In Reply to: Re: In Rememberance. Re-Deux posted by Butch on July 05, 2009 at 04:48:42:

Lovely recollections Butch. Just arrived back from a motorbike trip to magical Achill. Overnighted in Cbar on Thursday night where I enjoyed a few pints in Paddy Morans where there was nice ceol agus craic and the night was enhanced by the presence of Mrs Moran and many of her 12 children, their other halfs and many songs old and new were sung. Friday we rode out past your neighbourhood and the old homesteads of many you mentioned, Mallard lake without the ballalley, Key West where my Dad sometimes carried me on the bar of his pushbike for a pint, a cidona and a packet of taytos. No pushbike now as we power our way "like centaurs of an age of steel, engrafted all save head and shoulders into the horsepower of the wheel" ( LC English poetry 1971. Poet ?? ) Now many of the curvy bends beloved of bikers have been straightened out in Rehins/Cornanool area. Derrycoosh , Islandeady to the left and Glenisland to the right. Acres of bog oak on the left reminds me that this island was covered by forests . The leg of mutton lake. Into Newport with it`s magnificent stone arch railway bridge. no anglers on the river. Chambers for the lovely ice cream cones ( not now for me ), on to the Mulranny road past Nevins in Tiernaur where I spot John McEllin who is marshalling for the walking festival. Mulranny village where Seamie Daly`s still trades and the old Great Southern is now the Park Inn but no magnificent salt water pool now. On to the Sound where the upright white steel trusses of the new bridge dominate the landscape. Onto Keel where there are kitesurfers, windsurfers, just surfboarders and swimmers in skin and wetsuits and beachwalkers. The breeze is fresh and warm and the blue sky with mountainous cottonwool clouds and I think it`s great to be alive here on a day such as this. Lambs, hoggets, rams, ewes are feckin everywhere and are unpredictable for us centaurs.