Marking Time

Will you meet me on Clare Island
Summer stars are in the sky
We’ll get the ferry out from Roonagh
And wave all our cares goodbye
And we’ll go dancing at the ceili
We’ll go kissing on the strand
Take our clothes of in the moonlight
Skinny-dipping hand in hand
And we’ll start drinking in the twilight
Keep it up until the dawn
In both the bars
Because there’s no guards
To take our names and send us home.

The Saw Doctors, Clare Island

Ah yes, the Saw Doctors. You either love them or loathe them. They are lauded by their supporters for the authenticity and depth of their insights into the minutae of life in a small town in Ireland and savaged by their critics for the fakeness and shallowness of their insights into the minutae of life in that self-same small town in Ireland. The truth as usual lies somewhere in between.

There is no question that the songs of Saw Doctors accurately capture their experiences growing up in Shamtown and for their critics to deny that is to deny the very existence of small town Irish life. Perhaps that’s what they are trying to do in a vain attempt to remake the image of Ireland as more ’sophisticated’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ than they feel it is.

Having said that, it is hard to see much that is unique or insightful in the lyrics of the Saw Doctors. Their idolisers give them too much credit in this regard, seeing things that are not really there, and reading all sorts of deep social meanings into the lyrics. In many cases the fans’ judgement is coloured by the baggage they themselves bring to the songs, which often document events they would have experienced themselves. So while you could argue that N 17 is a more authentic description of Irish emigration than Philip Chevron’s Thousands are Sailing it is difficult to argue that it offers the same artistic richness and intellectual insight. Removed from it’s local context N 17 loses much of its power.

The Saw Doctors sing it as they see it and that in itself is probably enough to make them unique. There are few other bands mining their source.

Anyway, all that’s just an excuse to throw up a few photos of Clare Island…
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Being somewhat of a philistine when it comes to public art I have always regarded the Spire on Dublin’s O’Connell Street as uninspired and uninspiring, an ill-fitting monstrosity totally out of proportion with its surroundings.

However, I have mellowed a little and have now come to regard it as a suitable symbol for our nation and for the limits of our collective vision and imagination: grey and meaningless, without hope or aspiration, pointless in every way except the literal. All it’s missing is a barcode sticker to indicate its price.

And as the photo shows it blends quite nicely into the streetscape. Despite being 120 metres high, you would hardly notice it was there.

This fabulous structure looks different under every lighting condition. At night, its stainless steel surface resembles black satin, while early morning and last light gave it a steely blue colour. In daytime under bright sunlight, it doesn’t look real from a distance, instead it looks like a computer simulation.

Archeire

As I said, an appropriate symbol for modern Ireland.

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The Lighthouse at Tarbert

The lighthouse at Tarbert on the Shannon Estuary taken from the Shannon Dolphin Car Ferry on Saturday 2nd April.

We also saw a school of genuine Shannon dolphins as we made the crossing on a sunny, spring day. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quick enough to snap some close ups.

The twenty minute crossing is book-ended by the electric power stations of Tarbert, County Kerry and Moneypoint, County Clare.