Brogue Traders
As it's St Patrick’s Day, I’d like to spin you one of my Dad’s favourite yarns about his father, Jeremiah Leahy. That’s also my Dad’s name. My Mum wouldn’t allow him to use that same moniker on me or my next brother, and met him half way with my youngest, Jerry. That’s another story though.
Grandad grew up near the fishing village of Dingle, a beautiful little town on the west coast. He’d enjoy a drink in the town with many friends he’d know since school. One ran a pub on the high street called Curran’s, which was a regular haunt.
Now, this being the late 1940s, a desire to come over to England was pretty common, and Grandad and his brother Brendan wanted to catch a boat from Cork to Swansea to do just that. The problem was you weren’t allowed on without shoes, which neither boasted. So this old school pal landlord gave them a pair of brogues each to get them on that boat.
Fast forward fifty years to 1996. My Dad and his two sisters get aboard a boat in the other direction, with Grandad, now confined to a wheelchair and not long left of the Earth with cancer, in tow. He wanted to dip his toes in the Dingle Bay once more before signing off (he did, and told my Dad about how he’d seen his Uncle and Cousin row out of that bay, destined for America, never to return).
So they’re wheeling him up the high street, and as they get to Curran’s he says “stop here” and looks in. Once inside, he and a gang of old fellas at the back start gabbing away in Gaelic like he’d never left. And sat behind the bar, feet either side of the Guinness tap with a trilby rested on his head is the same landlord.
Now, neither Dad nor my Aunties speak Gaelic, and after 10 mins or so the old boy finally pipes up and they all fall about laughing. My dad asks what’s so funny, and Grandad points at him and says “He just said I still owe him for the shoes.”
Sláinte, Jeremiah.