Category Archives: Reactoblog

Takes the Skin off The Roof of Yer Mouth

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I just had for lunch a toasted ham sandwich. It was delicious. What made it even nicer was the detritus of some earlier sandwich that attached itself to the outside of the bread. Hmm wonderful. Lunchtime bliss.

I like mine with white bread, the sort of terrible and tasteless white bread that if you roll into a ball it doesn’t crumble but squishes together like a white paste. More food value in its wrapping. Probably. But when you stick a bit of ham between two slices the inside of the bread sort of liquidises and adds to the  texture. Brown bread just doesn’t do the same job. White bread is toastie bread, the way it merges and joins together in communion with your filling.

I remember the first time I came across toasties was in my uncle’s bar in Omagh. The Hogshead served them, ham, cheese or ham and cheese. Simple. A drop of Worcester Sauce too if you wanted it. I was only about four at the time but I remember the daytime drinkers getting a toastie with their beer or stout. It looked tasty and it was tasty. Mmmm.

My mother-in-law Patsy loves to have one with a glass of Irish Whiskey. Angela loves a toastie and makes a tasty one herself, sometimes for me too if I’m good. In fact, so big a fan of toasties were we that we got a yellow one for a wedding present. A lovely fancy Breville jobbie, it busted after a while and was replaced by one costing a fiver from Tesco.

You can wipe your toastie maker down but for me, like an archaeologist digging up some oul bones, I love that taste of cheese cooked a couple of times over that clings to your latest creation. Wherever it lurks, it manages to affix itself to the next sandwich. How could you not like that?

My sister Mary was the first in our house to get one and we tried all sorts of recipes. Mars and apple was one. Stinking. At Queen’s we used to crack an egg onto the bread and have an egg toastie. Filling and functional for beer purposes and late night snacking.

May not be the trendiest kitchen gadget on the market, and overheated cheese and tomato toasted sandwich has stripped many’s the layer of skin from the roof of my mouth. But they’re still the business. I love the wee sharp corner bits, sometimes you find a wee bit of filling fused in the corner. When the dog wants a bit, I’d nearly rather she had the part with the filling than the corner. I love the way the bread fuses and seals – white bread does it the best. The seal round the sides are a treat too, the little beards of cheese hangin’ out there to be nibbled off.

Nowadays every fancy lunch joint has a panini for sale. But all hail its predecessor, the toastie maker.

Hungry? You know what to do.

The Cause Endures.

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I have fought the good fight.
I have finished my course.
I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4:7

I have had people ask me over the last day or two how I feel after our Toome Riders cycle on Saturday.

The answer is simple. I felt fine when it started, fine half way through, totally wrecked for about eight miles when I hit the proverbial wall and reasonably OK for the last few miles home.

Thanks to the people in the group I made it home with the group. I would have got home by hook or by crook, taxi, support vehicle or phoned home. Anyhow, the strength of the wolf is the pack, and the strength of the pack is the wolf. Paul Boyle, Damian and Frances and the others made sure I wasn’t me fein on my bike. Go raibh maith agaibh.

In retrospect, I don’t really know why I agreed to do it. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it. I don’t mind when I’m out on the road cycling but this idea of building up miles didn’t do it for me I have to say. Others really got into it and I admire their effort from afar.

Part of me wishes I could have cycled 100 miles but for several reasons, none of which I’m sharing here I decided that I wasn’t doing it and that I wouldn’t be able to do it. More summer horriblis than anus horriblis but that’s my personal story.

Dressed in the ridiculous cycling garb I felt like the only gay in the village. As my friend Martin Dummigan used to say, the outfit was so tight you could almost count the hairs. Marty I would add wasn’t talking about men in cycling gear just in case anyone would get the wrong impression of him.

On reflection it has been interesting the appeal the Toome Riders cycle has had to all cross sections. There are people now bought into and involved with Eoghan Rua that would previously not have been. Next thing we can get them to sign up as bona fide members.

These sorts of events like fashion show tend to attract new interest. It serves to broaden the appeal of the GAA to show that it’s not just about kicking ball, pucking a sliotar, shouting at refs and talking shite at committee meetings. Having done work for Croke Park and written about social fabric, we are living breathing examples of it in practice.

Over the years we have organised Corporate Dinners that raked in the dough from builders coining it in the boom years. We have had ticket draws, bike rides x 2; fashion shows. We have had duck races. We have built our pitch which is something for everyone to call their home.  And on Sunday I was talking to one of the other senior members of Eoghan Rua. He was been around here longer than me and is someone I respect enormously for all he has done and continues to do.

As we ruminated on the goings on and comings and goings and all the recent successes on and off the pitch, we agreed that the success of what is being done now will only really be gauged when the next generation takes over.

They will have a pitch and a clubhouse and a user base that we never had until now. And there will be coaching expertise and the Eoghan Rua way of doing things. Of the attention detail that we know brings success, and how that will hopefully be firmly embedded in the fabric of the place so that players find conditioning and diet and community involvement and commitment to the cause and loyalty, punctuality and the importance of team over individual – all things worth buying into.

In listening to Kilkenny men talking about their success – underage success and silverware is all very well – but at the end of the day, you are wanting to turn these mini gaels into senior players.

