| The Joe Horgan Column
By Joe Horgan
So this is Ireland in the winter. There are ponies just off the causeway
road. On one side the salt marshes stretch out to the open sea and the wading
birds pick over the flats in the winter sunlight. On the other side, nearer
the bog land, the marsh and the short stunted trees the ponies stand in
the soft mud. When the tide comes in it will flood and they will retreat
inland. They are travellers’ animals, I think, these ponies and stout piebald
horses. Not so long ago an attempt to drain the land and build a golf course
was turned down. For now. As the light fades an owl quarters these flat
marshes and the cry of seabirds has you looking to the wheeling winter flocks
in the sky.
There are a lot of foxes dead on the road these mornings for some reason.
Perhaps they get lost or are almost invisible in the evening mist. They
lie, a flash of red in the ditch. I am ignorant of their habits and movements.
Perhaps those who have lived all their lives in the country would know.
Maybe at this time of year the younger ones are dispersing in search of
new territories. Many things show up on the roads in the morning. Foxes,
hedgehogs, dogs, cats, rabbits, badgers, birds, rarely a stoat, one time
an otter. One evening coming out of the lane just as night has fallen I
come across a bundle in the road. It is still warm. The body of an owl.
A car must have clipped it, probably unseen, and it is gone now. I look
at the beautifully carved talons, the closed face. It is a long-eared owl,
says the book, and flies only in total darkness. It would nest somewhere
near here in the woods and I think of it swooping over these fields in the
night.
These are days for the fire, my friend says, and tells me how of an evening
when her husband has finished with the cows they sit by the burning fire
and talk. My father has his fire banked with slack these nights and the
heat is fierce. Once again the town of an evening smells of wood and peat
and turf and for a moment you can forget the shopping centres and the multi-storey
car parks that have mushroomed up and walk streets still fresh with the
scent of life.
Outside the town the starlit skies are truly awe inspiring. Whilst not
seeming to be as full as some of the summer nights the cold edge gives them
an extra sparkle. You stand and stare until your craning neck hurts. There
will be frost on the muddy puddles in the morning and a cold, bright day
will snap again into night. The sun goes down quickly now and the slither
of moon is out in the afternoon. When the evening star hangs across from
it the night is coming. Vast flocks of crows fly over to their roost and
amongst their calls and cackling you can hear the beat of their many wings
as they fly overhead. They have none of the acrobatics of those huge flocks
of starlings I remember seeing in the city as a boy and none of the sadness
that surrounds the gathering of the swallows at the end of summer. But there
is a strange peacefulness about their rowdy way of going to bed.
Last thing at night I tune into the radio and the late night discussion.
Somehow it encapsulates the state of the country. On one side someone is
arguing that Ireland should be driven more by principle. The other voice
sees nothing but economic imperatives. As clear as the night sky and as
honest as the wild animals and their daily effort at surviving we could
do with some more of this. We could do with less cant and dishonesty and
plamas. We should come clean and debate openly whether Ireland is a nation
at all anymore or just an economic clearing house with no other reason for
existing than to make money.
But enough of that. I’d rather think about the night sky and the fire
slowly burning down. The dog sighs as he turns over and on this still night
the sound of the road carries and a car is changing gear. Sometimes you
can envisage half the country going to bed thinking of the latest interest
rates, insurance forecasts and house prices. They dream of their cars. And
there are cars here safely behind electronic gates that are more safely
housed and loved than many people. But there’s still music in Ireland yet.
And foxes and badgers and owls. Underneath the starlit sky there is still
a country dreaming.
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