James Kilbane is a country singer, and it's not a genre I'm that interested in. But as I was in Ireland this weekend, and frankly, you jump at the chance to go to anything that's on.. we bought a couple of tickets from the friendly organiser of the fundraiser in Oatfield Church.
Now, I'd never been there before, and would have had to look up driving directions - but my mother had found out, during the week, that there was a bus from Kilkishen. Lovely stuff - so we made our way over there nice and early. So early, in fact, that we were the very first there, with her wondering where everyone was. She tends to overreact when she has to be somewhere, you see. "It's not due for 40 minutes, mother.."
When we saw something like a bus, all of us who had arrived by car got out of our cars and hurried over. We were greeted by the friendly driver, who promised, "I'll be back in ONE minute," as he sped off in the direction of the shop. "One minute" is never really one minute, of course, we mused as we huddled in the cold. We finally had the idea of joining the other group we could see huddled outside the buildings further down. This was much better than huddling in front of the low wall that surrounds the church, over which a chill breeze was blowing.
Some minutes later, he did return. I hadn't heard of the company - Brigdale. Mind you, he was now parked against traffic, which was a bit awkward for getting what turned out to be 14 passengers, generally elderly and most with limited mobility, onto a minibus with what they considered a high step. What the hey, there were no accidents, and we were loaded in due course. Handily, the capacity of the bus was exactly 14.
I must pay tribute to the company - the minibus was very comfortable indeed. My mother remarked that she can't have been on a bus since I was based in Dublin and she was visiting me there.. that was 18 years ago! We were to be glad, both of the comfort of the bus, and that we had taken a bus at all; this was the bumpiest, windiest, narrowest, most deserted road I've been on in a long while. I wonder how long his bus will remain in good condition, though, if he always takes bumpy roads at that speed..
We'd never have found it on our own. The person who arranged the bus had to give the driver directions - indeed, she wasn't too sure either! Easy when you know how, of course. My mother was curious to see the route afterwards - when I looked it up on Google Maps though, she was disappointed that it didn't name anywhere we'd passed through. Well, obviously - you could count the houses on that road on the fingers of one hand. She speculated that we passed through a spot colloquially known as "The Windy Gap". Certainly, it was a terrible night for driving, and it was a relief to reach something that looked like a church, down in a hollow off the main road.
The driver reversed as far as he could down the laneway to the church - very considerate of him. We struggled our way through the blustery, wet conditions, through the church gate (decorated very fetchingly with storm lanterns). They had promised free tea, mulled wine, mince pies - and these were laid out in a marquee that had been erected beside the church door. The poor marquee had a task to stay upright, in the squalls of wind that threatened to rip it from its moorings and send it careering down the hill. My mother decided she'd rather head inside, and I was left to fetch goodies.
The mulled wine was, as its server remarked, going faster than expected. Huh! No kidding, on a night like that. I don't think they had enough though, and latecomers probably didn't get any. I picked up two of those, a queen cake for my mother, and a couple of (as it turned out, v tasty) chocolate squares for myself - and headed in. Well, they could hardly expect us to stay outside in this!
Seating was on pews, of course. The concert was supposed to be candlelit, and it kind of was - except the overhead lights were on when we came in, and the stage remained lit throughout by spots. And fairy lights. I'd completely forgotten it was supposed to be candlelit until someone turned off the overhead lamp.. the event started at 8, with the Meelick choir leading us in Christmas carols. And what a lovely choir! I've rarely heard a nicer non-professional choir. Well done, the folks in red! As we waited for the main attraction, I read the historical poster conveniently located on the wall next to us, which explains the origins of the church - how two priests fled the persecution of Cromwell in the Penal Times, and happened upon this place, where there was a barn they could turn into a church. It's one of only two "barn churches" remaining in Ireland.
I had been worried by the sound amps turned in our direction - I though they might be too much in such a small space. But someone had the sense not to have too much volume, and they were fine. And in due course, Mr. Kilbane and his small group took the stage. And off we went. Now, I've mentioned that I'm not into country - but I do have to give him credit for a terrific, very powerful singing voice. It's just.. o my Lord, he's missed his vocation, this guy. Every single song he performed was prefaced by a small sermon, based on the song to follow. I heard so much about Our Lord, and Our Lady, and The Lamb, I was fit to be tied. He must've spent half the night preaching to us. And us sitting on hard wooden pews. Hmm.
Of course, most of his material was religious anyway. Except for the one secular song he said he'd do - "White Christmas". The fly in his ointment was a girl in our section, who stood for the entire duration of "Silent Night", holding up a tablet on which she was obviously filming him. Honestly, where do they get the cheek? She sat when he was finished, and he did ask that she not film any more - pictures were ok, he said. Imagine, there are still people who don't know that's not acceptable.
When he finally ran out of things to sing, they had the raffles - one that we'd bought tickets for at the interval, and one that we had got free tickets for as we came in. I'm rather glad we didn't win - the top two prizes were trailer-loads of timber. Although, of course, we could have attached one to the back of the bus..! There were packs of Christmas cards to buy, with hand-drawn pictures of the church, and of course, copies of his cd. We passed. Our bus driver was ready for us, and we gratefully clambered on board, assisted by the guys who were directing parking - they'd arranged parking in the adjacent field, which has been graciously donated to the church for use as a car park, but is still a field at this point. Another reason to be glad we hadn't driven - it had been raining for all the hours we'd been in there, and the place was quite muddy.
Our entire road back to Kilkishen was downhill. You think you're remote, then you come somewhere like this..! Well, we were so late back, and I still had my mother's online shopping order to put in.. and today was a rush, with things to do before making my flight back. Hence the delay in the blog. Today, we did grab lunch in the Abbey Tavern again, which was lovely - apart from the bread and butter pudding that my mother had, which was, apparently, tasteless. She liked her salmon though, I liked my turkey, and we both liked our garlic bread. I do have to give them credit - no notice at all was paid to the woman breastfeeding at the next table, which is lovely to see - after, for example, all the hoo-ha in Claridge's during the week, where a breastfeeding woman was asked to cover up, and it all turned into a political mess. Chill, people.. babies gotta eat too!
Well, I'm off to the Cirque Berserk in Hyde Park's Winter Wonderland tomorrow. And it's suitably freezing outside.. might go in search of another bear there, I see there's one not far away!
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