We went to Cotters to have a quick dinner before going to see the storyteller at the social club. Maureen’s dinner of chicken, potatoes and broccoli was late in coming but tasty when it got there. I had a bean and rice salad and my 1/2 pint of Murphty’s. Cotters is a nice little pub. It was open when we first got on the island but they do have a kind of monopoly on the local and tourist folk as they seem to be the only pub that is open.
O’Driscolls pub is being renovated and painted and might be open tomorrow.
After dinner, at about 845, we toddled on down to the Cape Cliere Social Club which is above the store. There was a bar so after we got our seats we each got a drink. There was quite a few people there already as the storyteller was scheduled to start his story at 9. we got to talking with a couple of them.
It seems the island is 1583 acres as measured in the survey of 18 something and the Gentleman Sam Gustafson of Toronto is also a story teller that these people knew.
Our storyteller tonight was Dominique who was a Choctaw Indian from the states. His story was actually not so much a story but a of how the famine in 1847 affected his people and connected them to the Irish of the times. He was a good storyteller but his physical position in the hall was a matter of concern to me for a couple of reasons. He was not on a stage but was in a kind of semicircle of chairs and tables around him and immediately behind him were the steps to come into the hall. As he talked he would take a pace this way and that way and he seemed to be working his way ever so slowly backwards. I thought that he might take a tumble down the steps. The second thing that occurred about 15 minutes into his talk was when Ed the blind goat cheese man and his seeing eye dog came in. Ed just stood there for moment with his dog until someone came and got him and gave him a seat fairly close to the door. His dog lay down beside him but being a large dog was a little out into the floor and I was then concerned about the storyteller stepping on the dog. Once my concerns for his and the dogs safety were assuaged I could focus more on the story. The Choctaw nation, who were a hard put upon people themselves, when they heard about the famine got together and gave a donation of some considerable amount of money for the time, through the churches of the day. The story was very interesting and one line that he used stood out in our minds. “People were brought to the brink of their humanity”.
After the story teller there was going to be music. Earlier in the day I had lost a bet with Maureen so I owed her a beer. We split a pint of Smidicks (Smithwicks). The music was so much fun. Three young men started it and soon everyone was tapping their feet on the wooden floor. At one point the stopped playing and it was announced that Ed was going to sing. Well he was marvelous. He did a song, acappella ,‘Remember me’ might have been the title. After that was more traditional Irish music.
And we didn’t pay for anything except the beer. Michael from Cork joined us for a bit and walked us home at around 11.
There are very few or no street lights on the roads and the sky was cloudy so there were no stars or moon to light the way. It was very dark. We were all having a good time talking about the island, the weather, our plans for the next day and the next week. Only one or two cars went by us. The hostel was very quiet and we each settled into our separate rooms quickly although I think Michael may have gone back to the club. The beds were actually pretty comfortable for bottom of bunk beds.
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