I once went to a beach in Oman called Ras Al Hadd where greenback turtles hatch and return to the sea. On their way down the treacherous sand they have to make their way past crabs that try to intercept them to kill them and pick over their remains.

Their way of catching the fledgling turtles is to pluck out their eyes. A small proportion of turtles make it through, to take their chances in the open ocean. There, other challenges await. And they don’t even have their parents there on the sidelines as they make their run for it, screaming at them and urging them on. The mark of success is when they return years later to the same beach to enable the next batch of turtles to be born and set off on life’s path. And so it continues.

And as I contemplate my own continued active involvement, it would be rewarding and reassuring to know there is a legacy that can be built upon. When I go out the swing doors in the next year or two I hope to meet plenty more passing me in the other direction. There are certainly more bodies than there were. I am tired at times and don’t know for how long this can continue.

The advertisment says ‘Ask not what your club can do for you, but what you can do for your club’ echoing JFK’s famous words.

Eoghan Rua has given me opportunities galore. I have some great friends and there are players that I will meet in years to come, and with a single glance we will know we shared some of the times of our lives.

On Sunday at Croke Park I looked at that spot at the foot of the Hogan steps with a certain disbelief that I had ever stood there and listened to Méabh’s words.  “Tá athas an domhain orm an corn seo a glacadh. . .”.

Senator Edward Kennedy said when conceding defeat in his own ultimately failed bid for the White House:

“the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

The same words are in my mind, resonating, reverberating, except for me they reflect optimism, and the promise of a bright, bright future.

To Make You Feel My Love.

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Today’s List

Jim Wells and his ill advised comments about GAA clubs. Aside from the bigotry and lack of understanding of these outbursts by DUP figures, they forget one basic fact about bag packing. If you don’t want your bag packed, pack it yourself. And while you’re at it, pack up your troubles in your old tin trunk and feck away off.

Speaking of packing up your troubles, I had heard via my daughter there was a wee girl from Gortin in Tyrone singing on X Factor. Now, let’s be clear about this, if she is from Tyrone, she could be the biggest crow in the Gortin Glens, but she would still get my vote. Even though I greatly despise the X Factor. Tír Eoghain vincit Omnia. However, and it’s a big however, the other day whilst following a link posted by a friend I watched Janet Devlin sing. I was totally transfixed. Unbelievable voice. Just shows the talent hiding in Tyrone and from Tyrone. I’m putting her X Factor number on speed dial.

I went out the other night after our match for a typical night of acting the tin pig with our senior camogie team. Has to be said that one of the best parts of being involved are the manic nights spent in bars in Portstewart talking shite and acting the fool, even though I’m too old, too tired, and too long in the tooth. On Sunday, the night ended with a lift home in the boot of Big Riko’s car. That’s what living is.

Cyclin’. Fuckin’ hate it. Next.

Today I got the house back. Peace at last, children off to school and although I love them dearly, I also love my mornings working alone in peace. Long may it continue. Next to buy a big supply of firewood, get the stove working and move easily between the two rooms. Drinking tay, coffee. Whatever it takes.

Charles Bukowski. Never read much of him before but bought his collected poems last week. Most enjoyable thing I’ve read since I bought Norman MacCaig’s Complete poems. Very different, both formidable tomes of pomes but both excellent. Nuair a tá me in a sheasamh ar mo thoin sa leithreas, tá athas mór orm.

Losing things. I lost my wallet three times in one day last week. Drives me crazy. Angela lost her iPhone for about 36 hours. She was going ape. I found it. I’m going to get a prize.

To Make You Feel My Love. . . The penny just dropped with me that this is a cover of a Bob Dylan song – I knew I’d heard it before. Adele does a great version. But I’ll finish with yer woman from Gortin.

The Uniform Uniform.

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Reactoblog

Tomorrow the children return to school. Four of them. The youngest commences pre-school in a few weeks. That will be fun. The early morning routine starts again tomorrow.

The trouble will start tonight trying to get the moonlighters a-bed. And then to tin-open them out of bed tomorrow. Maybe the lure of new teachers will get them moving. Maybe not. I used to enjoy returning to school myself, seeing all the lads again and having the craic.

Myself, I got up at a slightly earlier time today to wean myself off my bed. It has been a short summer but a long one in other ways. And difficult too at times.

So, back to school tomorrow. The school notified us all on the last day of school that the uniform requirements were being tightened, black shoes, conservative-grey-trousery. Load of nonsense. My son’s on the school council. Were they asked for their opinion as the children affected? Not a bit of it. All very PC to have these school councils. . .

It may appeal to the school’s sense of where it thinks it should be. But in truth it is an unnecessary step, carried out with no reference to the appropriate guidelines from DENI, which were no doubt drawn up at great cost and consultation.

Nowadays you can’t do anything without consultation. So why didn’t they ask our opinion? If somethin ain’t broken, why try and fix it with a measure that will cause antagonism. There are some clothes that children will wear and others they won’t and I’m not falling out with mine over some rule brought in on a whim.

If there is a ‘breach’ I will be asking the school to speak to me, not the child. They don’t buy the clothes, so they are not responsible if they aren’t suitable in this wonderful middle class regimented 4×4 nouveau riche world we live in down by the seaside.

And here, whilst we’re at it, what about a uniform for teachers? Now there’s a thought.