Missing things

Crowds and crowds

The station in the garden

Can't get the photos in the right place! Something wrong still.

The River Erne

We weren't planning to go in to Cavan again. Instead we went off to Galloon where they have a pumpout for the holding tank, planning to go back to Quivvy, then home the next day. Starboard engine wouldn't start - flat battery. No prob as we can start one engine off the other, but the boat needed a good run to charge everything up.

Did the holding tank job. Messy business with hoses and unsavoury odours. They're building a new toilet and shower block at Galloon. It's a tiny place, and there never seems to be anyone there, but I suppose there is the infrastructure for such things. It's a beautiful spot. Looks like nothing from the water, but when you're tied up, and the sun comes out after a torrential rain shower, and it's flat calm and there's a little bunch of swans in the distance it's fabulous. There's an interesting little graveyard here too. It's very old, and some of the gravestones have a skull and crossbone symbol on them. We were told these were masonic graves.

So Joe said will we go into Cavan tonight to see Sharon Shannon? She was on the Gig Rig. We could get the shuttle bus in, he said. Eat in town. And maybe we don't have to go home tomorrow. We could stay another day.

Ok. So sudden change of plan. I don't always like that, but this one sounded good. Off we went back to Belturbet. Our space was still free. It was getting late though. The shuttle but was going every hour, so we got on the nine o'clock. Arrived into Cavan around twenty past. Into a little Italian place on a side street and ordered the food. Hoped to get to Sharon for the last half hour of her set. Then there was the winner of the Céilí completition and then there were to be fireworks.

We were a bit late, but should have got the last twenty minutes or so of Sharon. But the guards had a barrier across the street. Too many people, they said. Not letting anyone else in. It's dangerous. Then it came out that she'd finished anyway. We went around the back and got close to the stage to see them packing up. No Céilí comp winners. They were playing in the Dome (which isn't a dome - it's a very big and very angular marquee). And no fireworks either. The space they were to set them off from was full of camper vans.

This has been the story of our week going to the Fleadh in Cavan. Just missing everything.

Heard this morning that they'd cut Sharon short because of the crowds.

There's more to Belturbet than we'd realised. You can tie up at the end of navigation at the bridge. A delightful spot. It's where steamers used to tie up at the old quay. The quay was built for the SS Belturbet. Later the SS Knockninny Rock and the SS Countess of Milan used it. SS means Steam Ship. The steamers used to go up to Enniskillen and Knockninny. Beyond the bridge is a walk along the river and back - they've put in decking in places, and a footbridge. Halfway back there is the site of a Motte and Bailey built by Norman invaders in 1210 or 1211. It's on Turbet Island, a strip of land where the River Erne splits into two channels. Belturbet was of strategic importance, as it was the only possible fording place on the River Erne.

There's part of the old railway station in someone's bungalow garden down near the river. Looks a little out of place. Every time we walked past we'd talk about why someone had such an ornate thing in their garden. Was it a band stand? Was it a strange sort of car port?

At the Fleadh in Cavan

Street mobs at the Fleadh in Cavan

Saturday night and we drove into town around six. Looked like nowhere to park, but on the road out near the pub we were going to was a lovely long stretch of empty kerbside with No Parking cones along it. At the end were two cars. If you just move that cone back a foot, said Joe, we'll fit in nicely.

Grabbed some street food, then into the Abbey Bar in the hope that we would finally be on time for a good session. The front bar had been the best place the night before. This night we found roaring sessions in the back bar and in the beer garden. Some sweet music in the front bar that looked like it was just ending. In we went and got seats. A change of personnel. Had a couple of hours of great tunes. There was a young woman in there on the whistle and flute. Very well dressed in beautiful clothes, very made up. Black Cleopatra hair. One glass of white wine after another. And another. In and out she went as we all grabbed our drinks to stop her tipping them over.

The bank with burning windows. Amazing business with a projector.

Fish in the window.

Another fiddle player came in and worked his way into the corner. Let's call him J_. Started a few selections of tunes that only he and S_, another fiddle player knew, but then back into more common stuff. His friend on the flute was sat next to us. He was eyeing up Ms Tipsy's seat as she was increasingly not in it. She would put away her whistle and he'd get fidgety. Then out it would come,  she was playing again and he'd sit back in despair. Amazing she was still getting the tunes. Then up she'd get to go for another drink. And back to the seat.

When we first arrived there was a fellow in there called T_ who we've often seen at sessions. He went off to get something to eat, so there was this empty seat with his fiddle case underneath it. Eventually a flute player came in and grabbed it. Ignored J_ telling him that belonged to someone. Who'd been gone now for a couple of hours. Then an influx of another fiddle and two more flutes. They started playing a rake of tunes Joe and I didn't know at all. From the Dublin sessions, we thought.

