was flat all around us and as if the Atlantic came and sucked him out we could not for the life of us figure out where he went.  And just as we approached the ‘menopause mermaids’ (Ulster terminology I read in a book once) shot past us like the March hare from Alice in wonderland. Surprised and amused we struggled on, not wanting to be late for the takes on local currach fisher men, about to commence in the community hall.

On returning to the carpark, there he was, like a Galapagos Iguana basking in the sun with the bag open on the car bonnet offering samples of seaweed that he had just managed cut before the tide turned, to strangers like us to sample and talk. The hospitality continued with a fill of food and remarkable stories of men who live to fish for mackerel in tar covered currachs, out beneath the majestic cliffs of county Clare. The spin in the currach….. icing on the cake!

Thanks to Mairtín, Dixie and his gang of like-minded pirates. Go raibh mile agaibh go léir…..