Marking Time

I went to the Midlands Music Festival on Saturday. It was muddy and wet but well organised, and with a sympathetic crowd the atmosphere was grand and relaxed. I wanted to stay for Sunday but personal commitments dragged me away.
Richard Thompson was magical, it goes without saying. If you ever get a chance to see him play live, jump at it. Christy Moore is ageing well, he gave a controlled performance, he sounds happy and comfortable in his skin, and having Declan Sinnott as a wingman takes a bit of the pressure off him.
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The Irish Ferries vessel MV Normandy flies the flag of the Bahamas in order to avoid Irish labour laws. Most of its staff are Eastern European.

The guy with the Ireland shirt is French.

I return from my travels, as always, recharged and with fresh perspective. It seems to me that I need to get off the island every now and then in order to anchor myself in the present. Ireland has the sense of a place where the present is squeezed out by the shadow of a huge ominous past that we live in fear of returning to, and a future of limitless possibilities that we are blindly rushing to embrace with no idea of where we’ll land. But very little sense of the now. Very little sense of the stablility and solidity and timelessness I feel when rambling around Old Europe.

Ireland is very much a work in progress, one that will have to be broken and re-set a few more times before we get it right.

(The destruction/construction at Tara is probably the most obvious emblem of this past/present/future notion but I see it everywhere now. I’m sure it will wear off as the memories of pleasant holidays fade).