So then Ms Tipsy decides she wants to be sitting on the other side of the room (it's a very small room so just across from where she was). She squeezes past Brian on the fiddle who's stuck in the middle. There is nowhere to sit in the place she's aiming for. J_ stands up and looks bemused, then annoyed. Ms Tipsy is also annoyed. She is asking J_ to swap places with her because she'd like to sit where he is. She abuses him mildly then staggers back to her seat.

Peter starts playing a reel and looking at S_. It's a tune nobody else but she knows. He follows it with another. Some Donegal stuff. And another. Ok. So that's what's going on. He doesn't want these Dublin fellows in here so he's getting rid. Time for us to leave. Can't be bothered with that sort of thing, and it's getting unbearably hot. We need air. There's fellows in high viz vests on the door. If you go out you won't be let back in, they said. They were working a queue system. One person out, and another could come in. Why don't you go to the beer garden, they said. So we did. Joe had a beer and we cooled down, then said we'd go back to Belturbet. I could have a drink then. Passing the small front bar there was J_ and S_ playing away, with the flute player in between who'd been there from the start. Fucked off everyone else.

Walked back to the car to see a cluster of cones in the middle of the long empty stretch of kerbside. Cars parked all along it.

Fleadh in Cavan and other stories

No photos alert. It won't upload. Damn it. No more time. Battery low on computer and Joe and dogs impatient in car.

Days later get a couple of pics into this post. See below. Can't get them to sit in the place I want. Don't know what they're doing to the photo uploader.

We really had planned to move. We arrived back at the boat in Quivvy Marina on Sunday in amazing sunshine. A whole day of it without showers. We had a half arrangement to meet up with friends at Crom Castle on Monday evening. On Monday it rained. And rained. And rained in that persistent, disconsolate way it sometimes (often?) does when you know it's in for the day. The friends couldn't make Crom so we stayed put. Crom is gorgeous, but not the place to be on your own in the gloom.

We still haven't moved. This is because the Fleadh Cheoil na h'Éireann is on in Cavan ten miles down the road. We were at two of the Fleadhs when they were held in Tullamore and had a brilliant time watching the whole pageant of it and playing tunes. It was particularly fabulous because the Grand Canal runs right through the town so we were in the middle of things, but able to escape (very necessary) at the same time. We didn't think we'd do much at the Cavan one with having to drive to get there, but somehow it's become compulsive again. And we can still escape.

On Sunday night the town was noisy but it was rock music leaking out of pub doorways, not trad. But by last night things were in full swing. The streets are full of young musicians in search of sessions, or teenagers in little clots bitching about each other - no no no, sorry, discussing the finer points of the reel and the jig. The pubs were full of children playing to an astonishingly high standard. But we were on the hunt for a grown-up's session.

We'd done a bit of scouting the night before and the White Star seemed a good bet. The Blessings was suggested as another venue. In the end we were in the White Star when a couple of fellows came down from the upstairs restaurant where they'd been given dinner after playing tunes that afternoon. 'You can play, can't you?', said one of them. Shit, I thought. What's the standard going to be here. We just want a few tunes. Turns out he was a guitarist who needed someone to accompany, and the other lad was a six-string banjo player with hardly a trad tune to his name. Ho hum. Guitar man also had a banjo. Joe has a banjo. So a flute and three banjos. I was delighted when a young American on a piano accordion joined us. Accordions can be good in these situations as they are loud, and this lad was competing at the Fleadh so was good. We stayed until the bodhrán player arrived. That's usually the time to leave, and we needed to spring the dogs from the boat.

Joe mending the dinghy

We were going to go sailing again this morning - had a grand little potter about Quivvy Water yesterday. Except for the bit where we got caught up in weed. There's a huge amount of weed suddenly appeared in the waterways. It was round the rudder and round the centre board so we had to get out the oar. Thought it would be an outboard job, but suddenly we started moving and escaped. Can't sail this morning though. The gaff which has the main sail set into it is splitting and the sail is coming loose. Joe has just been glueing it together, so we'll have to see if it holds enough to go out tomorrow.

Seagull at Quivvy

We're quite settled here now, and getting used to the idea. We've paid David for a year's berth after endless to-and-fro discussions. Would we stay here? Would we go to Cootehall? Or somewhere else? Decision made thankfully. That's part of why we're in no rush to explore Lough Erne further. We have until the beginning of July next year. It's exciting to be on a different waterway with time to get to know it. And we're in excellent company. Another beautiful timber boat lives here. This is Seagull owned by Jonathan and Daphne Shackleton. She's coming up to 100 years old, and is looking in fine form ready for the big vintage boat event happening at Crom Castle at the end of August.