Irish Eyes

By Mattie Lennon

On September 07th I was on Hill 16 wearing my Dublin jersey. (Mick O Dwyer got it for me when he was managing Wicklow.) Beside me was an old Dub accompanied by his faithful Jack Russell. We exchanged a bit of good-natured banter about the cleverness of the Jack Russell versus the Wicklow Collie. When the match started the old Dub said, "You'll soon see how smart my dog is.” At the first Dublin score, a point after seven seconds , the dogs jumps up and runs in a circle around his master's feet. And so it went. Every time Dublin scored a point the little canine ran once around his master's feet. Until a goal was scored. The dog then jumps up and does 3 circles around the old man's feet. I said. "Be gob, your dog is amazing. He must really love Dublin....but what does he do when Dublin loses?" The old man looked at me but didn't answer until the final whistle blew and Dublin had won their “five in a row”. Then he said, "I’ve no idea. I've only had him five years".

Jimmy a very sick Dublin man is lying in bed. He realises he doesn't have much time left, so he asks his nurse to bring his wife, daughter, and both sons to him, as well as witnesses and a camera to record his last wishes.

When all are assembled, their eyes misty and their faces drawn, he begins to speak.

"My son, Jem I want you to take the Dominick Street houses."

"My daughter Kate, you take the apartments between Camden Street and Charlemount Street."

"My son, Mick, I want you to take the offices over in the Financial Centre."

"Molly, my dear wife, please take all the residential buildings on the Southside of the canal.”

The nurse and witnesses are blown away as they did not realise his extensive holdings, and as Jimmy slips away, the nurse says:

"Mrs. Doyle, your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property.

The wife just grunts. "The bastard was a window cleaner".

Amn’t I gone mag going on about death and wakehouses? But you hear some strange stories from wakes. There was a wake in the backs of Wicklow and the deceased was a murder victim. He was a decent well-liked man and it was a mystery why anyone would want to kill him. Eventually it was whispered that he had been looking after the biological needs of a neighbour’s wife. One of the company then said, “Do you know what I’m going to tell you? It could have been worse. If it was last week if could have been me.”

Tadhg Cowhig and Ronan Flood completed their 600km cycle from Mizen Head in Cork to Malin Head in Donegal. At the time of writing they have raised almost €2000, for Lacken Community , through https://www.gofundme.com/f/tadhg-amp-ronan-cycle-challenge which was organised by Claire Kyle. Lacken Community Development association lost its most valued and hard-working member on 24th September with the death, after a short illness, of Philip Gallagher. RIP.

Blessington County Wicklow has been twinned with O' Neill City, Nebraska. More about this later.

See you in November.

Mattie Lennon